Play to the End (4 page)

Nor was I, come to that, which called into question Jenny's contention that I was the key to his interest in her. It also raised the issue of how I should best approach him, an issue I hadn't really thought about beforehand. He didn't have the video of Dead Against with him and had displayed no interest whatsoever in my arrival on the premises. He hadn't so much as twitched a toggle in my direction.

My impression, based on a three-quarters profile view, was that Jenny had him about right. A middle-aged mummy's boy, whether his mummy was still around or not. There was an obviously home-knitted sweater visible beneath his coat. His hair was a pudding-basin mop of brown and grey. The glasses perched halfway down his nose were about fifteen years out of fashion. When he drank from his cup, he used both hands to raise it cautiously to his lips. He wouldn't have been out of place standing at the end of the platform, notebook in paw, as my train drew into Brighton station yesterday afternoon.

But stereotyping, as every actor knows, is a treacherous business, as miserable to experience as it can be misleading to apply. I needed to handle this sensitively. I followed up the espresso with a latte and cobbled together the least worst cover story I could contrive. Then I moseyed over to join him.

"Excuse me," I said, 'are you local?"

"Yes," he replied, turning his head slowly to look at me. "I am." He spoke as slowly as he moved, with a slight lisp. Recognition failed to flicker in his eyes.

"I'm a stranger to Brighton. I wonder if you could help me with some directions."

"Maybe I could."

The badges, I now realized, were actually painted enamel brooches, depicting characters from Herge's Tintin books: Captain Haddock, Snowy, Professor Calculus, the Thomson twins and, naturally, the legendary quiffed one himself. "I'm looking for the public library," I pressed on. (Pretty lame, I know, but there it is.)

"It can be ... difficult to find." He smiled wanly. "They moved it, you see."

"Did they?"

"It's in New England Street."

"Right. And that is .. ." My gaze drifted down to the book he'd been reading, which ironically had the yellowed margins and cellophaned cover of a library book. Then I noticed the title at the top of the page. The Orton Diaries. I said nothing, though my eyes must have widened in surprise.

And at that moment of all the hellishly inconvenient ones my mobile rang. "Someone's after you," said chummy, as I wrestled it out of my pocket.

"Sorry," I blurted out. "Excuse me." I had the blasted thing in my hand now. I turned and moved back to the table where I'd been sitting to answer. "Yes?" I snapped.

"Toby, it's Brian. Not too early for you, I hope."

If Brian Sallis, our indefatigable company stage manager, had woken me from a well-deserved lie-in, I'd have felt less irritated than I did.

What in God's name could he want? The question was swiftly, though to my mind far from adequately, answered.

"I just wanted to check you had a smooth journey yesterday."

"I made it, yes."

"Good."

"Look, Brian '

"You haven't forgotten our press call this afternoon, have you?" So that was really why he'd phoned: to ensure I wasn't likely to cop out of our meet-the-media session. "Two thirty, at the theatre."

"I'll be there."

"With the technical to follow at four."

Every Monday afternoon of the tour had been the same: press call at 2.30; technical rehearsal, to get the feel of a new stage, at 4.00.

Brian could hardly have thought I'd forgotten the schedule. My state of mind was probably his more immediate concern and it was actually none too good, though for reasons he could have no inkling of. "I'll be there," I repeated. "OK?"

"Splendid. I just '

"I've got to go now."

"You are all right, aren't you, Toby?"

"Fine. See you later. "Bye."

I ended the call before Brian had a chance to say his own goodbye and turned round to re-engage chummy.

But he wasn't there. His stool was empty, his coffee-cup drained and abandoned. Chummy, complete with Orton Diaries and Tintin badges, had vanished.

Cursing Brian Sallis, I grabbed my coat and rushed out. There was no sign of chummy, but in the narrow, dog-legging Lanes that was no surprise. Choice of direction boiled down to a fifty-fifty guess.

I looked in through the window of Brimmers as much in hope as apprehension. Jenny had either seen nothing, in which case she couldn't help me, or she'd spectated at a pretty comprehensive balls-up, in which case .. .

