“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, not unamiably.
He gazed at her through the frame of his fingers. “You know, you have quite a bit of”—he turned and did something infinitely precise to the shutter control—“Ingrid about you. Strictly professional”—the finger frame again—“but once off the set, very companionable, very civilised.”
“Ingrid?”
In sudden dismay, Mr Rothermere struck his brow. “God, your Madeira! My manners are really quite appalling.” From the bureau he produced a squat, very dark bottle and two plain tumblers. “And they would seem to be matched by the establishment’s drinking ware. I’m sorry.”
He more than half-filled each glass. She accepted hers and sipped. This was a much sweeter and, she thought, more flavoursome wine than the one in the restaurant.
“Nice,” she said.
He looked pleased to hear it.
“My husband has nothing but whisky at home. He doesn’t like it much, but he knows I can’t stand it, so he lashes it down quite bravely. It seems to help him raise his unpleasantness level.”
Mr Rothermere regarded her thoughtfully for a while. “You could have done better for yourself, I suppose.”
“By Christ! The understatement of this and every other year!” She emptied her glass at one swig. Her skirt had ridden up again. Disregarding it, she hunched forward, cheek on knee, and stared blankly at the window.
“Not that I am confident,” said Mr Rothermere, “that the lover we have selected for you would have been a notable improvement.”
She raised her head. “I’m not with you, darling.”
“Of course not. But I am about to explain.” He affected not to have noticed her empty glass. “We agreed—and it is perfectly obvious—that your husband must be credited with a powerful and, if possible, demonstrable reason for ending your sweet life. Correct? So. So a lover has to be provided. Policemen, remember, are middle-class moralists to a man; in their book, cuckoldry and burglary are equally heinous. But whom do we appoint? It must be someone who will cooperate, someone sexually vigorous and preferably free of responsibilities, someone, if possible, who cannot be too closely investigated. You can imagine our difficulty.”
Julia, who had been attending with mournful intensity, slowly shook her head.
“But then,” announced Mr Rothermere, “quite suddenly and out of the blue—the perfect candidate.” With the air of a conjuror, he picked up the cutting Julia had seen him take from the drawer. He handed it to her.
A little Wearily, Julia read. She looked up. “I don’t get it.”
“Your secret paramour. Mr Robert Digby Tring!”
Mr Rothermere was looking his most benign. She heard a curious sound. The man from Happy Endings Inc. was emitting a nasal hum of satisfaction; at that moment he looked like a big bearded bee.
“But he’s dead, according to this.”
The bee stopped humming. “Exactly. Wasn’t it your uncontrollable grief at his demise that gave the game away and brought on your head a husband’s jealous fury?”
Gradually the bewilderment left Julia’s face. She looked first thoughtful, then mildly amused. Delight dawned. “Hey, this is bloody marvellous!”
“I thought it might appeal to you.” Mr Rothermere had opened a closet door and was pulling out a big suitcase.
“Poor David will never survive the social slur. His missus having it off with a Hell’s Angel. And one of the Trings, at that.” Julia stretched precariously and possessed herself of the Madeira. “Know the Terrible Trings, do you? Ooo, Mortimer...” She attempted to whistle, gave up, and concentrated on getting the cork out of the bottle. “Actually...” She paused, then repeated with great deliberation “Ac-tu-ally...”
“Yes?”
“Actu-ally I wouldn’t have minded. David’s a great lad for showing off his hose but he couldn’t put a real fire out to save his life.”
Mr Rothermere looked sympathetic and murmured something about sexual behavourism and a conversation he once had had with a man called Jung. Julia thought he sounded very reassuring. She lay flat on the divan, closed her eyes, executed a brief hula movement with her pelvis and made a “rrrhummm” noise in imitation of a motor-cycle engine. She looked happy but hungry.
He took the bottle from her hand, carefully poured her a small drink, and passed it to her. “I suggest, my love, that before we grow too convivial we get the photography done. Have I your cooperation?”
Julia looked up at the camera on its stand and gave it a wink. She bared one shoulder and struck an attitude in a parody of seductive guile.
“Yes, but I think we shall need something a little more intense, a fraction more...” He shrugged, his hands open as if offering gifts.
“Obscene?”
A hand rose at once. “No, oh dear, no. Nothing actually indecent. I fancy the right phrase would be artistically provocative. All right? Picasso, I remember, used to ask me occasionally to arrange a model for him because he said sex was music and it needed a musician to read the score, not a painter. He was an astonishingly modest man, that fellow.”
Mr Rothermere opened the suitcase. Julia turned on her stomach in order to peep over the side of the divan. She saw that the case contained a full set of motor-cycle leathers and a bright orange crash helmet.
Mr Rothermere held the helmet aloft. It bore a black stencilled representation of a winged skull.
“May I suggest,” he said, “this”—he laid the helmet beside her—“and these”—a pair of black leather gauntlets with silver studs across the knuckles came from the case—“and these, so long as they fit, which I devoutly trust.”
Julia examined his third offering: knee boots in soft black leather-imitating plastic. She compared one of their soles with her own shoe. “Should do.” Without looking at him, she reached up as if in expectation of further articles.
Mr Rothermere snapped the case shut. She turned and stared at it stupidly, swaying a little.
He took off his jacket, hung it meticulously on a chair back, and began unknotting his tie. He spoke to her over his shoulder.
“I would have suggested your changing in the bathroom, but I know you are too honest, too live, a person to suffer from bourgeois susceptibilities.”
She surveyed in silence for a few seconds the boots, gloves and helmet, then suddenly giggled.
“My soon-to-be-late-I-hope husband is a waffle addict.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You talk about bour...bourgeois whatsits. Guess what David and his Bobby-May get up to. Oh, yes, one of his more amiable habits is to describe to me how Miss Lintz turns him on, as he puts it.”