Читать книгу No Cherubs for Melanie - James Hawkins - Страница 9

Bliss missed Gordonstone’s restaurant at the first pass, and got stuck in a one-way system as he tried to backtrack. Several left turns later he opted to search out a parking space from which he could walk. Providence, and an amiable traffic warden, found him slotted into a spot normally reserved for visiting diplomats, and he was pleasantly surprised to find he had landed directly opposite his goal. As he waited to dart in between the constant stream of traffic, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed that his old green Ford Escort, another legacy of the divorce, looked distinctly out of place amid the BMWs and Volvos parked in front of the imposing Georgian terraces.

The restaurant’s facade was shielded from the road by a barrier of ornate wrought iron railings and a row of pollarded plane trees heavy in summer leaf. A couple of bronzed fibreglass gargoyles, looking remarkably genuine, graced the projecting edges of the stained-glass canopy and a discreet brass plaque announced, L’Haute Cuisinier. Nothing else distinguished the elegant building from others in the terrace. It was, thought Bliss, the sort of place you could drive by a hundred times without ever noticing. The sort of place found only by reputation. No need for gaudy advertising, no golden arches, no menu in a shiny brass frame. Anyone needing to ask the prices probably couldn’t afford an hors d’oeuvre.

Bliss took the two polished stone steps in a single leap and was surprised to find the huge black lacquered front door ajar, and unmanned. A door like this demands a butler, or at least a footman, he decided as he entered; he felt as if he were trespassing.

Once inside, an archway from the entrance hall led directly to the main dining room where he stood, slack mouthed, staring at the enormous chandelier high above the centre of the room. It looks more like a theatre than a restaurant, he mused, with its terraces rising around a central auditorium: ideal for anyone wanting to be seen eating publicly. A theatre of culinary arts, devoid of the cast. The props — empty tables, piles of crisply starched tablecloths, stacks of plates, and trays of cutlery — awaited a stagehand to meticulously dress them in place before the arrival of the actors and audience.

‘Noises off’ alerted him to the presence of a backstage crew. Actors preparing in the kitchen for the next performance, he assumed: KPs in striped aprons peeling potatoes, chefs in whites cooking, jacketless waiters in open-necked shirts polishing cutlery, a sommelier in a snazzy waistcoat carting wine up from the cellar in a frayed wicker basket, mindful not to disturb the accumulated dust on the bottles.

A strange smell immediately caught his attention and he screwed up his nose in disgust. A strong whiff of yesterday’s cigar smoke had mingled with stale alcohol and a waft of garlic — somehow managing to turn the olfactory ingredients of ambience into an unpleasant stink in the fresh morning air. Standing alone in such a large space made him uncomfortable and he was almost overwhelmed by an illogical temptation to turn and run. He knew he should follow the sounds to the kitchen, but the prospect of encroaching upon the personal space of the staff caused him to hesitate. Someone will come out in a moment, he guessed, acclimatizing himself to the atmosphere, and reminiscing nostalgically about the time he and his young wife-to-be were early arrivals for a first night performance of a little-known play by an even lesser-known amateur theatrical group. Sarah, whose tendency to be fashionably tardy often led Bliss to introduce her as “The late Mrs. Bliss,” had been early for once. There was no hint of a problem at the box office, and the usher, a sixteen-year-old aspiring Gielgud, made a majestic performance of sweeping aside the blackout curtains leading into the auditorium to reveal that they were the first members of the audience to arrive. By curtain time another dozen or so had sneaked into the rear seats. “They’re probably relatives,” sulked Bliss after Sarah insisted on staying.

“We can’t leave,” she whispered. “They probably know who we are. They’ll come after us.”

“Rubbish,” said Bliss, feeling as nervous as the lead actress, whom he spied peeking through a crack in the curtain.

He’d regretted his faint-heartedness at the end of the first act when they were forced to applaud madly to save the cast’s total demoralization. Sneaking out during the intermission they found a local pub where they sat giggling with relief, and a touch of guilt. Ten minutes later they were forced to abandon their drinks and dash for the emergency exit when the play’s entire cast turned up to drown their sorrows.

