Stiff Lips

I started to mutter an apology, but he cut me off. 'To think that a film of mine had that effect. I'm so proud. This movie made me puke. Can we quote you on the packaging?'

'Sure,' I said, not caring what he did so long as I could get out of there.

'Would you care to lie down?'

If I'd been more on the ball I might have leapt at this invitation as the chance I'd been waiting for. Instead, I mumbled something about having to go back upstairs. 'I haven't watched this sort of film for a long time, you see. There was too much blood. And that strobe effect gives me a headache.'

'Just as well I didn't show you the next one,' said Walter. 'Not much blood, but an awful lot of strobe.'

I tried to look interested. 'Another pig movie?'

'No pigs. But you really should take a look at it sometime. I filmed most of it here, in this house. Marsha's in it, too.'

'She is? When was this?'

Walter did some rapid mental calculations. 'Twelve, thirteen years ago. But it's set in the Sixties.'

I felt there was some connection here that I should have been making, but I was still being distracted by a certain amount of seismic activity in the region of my stomach. I was torn between retiring to bed with a bucket, and risking social disaster by lingering to find out more.

I opted for a compromise. 'Perhaps I could come down and watch it another time,' I said, gravitating towards the door.

Walter unlocked it for me. 'Sure,' he said. 'Don't wait too long, though. I'm gonna have to leave soon.'

'Just so long as it's not another axe murder.'

'Not at all,' said Walter. 'This one's a semi-documentary, really. About a degenerate hippy rock group.'

And he told me what the film was called, though the title didn't make an impression on me until much later, when my stomach had settled down, and I'd started to mull over what he'd said.

Then I remembered he'd called it Down There.

Chapter 10

I hadn't seen Dirk and Lemmy since our meeting in the Boar's Head, and I wasn't sure I wanted to, so embarrassed did I feel about my failure to introduce them to Charlotte and Grenville. I saw Charlotte and Grenville, though, and neither of them referred to the encounter. Nor would they ever refer to it again. It was as though it had never taken place.

We were drinking champagne cocktails in the Crow Bar. Walter was a great hit, which cheered me up no end; I was the one who had brought him along, which meant I scored extra points. Being American, he got on with everyone so famously that I seriously considered adopting a foreign accent myself. Class barriers dissolved before his elan. Grenville offered to represent him, even though Walter hadn't written a novel and, as far as I was aware, had no intention of ever writing one. Toby slapped him on the back and bought him drinks and tried to explain the rules of cricket. Isabella was charmed by his anecdotes about hitching through Europe, while Charlotte and Carolyn vied with each other to flatter and tease. He would have enchanted Sophie too, had I not ensured there was always at least one other person — usually me — between them. Once or twice, though, I did catch Walter glancing in her direction.

'That's Sophie, is it?' he asked me at one point.

'Uh-huh,' I said.

'She needs to put on weight,' said Walter.

I could have hugged him.

Fortunately, Sophie seemed preoccupied. She looked drained, and I wasn't surprised. The noises from downstairs were becoming louder and more abandoned with every night that passed. Either my friend was the world's most enthusiastic masturbator, or her phantom lover had spent most of his time in the afterlife picking up tips from Don Juan and Casanova.

Midway through the evening, Walter further endeared himself to me by leaning over to whisper conspiratorially, 'Just who are all these people, and what do they think they're doing?'

'They think they're having fun,' I replied.

'Did they all go to Oxford or Cambridge?'

'Not Sophie,' I said. 'She went to art college, like me. She only hangs out with these people because of her boyfriend.'

'Which one is he?'

'He's not here. Sophie and he broke up.'

Walter's eyes glinted. 'Really?'

It was time to change the subject, and quickly. 'Where do you get the ideas for your films?'

Walter so loved talking about his work that he instantly forgot about Sophie. 'From life, of course. All my stories are based on life.'

'Even the gory ones?'

'Especially the gory ones,' said Walter. 'And you know, they're all set around Notting Hill.'

'Not that last one you showed me,' I said. 'That was… Streatham?'

'Balham. I based The Pork Butcher on a real-life murder case from the Fifties — the Butcher of Balham, they called him. I exaggerated, of course, by having him carve up a lot more people. In real life, he killed only one person, though he did cut her up into lots of tiny little pieces.'

'Did they hang him?'

'Didn't have to. He knotted strips of his shirt together, and hanged himself in his cell before the law could exact the full penalty.'

Grenville chose this moment to barge drunkenly in. 'Penalty? You like English football?'

'We're talking about capital punishment,' said Walter.

'We had that at school,' said Grenville.

'Walter was telling me about the Butcher of Balham,' I said. 'What was his name again?'

'Arthur Mowbray.'

I frowned into my wine, wondering why the name sounded so familiar. Probably from Walter's film, I decided.

'The funny thing is,' said Walter, 'the reason I got interested in the first place was that he used to live in Hampshire Place.'

'You're kidding.'

'Although it wasn't called Hampshire Place in those days. It was…'

'Farrow Lane,' I said.

'That's amazing,' Grenville said, looking from one of us to the other. 'How do you guys know all this stuff?'

'I've lived here a long time, on and off,' said Walter. 'You get to meet people.'

I asked if he'd ever met anyone who remembered Arthur Mowbray.

'I met people who said they remembered him,' said Walter, 'and I read eyewitness reports, though you have to take most of them with a pinch of salt. Mowbray lodged in Hampshire Place for a couple of months, at most, but to judge by the number of people who swore they'd been out drinking with him, you would have thought he'd been out partying every night for years.'

There was still something I needed to ask.

'Which house did he live in?'

Walter chuckled. 'You mean you didn't realize? Why do you think I chose to live at number nine in the first place?'

Sophie left the Crow Bar early, complaining of a headache, though I was pretty sure this was just an excuse for her to go home and cavort with someone whose status put a whole new slant on the term 'ex'. Walter watched her go with what could only be described as regret, but I didn't mind; she would be out of the picture for the rest of the evening.

It wasn't long before the others were out of the picture too. Isabella led them off to some fashionable new tapas bar. Walter and I were included in the invitation, but he made his excuses and stayed where he was, and I stayed with him. It never occurred to me that he might simply want to pump me for information. By now I was getting tipsy while he had switched to mineral water, so my responses weren't as guarded as they might have been.

'Tell me about Sophie Macallan,' he said.

'What is there to tell?'

'That girl has secrets,' Walter said.

I looked him straight in the eye, thought why not, and said, 'Sophie's got this thing about Robert Jamieson.'