Curtain Call Read online

  ‘It needs an ending,’ said Stephen quietly, catching Nina’s eye. She couldn’t tell if he was warning or encouraging her.

  ‘True. But quite a stroke of luck about the witness, and the sketch. Of course the man could be anyone – the police made three arrests on the strength of it and had to let them all go. I joked with one of our people at a production meeting that it looked a bit like him, and he came back, quick as a flash, that I was the only man at the table wearing a tiepin! Just like Wyley here . . .’

  Stephen had already heard it. Tiepins had quickly become a subject of macabre drollery in club rooms and saloon bars – to wear one at the moment was practically to invite chaffing. He had an inkling that Nina was about to let the cat out of the bag, and attempted a diversion.

  ‘Shall we order some lunch?’

  Talman, who had not been a scheduled guest, began to make his excuses when Nina stopped him with a conspiratorial touch on his sleeve. ‘I might be able to help with you with that story.’

  Talman looked bemused. ‘Really?’

  She saw Stephen shake his head in admonition but plunged on with an account of the afternoon at the hotel, her unwitting interruption of the woman’s ordeal in room 408, and her fleeting glimpse of the man who was now, beyond question, the chief suspect in the police’s investigation. She was careful in this to omit any reference to Stephen’s involvement. When she had told the same story to the man at Marylebone police station she had twice come close to letting his name slip. Her inquisitor, Detective Inspector Cullis, had conducted the occasion with an air of scrupulous courtesy, notwithstanding the suspicion on his thin face that Nina was not playing straight. Convinced that her evidence would be welcomed as a gesture of responsible citizenship, she had not bothered to rehearse her story and, under questioning, had come up short. Why had she left it five days before coming forward? What was she doing on the fourth floor of the hotel anyway? Did she not think of reporting the incident immediately to the hotel manager? Sounding like a liar to her own ears, she was stumbling through the interrogation when Cullis examined the sketch – ‘her’ sketch – of the man she had seen.

  ‘It’s an accomplished piece of work,’ he mused. ‘Did you study art?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I studied drama.’

  ‘Ah, of course. Very professional, anyway.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied warily.

  Cullis then opened his desk drawer and took out a pencil. ‘I noticed you haven’t signed it,’ he said, pushing the pencil across to her.

  ‘Well, it’s not that sort of – I don’t intend to exhibit it.’ Her laugh sounded uneasy.

  ‘But if you wouldn’t mind, anyway, just so’s we know it’s yours.’

  For a moment she thought he was pulling her leg, but his expression was blank. She picked up the pencil and, with a little shrug, signed her name beneath the drawing. The detective took back the sketch, and fixed a curious, narrow-eyed look on her.

  ‘“Nina Land”,’ he read. ‘That’s interesting . . .’

  ‘That’s my name,’ Nina said, wondering where this was going.

  ‘No, I mean, it’s interesting because – well, if you examine the angle at which the charcoal is stroked over the paper, it looks as though the artist is left-handed. But you signed it, I see, with your right hand.’

  Nina felt prickles of sweat beneath her arms, but she strove to keep her voice light. ‘I didn’t realise you were an art critic as well, Inspector.’

  Cullis gave a sardonic chuckle. ‘Not as such, miss. I was just speculating . . . but if you say it’s your work, why should I doubt it?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ she said, unsettled by his ambiguous tone. ‘Will there be anything else?’

  There was nothing else, for the moment. Nina sensed, however, that her act of public-spirited decency had backfired, and that Cullis had smelt a rat. He had already seen how nervous she was; that last exchange, about the sketch, had nearly undone her altogether. Something in his pale eyes, or in his voice, suggested he was on to her imposture. As soon as she was allowed to leave the station she hurried across Marylebone Road and into a public house, where she bolted down a large brandy.

  Nina also omitted this interview in her account to Talman, who blew out his cheeks. ‘Well! Face to face with the Tiepin Killer! You showed a rare pluck confronting him like that. The police must be grateful to you.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, blinking out a sudden image of Cullis’s face.

  ‘What do you think of this one?’ he said to Stephen admiringly.