“I told you they’d come after us,” laughed Sarah breathlessly as they ran to the bus stop in the rain. Then some of the other audience members turned up and they’d run again…

Smiling to himself at the memory, Bliss looked around and noticed a couple of kitchen porters eyeing him up. He could feel the weight of their stares as they peered through the small oval windows in the kitchen’s swing doors.

“He ain’t a customer. It’s too early, an’ he’s not dressed proper,” said one.

“Prob’ly a health inspector looking for more dead bodies,” joked the other, known for his bad taste.

The well-muscled head chef pushed the young men out of the way with a growl and swept through the door. “Can I help you?”

Bliss tried to respond, but found that he was unable to tear his eyes away from the other man’s mouth. As if he were ruminating on a particularly tough morsel of meat, the chef’s jaws and lips were in constant motion; the facial idiosyncrasy was accompanied by wet clicking sounds as he spoke — like a dripping tap. This could get annoying, thought Bliss, as he tried to get past the nervous habit and ask to speak with the manager.

“I’m in charge at the moment,” the chef said, adding two clicks to the comment. “We could sit over here.” His starched white clothing rustled with every movement as he swept a hand toward one of the unlaid tables. A tieless waiter hustled toward them at the crook of the chef’s finger. The pecking order was clear.

“Coffee, Inspector?”

Bliss was miles away, fascinated by the constant mouth movement. “Inspector?”

“Oh! Coffee. Yes, please — white with sugar,” he replied, after delving back through his memory to resurrect the question.

“Make that two,” said the chef without looking at the hovering waiter. “I know it’s early,” he continued, addressing Bliss, “but can I tempt you with a tranche of Plateau Seville.” Catching the quizzical look on Bliss’s face, he explained. “It’s a gateau topped with orange segments, soaked in orange brandy, and served with a sauce absolutely laced with Grand Marnier.” He leaned forward with a wink and a click. “I’ve just made it — highly recommended.”

“Thank you, I will. Sounds great.”

“I’ve probably been watching too many cop shows; I somehow expected you to say you’re not supposed to drink on duty.”

Bliss leaned forward conspiratorially. “I don’t call that drinking. I call it eating.”

The chef smiled and sent the waiter away with an order for one. “You not having any?” Bliss enquired.

“I never eat on duty,” the chef replied with a ring of humour in his voice and an extra couple of clicks. “Have you worked here long?”

The chef relaxed back in his seat, accompanied by much rustling and a prolonged bout of lip clicking, while he considered the question. “Pretty much since the place opened. I made myself indispensable, you see. Of course I’ve had a few challenges from the odd spiky-haired nouvelle cuisine types straight out of catering college, but they didn’t last. The owner was — how shall I put it — a bit difficult.”

“Difficult?” Bliss jumped at the prospect of a motive.

“He could be a bit awkward…” the chef began, then paused and ruminated for several seconds, apparently deliberating as to whether or not he should be betraying the deceased owner. Then he shrugged and continued: “I was all right. I trained in the Army Catering Corps, so I’m used to having somebody’s boot up my jacksy most of the time. You learn to do what you’re told, keep your mouth shut, and get your own back later. What goes around, comes around, an’ I guess someone finally got their own back on him.”

Bliss shot him a look that queried, What do you know? but the chef didn’t wait for the question. “Inspector, I’m not stupid. He’s been dead nearly three weeks. You can’t tell me you just popped in to see how things are going.”

“Well, there are one or two things that don’t quite add up,” Bliss admitted. “If someone had done him in… Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying he was killed, but hypothetically, if it did turn out there was more to this than a straightforward heart attack, the first question I’d have to ask would be, What was the motive? Who had a reason to kill him? Who’s he upset?”

“Have you got a phone book?” responded the chef in a flash.

“OK. So he’s pissed off a few people.”

The other man scoffed, “A few. You are kidding aren’t you?”

“Well. What I mean is, just because he upset someone doesn’t mean they would kill him.”

“I could have.”

Bliss viewed the man through slit eyes. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly,” the chef replied in a relaxed manner. “You should put me first on your list, although I can tell you for nothing that I didn’t do it.”

“At the top of the list… That’s honest of you. But why? What reason did you have to want to kill him?”

“Same reason as hundreds of others. The man was a pompous self-righteous bastard who didn’t give a shit about anyone. He bullied his way through life, crapped on everyone, treated people like dirt. As far as I’m concerned he got what was coming.”

