"Don't be stupid!"
"Sorry."
There was a very long, strained silence. Massinger suspended all thought, almost ceased to breathe. Cross the border, he told himself again and again.
"Very well," he said eventually. "It's the only way. I agree."
As Shelley sighed with relief, Massinger encountered an image of Aubrey's old and shrunken form in silhouette at the end of a long, poorly-lit corridor, abandoned and alone. Massinger clenched his fists and turned his thoughts forcibly to his wife.
It is ludicrous, Aubrey told himself, that I should be providing my interrogator, just as he is at his most dangerous, with a roast pheasant Sunday lunch accompanied by a bottle of good claret. He watched Eldon squash a portion of peas onto his fork and raise them to his lips before he refilled the man's glass from the silver-necked ship's decanter. Aubrey watched his own hand intently as the wine mounted in Eldon's glass. It was steady. He had absorbed the shock of the Insight article long before Eldon had telephoned and been invited to lunch. Mrs Grey considered their dining together an act of madness or heresy, but had prepared one of her best lunches, with apple tart to follow. Aubrey had needed the normality of the occasion, false though it was, to assist the drama of casual indifference and easy denial that he knew he would have to perform for Eldon.
Within himself, controlled but evident, the turmoil of an approaching crisis brewed like a tropical storm. The subject of Clara Elsenreith had arisen, and Aubrey knew they would be looking for her. He also knew that he had to get to her first, at whatever risk.
"She seems to have quite disappeared," Eldon was saying. "Ah, thank you, Sir Kenneth. As I said, an excellent claret."
"I'm sure you regard it as a great pity that I have not continued the liaison until the present day," Aubrey remarked. He sliced neatly at the thigh of the pheasant, placing the meat delicately between his lips. He was well into the role, and was confident he could play it to the end of the interview; despite his increasing weariness, his growing desperation, and the new and sudden fear that he had to make a move. The journal that Clara had kept for him for thirty-five years must be destroyed. Now, it could well constitute the last link in the chain they would use to bind him. They felt they had a motive now menage a trois, he thought with disgust — and his confession to Castleford's murder was in the hands of the woman in the case. Find her and they would find his confession.
Eldon's eyes studied Aubrey. He smiled thinly. "At least, Sir Kenneth, you admit the liaison itself."
"Of course. Murdoch was not the only one to know of it."
"And this woman was Castleford's mistress, too?"
Aubrey's face narrowed as he pursed his lips. "She was not."
"But—" Eldon's fork indicated the room, which somewhere contained the newspaper article and Murdoch's assertions.
"Murdoch assumed the fact."
"As did others?"
"Naturally."
Eldon's brow creased. "I wonder why that should be," he mused.
"Because Castleford's reputation in such matters was well-known. Because he — actively pursued Clara Elsenreith."
"You had, then, no cause for sexual jealousy? You were, in fact, the victor, the possessor of the lady's favours and affection?" Eldon's tone was light, sarcastic, stinging. The slighting of the affair, of the woman in the case, was quite deliberate.
"I was," Aubrey replied levelly.
"We shall have to ask the lady for corroboration."
"When you find her," Aubrey remarked incautiously.
"Is there any reason you should hope we do not?" Eldon asked sharply, laying down his knife and fork.
Aubrey shook his head, sipped his claret. "None whatsoever."
"You have no idea where she can be found?"
"As I indicated — the lady belongs very much to an earlier part of my life. An episode I thought long closed," Aubrey added with unpretended bitterness. "I have no idea where you might find her." An elegant apartment opposite the Stephansdom, above a smart shoe shop, his memory confessed, almost as if he had spoken the words aloud. He sipped at the claret again. He could clearly envisage, without concentrating, the rooms of the apartment, much of the furniture and many of the ornaments, the decoration of the drawing-room and the guest bedroom where he had occasionally slept. Clara owned the lease of the shop below the apartment. It sold shoes produced by the small companies in which she had an interest in France and Italy.
Thank God, he told himself, that she never called her fashion house by her own name, married or maiden. Thank God for that, at least.
Castleford had pursued her, yes. Castleford had become insanely jealous when he found her drawn towards another man.
He felt himself cheated by Aubrey, insulted by the poorer physical specimen's success, by the junior man's triumph. He had pleaded with Clara, attempted to coerce and blackmail, to bribe — to possess. Castleford needed to possess women, to use and enjoy them, then put them to one side like empty bottles when he had done with them. Clara had loathed him, though Aubrey was certain that, for her own advantage, she would have become Castleford's mistress had he not appeared on the scene. Clara would have had to look after herself. From Castleford she could have obtained papers, food, money, clothes, protection, safety. Instead, Aubrey had supplied those things.
Yes, Castleford had been jealous. At first Aubrey had been jealous of Castleford, suspecting a success the man had not at that time enjoyed. But sexuality was not the motive for Castleford's murder.
No, not sex, nor money, nor power…
"You seem thoughtful, Sir Kenneth?"
Damn—
"Not at all. More claret?" Eldon demurred, covering his glass with his palm. "Then I'll ring for Mrs Grey. We'll have the dessert."
I must save myself. Only I can save myself, Aubrey's mind recited to the tinkling of the silver bell in his hand. I have to get to Vienna. I have to destroy that stupid, stupid journal, before…
He looked calmly into Eldon's face.
Before he sees it!
"Come on, Mike — you can tell me how you got onto this chap Murdoch — surely?" Shelley's voice was strained with bluff jollity.
"Look, Pete— I told you. The man came to us. You know it happens all the time."
"And you believed him?" Shelley, sitting on his sofa, the receiver pressed to his cheek, watched his daughter patiently rolling a growing snowball around the garden. Alison, as if she felt the child required close personal protection, was standing in her fur coat, arms folded tightly across her breasts, intently watching their daughter.
"You don't think we didn't check, old boy?" the jocular, superior, knowing voice came down the line. It was as if the voice mocked not simply Shelley's naïvety but also the innocence of the scene through the bay window. The new patio doors seemed suddenly very insecure; too much glass. "No—"
"Well, we talked long and hard to him. We even cleared it with your people. Not that we had any need to, but we did. They gave us a couple of other names. Common knowledge, old boy. Aubrey and Castleford at it like hammer-and-tongs for months, both trying to crack this Nazi widow. We couldn't trace her, more's the pity. I can't imagine your guv'nor having that much of a yen for a bit of the other, can you?" Mike laughed.
"No," Shelley replied ruefully. He trusted Mike. He was a journalist SIS had used before, fed or pumped as the need arose. He could be trusted. And he would probably pass on the fact of Shelley's enquiry. And his acceptance of the answers he was given. With luck, Shelley was beginning his professional rehabilitation. I just made a few enquiries for Massinger's sake, he thought with disgust. "You believe it, then?" he added. "I do. Don't you?"