Elegantly trouser-suited and severely unsmiling, brow furrowed in the only gesture of exasperation she could allow herself with customers present, she stared out at me along a narrow line of sight through the windowful of hats. I grimaced. And she inclined her head to the right.

I turned left, hurried round the next corner and headed on, scanning the shops and side turnings as I went. No glimpse of duffel rewarded my efforts and within a few minutes I was out in North Street, amidst traffic and noise and bustling passers-by.

Then, incredibly, I saw him, pacing up and down at a crowded bus stop on the other side of the road. He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose with a stab of his middle finger and squinted expectantly in the direction from which a bus would come. A gathering of bags and folding of buggies amongst his companions at the stop signalled its imminent arrival even as I watched. I glanced to my left and saw a double-decker bearing down on them.

The bus had stopped and was loading by the time I managed to dodge across the road. I saw chummy stepping aboard and, peering through the window, spotted his desert boots as he took the stairs to the top deck.

"Where's this bus going?" I asked the harassed mother ahead of me and relayed her answer to the driver when I made it to the front of the queue. "Patcham, please." But there turned out to be a flat fare of a pound. My destination was entirely up to me.

Actually, of course, it was up to chummy. I sat about halfway back downstairs and awaited his descent. The bus lumbered round by the Royal Pavilion, took on more passengers and headed north.

Ten minutes slow going took us up London Road to within sight of the Duke of York's Cinema. Several people got up as we approached a stop.

Then the desert boots appeared round the corner of the stairs. Chummy was on the move. I rose discreetly behind a broad-backed youth and was last but one off the bus.

Chummy was walking north by then, towards the traffic lights at the junction ahead. I followed at what I judged to be a safe distance, lingering in a shop doorway as he reached the lights and waited for them to change, then hurrying after him as he crossed.

He was heading east now, along Viaduct Road, where heavy traffic roared past dingy Victorian terraces. He plodded along, head bowed, displaying not the slightest interest in his surroundings, nor any inclination to glance over his shoulder. It seemed to me that if he'd left the Rendezvous so abruptly because I'd aroused his suspicion, he should have been warier. I concluded that he'd more probably left because he was ready to; as simple as that I was irrelevant.

I saw him dig a bunch of keys out of his pocket a few seconds before he stopped by the door of a house dingier even than most of its neighbours and let himself in. I heard the door clunk shut as I approached. I carried on walking, noting the number as I passed: 77. Then I stopped and doubled back at a slower pace for a second, more lingering look.

Number 77 was a standard two-up, two-down Victorian working-class dwelling, rendered in a shade of blue darkened by grime and neglect.

Paint was peeling from the sash window frames. The front door was not original, being plain and un panelled but it wasn't in much better condition than the rest of the house.

I'd slowed nearly to a halt, my brain struggling with the problem of what to do next. I'd discovered where he lived. It was something. But it was a long way short of enough. Perhaps I should try the knocker, though if he answered I'd only have another problem to grapple with: how to explain myself.

Then the door suddenly opened. And chummy stared out at me. "Do you want to come in, Mr. Flood?" he asked.

"Well, I.. ."

"You may as well, seeing as you've come this far."

There was logic in that. There was also a hint of menace. But that could merely have been a symptom of guilt on my part. I felt more than a little foolish. "You know who I am?"

"Yes."

"You have me at a disadvantage, in that case."

"My name's Derek Oswin." He pushed his glasses up on his nose again.

"Are you coming in?"

"All right. Thanks."

I stepped past him into a cramped hallway. Steep, narrow stairs straight ahead led to the upper floor. To my right was a sitting room, with a kitchen at the end of the hall. The sitting room looked to be anciently furnished, but tidy. The condition of the exterior had prepared me for a scene of squalor, but what met my eyes was the complete reverse.

The front door closed behind me. "Can I take your coat?" Oswin asked.