The culinary creation arrived — an oversized portion swimming in an alcoholic sea of orange sauce and swirled with cream.

“Tell me what happened,” said Bliss, digging in.

“We thought he was just drunk at first, as usual. Dead drunk as it turned out,” the chef continued after a taste of coffee. Bliss lifted a finger, intending to speak, but the chef carried on without waiting for him to empty his mouth. “Like a bear with a sore head when he was drunk, which was most of the time. Quite honestly, I didn’t want to wake him up. I thought he’d sleep it off.”

“So he was awkward when he’d had a few?”

“You could put it that way,” chuckled the chef. “The trouble was he couldn’t see it himself and nobody dared tell him.”

I can understand that, thought Bliss. How can you convince an unreasonable man he’s being unreasonable?

“He could be quite amiable at times, but you were never sure where you stood with him. Everything was a competition, you see. He probably got like that working in the stock exchange. He always had to win. A simple handshake could turn into a trial of strength. He always had to have whatever he wanted.”

“What about women?”

The chef thought for a second then shook his head. “He never seemed particularly bothered.”

“Men?” enquired Bliss, in a disapproving tone. “He wasn’t…” “Oh no,” laughed the chef. “Definitely not. He tried it on with a female customer from time to time, although I don’t think he got very far. He usually had a severe case of distiller’s droop by the end of the evening. Anyway he was so bleeding fat he probably couldn’t have found his whatsisname even when he was sober.”

Bliss smiled. “So what happened that evening?”

Both men knew which evening he was talking about. “I didn’t have time to deal with him. It was right in the middle of dinner. Two staff off sick with…” He glanced up at the chandelier then gave his head a quick shake. “I don’t remember now. Anyway, a couple of juniors just dragged him to his office and dumped him on the floor. Nobody had time to deal with him. Nobody wanted to deal with him. He had a nasty habit of firing people on the spot.”

Bliss glanced around the unprepared dining room. “What will happen to the place now?”

“We don’t know. The lawyers and accountants are working on it but haven’t said anything. We’re still being paid, but trade has gone down the tube since the publicity over his death. Of course the lying bastards who dine here all said how nice and quiet it would be without him, but the truth is many of them only came to watch him making an ass of himself. Rich snobs, nobody would even fart in the same room as them usually. They’d go to the opera or ballet, wouldn’t understand a bleedin’ word, say it were absolutely wonderful, then come here and he’d give ’em a right mouthful ‘Fuck this,’ he’d say, and, ‘Fuck that,’ and they loved every minute of it. They could understand it; it took them back to their roots. But they’ll soon stop coming altogether unless something happens.”

Bliss nodded sagely, doubtful they would easily find another obnoxious drunk capable of running the place. Then he checked his notes. “So what did he have for dinner that night?”

“Nothing.”

Bliss looked confused. “I thought… Wait a minute.” He clicked open his briefcase, selected the thin file and searched for a handwritten page. “I’ve got a statement here from the head waiter.”

The chef jumped in: “Malcolm, the head waiter. He took his dinner up to him — the boss had an apartment upstairs. But he didn’t eat anything. He didn’t touch it. It was quite common. He’d order dinner, but would start on the bottle and forget all about the food. It used to piss me off, especially when he ordered something special. I’d spend bloody ages making it perfect just so he couldn’t complain, then it would get chucked in the bin.”

Bliss persisted; he’d already set his line of questioning and couldn’t easily change tack. “Who could’ve tampered with his dinner that day?”

The chef replied slowly, carefully emphasizing each word by liberally interposing clicks, and insisting by his tone that Bliss should comprehend. “Like I said: he didn’t touch it. He didn’t eat anything, and the only stuff he ever drank came out of a bottle — his own bottle.”

Bliss studied the chef’s face critically asking, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

The chef fidgeted noisily and ruminated under Bliss’s stare, but then spread his hands and shook his head. “Nothing.”

“All right. I’d better talk to Malcolm then,” said Bliss, trying to pick a sliver of orange peel out of his teeth.

“He quit.”

Bliss shot him a surprised look.

