Staging Death E-Book

Judith Cutler

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 487

Beschreibung

Actress Vena Burford is 'resting' between jobs. But needs must, and with few voice-over jobs in the pipeline, Vena takes on a few jobs for friends and family around the idyllic Stratford-Upon-Avon. But interior design leads her to violent threats and showing prospective buyers around houses ushers in a drug-smuggling ring. Vena comes to know all too well that the countryside is far from quiet.

Leseprobe

Staging Death

JUDITH CUTLER

For Jean, with great affection, and in loving memory of Alan Miles, 1937–2008.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Author

Available from Allison & Busby

Copyright

PROLOGUE

‘This is BBC Midlands Today. Welcome to the news for the West Midlands this Wednesday lunchtime.

‘Distinguished actress Vena Burford, well known for her stage and TV work, is seriously ill in hospital after a fire at her Stratford-upon-Avon house last night. The fire, believed to be caused by an electrical fault in a piece of kitchen equipment, gutted the house. Ms Burford was rescued by an off-duty policeman. She was taken to Warwick Hospital, where she is now in the intensive care unit. A hospital spokesman said that her condition was critical. Foul play is not suspected.’

CHAPTER ONE

You may not know my face, darling, not anymore, or even my name – Vena Burford – but I’d bet my next Botox that you know my voice from the TV adverts. I’m the one whose sultry tones persuaded you to buy those expensive chocolates, and – though I hate to admit it – encouraged you to use a certain intimate product we needn’t talk about here. Needs must, after all, and the devil is certainly driving me now. Where are all the parts for ladies d’un certain âge? Caddie Minton, my agent, tells me that there’s a positive recruiting drive for men with grey temples, even if the poor dears are still having to have the most obvious laughter lines dealt with. But the few good roles that exist for women are snapped up by one of the wonderful theatrical Dames.

Though I was once lady-in-waiting to Dame Judy’s queen, I’m between roles at the moment. The correct term is ‘resting’, of course. It is not to be taken literally. A resting thesp is likely to be waiting at tables, pulling pints or doing any damn thing to make a crust. The voice-overs are more lucrative, but there aren’t enough to go round, so I have to do something else. I prefer to record talking books – I’m told I make a particularly good serial killer – but in my time, waiting for Caddie to call, I have ironed other people’s laundry and cleaned other people’s loos. Now, however, thanks to my rich estate agent brother, Gregory, I have another line to pursue. I show potential buyers round the houses on Greg’s books.

Greg’s a self-made man who got into the property market early enough to cash in on the spiralling house prices of the last decade or so, and who’s wealthy enough to ride the current plunge in the market. He was just too late to broker some of the eye-watering deals with A-list celebs in the Cotswolds, but he found Warwickshire – Shakespeare Country, as they call it on the motorway signs – pretty profitable. And what could be more Shakespearean than Stratford-upon-Avon itself, where Greg has his head office? There are satellite – and equally profitable – offices in Kenilworth, home of the famous castle, and another in Henley-in-Arden, home of the obscenely moreish ice cream. They all deal with niche properties, from medieval manors to Edwardian status palaces. Whatever the property, he specialises in separating the rich from their money.

The youngest in the family, Greg never quite shed the Black Country accent which marked us all as kids. At one time he did have elocution lessons, but they made him sound like some Fifties Tory grandee – we started to refer to him as Harold, after Mr Macmillan. Anything, we said, was better than that, so he lapsed into his original Blackheath, which was fine for when rich Brummies were his main customers. However, folk from London and abroad, where the real money now lies, always claimed to find Midland accents comic, and he feared he was losing customers. Which is where I came in.

My accent, unlike Greg’s, simply melted, and by the time I graduated from RADA my consonants and vowels were so pure I was offered a job at the BBC doing continuity work. Sometimes, when audio work was short and cleaning frankly humiliating, I lay in bed and wondered what would have happened if I’d taken the safe option and abandoned my then infant stage career. I’d have fewer lows, perhaps, but almost certainly fewer highs. Think of my Major Barbara, my Emilia, and my Mrs Malaprop.

But you must always look forward, not back. Which was another reason for working for Greg. What you may not realise is that there is an art to selling a house. The owners are rarely the best people to do it – they emphasise the points of the house that mean something to them, but which might actually deter a punter. A good estate agent employs someone who is dedicated to discovering the selling points of a house, and glossing over the awful bits.

When the man Greg originally employed to escort would-be buyers got a job as a vet on Emmerdale – with a quite different accent, of course – his eyes turned to me. And why shouldn’t I accept, I asked Caddie. Wearing a smart suit and assuming a cut-glass accent to welcome rich people into their potential dream homes was a distinct improvement on scrubbing floors for rich people in their existing ones. The downside was that people could be extremely rude to someone they considered a mere minion. In those circumstances my accent became increasingly posh, moving if necessary into the far reaches of snooty. Height-wise, I never made it above five foot two, so it was hard for me literally to look down my nose at anyone, but if anyone could beat me at doing it metaphorically I had yet to meet her. Although the job brought in only a niggardly retainer, if I made a sale I got commission. Greg’s reasoning was that the hungrier I got, the harder I worked.

Today he barely glanced up as I pushed open the office door, and I was treated to a view of the top of his head. After what he referred to in his mealy-mouthed way as his treatment, his hair now grew in unlikely tufts in the spaces either side of his widow’s peak, though thanks to my hairdresser his locks were again as dusky as mine. With the frown lines deepening everywhere, any moment now he’d be asking for the name of my cosmetic surgeon too.

‘Don’t bank on the Wimpoles,’ I said, plonking my bag on his desk.

‘Temper, temper. I suppose they didn’t recognise you.’

‘They didn’t recognise the qualities of Hampton Fenny Hall, either.’

‘Oh.’ He tapped his mouse as if idly, but I knew he was just hiding a FreeCell game.

