Clouds among the Stars. Victoria Clayton

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       FOUR

      My father was sitting at a table with a glass in his hand and a nearly empty bottle of red wine at his elbow. The room had originally been painted a harsh yellow. Now, up to shoulder height, it was dimmed by dirt and defaced by graffiti. The ugly plastic chairs, metal filing cabinets and printed notices were depressing. In this setting my father, with his beautiful, sensitive face and his dark hair, grown long for the part of Gloucester, looked like an exotic creature trapped in a down-at-heel circus. This was despite wearing a jacket and trousers that plainly did not belong to him. Not only were they too small but they were of a Terylene respectability that Pa would never have chosen. A policeman was standing to attention by the door, presumably in case my father decided to make a run for it. He was grinning all over his face for my father was in full flow.

      ‘So there she was, without a stitch on and holding this thing as though it was a bomb about to go off, when the lights went on and the duchess said – Ah, Harriet!’ He broke off as we were ushered in. ‘And Maria-Alba. My dears, this is truly heroic.’ He stood up and came from behind the table to kiss our hands and then our cheeks with the graceful ceremony of a Bourbon prince welcoming guests to his Neapolitan palazzo. ‘I was just telling the constable the story of Margot Bassington and the Prince of Wales’ cigar case.’

      I was astonished to see him apparently in the best of spirits. A shiver ran down my back and into my knees, which was probably relief. I had been afraid this terrible shipwreck might have changed my father into someone unrecognisable. I wanted to put my arms round him but I saw at once that this would be inconsistent with the style in which he had chosen to play the episode.

      ‘We’ve brought you some things.’

      ‘Thank you, my darling. Ridiculous as it may seem, my clothes have been impounded. Of course they are covered in blood and naturally the blood is Basil’s. I do not wear clothes dabbled with gore, as a rule.’ He looked more closely at my begrimed appearance. ‘Your sympathy with the oppressed does you credit, Harriet, but is it absolutely necessary to take on their slipshod condition? Where is your mother?’

      ‘She’s … distressed. Lying down.’

      ‘Good, good. I should not like to see her against this – pedestrian background. And Ophelia? Have you met my eldest daughter, Inspector? One ought not to praise one’s own children, but she is remarkably beautiful. Very like her mother.’

      ‘Ophelia’s gone to bed.’ I could not keep a note of apology from my voice though I knew it would annoy him.

      ‘Of course, of course. The sensible thing.’ He frowned. ‘Is your brother with you?’

      ‘He had to go out.’

      ‘My son, Oberon,’ he addressed the inspector again, ‘is a fine actor. But sordid commercial considerations must prevail over beauty and truth.’ Beauty and Truth were our household gods and my father had a special face he put on when speaking of them, lifting his eyebrows and lengthening his upper lip. ‘As a suckling actor Oberon is obliged to turn his hand to toil of a more prosaic kind. He has a flourishing career in – ah – property.’

      Bron, who had not had an acting job for more than a year, had been working for an estate agent but had been sacked only last week. An American to whom Bron had sold several miles of the River Thames for a gigantic sum had complained to the ombudsman when he discovered the sale was fraudulent. There was the threat of a court case.

      ‘Portia’s staying with friends,’ I said. ‘She probably doesn’t know what’s happened – otherwise she’d certainly be here.’

      I knew I had put too much eager assurance into my voice. My father betrayed his displeasure by drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Then he shook back his hair and showed his excellent teeth in a smile in which good humour was mildly flavoured with regret. ‘I understand perfectly, Harriet. You need not prevaricate. You see, Inspector, my children have inherited a sensibility so acute we may even call it excessive. They do not wish to see their father in this painful predicament. They dislike unpleasantness, the dark passages in a man’s life, the sordid whys and wherefores of our mortality. They prefer to frisk and frolic in the sun, to banquet on felicity. It is a family weakness but is it not better to be thin-skinned than to be unfeeling? I confess I think so.’

      Maria-Alba put his overnight bag on the chair with something of a thump. ‘Fortunate for you there is someone of the family without feelings. Or you have no toothbrush.’ She sat on a chair beside the constable, folded her cape around her though the room was stuffy, and closed her eyes.

      ‘Is there anything I can do for you, Pa?’ I asked, still standing by the table, wanting but not daring to take his hand.

      ‘No, Harriet. These gentlemen,’ he waved in the direction of the constable, ‘have done their best to supply the few requirements a man can have in such unprosperous circumstances. My supper has been brought to me and simple though it was – and, let us be truthful, rather too early to be perfectly agreeable – it was wholesome and fresh.’

      ‘Well, sir,’ Inspector Foy brought a chair up to the table for me, ‘would you have any objection to running through a few details in the presence of your daughter? Informally, now, without Mr Sickert-Greene.’ Henry Sickert-Greene was our family’s solicitor. ‘No tape recorder. Nothing that’ll be used in court. While I understand Mr Sickert-Greene’s anxiety that you might incriminate yourself, his refusal to let you say anything doesn’t get us any further, does it? Sergeant Tweeter will write down anything you care to tell me and it needn’t go beyond the walls of this room. I want to get a clearer picture of what exactly happened this morning.’

      I was pretty sure old Sickly Grin, as Bron had christened Mr Sickert-Greene years ago, would have disapproved strongly of this suggestion. I wondered if Inspector Foy was to be trusted. Looking at his nice straight nose and firm chin and intelligent grey eyes I felt almost certain that he was.

      ‘Do СКАЧАТЬ