Clouds among the Stars Read online

  ‘Were you struck by anything unusual?’ the inspector put in. ‘Something about the stage that wasn’t quite as it should be?’

  ‘A theatre in rehearsal is always a mess.’ My father seemed irritated by the interruption. ‘Had the stage not been a clutter of heterogeneous objects then I might have thought it unusual. I expect there were props, flats, carpenters’ tools, scripts, paint pots, swords, lanterns, tea trays – the usual clutter of crude implements with whose assistance we actors conjure the illusion of man’s genius and depravity.’

  ‘Did you touch anything on your way?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. The auditorium was in semi-darkness, the stage lit by a single spotlight. I walked towards centre stage and, blinded by the light that was in my eyes – some fool had trained a single spot there – I stumbled across something that lay in my path and fell. I put out my hand. The thing was warm, unpleasantly sticky. It was poor Basil – his head quite crushed. I sprang to my feet with a cry of “Give me some light. Away!”’

  ‘Just a tick, sir,’ said Sergeant Tweeter. ‘When you said “away”, was you meaning one word or two? Away with the body or you was going away or you was hoping to find a way, sir?’

  My father sighed impatiently. ‘It is a quotation from Hamlet. Doubtless had I been capable of thought at that moment I would have intended all three interpretations you put upon it. It was a horror, an abomination!’ He gave a shudder I was convinced was genuine. He was extremely squeamish.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Several people came running onto the stage in response to my shouting.’

  ‘Can you remember who they were?’

  ‘Haven’t the least idea. The women were screaming at the tops of their voices and the men were nearly as bad. Wait a minute, I remember there was that little understudy among them – Sandra, I think her name is – who was flatteringly relieved to discover that it was Basil and not I who lay incarnadined and mute.’

  There was a grunt of protest from Sergeant Tweeter but the inspector swept on.

  ‘Was there bad blood between Sandra and Sir Basil?’

  ‘It had nothing to do with poor Basil. She has a crush on me. Of course, I don’t take it seriously. She’s a sweet little thing, hardly out of school. You know how impressionable girls are at that age.’ If the inspector knew he wasn’t telling. He hummed up and down an octave. ‘But,’ continued Pa, ‘the theatre is an adder’s nest of jealousy and insecurity. And Basil, poor man, did not have the art of endearing himself to others. I dare say I could name several who actually hated him. But of course,’ he put on his noble Brutus face, ‘I shan’t.’

  ‘Very laudable, sir.’ The inspector’s voice was admiring. ‘But it might be in your own interest, as this is a case of murder, to put such scruples aside. This afternoon I interviewed several members of the cast. They none of them hesitated to mention a quarrel yesterday between you and Sir Basil.’

  For a brief second Pa looked rather hurt by this treachery but then rapidly assumed a mask of world-weariness.

  ‘I have no secrets from you, Inspector. It was a childish row over a suggestion of Basil’s. He thought I should have my eyes gouged out offstage, to save messing about with blood bags.’

  ‘You didn’t think that was a good idea?’

  ‘Certainly not. In some second-rate productions the horrid deed is done in the wings. But that’s throwing away a great dramatic climax, for the lack of a little ingenuity. It was obvious that Basil was desperate to hog all the audience’s compassion for Lear. In many ways Gloucester is a much more sympathetic character.’

  ‘You quarrelled?’

  ‘I called him a fat, greasy lickspittle – or something like that. He called me a Casanova, an ageing lady-killer – among other things, I forget what.’ He lifted his chin, which was still firm and well-defined. ‘Spiteful nonsense, of course.’

  ‘So you were angry. Did you feel at that point you wanted to kill him?’

  My father laughed as though indulging the inspector’s sense of drama. ‘I’m not a violent man nor is it my habit to assault people who call me hard names.’

  ‘But why have you been arrested?’ I asked.