‘They strode through as if it were the ticket hall at New Street Station, and gave it that much attention.’ I snapped my fingers. The sound had been known to fill a vast auditorium; now it ricocheted off Greg’s walls.

He frowned.

‘You shouldn’t get so involved, Vee. It’s just a house. And I think the owners are about to pull it. They don’t want us to book any more visits till the summer, anyway. Did you mention The Zephyrs to the Wimpoles?’ For Greg potential sales were more interesting than the houses involved.

‘Of course I did. And Little Cuffley Court. I gave them details, in fact.’ To my surprise, the file that Mrs Wimpole had stuffed all the particulars into was an orange card one, just the sort of thing I kept my receipts in. Oh, yes – I screwed every last penny of expenses out of him.

‘OK. I’ll let you know when I need you again,’ he said, pressing the mouse again to dismiss me.

‘I shall be busy tomorrow, remember. At Aldred House. Toby Frensham and the Size Zero Wife are choosing curtains.’

‘Toby Frensham?’ He actually looked up.

Usually he was only interested in my other freelance work when it meant I couldn’t drop everything to take out a client. That suited me. If I was obviously doing well he’d have expected me to jet out to his Portuguese golfing pad or his new holiday home in Serbia to organise the decor there. And though I’d bill him he’d haggle about a discount and then forget to pay me. As it was, the only time I stepped inside his Kenilworth abode was when he wanted it house-sat and an eye kept on his cleaner and gardener.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re working for Toby Frensham?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow.’ The exclamation didn’t just acknowledge Toby’s money bags. ‘You want to watch yourself there. He’s a real bad lad, isn’t he?’

Indeed, Toby Frensham, he of the saturnine good looks, bad-boy reputation and sexy pelvic thrusts, was known to Daily Mail readers like Greg as the enfant terrible of theatre. He’d made a mint in Hollywood but liked to come over to England every so often, doing a season at the Donmar or here in Stratford. He liked to think he was an English gentleman, and years ago invested in a rambling manor, Aldred House, just outside Barford. Mostly he’d let it out, so it was in desperate need of TLC – which was where I’d come in. The kitchen was already transformed, and a team of decorators was working through the rooms he and his family occupied, including the new en suites to die for.

‘Greg, he’s as old as you are.’ Which meant nothing, of course.

He nodded sagely. ‘True. And you’re no spring chicken either.’

Which meant even less.

‘Didn’t you have the hots for him once? Or was it him fancying you? It was in all the papers.’

It had been. And from time to time some hack would dig it up and trot it out again, even though, or especially because, Toby had married a Hollywood star and brought her back here.

‘You don’t believe the papers, do you, darling? They’d say Gordon Brown was a transsexual pole dancer if they thought it would sell more copies. Now, any other viewings coming up?’

Sucking his teeth, he shook his head. ‘The market’s very slow, Vena. I mean, look at Hampton Fenny Hall. I may have to close one of the offices if things go on like this.’

I froze. Did this mean redundancy for us all? But then I remembered how much commission Greg had pulled in on one sale alone from the Kenilworth office last week. In any case, the office itself occupied a prime site, visible from the best rooms of the Holiday Inn. No, he wouldn’t close that, lest another agent snap it up. And as for the Henley branch, it was situated between a very classy antiques shop and an excellent gastropub, the car park of which overflowed with Mercs. Would he leave there? A brief glance out of the window told me that no pigs were circling overhead.

I took myself off without further ado. At last the early spring sun was breaking through the gloom – would the Wimpoles have been more receptive if the day hadn’t been so cold and misty? – and I just had time to nip out to Alcester, to the dress exchange there. There were ones nearer home – here in Stratford itself, of course, and in Kenilworth – but there was someone living near the Alcester one who might have been my twin. We had identical figures and identical colouring, and were, according to Helen, who ran the exchange, much the same age. The only difference was that my non-twin was probably as wealthy as my brother, and like him was fond of her money. Instead of taking her designer outfits to a charity shop when she’d tired of them, she couldn’t resist getting a little cash back. Helen had got into the generous habit of phoning me every time my doppelgänger brought in a new selection. I couldn’t buy everything, it went without saying, but she had promised me a trouser suit to take me through into summer. Nicole Farhi. OK, it was last spring’s Nicole Farhi, but who was going to argue? And there was a dream of a bag I might be tempted by.

The only thing I drew the line at was buying someone else’s shoes. Those I wore were always sale items, and often seconds. They were poor things, but my own.

I had to eschew the wonderful huge Gucci bag, and I knew, even as I fished out the plastic to pay for it, that I really needed a bonus to justify the trouser suit. On the other hand, I couldn’t turn up to viewings – or, better still, auditions – looking like a refugee from a charity shop. Some of Toby Frensham’s fee would help, so I would make sure I was on the top of my game when I saw him the next day. I would be as professional as if we hadn’t been friends for nearly forty years.

I did my homework, as it were, that evening, after a light supper watching UniversityChallenge. I would have won, as usual, had it not been for an excess of maths and science questions. But at least I did better than Sheffield Hallam. And then – remember that arithmetic is not the same as mathematics – I got out my calculator and pad. Next winter, if a part hadn’t turned up, I promised myself I’d take an evening course on computer spreadsheets, to make myself look even more professional. At least I did my best. After working out all the amounts and costs the hard way, I transferred everything to the computer, so at least it was beautifully printed. I double-checked for typos and other errors, made sure all the pages were in the correct order and finally slipped them into one of my very tasteful folders.

It didn’t worry me that I didn’t finish till well after midnight. Like all the actors I knew, I was a night owl. Consider the stage actor’s day. Rehearsals (or a matinee) in the afternoon; performance in the evening; supper and unwind after the show; bed well after midnight or even later. So the next day doesn’t start till ten or eleven or thereabouts. Once one’s body gets into that rhythm it’s hard to get out of it.