“It was nothing to do with the old man’s death,” the chef added quickly. “Well I suppose it was in a way. Once word got out that the old man had kicked the bucket, the buzzards gathered and picked off the best staff. Malcolm went to the Faison d’Or.”

“You’re still here though,” said Bliss, stating the obvious.

“I had a few offers, but I figured I might have a chance of taking full control with the new owner. I’ve been running this place for years anyway. You could never rely on the old man.”

A high-heeled waitress, with a bum that stuck out like a small shelf, and nicely formed breasts hidden by a virginally opaque white blouse, leant provocatively over him to refill the coffees. Bliss chased an errant thought from his mind, then reflected and let it back.

“So who does own it?” he continued as the waitress drew his eyes in her wake.

“I guess his daughter. She’s a strange girl — woman really, I suppose. She must be in her thirties now. She went abroad to live — Canada — just after her mother died.” The chef glanced at his watch and rose. “And now, Inspector, I wonder if you’d excuse me. I’ve got a kitchen to run.”

Gordonstone’s wife — dead! thought Bliss, but he kept quiet, unwilling to admit his ignorance of such a basic piece of information. “I’d like to have a nose around, and talk to any of the staff who were here the night Gordonstone died… if that’s OK.”

The chef nabbed a passing waiter and turned to Bliss. “Jordan will show you around.”

“I’ll need a list of everyone on duty that day, and also a customer list if you have one,” Bliss said, before the chef could get away. Wandering around the dining room, Jordan in tow, ostensibly searching for evidence, Bliss soon found himself staring up into the giant chandelier, expecting its myriad glass eyes to offer some sort of clue. The crystal prisms swayed and tinkled slightly, wafting in the draft from an open door, and an eerie feeling swept over him, causing him to step away, irrationally fearing the whole thing might suddenly come crashing down on him. Then Jordan dropped a bombshell: “That’s what killed her.”

“Killed who?”

“Mrs. Gordonstone.”

Bliss’s head jerked around in surprise. “The chandelier killed Gordonstone’s wife?”

“So they say. It was before my time. It was years ago.”

“What… It fell on her?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Chef. He was here then.”

Bliss’s eyes followed the thick white rope from the top of the chandelier as it wound its way up through a pulley and down the wall, to where it was tethered in a figure eight around a huge brass cleat that might have once graced the deck of a schooner. He imagined it might take two, even three, strong men to lower the giant chandelier to the floor for cleaning, and walked over to examine the rope. The chef, returning from the kitchen, noted Bliss’s interest. “They had the rope shortened after the accident with Mrs. Gordonstone.”

Bliss stared at the chandelier as if expecting it to divulge some crucial piece of information. What accident? When? Mentally asking, demanding of it, “What happened?” The chandelier knew. It was a giant all-seeing eye that had peered down on the great room for over two hundred years. One giant fly-like eye with a mass of crystal lenses each absorbing images from the room below. Locked in its crystal gaze were the secrets of thousands of spies, philandering husbands, and shady businessmen. And the secret of Betty-Ann Gordonstone’s death.

It was the fifteenth of October, 1987, just before the great hurricane. The creaking floorboards, a natural security system of all old houses, alerted Betty-Ann Gordonstone to movement outside her room; the room in which she had lived alone for nearly ten years. She peered at the bedside clock: almost two o’clock. A door hinge squeaked with a familiar sound — Margaret’s door. He’s going to her… I know he is.

Whispers in the hallway confirmed her suspicions. She lay, immobile, as she had on a hundred other nights, listening to the furtive sounds: hushed whispers, doors opening and closing with a careful hand, moans, groans, and an occasional muffled cry.

Would the torment never end? I saw you, she longed to say to Martin. You touched her didn’t you? If only she had the courage to confront him, to tell him: I know what you’re doing to her. You could have gone to a prostitute. Not Margaret. You didn’t have to touch Margaret.

She dug her head into the pillow. “It’s none of my business.”

A voice deeper inside countered, It is your business. She’s your daughter. He’s your husband.

They’re both adults, she reasoned, knowing full well that was no justification.

Why don’t you stop him? said that other, inner voice.

The painful memory of a bruised cheek reminded her why. There was no point in even trying to talk to him, to tell him that she knew, to demand that he stop.