  Stephen gave a tight smile and looked at Nina. ‘She’s got some nerve.’

  ‘And what of the girl he almost – did she go to the police too?’

  Nina shook her head. ‘They think she was just someone he picked up. But she’ll know better than anyone what he looks like.’

  Stephen, who had twigged Nina’s bid for Talman’s interest, decided to take a direct approach. ‘Are you still casting, Ludo? Nina has talents other than crime-fighting.’

  Talman, apparently unaware he had been played, now became flustered. ‘Oh, but of course – your agent must – please, send my office a publicity photograph, and we can – there’s another casting arranged . . .’

  Nina, pretending surprise at this offer, said, ‘I’d be very pleased to.’

  ‘The pleasure is mine, dear lady,’ said Talman, who had risen and was offering them both his hand. ‘And thank you for that marvellous story.’

  Stephen, suddenly alarmed, said, ‘Ludo, please don’t spread it about. Nina’s a witness in a murder case – it’s strictly hush-hush.’

  Talman marked his solemn nod of agreement with a finger to his lips, which did nothing to reassure him: he knew the producer to be a waggle-tongue. The moment he had gone Nina gave Stephen a wide-eyed look of girlish excitement.

  ‘Darling, you’re so clever to introduce me! D’you think he was serious about an audition?’

  ‘He certainly took a shine to you,’ he replied. ‘Though I’m not sure that was the best way to secure his patronage.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  Stephen paused, lit a cigarette and blew a pensive jet of smoke. ‘I mean, it’s not safe to go blabbing about your involvement in this thing to Ludo – to anyone. The police won’t like it, either. They’re obliged to protect your identity.’

  Nina shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly safe, and I don’t intend to go blabbing in any case. I’m just thrilled at the idea – a film for Marlborough! I didn’t realise you even knew him.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at the people I know,’ said Stephen wryly. ‘I half wonder if Talman has asked me to do that mural just for the sort I can bring in.’

  ‘Oh – such as?’

  He suppressed a weary sigh. ‘Clients of mine – members of the nobility, society types. I can think of someone straight away that Ludo will beg me to approach.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well . . . try the most famous man in England.’

  Nina gave a little giggle. ‘Um, the King?’

  By way of reply Stephen held her gaze. Nina’s mouth fell open. ‘No . . .’

  He nodded faintly. ‘Few years ago, at a weekend shoot. We weren’t even properly introduced. David – as he was then – started chatting to me, I think, because we were the only men there not wearing hats.’

  ‘Heavens,’ breathed Nina, more impressed than she wished to be. ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Friendly, in a distant sort of way. He had no idea who I was, because the next time we encountered one another he asked me how the work was going on my symphony.’

  Nina laughed. ‘A royal connection, all the same – and he’s a member of this place?’

  ‘No, but he’s been in a few times, and I think his grandfather was an honorary president back in the long ago.’

  ‘So you may end up painting the King?’

  ‘Very unlikely. He’s got other things occupying him at present – affairs of the hea
rt, you know.’

  ‘You mean, the American woman?’

  Stephen nodded. ‘According to those in the know, he’s quite besotted with her – won’t give her up for anything.’

  ‘How romantic. Makes me think rather better of him . . .’ She turned a narrow look on Stephen. ‘What would you do in his place?’

  He heard her meaning in the question. ‘I hope I’d – do the right thing. Now,’ he said, hailing a waiter, ‘how about that lunch?’

  On his way to the Ivy Jimmy saw two young men being dragged into a scuffle with a group of drinkers outside a pub. The latter were tough working men, older, who cupped their cigarettes inside brawny hands and stared hard into their pints. They had stopped them with an abrupt call, and were now using their weight and number to push them around. Jimmy would have felt sorry for the victims but for the fact they were both dressed in a uniform of black shirts and trousers. He despised this idiotic business of playing at Mussolini, though you didn’t see so many of them on the streets nowadays, and the Mail had gone very quiet since its rallying ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ a couple of years back. One of the youths, having taken a punch to the head, had collapsed on the pavement. Passers-by were dodging their way around the brawl. Jimmy would have done too, had he not been watching the scene through the window of his idling cab.