In any case, even if I had turned into a skylark, there was no point in presenting myself at Aldred House before eleven, because Toby, having given his all in what the critics said was a very physical version of Coriolanus at the Courtyard Theatre, had forbidden even his housekeeper to come in before ten, and no one else was to be admitted till at least an hour later. Even then they would have the prospect of kicking their heels in the (unrefurbished) morning room should he have overslept.

My new suit pressed, my old shoes polished and the file beside the front door, I headed for bed.

Just to be on the safe side, I set the alarm clock for half an hour earlier than usual.

CHAPTER TWO

Aldred House was my idea of perfection. Approached via a wide drive that should ideally have been protected from stray visitors by huge gates, it had evolved over several centuries. Until Henry VIII’s purge on church holdings, it had been part of an abbey – some of the original walls drew the eye in the extensive grounds. The main part of the house itself was Elizabethan. Experts said it was probably the work of the builder responsible for Coughton Court, just outside the nearby town of Alcester, because the central gatehouses were almost identical. There was a small flirtation with Jacobean gabling round one side, and a Georgian addition on the other side, with some of the most beautifully proportioned rooms you’d see outside Bath. To the rear of the Georgian wing was a chapel, still intact but no longer used. Architecturally, I suppose it was a mess, but to my mind – and of course I’m no Pevsner – each addition had merged happily with its predecessors.

The clock over the stable block was chiming eleven as I drove up, in, I have to admit, the estate agency car, which was covered with Greg’s agency logos. It was either that or my cycle. I’d hoped to tuck the Ka – shocking pink with purple lettering – away in the stable yard, and sneak up to the front door on foot.

In the event, however, Toby Frensham was standing on the front steps when I arrived, waving off the two chauffeur-driven BMW 4x4s, one containing his wife, the other her children and a hunted-looking young woman I took to be the nanny. He was wearing flip-flops and the shortest bathrobe I’ve ever seen, revealing the long well-muscled legs that had graced a thousand costume dramas. Today they sported not hose, but a deep golden tan as far as the eye could see, which was a long way. I just hoped he’d remain standing throughout our discussions.

He grinned affably when he saw me and, despite the cold, strolled round to the yard as I parked. Fortunately I had put the folder and my bag on the passenger seat so neither of us would have to reach for them. Toby greeted me with an expansive kiss and what might have been a feel of my left breast. I ignored it.

As dearest Greg had observed, Toby and I went way back, to when we were both juvenile leads in rep together. Juvenile leads! – how many years ago would that be? He’d made a huge pass at me. I was married to the director at the time, and it wasn’t until Toby had got himself hitched to a TV make-up artist and was thus out of bounds that I realised what a dish he was. And it had been like that ever since – we’d never both been free at the same time. But the chemistry had never disappeared. In fact, I had a nasty feeling it was getting stronger, which was a shame, because he was now married for the fourth – or was it the fifth? – time. Not to mention the highly publicised liaisons he’d had in between. His latest wife, the size zero, was Allyn Rusch. Allyn was an American actress, aged anywhere between thirty and forty-five, whose main claim to stardom seemed to be the detailed research she did for all her roles. Ten years ago she starred in a Regency bodice-ripper which, thankfully for Georgette Heyer’s reputation, never made it on to the big screen. The only trace of it that remained, in fact, was the names she had bestowed on the twins conceived while her bosom was busy heaving. The poor little sods – and, having seen them in action, believe me it was the only time I would ever use the word poor in connection with such repellent specimens – were to go through life as Brummel and Nash respectively. I suppose, however, they were no worse than many current US appellations, which might well have been plucked at random from the Scrabble letters bag. Allyn, indeed…

‘The kids are going to Bourton-on-the-Water to see the model village. And Allyn’s off to a spa in Barnsley,’ he said. ‘All day.’

I determinedly ignored any implications that the last two words might have. ‘Barnsley? As in Yorkshire?’ Even for a woman as determined to be pampered as Allyn, that seemed a long way.

‘Idiot! The village near Cirencester. Barnsley House. There’s a wonderful garden there too – an original Rosemary Verey. I’d like something like that here,’ he mused. ‘It’s time for me to put down roots, Vee.’ He flicked me a quick sideways glance with those cornflower-blue eyes of his.

‘Both metaphorical and literal?’

‘Exactly.’

‘What does Allyn think of the idea?’

‘She thinks the boys might have a tutor until they’re ready for Eton or wherever.’ He spoke so deadpan it was hard even for me to tell what he thought of the idea.

‘I take it she had them put down at birth?’ I asked in an equally flat voice.

He threw back his head, showing off that famous profile, and gave a roar of laughter that would have impressed the very back row of the gods, as would the dental work. ‘Would that she had! Dear God, would that she had! It’s their voices, Vee – and not just when they talk. When they sing, they sound like Mickey Mouse on helium and I can’t get her to hear how dreadful it is! And their table manners!’

‘Awful voices and bad table manners aren’t an American prerogative.’ I thought of Greg’s children, whom I saw at mercifully infrequent intervals.

‘Maybe not. Poor Brummel and Nash – she’s probably marked them for life,’ he mused, putting an arm round my shoulder and giving it an affectionate squeeze.

‘It could be worse,’ I said. ‘Imagine if she’d called them Gronow and Scrope.’

‘Who?’

‘Two other more interesting, if less eminent, Regency characters,’ I explained.

‘You still watch all those TV quizzes?’

‘And win them! In my head, at least.’

‘Those two don’t really know where London, England is… You know, I think I’ve just discovered why it’s young people who have babies. I just don’t have the patience anymore, Vee, so help me. Must be my age. Our age,’ he added with an ironic smile – he knew I always preferred to fog the issue.