Noises in her head augmented the sounds from Margaret’s room. Cries for help — Melanie’s cries. A six-year-old’s screams, which had lasted for ten years in her mind and had grown ever more persistent.

Sleep, when it came — if it came — offered no respite. Nightmares merely replaced the anguish of reality. And in the morning there was more pain. Having to face her daughter as she bounced into the room: “Hello Mummy. How are you today?”

What was there to talk about? What, she often wondered, did other mothers talk to their daughters about. So many times over the years she had been tempted to ask, “So Margaret, just how was Daddy last night? Was he good?” What would the young woman say?

But she would never find out. Some unspoken agreement, some taboo, would always get in the way. Do other daughters confide sexual experiences to their mothers? Betty-Ann sometimes wondered. But Margaret was not like other daughters.

Margaret was a tease, taunting her with innuendo, revealing little secrets in tidbits, never once admitting anything specific. She dropped hints, even an occasional conspiratorial wink, as if craving her mother’s approval, wanting her mother to be pleased for her, whispering excitedly: “Daddy’s been really nice to me.” No details, nothing specific. Betty-Ann would turn away, wanting to know — to be certain — but, at the same moment, not wanting to know.

Unable to protect one daughter, she now watched the other being slowly sucked through a gauze curtain into a place she could see but never touch.

Awake, as usual, she glanced at the bedside clock: two-thirty now. Night or afternoon, she wondered. Does it matter? Not really. Although she guessed it was night. It was always night when she heard the sounds. The noises of the night, noises familiar to any prisoner: cries of anguish in the dark, lover’s whispers, creaking bedsprings, and an occasional shout of alarm from an inmate tortured by a nightmare. Every day in prison was the same: the same people, the same cell, the same view from the same window, the same smells from the slop bucket, and the same boiled cabbage. The only difference between day and night was the sounds.

Betty-Ann lay for a few moments ticking off the years in her mind. Ten, she counted, with the backhanded pride of a hunger striker. Ten years of self-imprisonment, ten years flagellating her mind, ten years of refusing to give in to temptation. Tormented during the day by the clamour of people in the restaurant below and at night by the sounds in her mind, she even denied herself the lush dreams enjoyed by most prisoners. How easy it would be, she often thought, just to walk out and rejoin society. But what punishment would that be. How much more challenging it was to stay, without guards, bars, or locks.

She slipped out of bed and shuffled to the window, easily avoiding the furniture in the familiar surroundings of the dimly lit room. The blue-white light of a street lamp painted deep shadows as she opened the curtains a fraction. “Night.” She had been correct. “Another night,” she mused. Another day successfully completed. Another day of punishment, bringing me closer to what? Ten years of what? Waiting for what? There must be something at the end. Some reward. Forgiveness perhaps.

Who is there to forgive?

Me?

Who can ever forgive me?

Myself?

Never.

Melanie then?

Melanie could. Melanie, still alive in her mind, still six years old — forever six years old. “Forgive me Melanie,” she implored, knowing inwardly that it was not enough. It would take more than Melanie’s forgiveness to wipe away all her sins.

It wasn’t just that Betty-Ann had devoted part of herself to the memory of Melanie in the way that other bereaved parents might, a corner of their minds forever blackened by the loss. Betty-Ann had become the lone member of a devout religious sect formed solely to perpetuate and worship the memory of her daughter. Everything must remain exactly the same, she had decided within days of Melanie’s death, fearing that any change might cause Melanie’s spirit to flee. In the beginning she had concentrated all day, every day, on thoughts of Melanie. In this way the flame of Melanie’s life was not extinguished by her death, but was merely reduced to a glowing ember that only waited to be rekindled. Initially she used a photo in an ornate gold frame as a focal point for her hushed deliberations. Then, almost subliminally, she began muttering incantations: “Melanie, grant me, I beseech thee, pardon and peace, that I may be cleansed of all my sins and may serve thee with a quiet mind,” she would recite, sometimes aloud, but often silently, in what was left of her mind; over the years she developed an accompanying set of eccentric gestures and postures to match the words. Before long each day, and most of each night, was filled with devotions. Like a fanatical follower of a charismatic religionist, Betty-Ann attended her pious ministrations at precisely the same time each day, staring into a candle’s flame, reverently fingering Melanie’s clothing with as much devotion as a Christian might caress the Pope’s cassock or the Shroud of Turin.