  In the lobby the Ivy doorman, Abel, helped him out of his coat.

  ‘How are ye keepin’, Mr Erskine?’

  ‘Oh, tolerably well, thanks. Anyone in last night?’

  Abel gave a brisk shake of his head. ‘No, sair. Only riff-raff.’

  In the restaurant the hubbub of the lunch crowd was warming to a fine crescendo, just before the second bottle turned them rowdy. The decorous waltz of the white-jacketed waiters around the tables and the stained glass of the mullioned windows always conjured for him the image of a first-class dining room on a luxury liner – only nicer, because you weren’t trapped at sea. Lunch was Jimmy’s favourite time, and today’s was a proper occasion, the launch of his new book. He always celebrated at the Ivy, though when his publishers had baulked at the expense he had whittled down the invitees from twenty-five to twelve, not without some whingeing on his part. As he approached the long corner banquette it pleased him to see that he had been seated at the head, between László and his agent Claude, his bald head almost glossy in the light. ‘O vision entrancing!’ cried László, his sweet gargoyle features crinkling into a baby-toothed smile. ‘James, you’ve some catching up to do,’ at which he grabbed for the bottle of champagne and began filling a coupe.

  ‘Greetings, all,’ Jimmy called down the table, feeling an agreeable surge of bonhomie. How delightful to preside over a gathering of his familiars – his peers, if not quite his equals – knowing they were there to celebrate him. Well, that, and of course to eat and drink, buckshee. From the other end of the table Edie Greenlaw, his actress friend, waved and blew him a flamboyant kiss. They had met one night shortly after he had given a stinking review to a play in which she starred, though he had singled out her performance for praise. On being introduced she had said to him: ‘I suppose that, unloved as you must be, you are the least loathsome of your species.’ ‘I will cherish that compliment, madam,’ he replied. They had both laughed, and ended up having dinner together.

  Edie was the only woman invited. On either side of her were Gilbert and Barry from the Chronicle, then the impresario Felix Croker, who already looked a bit tight, fellow drama critics Rufus Forbuoys and Dickie Mellinger, his publisher Jack Voysey, and his dear friend Peter Liddell, who was of the same vintage as László. But then his eye stopped on a vacant space.

  ‘We are only eleven. Where’s Tom?’ he said to no one in particular.

  László shrugged. ‘Probably typing up your copy. Or fobbing off the tax inspector. Or tidying your flat. The slave’s lot.’

  ‘Tom isn’t a slave,’ he said, resenting László’s shrewdness.

  ‘He’s your loyal factotum,’ said Claude, which was meant to be supportive but didn’t sound quite right either.

  ‘Well,’ he said, feigning nonchalance, ‘we’d better get on and order.’

  László and Claude resumed an argument they were having about Wagner, to which Jimmy made distracted contribution. He was still preoccupied with Tom, and the possible reasons for his absence. They had not been getting on of late, and Jimmy could only just admit to himself that it was his fault. It was more or less by chance that Tom had become his secretary – and factotum – nine years ago, and he had pretty much run Jimmy’s life for him ever since. For most of that time they had rubbed along in bickering companionship. But their most recent row had been terrible. It had blown up over a typewriter, of all things: Tom had been on at him to replace the ancient one, and Jimmy had kept refusing, on the grounds of needless expense. They had argued about it on and off for months. When, finally, the machine had packed up for good, his hand was forced; a stationer he knew in Holborn did him a deal on a 1932 flat-top Smith-Corona in green. It was a beauty, they agreed, and peace was restored chez Erskine once more.

  It had lasted until the moment Tom received the following week’s pay packet and found it twenty shillings light. Jimmy explained that he’d taken out his share of the typewriter’s cost, since they both used it. Tom had hit the roof, launching a tirade of wild abuse and shaking with such a fury that Jimmy worried he might have a turn. Instead he disappeared for three days. When he returned to the flat neither made any mention of the row, so it had hung in the air ever since. For the last few weeks they had exchanged a minimum of tight-lipped civilities. He had felt a quiver of guilt, though not enough to apologise, or to return the money he had docked. The worst of it was that Tom’s outburst seemed born of grievances held long before the provocation of the typewriter. But still he had said nothing. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ was, he thought, an excellent principle – for others.