The spring breeze no doubt nipping the parts best not mentioned, he propelled me at a brisk pace to the back door, and through into my triumph, the stunning kitchen, which I’d had installed before any other work was done because it was the heart of the house. The floor area was bigger than the whole of my house, top and bottom, but then, that wouldn’t be difficult. Whether most of the expensive appliances were ever used I doubted, but then I supposed that the white-blonde Valkyrie operating the coffee machine – he introduced her as Greta, the housekeeper – must have done something to earn her keep and the use of the bijou mews cottage the far side of the stable yard. Not by making coffee, of course – the machine did all that with pre-sealed and thus environmentally unsound packages.

What I had forgotten, of course, was that a man as rich as Toby Frensham wouldn’t be interested in the attractive folder or whether the estimates were printed in ten or twelve point, in Times New Roman or in Arial. Neither would he want a breakdown of the costs of different types of lining. He just wanted a global sum.

‘The best,’ he said, dropping the unopened file on a corner of the two-acre table. ‘That’s why you’re here. Allyn wants the best.’

‘Of course,’ I said, my voice so expressionless it probably spoke volumes.

‘And I’m happy to buy it for her,’ he said, defensively, I thought.

‘Of course. Now, what I suggest is—’

He raised an eloquent hand. ‘Don’t say another word until we’ve had our caffeine fixes. Greta, could you fix us both a coffee, darling?’

The Valkyrie was all alert attention. Eyes mauling Toby, she flourished a selection of coffees.

I shook my head. ‘Greta, would it be too much trouble to ask for a mug of hot water?’ I dug in my bag and produced a green-tea bag, wrapped in its own little envelope. At home I fed such things to my worms. I always thought of Polonius as I lifted the wormery lid.

‘Green tea?’ he asked. ‘Surely we have green tea?’

Impassively Greta reached for a large wooden box, the sort you see in hotels, and presented it, open, for me to make my choice.

‘Which is the virgin tea picked by the light of a full moon and blessed in turn by the Dalai Lama and the Pope?’ I asked.

Toby laughed; Greta didn’t so much as blink.

I picked out a sachet of white tea with jasmine. ‘Antioxidant,’ I said, ‘and thus anti-ageing.’ I looked him in the eye. Two could play at that game.

He blinked at the expensive machine and then at the little sachet. ‘Is there any caffeine in it?’

‘Some, but very little.’

‘In that case I’ll stick to slopping stuff on my face. Bring on the double espresso, Greta.’ He led the way into the conservatory, where he spread his bare toes on the floor, inviting me to do the same. The warmth was luxurious. Clearly he didn’t have to worry about heating bills, either.

He wandered across to the far side, with its view of the eighteenth-century walled garden. So why did he want this conversation profile to profile? Perhaps, knowing Toby, because he felt guilty about something. ‘You heard about Howard’s fall last night?’

Howard Welsh was making a pretty poor and highly alcoholic fist of Iago to an unknown black African’s quite brilliant Othello.

‘Not on stage? Never!’

An actor could be – and sometimes was – as tired as a newt, but the absolute rule was that his affliction simply must not interfere with rehearsals or performances. Absolutely must not. No turning up late, no forgetting lines – and emphatically no keeling over on stage.

‘Taking his bloody bow! Arse over tip into the surprised lap of an old biddie in the front row. Mind you, she did say it wasn’t as bad as having him spit on her every time he came downstage.’

Howard didn’t spit deliberately, as young footballers were always doing. It was just that he sprayed saliva whenever he spoke.

‘You’d have thought he’d have sorted out that problem after all this time. Had the glands fixed or whatever. Maybe it’s the lubricant,’ I added, miming a drink.

‘Quite.’

‘What a chance for his understudy,’ I observed, full of hope for Meredith Thrale, an old mate of mine who was understudying that and other roles and no doubt praying for such an opportunity.

There were times that I didn’t like Toby very much. ‘Not up to it, darling. Just not up to it.’

How did I know where this was leading?

‘Anyway, I just had a call from my agent. Would I take it on? What do you think, Vena?’

Wasn’t it RSC policy always to turn to the understudy when a principal fell ill? I pulled a face. What I wanted to do was jump up and down and tell him not to be so greedy when other people had egos that needed massaging. For Toby was only considering it because he was an actor and needed to be needed. ‘Depends how good your memory is, darling.’ I wasn’t quite being catty – the older one got, after all, the more one preferred well-paid cameos.

‘I did it last year at the National. Should still be in here somewhere,’ he added, tapping his head.

‘Poor Meredith really needs a break like that, you know.’ I knew just how he’d feel. I’d longed for years for leading ladies to sprain their ankles – just a little sprain, nothing that would incapacitate them for more than a few weeks. What did the Bible say? To them that hath shall be given? Toby had everything, and could have lived off his film royalties for a century, provided he didn’t have to shell out for another divorce.

He wasn’t such a fool that he didn’t register my lack of enthusiasm. ‘Merry doesn’t emanate evil, just violence,’ he snapped.

Before I could raise the prospect of Cleopatra to his (or anyone else’s) Antony, my mobile phone told me I was being texted. Caddie Minton? I twitched in anticipation, but good manners forbade me to check.

‘Go on, take it,’ he said, wandering back into the house.

I did. No, alas, it wasn’t Caddie. But at least it was some work. Greg had an urgent job for me. Today.

In Toby’s continued absence there wasn’t any reason not to phone Greg.

‘Knottsall Lodge,’ he said, by way of a greeting. ‘Mr and Mrs Westfield’s place. They’re in the Bahamas, remember. A Mr Brosnic wants to view today.’

‘And have you checked his credentials?’

‘For God’s sake, Vena.’

‘No, for Suzy Lamplugh’s sake. Have you seen him? Does he check out?’ After all, it wasn’t Greg who was about to be closeted in a remote manor house with an unknown male.

‘There’s a Mrs B with him. Her earrings have got pearls the size of pigeons’ eggs in them. The hire car’s a Bentley. He’s talking about buying a Premier League soccer club. OK? Or do you need his blood group and DNA profile too?’

