TWENTY-THREE
As soon as the lights went on, and the heaving naked male arse was revealed in the blazing glare of electricity, Porrick understood everything.
The arse carried on pumping for a moment. It was an ugly, dispiriting sight. A stark, pale obscenity moving with brutal energy in the shabbiest rented room imaginable.
Novak’s startled oath – ‘What the devil?’ – was enough to bring Lord Dunwich (Porrick remembered his name as soon as he saw his face) to his feet, his sorry aristocratic member bobbing disconsolately, before drooping and shrinking rapidly. His lordship grabbed a cushion and held it in front of him.
The woman, Novak’s wife of course, pulled her skirt down and sat up in the bed. Her expression might have puzzled an observer who didn’t fully grasp the situation. A mixture of annoyance and boredom. She all but rolled her eyes at her husband.
She retrieved a cigarette from the bedside table and lit it. Soon, she was wholly preoccupied by the pleasures of smoking.
‘Now, it’s not what it seems!’ pleaded Lord Dunwich. Porrick had to laugh at that. Despite his loathing for Novak and his wife, he had little sympathy for Dunwich.
‘On the contrary, Lord Dunwich, it’s crystal clear what’s going on here,’ said Novak.
‘I didn’t know …’
‘You didn’t know she was my wife?’
Porrick noticed a flicker of a smile on Dolores Novak’s face. Lord Dunwich had his back to the woman, so he missed this hint of collusion between husband and wife.
Novak showed no sign of registering his wife’s amusement. ‘Please, Lord Dunwich, don’t insult me. Don’t add a lie to the offence you’ve already committed.’
‘No, no. I wasn’t going to say that. I knew. I admit I knew. It’s just that I didn’t think you minded, you see.’
‘Not mind? Why would you think I wouldn’t mind? Because you’re an aristocrat? You forget, I’m an American. We don’t acknowledge droit du seigneur in America.’
Mrs Novak tossed her hair appreciatively.
‘I honestly thought you film people were more lax about these things. I thought you and Dolores had an understanding. Look … may I put my trousers back on? I feel that I’m at something of a disadvantage.’
‘You shoulda oughta thoughta that before you took ’em off!’
His wife’s tongue licked out, as if to taste the acrid flavour of her husband’s histrionic ire.
Porrick had had enough of this. ‘Let him put his trousers on, Novak. I for one am not very comfortable with him undressed like that. In fact, I think I should step outside.’
‘Now look what you done! You’ve upset my friend, Mr Porrick!’ Porrick felt his lip curl at Novak’s bogus protests. He resented being dragged into the sordid affair.
‘Actually, come to think about it … it’s probably time for me to go home.’
‘You stay where you are, Porrick. I want you to bear witness to this man’s … depravity!’
Dolores Novak lifted her head self-righteously, as if she were the innocent party.
‘Steady on, Novak. You’re rather overdoing it, you know. After all, didn’t you say to me …’
Novak cut him off with hasty indignation. ‘Overdoing it? Would you say that if you caught some bounder in flagrante delicto with Mrs Porrick?’
Porrick was momentarily distracted by the unlikelihood of this possibility.
‘My dear fellow.’ The smooth, soothing confidence in Lord Dunwich’s voice was the sound of a man mentally reaching for his wallet. ‘I’m most dreadfully sorry about this whole unfortunate misunderstanding. I quite, quite understand your being in a funk about it.’ It was also the voice of a man used to paying for his pleasures – not to mention buying his way out of trouble.
‘I ought to whip you like a dog.’ Novak turned his stagy ire on his wife. ‘And as for you, you she-devil …’
Her eyes widened theatrically. She snarled back at him. She was evidently enjoying herself greatly.
‘Now listen here, you mustn’t take it out on Mrs Novak. Do what you must to me, but please, leave Dolores out of it.’
‘I’m an American!’ declared Novak proudly. ‘You can’t tell me what to do!’
‘I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do. But perhaps we can find some way to … effect a suitable form of restitution.’
It had all been engineered with the utmost skill, Porrick had to give the Yank that. But it was despicable all the same. He’d been responsible for a few windy schemes himself over the years. But nothing as blackguardly as this. He was in two minds whether or not to blow the gaff. He did not care to look too closely into what prevented him. He discounted a dim presentiment that the situation might turn out to be to his advantage. If that did turn out to be the case, he could at least excuse himself by arguing that he had done nothing to bring it about. He was not actively complicit in Novak’s blackmail scheme. (Oh, it was pretty clear to him that this was something Novak and his wife had cooked up between them.) And as far as he was concerned, Lord Dunwich had brought it on himself.
Porrick had to admit that Novak had chosen his third-party witness well. Of course, he needed someone else there, because otherwise Lord Dunwich would have been able to say that it was just one man’s word against another’s. And the aristocrat’s word would always be preferred over a seedy Yank with Serbian antecedents. But his choice of Porrick – a man he knew to be in financial difficulties and to have few moral scruples – revealed Novak’s instinctive talent for exploiting human weaknesses. Porrick smiled ruefully.
Novak seemed to sense which direction Porrick’s thoughts had taken. ‘All I can say is I’m sorry you had to see this, Porrick.’
‘As am I,’ said Lord Dunwich.
Porrick was suddenly aware that he had sobered up entirely. His head was marvellously clear as he began to calculate the best way to play this.
‘Perhaps it’s better if you do go home. And leave his lordship and me to sort this out between ourselves. Man to man.’
Porrick pursed his lips, then nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve seen enough here.’
If he understood a man like Novak at all, he was sure he would use his advantage to touch Lord Dunwich for more than one compensatory contribution. He would become a veritable leech. So, for now, the best thing was to let Novak do his worst. The time would come when his intervention – for either party, or even for both – would reap the maximum dividends.
And now he understood at last why he had conceived such an instinctive antipathy towards Novak. The man reminded him too much of himself.
‘I’ll go then,’ he said. ‘But for God’s sake let him put his trousers back on.’
The gleaming, raw gratitude in Lord Dunwich’s eyes both touched and shamed him. As soon as he saw it he knew that he had the peer in his grip. And he knew too that he would not balk from exploiting that power to the full.
Against his better judgement, he glanced one last time at the woman on the bed. She was brushing specks of ash from her skirt. An arch of odious complacency was described in one eyebrow. She knew, as did her husband, that he would play his part exactly as they had predicted. They knew they could count on Porrick to do the base thing, if that was what his interests required.
He fled the shabby rented room in haste, as if he were fleeing the worst part of his own nature.
TWENTY-FOUR
George Bittlestone’s step slowed as he approached the entrance to the Middlesex Hospital on Mortimer Street.
It was all very well for Lennox. He claimed to be a newspaper man – and all right, he had a sound instinct for the angle that would sell. That was because he was a businessman first, and a newspaperman second. Put a notebook in his hand and send him out on the streets in the night looking for a story, and he wouldn’t have a clue where to start.