"Er .. . Thanks." I took it off and he hung it next to his duffel-coat on one of three wall-mounted hooks. The hall wallpaper was some kind of anaglypta, in a pattern I seemed vaguely to recognize. It's the sort of thing one of my great aunts would have chosen and very possibly did.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Oswin enquired.

"OK. Thanks."

"I'll turn the kettle on. Go through." He flapped a hand towards the open door behind me. I turned and stepped into the sitting room while he padded off to the kitchen.

The room was small and spotlessly clean, dominated by a sage-green three-piece suite. There was a television and video player in one corner and a bookcase in another, either side of a tiny tile-flanked fireplace. The walls were papered in the same pattern of anaglypta as the hall. Derek Oswin's parents or maybe his grandparents had obviously decided to keep it simple.

"I'm afraid I've run out of biscuits," my host announced, reappearing in the doorway.

"Don't worry about it."

"I expect you're wondering ... how I know who you are."

"And why you pretended not to back at the Rendezvous."

"Yes." He grinned nervously. "Quite." Then the kettle began to whistle. "Excuse me."

He vanished again and I took another look around the room, spotting the video of Dead Against lying on top of the bookcase. It turned out to be just the plastic cover, however. The video itself had been removed.

The picture on the front of the cover showed Nina Bronsky in her black leather hit-woman's gear. I'd only been given a head-and-shoulders shot on the back.

"Here we are," said Oswin, reappearing once more, this time with a teapot, two mugs and a bottle of milk on a tray. He set the tray down on the small coffee-table next to the sofa. "I hope you don't want sugar. I... never touch it."

"Just milk is fine." I held up the video. "One of my questions is answered."

"Not really."

"No?"

"I didn't need that to recognize you, Mr. Flood. I remember you as Hereward the Wake."

This was a genuine surprise. My TV debut a quarter of a century ago in a studio-bound series about the legendary leader of resistance to the Norman Conquest is a vague memory even for me.

"I've always been a fan of yours." Oswin broke off to pour the tea.

"Won't you sit down?" He lowered himself into an armchair. I took one end of the sofa and added some milk to my mug. It was a Charles and Di wedding souvenir mug, I noticed, as was Oswin's. "I bought a dozen,"

he explained, seeming to sense that he needed to. "As an investment."

"You shouldn't use them, in that case."

"Don't worry. It was a very poor investment."

I sipped some tea. "What's this all about, Mr. Oswin?"

"Call me Derek. Please."

"OK. Derek. Why are you bothering my wife?" It seemed pointless now to pretend Jenny hadn't put me onto him. It seemed indeed that "Derek'

had foreseen everything that had happened.

"Are you two still married, then? I thought, with her living in Mr.

Colborn's house .. ."

"Our divorce hasn't been finalized yet," I said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I see." Derek eyed me over the rim of his mug. "That's interesting." He pronounced 'interesting' as four distinct syllables.

He was, I realized, a strange mixture of maladroitness and precision, insecurity and perceptiveness.

"Interesting in what sense, Derek?"

"I'm sorry about the ... charade .. . earlier. I suppose I ... enjoyed stringing you along. Besides, I thought we could .. . speak more freely here."

"So, speak."

"I didn't mean to worry' he smiled "Mrs. Flood."

"She seems to feel you've gone out of your way to worry her."

"I can see how she might think that. But it isn't true. I just couldn't come up with any other way of engineering a meeting with you."

"You've been harassing her in the hope that I'd come and ask you to lay off?"

"Yes." He grimaced sheepishly. "I suppose I have. Sorry."

I should have felt angrier than I did. But Oswin's meek air of vulnerability somehow drained all hostility out of me. Besides, I was perversely grateful to him for another meeting he'd engineered, albeit indirectly. "That wasn't a very clever thing to do, Derek."

"Not very nice, I admit. I really am sorry if I've worried Mrs. Flood.

But clever? Well, I think it was that, as a matter of fact. Because it worked, didn't it? As soon as the Theatre Royal announced you were coming, I knew I'd have to try and meet you. But how could I be sure you'd agree to meet me? That was the problem."

"Your solution seems to have been pretty hit and miss to me."