  ‘James. James?’ Someone was hauling him back to the present. The head of a grilled trout eyed him morosely from his plate. He had scarcely noticed himself eating. László was staring at him in puzzlement. ‘Are you all right, my dear fellow?’

  ‘Yes . . . of course I am,’ he said defensively.

  ‘You looked like a tart in a trance,’ said Felix Croker.

  ‘Was it a vision, or a waking dream?’ asked Peter with his mild doctorly concern.

  ‘Oh, I was just thinking of some unpleasantness I saw on the way here. Two of Mosley’s idiots getting seven bells knocked out of ’em.’

  ‘Serves them right,’ said Claude. ‘You know he’s marching through the East End next week?’

  ‘Someone’d better pull up the drawbridge,’ said Croker with a snigger. ‘They’ll be out for the Hebrew’s blood.’

  László, the only Jew present, was used to such chaffing. ‘The Englishman’s home being his castle – yes, I see your meaning, my dear Croker, ha ha. Alas, my boarding house has not been equipped with such an amenity. The drawbridge is not much favoured anywhere in Shoreditch, I believe. But perhaps I may importune my landlady to prepare a cauldron of boiling oil for the occasion?’

  Jimmy felt his heart ache as he listened to László’s courteous English, still inflected with traces of his Hungarian forefathers. They had come to London in the last century seeking a refuge from the wildfires of local anti-Semitism. The young László had been a prodigy at the violin, and the pride of his family. At nine years old he was playing solo at the Queen’s Hall; at twelve he had written an opera. Alas, as he matured into nervous youth, his public recitals became faltering and error-strewn, so much so that he eventually admitted defeat and stopped performing. Now in middle age he scraped by as a music teacher and lived in what was practically a hovel off Commercial Road. He was Jimmy’s closest friend; sometimes, he thought, his only friend.

  ‘You must come and stay with me, László, out of harm’s way,’ he said.

  ‘That is most kind of you, James, but it would be simply crazy to
hand those Fascist fellows the victory by scurrying hither and thither.’ Crazy, which he pronounced ‘chray-zee’, was László’s favourite word.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s going to be an awful lot of scurrying if Herr Hitler continues unchecked,’ said Peter.

  ‘Depends how far they’re prepared to let him go,’ said Claude. ‘Austria will be next.’

  Barry said with a journalist’s decisiveness, ‘It’s war, sure as eggs is eggs.’

  Croker shook his head. ‘You’re wrong about that. We fought Germany in a British quarrel. We aren’t going to fight them in a Jewish one.’

  ‘That, may I say, is spoken like a true Mosleyite,’ said Peter. ‘In any case it’s not just Hitler. Look at what the Italians did in Abyssinia. Gassed the poor blighters.’

  ‘Abyssinia is a long way from Charing Cross.’

  ‘Not for an air force it isn’t.’

  More Cassandra-like forecasts and counter-forecasts flew back and forth as Germany’s expansionist ambitions were debated. Jimmy, impatient at not being the centre of attention, looked down the table at Jack Voysey, who seemed to read the appeal in his eyes, for a few moments later he tapped on his wine glass and stood up.

  ‘Gentlemen – oh, and Miss Greenlaw, I beg your pardon – I’m so pleased we are gathered to celebrate the connoisseurship of a very singular man. Jimmy, as he has written somewhere, has a great taste for old books, old manners, old wine, old music –’

  ‘And young men,’ snickered Croker, just audibly.

  ‘– but it is his marvellous instinct for identifying what’s new in drama which has been his special gift to readers. This collection of his latest reviews and essays, Withering Slights, shows the full measure of the man’ – there was more stifled tittering at that – ‘in his wit, his erudition, his incomparable discernment. It is a book we are very proud to publish. So kindly raise your glass – to Jimmy.’

  Voices rang in enthusiastic echo of the toast. Somebody called out ‘Speech!’ and Jimmy, needing no encouragement, rose to his feet.