Like A Charm

All of this Kiley watched from a close distance, grateful for Costain's money without ever being sure why the agent had thought him necessary. Then, just shy of noon on the Thursday morning, he knew.

Adams paged him and had him come up to her room.

Pacing the floor in a hotel robe, sans paint and powder, she looked all of her age and then some. The photographs were spread out across the unmade bed. Dianne Adams on stage at Ronnie Scott's, opening night; walking through a mostly deserted Soho after the show, Kiley at her side; Adams passing through the hotel lobby, walking along the corridor from the lift, unlocking the door to her room. And then several slightly blurred and taken, Kiley guessed, from across the street with a telephoto lens: Adams undressing; sitting on her bed in her underwear talking on the telephone; crossing from the shower, nude save a towel wrapped round her head.

'When did you get these?' Kiley asked.

'Sometime this morning. An hour ago, maybe. Less. Someone pushed them under the door.'

'No note? No message?'

Adams shook her head.

Kiley looked again at the pictures on the bed. 'This is not just an obsessive fan.'

Adams lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into her lungs. 'No.'

He looked at her then. 'You know who these are from.'

Adams sighed and for a moment closed her eyes. 'When I was last in London, eighty-nine, I had this… this thing.' She shrugged. 'You're on tour, some strange city. It happens.' From the already decimated mini-bar she took the last miniature of vodka and tipped it into a glass. 'Whatever helps you through the night.'

'He didn't see it that way.'

'He?'

'Whoever this was. The affair. The fling. It meant more to him.'

'To her.'

Kiley caught his breath. 'I see.'

Adams sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. 'Victoria Pride? I guess you know who she is?'

Kiley nodded. 'I didn't know she was gay.'

'She's not.' Tilting back her head, Adams blew smoke towards the ceiling. 'But then, neither am I. No more than most women, given the right situation.'

'And that's what this was?'

'So it seemed.'

Kiley's mind was working overtime. Victoria Pride had made her name starring in a television soap in the eighties, brittle and sexy and no better than she should be. After that she did a West End play, posed nearly nude for a national daily and had a few well-publicized skirmishes with the law, public order offences, nothing serious. Her wedding to Keith Payne made the front page of both OK! and Hello! and their subsequent history of breaking up to make up was choreographed lovingly by the tabloid press. If Kiley remembered correctly, Victoria was set to play Maggie in a provincial tour of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

But he didn't think Victoria was the problem.

'Payne knew about this?' Kiley said.

Adams released smoke towards the ceiling. 'Let's say he found out.'

One image of Keith Payne stuck in Kiley's memory. A newspaper photograph. A tall man, six-four or -five, Payne was being escorted across the tarmac from a plane, handcuffed to one of the two police officers walking alongside. Tanned, hair cut short, he was wearing a dark polo shirt outside dark chinos, what was obviously a Rolex on his wrist. Relaxed, confident, a smile on his handsome face.

Kiley couldn't recall the exact details, save that Payne had been extradited from Portugal to face charges arising from a bullion robbery at Heathrow. The resulting court case had all but collapsed amidst crumbling evidence and accusations of police entrapment, and Payne had finally been sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to commit robbery. He would have been released, Kiley guessed, after serving no more than five. Whereas his former colleague, who had appeared as a witness for the prosecution and was handed down a lenient eighteen months, was the unfortunate victim of a hit and run incident less than two weeks after being released from prison. The vehicle was found abandoned half a mile away and the driver never traced.

Payne, Kiley guessed, didn't take kindly to being crossed.

'When he found out,' Kiley said, 'about you and Victoria, what did he do?'

'Bought her flowers, a new dress, took her to the Caprice, knocked out two of her teeth. He came to the hotel where I was staying and trashed the room, smashed the mirror opposite the bed and held a piece of glass to my face. Told me that if he ever as much as saw me near Victoria again he'd carve me up.'

'You believed him.'

'I took the first flight out next morning.'

'And you've not been back since.'

'Till now.'

'Costain knew this?'

'I suppose.'

Yes, Kiley thought, I bet he did.

Adams drained her glass and swivelled towards the telephone. 'I'm calling room service for a drink.'

'Go ahead.'

'You want anything?'

Kiley shook his head. 'So have you seen her?' he asked when she was through.

'No. But she sent me this.' The card had a black and white photograph, artfully posed, of lilies in a slim white vase; the message inside read Knock 'em dead and was signed Victoria with a large red kiss. 'That and a bottle of champagne on opening night.'

'And that's all?'

'That's all.'

Kiley thought it might be enough.

Adams ran her fingers across the photographs beside her on the bed. 'It's him, isn't it?'

'I imagine so.'

'Why? Why these?'

Some men, Kiley knew, got off on the idea of their wives or girlfriends having affairs with other women, positively encouraged it, but it didn't seem Payne was one of those.

'He's letting you know he knows where you are, knows your every move. If you see Victoria, he'll know.'

Adams ' eyes flicked towards the mirror on the hotel wall. 'And if I do, he'll carry out his threat.'

'He'll try.'

'You could stop him.'

Kiley wasn't sure. 'Are you going to see her?' he asked.

Adams shook her head. 'What if she tries to see me?'

Kiley smiled; close to a smile, at least. 'We'll try and head her off at the pass.'

That night, after the show, she asked Becker back to her hotel for a drink and, as he sat with his single Scotch and water, invited him to share her bed.

'She's using you,' Kiley said next morning, Becker bleary-eyed over his coffee in Old Compton Street.

Becker found the energy to wink. 'And how,' he said.

Kiley told him about Payne and all Becker did was shrug.

'He's dangerous, Derek.'

'He's just a two-bit gangster, right?'

'You mean like Coltrane was a two-bit sax player?'

'Jack,' Becker said, grasping Kiley by the arm, 'you worry too much, you know that?'

The following afternoon Adams and the band were rehearsing at Ronnie's, Dianne wanting to work up some new numbers for the weekend. Kiley thought it was unlikely Payne would show his hand in such a public place, but rang Costain and asked him to be around in case.

'I thought that was what I was paying you for,' Costain said.

'If he breaks your arm,' Kiley said, 'take it out of my salary.'

Kiley had been checking out The Stage. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was already on the road, this week Leicester, next week Richmond. Close enough to make a trip into the centre of London for its star a distinct possibility. He sat in the Haymarket bar and waited for the matinee performance to finish. Thirty minutes after the curtain came down, Victoria Pride was sitting in her robe in her dressing room, most of the make-up removed from her face, a cigarette between her lips. Close up, she didn't look young anymore, but she still looked good.

'You're from the Mail,' she said, crossing her legs.

Kiley leaned back against the door as it closed behind him. 'I lied.'

She studied him then, taking him in. 'Should I call the management? Have you thrown out?' Her voice was still smeared with the southern accent she'd used in the play.