‘You’ve got a UK address and phone number?’

He made a slurping noise, family shorthand meaning I wasn’t to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs. ‘Hell, Vee, do you reelly need to ask?’ When he was angry, his Blackheath accent leapt to the fore.

‘Yes, reelly,’ I threw back at him. Maybe I had gone too far. ‘OK. So long as Mrs B’s with him. What time?’

‘Three.’

That didn’t give me long to wrap up here with Toby and to nip into Stratford to pick up the keys. But you didn’t tell a man buying a football club that he must wait another half-hour.

There was still no sign of Toby when I scurried back into the kitchen. Greta raised her nose a fraction – he was upstairs. I went to the bottom of the stairs and called him – not quite a yell, but a distinct projection of the voice.

Towelling his hair, which was still so thick it would have made Greg spit, he put his head over the banister, which fortunately obscured what his bathrobe, from this angle, did not. He smiled, and made the tiniest movement of his head. As if on cue, a single dark-blonde lock fell forward on to his forehead.

I told myself, just as I’d told myself every time he’d made the offer before, that I didn’t do adultery. Not even with Toby.

As if I hadn’t registered his invitation, I said, ‘I’ve just had a message – the chance of a job.’

‘The chance of a job?’ he repeated, with a swift smile. He clearly thought I had an audition. ‘Good for you, darling! Be off with you – this instant.’

‘But the curtains—’

‘A pampered Allyn shall phone you this very evening. But as for now…’ His eyes narrowed. He emanated evil. ‘Put money in thy purse.’ He blew me an extravagant kiss, which I returned.

A line from Othello! A fat chance poor Meredith had of getting his teeth into Iago. There was one actress I loathed so much I’d have killed – literally! – for her part. I hoped Meredith wouldn’t harbour such resentment.

And so it was back to the Ka for me. Bloody Toby – I wished I didn’t always wonder, every single time I left him, what might have been.

Knottsall Lodge, on which I’d made notes I now had by heart, was a gem of a house, mostly Elizabethan. Half of it was black and white timbered, the rest stone built, with crenellations concealing an almost flat roof now covered in duckboards to protect the lead beneath. I always imagined the ladies of the house coming up here when they wanted a quiet gossip. Or perhaps their menfolk would have found it a good place to keep watch from during the Civil War, though my research hadn’t shown any family involvement. Since during that period, however, practically every family in the country had endured split allegiances, I might just hint at tragic associations if the Brosnics evinced any interest in history.

I waited for them on the forecourt, and was just reading a text from Caddie when I heard their car. Mr Brosnic announced his arrival with a spray of gravel, parking the Bentley with extravagant, macho gestures. I knew the moment I saw him that they would not buy. Brosnic must have been six foot two in his socks, and was correspondingly broad. The original Elizabethan owners came in much smaller portions, codpieces apart, and not just the doorways of the house but also some of the lopsided ceilings would surely scalp him.

It wasn’t my job to point that out, however, so I greeted them as if I knew they’d found their dream home. They expressed strongly accented delight at the charming approach to the house. At least he did. Mrs Brosnic was totally silent – silent to the point of bored, you might say. Or – if the hand-shaped bruise on her upper arm was anything to go by – to the point of intimidation. She was also dithering, though this was probably with cold. She was wearing what looked like an original Stella McCartney dress and Manolos on her bony little bare feet – an outfit more suited to Ascot. Since the wind hadn’t eased since I left Aldred House and the sun was no stronger, she’d have been warmer if she’d worn, not carried, that huge Anya Hindmarch bag. All those items were top of the range – so why did she look so decidedly un-chic? Because she was trying too hard? Certainly if she’d been a picture I’d have said she’d been painted by numbers.

Brosnic strode in as if he already owned the place. For the first time I registered a bulge in his jacket the wrong size and shape for a wallet. I swallowed, and switched on my coolest persona. She teetered in his wake, silly heels inflicting God knows what damage on the ancient oak boards. In a mixture of mime and clearly enunciated English, I suggested she remove her shoes before attempting the steep and awkward stairs.

Mr Brosnic was clearly not a man to admit defeat by a series of low lintels, but his visit to the roof was no more than cursory, with not a single glance at the expanse of countryside. So why did he give what looked like a satisfied nod? He grunted something at his wife. The tour – the charade – was almost over. I prepared to usher them out and make appropriate noises about seeing them again soon.

Slightly to my surprise, after they’d inspected every last cranny, at the same time they both asked to use the bathroom. Without waiting for a reply, they headed for two separate ones. Was this how Russian oligarchs behaved? All I could do was wait on the landing for them, leaning on an oak balustrade that might once have supported the Bard’s arms as he looked down at the revels below. Now that was a line I could spin to the next viewers.

Soon, first one, then the second returned to me. Then it seemed they couldn’t wait to get out. Perhaps Mr Brosnic had cracked his head on yet another historic beam. They certainly didn’t want to see the garden, which I would have wished to do in their situation, since it was as lovely as any surrounding the sort of National Trust property people forked out a tenner each to see.

Anyway, they drove off without any of the formal expressions of gratitude and a promise to get back to the agency that most people manage at such a time. Bother them then. No commission. Again.

I returned to Stratford, with the keys and a long face. But Claire, the receptionist, had news for me. The Brosnics wanted me to show them round two other houses, Langley Park and Oxfield Place.

‘Me? What about the folk at the Henley office? They’re supposed to be handling them. I wouldn’t want to do them out of a job,’ I assured her mendaciously.

‘Greg said it was OK, and you should get the keys from Henley.’

‘Fine,’ I said, setting off. I must think only of commission and put right to the back of my mind the thought of the gun Brosnic was packing.

As soon as I let them into Langley Park, one of my favourite properties, Georgian and spacious, they bolted in opposite directions. As soon as I could, I herded them into the morning room.