The candle at Melanie’s sepulchre was flickering precariously close to extinction now. Betty-Ann left the window and shuffled to the dressing table where Melanie’s remains were precisely arranged. She poked a few shards of wax into the flame, until it burned steadily with an ochroleucous light. The candle was, she knew, her greatest achievement.

Martin had tried to stop her at first, confiscating her supply and ordering the staff to lock away all the candles at the end of each evening. But she had beaten him; making nightly foraging raids on the dining room, scratching even the tiniest of wax drips off the candelabra to feed her habit. And every now and then a careless waiter would accidentally leave a partly consumed candle on a table; she would seize these treasures with the gratitude of a starving man finding a potato. She was proud of her achievement, proud of her self-determination, and proud of the fact that, in some strange way, she had defeated Martin. She had robbed him of his power; her actions were beyond his control. I decide what to do, she thought, I make the decisions in my world — in Melanie’s world.

Every day she had the same inviolate routine. Every action, every movement, was choreographed; she was like a one-woman film noir destined to run eternally. One character going through the same motions, wearing the same costume, saying the same lines, moving to the same blocking. A solitary pitiful character played with passion and energy, but played without any desire for acclaim.

Betty-Ann had broken her routine on very few occasions, and then only for a specific purpose. Once, not long after Melanie’s death, before being fully committed to a lifetime of self-immolation, she had left her room to stand on a railway station platform, fully resolved to commit suicide. Twenty or more trains had passed and each time she pledged that the next would be her executioner. But when each train arrived, she shrank back from the edge of the platform, promising herself that the next one would be the one. Eventually she was harassed by an elderly shrew of a ticket inspector who nastily told her to either buy a ticket or leave. “What a country,” she had mumbled. “You even need a ticket to die.”

But she couldn’t kill herself — it was too easy. Death is not a punishment, she convinced herself. Death is an escape from punishment.

Punishment for what?

For what you did.

No. Not what I did. What I didn’t do.

Bliss’s eyes were still rivetted to the chandelier.

“How did it happen?” he asked the chef without looking around.

“Suicide they said. Something official like… ‘The balance of her mind was disturbed.’”

That’s possible, thought Bliss, recalling the frail frightened woman whose obvious good looks were marred by the ravages of grief following her daughter’s death. But something in the chef’s tone suggested he thought otherwise.

“When?”

“It must have been almost ten years ago; could have been more. She kept herself to herself, never came down to the restaurant. Stayed in the apartment all day. Apparently she had one of those phobias… What do they call it?”

“Agoraphobia,” suggested Bliss.

“Something like that.”

“What about her daughter?”

“Lumpy girl…” the chef stopped and thought. “Young woman really, I suppose. She was about twenty but you wouldn’t have thought it. Always bouncing around the place bumping into things. Used to bring half-dead animals and birds into the kitchen asking for food for them. I soon put a stop to that. Health regulations, and all that.”

“So tell me about the suicide.”

“From what I could make out it happened in the middle of the night. She came down and tied the end of the chandelier’s rope around her neck. Then she must have unhooked the rope from the cleat and the weight of the chandelier…”

Bliss stared up at the monstrous silver and crystal bauble, trying to gauge its weight. “And it was definitely suicide?”

“So they said, although more than one person thought he’d done her in. You see there was no note or anything, but she’d been funny for years. Her other daughter drowned you know, when she was three or four.”

“Six actually.”

“So you knew about that then?”

“Done my homework.”

“Well, apparently she was never right after that. Round the twist they said, that’s why the old man kept her out of the way. Some people reckon he kept her locked in her room from that day on.”

Suddenly everything became clear and Bliss swore under breath, “Shit.”

“Inspector, are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said, but inwardly he was feeling some of Betty-Ann’s pain. She had known all those years, he realized. Known her husband killed her youngest daughter and lived with that torment every day. No wonder her body language was wrong when I interviewed her, he thought. That’s why she couldn’t look me in the eye, why she couldn’t answer any questions without checking with her dear husband. It wasn’t surprising he kept her out of the way all those years. He didn’t want her breaking down in front of the staff or the guests, saying, “Oh by the way, did I mention my husband drowned my little girl?”