  My father gave a superior sort of smile. ‘You have to see it from a policeman’s point of view, to understand why such a hopeless bungle has been made of the business. Imagine yourself a young constable – about seventeen years old to judge from the down on his cheek – whose most exciting job of the day has been to take a lost puppy to the dog pound. You are informed that a famous actor has been found dead in suspicious circumstances. You come bounding in, almost swallowing your whistle with excitement. At last, a chance to use those handcuffs! Something to tell mother when you go home for tea! You see a possibly even more famous actor – it is not for me to say – prostrate at the scene of the crime – for Sandra’s eager embraces had prevented me from rising – and dripping with the corpse’s vital fluids. Naturally – because you are young and foolish and have no comprehension of human nature – you assume it was he who dispatched the man with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May, his heels kicking at heaven.’

  ‘Hang on a bit.’ Sergeant Tweeter was breathing hard now in his efforts to keep up. ‘Who was it kicked the dog?’

  ‘Never mind, Tweeter.’ Inspector Foy looked at his notebook. ‘We mustn’t forget that when PC Copper questioned you, your answers were, to say the least, ambiguous. When asked what you knew about Sir Basil’s death, you said, “Blood will have blood. Never shake thy Goldilocks at me.”’ The inspector frowned. ‘I think that must be gory locks. “Will all my great-nephew’s” – great Neptune’s, I think – “ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”’

  ‘They were remarkably bloody.’ My father looked down at his spread fingers, now mercifully clean.

  ‘But you can’t arrest him for saying that,’ I protested. ‘He was in shock. He just said the first thing that came into his head. It didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘If you remember Macbeth as you ought, Harriet,’ said my father reprovingly, ‘you will know it is a moment of exquisite nuance in a scene crammed with meaning and expressed in the finest poetry: No-o-o! This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas –’

  ‘I understand, Miss Byng. But PC Copper is not a student of English literature. It sounded to him like a confession. When your father refused to say he didn’t do it, the constable placed him under arrest.’

  I leant across the table and put my hand on my father’s arm. ‘Pa, tell them you didn’t kill Basil.’

  ‘Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. Of this alone I am guilty.’ My father spoke in a slow dreamy voice. ‘I may not have been the instrument but I confess I was, God help me, frequently angry enough to wish him – no, not dead, but – out of my way.’

  For my father other people’s prime duty was to be an audience. Being looked at and wondered at and talked about was as necessary to him as breathing. He was enjoying giving a bravura performance of a man wrongfully accused. One of his first roles as a child actor had been the eponymous character in The Winslow Boy.

  ‘There you are!’ I looked at the inspector. ‘He’s just said he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Sergeant, read out what you’ve just written.’

  ‘I’m getting it down as fast as I can.’ The sergeant’s tone was injured. He read out in a slow monotone. ‘“Father Harry – I am guil-ty. I may not have been a hinstrument but I confess –” Blast! Excuse me, ladies. My pencil’s just broke. It’s all them long words.’

  The inspector sighed. ‘You see how it’s going to sound in court, Miss Byng. What we need is a clear statement. A straightforward denial. And there’s also the business of the fingerprints.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’ I began to feel frightened.

  ‘The autopsy report’s just come in. Sir Basil was struck once, a heavy blow, centre skull, from above. According to PC Copper’s notes there was a metal rod lying beside the body. It was sent immediately t
o Forensic. Two feet six inches long, weighing several pounds, with a point at one end. And covered with blood. Forensic say Mr Byng’s prints were on the handle.’

  ‘Naturally they were. That was the gouger,’ explained my father. ‘I took it with me to get me in the mood. Think of it, Inspector. Your arms are tied, you are helpless before your enemies. Their grinning, exultant faces are the last things you will see in this world. But not quite! The very last thing of all is the cruel tip of obdurate iron as it makes it way through the soft jelly of your eye into your very brain! A-a-a-rgh!’ My father flung himself back in his chair and gave a blood-curdling scream that made me drive my nails into my palms. Maria-Alba opened her eyes and crossed herself fervently. A policeman put his head round the door and asked if we were all right.

  The inspector waved him away and stuck to his point. ‘Did you use this – gouger to kill Sir Basil, Mr Byng?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t! I must have dropped it when I fell over the body. Naturally there was blood on it. Everything within ten feet of Basil was covered with it. Ugh!’ He gave another shudder and drew together his dark-winged brows.

  ‘Got that, Tweeter?’