There I issued a stern warning in my most headmistressy tone. ‘I must insist that you both stay with me. I appreciate that you want to see this lovely home at your own pace, and I am happy to let you do that. I’ve all the time in the world. But we must all stick together.’ I gestured them courteously back into the panelled hall.

‘You wish to sell this property? And us to buy it?’ Mr Brosnic didn’t wait for an answer but said something swiftly to his wife.

She shrugged an insolent smile in my direction, and set off towards the library. He marched us in the opposite direction. He didn’t grab my arm or anything as unsubtle as that. He did it by sheer willpower. And by the fear he’d instilled in me that if I seriously annoyed him he might simply put an arm through the old glass of the built-in display cabinet on the back wall and smash it without a pang. And then smash me. All on a sunny afternoon, while the daffodils nodded happily in the long curling borders snaking down to the stream that ran through the garden as it made its idyllic way to the Avon.

So the visit to Langley Park wasn’t going to plan. I had a feeling that the one to Oxfield Place wouldn’t be much better. It wasn’t. The fact that as the Brosnics drew up I was trying to call Caddie in response to her text didn’t improve things. Brosnic made it clear that he was entitled to every iota of my time and energy, but not in words – there was nothing tangible I could report back to Greg as constituting a threat, especially as Greg would have sided with Brosnic.

As it happened, Oxfield Place was unoccupied too, with not so much as a stick of furniture to worry about, so I shrugged mentally and let them get on with their separate prowls. Langley Park must have been more sheltered than here, or perhaps the empty house was getting damp. By the time they returned, her legs were blue and her arms covered with goose pimples. She was trying valiantly not to dither, and kept casting an anxious eye at Brosnic when she thought he wasn’t looking. It was all I could do not to offer her my jacket, but I felt that such a gesture might somehow cause offence.

I hid behind routine. As she opened the car door, I smiled, offering my card, and delivering my set spiel. ‘I do hope you’ve enjoyed seeing these properties. If you wish to see them again, or any others on our books, please do not—’ I spoke to the firmly slammed Bentley door.

Brosnic’s turn took him so close to the Ka that I had to move or get run over. Exeunt, as if pursued by a bear. Except a bear might have had a pot shot taken at him.

At least Caddie sounded reassuring and positive when I finally got through to her. Then she asked sternly, ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing.’ I longed to pour out my woes, but her news was more important. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner but I was with a client.’

‘You’re still working for that brother of yours? How’s his hair?’

‘Tufty. And unnaturally dark.’

She obliged with a snort of laughter. ‘Mind you, it’s so hard to keep dark hair looking natural, isn’t it? If you overdo the dye, you look even older.’

You? Did she mean you as in people in general or as in you meaning me?

‘I mean, look at Flora Thingy – looks nearer sixty than fifty. Well, I know she is, and I know it doesn’t help having a name like that. Goodness knows what she was thinking of, taking a stage name that makes her sound like someone’s maiden aunt, stupid creature.’

‘Do you think it would help if I went a bit redder?’

‘What? With this soap set in Cyprus coming up? Well, talk of a soap. I had you down as an expat, darling. Or even a rich local widow. So work on the accent. Get the old tapes out and practise, eh?’

‘This soap, Caddie—’

‘It’s only a rumour, darling. But you sounded so down last time we spoke I thought even a rumour might help. But a word to the wise. Never sound miserable. Stay positive. That’s what I always say.’

It was true, she did. Even when she’d sent me up to Edinburgh for an audition for what turned out to be a role for a tall blonde half my age, she always told me to stay positive.

‘OK,’ I said, feeling flatter than ever.

‘And listen to the tapes,’ she said, cutting the call.

‘CDs,’ I corrected her silently, sticking out my tongue. It was the only way I’d ever get the last word.

I would report the oddities of the Brosnics to Greg when I went back to the Stratford office on my way home. I still had a fistful of keys that ought to be in a safe somewhere. There was regular daily communication between the offices, so whoever went next to Henley could take with them the keys for the properties for which Henley was responsible. Meanwhile there was a courtesy call I needed to make. The Wimpoles’ enthusiasm might have been decidedly underwhelming but it was policy to phone every client after each showing to see what they thought. A couple of times I’d managed to reel in an elusive sale that way.

Greg was busy with another client when I arrived, so I handed the keys to his receptionist, Claire, whose patience edged towards saintly. She had to endure Greg all day every day. She even brought me a cup of peppermint tea while I settled at a vacant desk and dialled. And it was a good job I was sitting down.

‘Hampton Fenny Hall really is much too big for us, Ms Burford,’ Mrs Wimpole said. ‘In fact, we only agreed to look at it because your brother was so…forceful. But we really like the look of Little Cuffley Court – from the brochure at least. Could you book us in for a viewing on Wednesday? My husband preferred The Zephyrs – but I suspect it got its name because it’s so windy there.’

‘I promise I’ll check that out for him.’ I would – even if it meant standing outside the front door with a wet finger in the air, as we did in Girl Guides. ‘But Little Cuffley Court nestles in that lovely valley – you get snowdrops there a week before you get them elsewhere.’ I crossed my fingers behind my back – it wasn’t so much a lie as a wild assumption. ‘What would be a good time for you?’

Greg never congratulated anyone on their hard work and initiative, but the news of the Wimpoles’ next viewing didn’t even take the edge off his irritation over my obvious failure with the Brosnics.

‘It was you who insisted we never let punters out of our sight,’ I pointed out, with less than tact. ‘And I tell you I was really scared. If they want to see anywhere else, hang the commission – I go out with someone else or not at all!’

He glanced significantly at the empty desk. ‘I had to let Robbie go, Vena. Just remember that.’

CHAPTER THREE

Meredith Thrale was born to brood, in the manner of the young Richard Burton. Looking decidedly less than his forty-odd summers, he was brooding very thoroughly indeed over a glass of Old Speckled Hen in the Poacher’s Pocket, one of three pubs in Moreton St Jude. When I’d phoned to suggest lunch – we were old mates, after all, and providing a bit of moral support was what mates did – I thought a village pub away from the actors crawling over Stratford would make for a less anguished meal. And Moreton St Jude just happened to be a mile or so from Little Cuffley Court, where I’d shown an entranced Mrs Wimpole around the sunlit, sheltered garden crammed with spring flowers. As to the house, if, as I suggested, you mentally stripped out all the heavy Victorian furniture and replaced it with the Regency equivalent (I tacitly assumed her bank balance was up to it), then it was irresistible. It was too. I almost frothed with envy. I could have played Iago and his green-eyed monster with the best of them.

Just as Meredith could have done. His air of latent menace would have been ideal.

‘I’m line perfect, Vee,’ he declared as the blood running from his expensive steak congealed. ‘I know all the moves. God knows how often I’ve had to walk Howard through them when he was pissed. Which was every day. I prayed – I’m sorry, but I prayed every day he might just, one lunchtime, have one too many and I could go on. It’s what understudies bloody do, isn’t it? Yes, even a matinee, with the house packed with school kids, would have been something,’ he admitted bitterly. ‘I could have done it. And what happens? Bloody Toby Frensham steps forward and says, “I’ll do that”, and they all clap their hands and jump up and down like so many children at a party. It’s always been their policy to use understudies, for God’s sake.’

I nodded. ‘I know just how you feel, darling. Been there, done that. I’ve got a drawer positively bulging with T-shirts. Yes, and sweatshirts.’ So that he would have time to eat a few mouthfuls, I listed my disappointments. Not that he’d be interested. No one really got delighted over someone else’s success; equally the only pain of rejection anyone could truly empathise with was their own.

Tolstoy made much the same point, didn’t he, about families?

Oh, dear, how long ago was it that I’d played Anna? The tour had gone on for ever. Now Karenin was dead of AIDS, and Vronsky had just had his civil partnership registered in LA. If I’d been able to rake together the fare, I’d have been Best Woman.

‘…could kill him!’ He clenched his fingers so fiercely that the knuckles whitened.

‘Sorry, darling? I was away with the fairies. Kill who? Whom?’ I corrected myself.

‘Bloody Frensham, of course. God, what a shit that man is.’

I had to be careful. Rumour had it that Merry had taken up acting during a spell in gaol for manslaughter. Naturally I’d never asked him point-blank if it were true, perhaps because I suspected it might have some origins in truth, at least. Toby was right – he did exude violence. ‘Darling, surely if the director had known how much…’ No, that wasn’t going anywhere. ‘I mean, the director must have asked for him, or his agent wouldn’t have approached him and he couldn’t have said yes. You don’t just stroll up and say, “I want to play Iago”, do you?’

‘Frensham does. I tell you straight, Vee, if I could have got hold of him when the news came out, I’d have killed him with my bare hands. Now I shall try something more subtle.’

My forkful of poached salmon stopped halfway to my mouth, now unaccountably dry. Off stage I’d never heard a death threat before, and coming on the heels of Brosnic’s latent brutality I found it hard to deal with adequately. ‘Such as?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. But I shall do such things…’

I kept my tone light. ‘Vengeance didn’t do poor old Lear any good, did it, darling? Or Malvolio, come to think of it.’

He managed a grimace. ‘Or even Hamlet… But I shan’t let him get away with it, Vee. You mark my words.’ Then his eyes narrowed. ‘Hang on, aren’t you and he—?’

‘No, absolutely not!’ I declared, anxious to set the record straight. I didn’t want it to be thought that I only got the Aldred House work because Toby and I were lovers. Besides which, while Allyn must have known – and dismissed – all the rumours about our past, if she thought we were still at it hammer and tongs, where would my contract be? Torn up and floating down the Avon, that’s where. ‘Nor ever were. Ever.’

‘But it was in all the gossip columns… Oh, holy shit. Sorry.’

I nodded a curt acceptance of his apology, as if I really were offended.

He looked at me from under his heavy hair. ‘You will forget what I just said, won’t you?’

I thought it was time to turn the subject. ‘You mean when the police come knocking on my door asking what I know about Toby’s murder?’ I asked with just enough irony. ‘As a matter of fact I said to his face pretty well what you’ve just said to me.’ At least I’d thought it in his presence, which was much the same thing.

‘And he said?’

‘Darling, you know what an ego he’s got. People like that think the public spend all their lives clamouring for yet another appearance.’ So why did I still get the hots for him? ‘Just remember you’ve got a career ahead of you, and going to jail won’t help it.’

‘A good murder trial might. I could be standing tragically in the dock, watching the judge don his black cap and you could race in at the last moment with an alibi to prove my innocence.’ At last he managed a grin, which took twenty years off him.

‘You’ve been watching too much daytime TV.’

He shrugged. ‘I rest my case.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve got too much time on my hands. I want to work,’ he added, dropping his voice to a gravelly moan, as thrilling in its way as Greta Garbo’s desire to be alone. He’d probably been practising it for weeks.

I thought briefly of suggesting he might join me should the Brosnics ever evince a desire to check out yet another Warwickshire residence, but it would have to be on a no-fee-until-sold basis, and I couldn’t see him falling for that. Not with the Brosnics’ track history.

‘Don’t we all, darling?’ I allowed a wistful quiver into my voice. ‘Do you think I actually enjoy cleaning other people’s loos? Any more than I like living in an ex-council house while other people can buy mansions they don’t even live in?’

He looked shocked. ‘I assumed you’d have a bijou black and white cottage in a cute village.’

‘Everyone does. And I prefer it that way. I have my pride, you know. And you, darling,’ I added, picking up the bill, ‘must have yours. No playing childish tricks that’ll only rebound on you…OK?’