  Sergeant Tweeter, licking the point of his pencil, muttered that he had some of it.

  ‘What did you mean when you called Sir Basil –’ he consulted his notes again, ‘“a dreary old queen, bloated with bombast”?’

  ‘Did I really say that? I don’t remember.’

  ‘According to Miss Marina Marlow. Was Sir Basil a homosexual, to your knowledge?’

  My father put on his I-know-a-hawk-from-a-handsaw face, a combination of abstraction and cunning. ‘Don’t start a hare, Inspector. I neither know nor care if Basil was queer. He’s dead. Let his secrets die with him. De mortuis nil nisi bonum – good advice and I shall stick to it.’

  Was it possible? I wondered, watching my father as he swept a lock of dark wavy hair from his forehead. His expression was one of pained virtue. Could he actually be a murderer? My father – who would cross the road to avoid seeing rabbits with bloody muzzles hanging in the butcher’s shop window? Who would not allow Loveday to kill the moles that ruined the grass? Who, when fishing had enjoyed a brief vogue with Bron years ago, objected violently to the cruelty of skewering live worms with hooks.

  ‘Thank you, sir. I think we’ll leave it there for today. Miss Byng, I’ll arrange for a car to take you and Miss Petrelli home.’

  For a moment I couldn’t think who Miss Petrelli was. Then I remembered it was Maria-Alba. I was fairly sure I had not got round to introducing them. My anxiety was increased by this display of police omniscience.

  ‘Have you a message for Ma?’ I asked my father.

  ‘Tell her to be brave. All will be resolved. Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace …’

  I stood politely and waited for the end of the speech, my knee aching and my cut stinging. Shakespeare had suitable observations for every occasion. He really was inexhaustible. The last sight I had of my father was of his face turned to the window displaying his famous profile while the young constable applauded.

  Maria-Alba held my arm tightly as we walked back along the corridor.

  ‘This is very hard on you.’ The sympathy in Inspector Foy’s voice was almost my undoing. ‘He’s bearing up very well, considering. Try not to worry.’ But he believed my father to be guilty of murder and was therefore the enemy. I felt confused.

  We heard voices raised in anger. I averted my eyes from a quarrelsome group of people by the reception desk. I had had enough of human life in the raw for one day. Then someone shouted, ‘Order is Slavery!’ I saw, handcuffed to a policeman apiece, Dodge and Yell. Dodge had a swollen eye that was nearly closed and Yell’s nose was dripping with blood. Despite this there was evidence that the fight had not been knocked out of them. A broken chair lay on its side and several posters had been torn from the walls.

  ‘Pigs! Capitalist zombies!’ screamed Yell.

  ‘Harriet!’ Dodge must have forgotten about the opprobrious middle-classness of my name. ‘Have those fascists been beating you up? Hey! You!’ He addressed Inspector Foy. ‘You leave my girlfriend alone! I know what our rights are!’ The inspector looked hard at me. I felt myself grow hot.

  ‘Where’re you taking those two?’ he asked one of the handcuffed policemen.

  ‘Down the nick. They’ve made a nasty mess of the nice cell we put ’em in. They’re asking for a bit of rough treatment. I think we can arrange that.’

  ‘Don’t let the bastards intimidate you, Harriet.’ Dodge’s voice was almost tender. ‘Refuse to say anything. They’ll have to let us out on bail. See you in court.’ He waved his free fist. ‘Fight for freedom!’

  ‘Are you all right?’ I looked from Dodge to Yell. She raised two fingers, discreetly so Dodge could not see. ‘They won’t be hurt, will they?’ I asked the inspector as they were led away, chanting slogans. ‘It isn’t a crime to try and make things better for other people, is it?’

  ‘If you’ll take my advice you won’t go to Owlstone Road tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh. No.’ I was too taken aback by the compass of the inspector’s knowledge to dream of rebelling against his authority. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Good girl. Sergeant Tweeter will take you home. Good night, Miss Petrelli.’

  Maria-Alba’s reply was inaudible.

  ‘Drat it!’ said Sergeant Tweeter, pushing ahead of us through the vestibule. ‘Them para-patsies are on to us. Inspector Foy had the idea of sending ’em to Hammersmith. He set up a decoy car but o’ course it was only going to fool ’em for a bit.’