He watched, opening his mouth as if to argue, and then shutting it again. He covered my spare hand with his. The nails were bitten right down. ‘There’s no matinee this afternoon, darling. And we could both do with a bit of cheering up.’ He lifted the hand to his lips, in my book one of the sexiest gestures a man could make, beating a short bathrobe any day. The invitation itself, however, was less than exciting. A bit of cheering up? Not much passion there, then. And I still had a lurking suspicion that Meredith might prefer dancing at the other end of the ballroom.

The waitress, who had so far taken a relaxed view about what constituted service, chose this precise moment to appear. I needed both hands to fish out my credit card. As I passed her the plastic and the paper I saw an expression I didn’t like. There was nothing overtly unpleasant; on the contrary, she was looking sympathetic and almost approving. But in basic terms, her eyes perceived us as an old bat whose roots needed attention and her impoverished toy boy. Well, I could do something about the first problem, if not the second. The moment I was in the car, I’d phone my hairdresser.

I waited till the waitress had gone to get the machine for my card. ‘Darling, there’s nothing I’d like better. But I’ve got something on this afternoon I just can’t afford to miss.’

‘Oh, come on, Vee – can’t it wait?’

‘Not if I want to pay my mortgage.’ I tapped my PIN into the machine without adding a tip. I’d once waitressed for an employer who used the tronc to pay our pitiful wages instead of using it as a well-deserved bonus. This wicked practice was still legal, apparently. So if I left a tip it was always cash, tucked in the time-honoured way under a plate.

Getting to my feet, I shrugged on my jacket.

I could see Meredith eyeing up the guest beers. Was he going to stay and make a maudlin afternoon of it? What if maudlin, in his case, led to murderous? I’d better mention the Brosnics after all. But he shook his head, and, picking up a space-age skid lid, accompanied me to the car park. Poor Meredith: his wheels weren’t the huge BMW bike his helmet implied, but a little fart-and-bang machine, 50cc at most. The poor thing put Greg’s vivid car into perspective. We shared a wordless grimace.

I reached up to hug him. ‘We both need a bit of luck, Merry, don’t we? Now don’t do anything stupid, will you?’

As it happens that afternoon’s work, to which I would turn my attention as soon as I’d booked a hair appointment, involved not loos but the Brosnics. To my huge relief I hadn’t been summoned to show them round any more properties, but there was still the matter of the courtesy call. If it had worked for the Wimpoles it might work for them, and though my flesh crawled at the thought of having further contact with them, there was the inescapable fact that success would bring in a lot of money.

Stratford never lost its charm, no matter how often I got stuck in traffic behind a monster coach, or waited hours to be served because someone couldn’t understand the currency. I parked as usual behind Greg’s office, and then, just for the pleasure of it, I walked back to the river. It was still chilly for the time of year, and as usual half the tourists – I heard more American accents than English ones – were as unprepared as poor Mrs Brosnic, apparently believing that if you were in a tourist spot the sun must shine. My route back took me past one of my favourite clothes shops, Basler. I felt like a child with its nose pressed against the doors of a toyshop. Except I suppose Toys’R’Us might not have the charm of the shops I swear I’m remembering, not just imagining.

But good suits demand good salaries, so I accelerated hard, as if I were Juliet, keen to meet her Romeo. A bit of power-walking never hurt anyone, though because of other, happily dawdling, pedestrians it was hard to do it in any sustained way.

However, I felt sufficiently full of vim and vigour by the time I swung into the office. In fact, had Greg been around, I would have had sufficient to box his managerial ears for him. We were supposed to be meticulous in updating our computer records, yet here was the Brosnics’ file with nothing on it except his phone number and the name of the football club he was supposed to be buying. Try how I might – and my territorial loyalties to the Black Country were pretty strong – I could not imagine the purchase of West Bromwich Albion giving any oligarch, from Russia or anywhere else, the cachet that buying Chelsea or Arsenal might. Oh, he’d mentioned the hired Bentley, but hadn’t quite managed to say where it was rented from or jot down the number. What sort of day had Greg been having? Had the hair transplants involved removing some of his brain?

At least I had a phone number. I brought up the files of the houses they’d seen, and did a quick scan of any others that might catch their attention, The Zephyrs, for instance. When I’d got the Brosnics out of the way, I could make my courtesy call to the Wimpoles. There, that was something to look forward to.

That was something I greatly needed, after a few minutes trying the Brosnics’ number. Not only did no one reply, according to BT there wasn’t such a number. Nor had there ever been.

So what on earth was going on… Greg’s stupidity apart?

At this point my precious brother appeared. His lunch had been longer than mine and apparently involved more liquid. It took him a long time to adjust his expensive glasses and peer at the computer screen, and even longer to understand what I was getting at.

At last, predictably, he resorted to bluster. ‘They’re just history freaks, aren’t they? People who get off on old buildings without joining the National Trust or English Heritage. Why pay an entrance fee when you can get a tour of a house for free?’

‘I’d thought of that. But they simply weren’t interested, Greg. You know that wonderful garden at Knottsall Lodge? The one that featured on that TV programme?’ To jog his memory, I brought views of it up on to the screen. ‘The Brosnics didn’t want so much as to glance at it. And yes, I did tell them about Whatshisname going wild about the pergola.’

‘The weather’s been a bit cold for gardens.’

‘But I tell you they weren’t interested in any of the houses per se. If they’d peered in every corner, obviously been interested in the history, I might have agreed with you.’

‘That’d be a first.’

I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘Well, you are the boss. There’s something up, Greg. Look, just to please me, why don’t you give one or two of your mates a ring – see if they’ve had anything similar?’

He looked at his Rolex. He didn’t need to say anything. I’d too much family loyalty to yell at him in front of Claire, so I said mildly, ‘Very well.’

There was no need for him to know that I might just give Heather a call. And I would wait until he had disappeared into his sanctum before I dialled.