  I crossed the threshold and was dazzled by the bursting of flashbulbs. ‘Just look this way, miss. How’s your father, Miss Byng? Has Waldo Byng been charged yet? Over here! Which daughter are you?’ There was extraordinary menace in these demands and questions. Now I understood why primitive peoples believed that cameras stole their souls. The explosions of light in my face greedily sucked up all my reserves of strength. Maria-Alba was sick without warning on the top step and, taking advantage of the gap that opened up as the reporters backed away from the pool of vomit, I put my arm round her and followed Sergeant Tweeter, who was breasting his way through the photographers. He pushed Maria-Alba into the car. Hands pulled at my arms, even held on to the collar of my coat. I felt the helpless paralysis of nightmare. The next moment I was inside the car and Sergeant Tweeter had slammed the door painfully against my hip.

  Maria-Alba was sick again, this time into the foot well, and Sergeant Tweeter swore loudly but it may have been in reaction to the faces pressed against the windows, the popping of bulbs and the banging of fists on glass as we moved slowly forward. Maria-Alba held her handkerchief to her face and drew sobbing breaths, hyperventilating. With a proficiency born of experience I emptied the contents of my bag on to my knees and pressed it over her face to restrict her intake of oxygen and increase the level of carbon dioxide in her blood. We left the crowd behind and sped away through the dwindling evening traffic. I rubbed Maria-Alba’s shaking hands and tried to give her words of comfort. It seemed a long way to Blackheath.

  A succession of thoughts, half formed, slippery, disappearing the moment I defined them, raced through my brain. My father was alone in that dreary place, acting like mad to an almost empty auditorium. I felt that I had abandoned him. From childhood, from that first moment when I was able to isolate one distinct feeling from the flood of sensations that constitute infant consciousness, I had known intuitively that my parents needed protection from a hard, ungenerous world. That intense love that children have for their parents was never, afterwards, untouched by fear.

  As I grew in experience the sense of danger increased to include their own excesses. They enjoyed living dangerously, being either aux anges or in the depths of despair, and they rarely troubled to conceal their state from us. They saw emotional extravagance as living life to the full and perhaps they were right. But I was a changeling. Circumspection, one m
ight fairly call it cowardice, was part of my character. I seemed to have everyone else’s share of prudence and I was often afraid on their behalf. I was fairly sure the performance I had just seen was the product of euphoria generated by shock. My father’s confidence must have received a fearful knock. What if his courage should desert him in the long hours of the night?

  We crossed Tower Bridge without my noticing it. Was Inspector Foy convinced of Pa’s guilt? Would he sift the evidence carefully or did he hope for a quick conviction? How many innocent men were serving sentences in prison for crimes they had not committed? Was my father innocent? The idea that he might not be was so frightening that I had to clench my jaw to stop myself from screaming. After an unhappy fifteen minutes we were in Blackheath and Sergeant Tweeter was saying, ‘Is there a back way in, miss? Them buggers – pardon the language, miss – the ladies and gentlemen of the press are here an’ all.’

  At least a dozen people stood in the shadows around our gate. I could just make out Bron in their midst. He was turning his head from side to side, posing and smiling. I directed the sergeant into the mews. No sooner had I hauled a gasping Maria-Alba from the car than I heard running feet and what sounded like baying for blood.

  ‘You get in, miss. I’ll hold them off. Now then, you lot!’ Sergeant Tweeter shouted as he got out of the car. We scuttled through the gate, sprinted through the convolutions of Loveday’s maze and dashed into the house. I locked and bolted the back door.

  ‘Madre di Dio!’ wheezed Maria-Alba. ‘Sono le pene dell’ inferno!’

  She did not exaggerate.

  FIVE

  ‘I can’t go on saying I’m sorry.’ Bron stood before the drawing-room fire, smoking a Passing Cloud through a long cigarette holder. It was later that same evening. He sounded aggrieved. ‘How was I to know you were in Garbo mode? They seemed like rather good types to me. They’d been hanging around our gate for hours. It was common courtesy to ask them in.’