The Riviera Express Read online

  This joke had been running for a good few years and it was remarkable that on this evidence, in beauteous Temple Regis, there could be quite so many people – parents now, grandparents even – making such a lacklustre contribution to the municipality’s gene pool. It was rather a cruel joke of which Miss Dimont did not approve.

  Turning away, she ladled in some extra paragraphs of glowing praise to the life and achievements of Arthur Shrimsley, adding a few of her own jokes – ‘His life was enriched by the sight of a good story’ (he stole enough of them from the Express and peddled them to Fleet Street). ‘He enjoyed the very sight of a typeface’ (if it showed his name in big enough print). ‘He was fearless’ (rude), ‘adept’ (as thieves so often are), ‘a consummate diplomat’ (liar) . . . ‘wise’(bore).

  Gerald Hennessy she had already dispatched to the printer – a full page, motivated in part by his fame and the shock of the death of one so esteemed in humble Temple Regis, but also from a sense of personal loss: Miss Dimont had of course never met the actor before their recent silent encounter, but like all his fans, she felt she knew him intimately. There was something in his character as a human being which informed the heroic parts he played, her Remington had tapped out – instinctively his many admirers knew him to be the right choice to represent the dead and the dying of the recent war, as well as the nimble, the bold and the picaresque. It truly was a great loss to the nation and Miss Dimont, in writing this first of many epitaphs, captured the spirit of the man con brio.

  The tumult from her typewriter finally ceased and, after a reflective pause, Miss Dimont fetched out the oilskin cover to put it to bed for the night. She had missed her choir practice, but then she already knew by heart the more easily accomplished sections of the Fauré Requiem with which the Townswomen’s Guild Chorus would be serenading Temple townsfolk in a fortnight’s time. She went along as much for the company as anything else, for Miss Dimont was a most able sight-reader with a melodious contralto that any choirmaster would give his eye teeth for. She did not need to practise.

  She heaved a sigh of relief that it was over. How she would have hated to work on a daily newspaper, where deadlines assail one every twenty-four hours and there is no time to breathe! As she gathered up her things, her eyes travelled round the abandoned newsroom, about the most dreary working environment one could possibly imagine, and yet the very place where history was made. Or if not made, then recorded – for just as there is no point in climbing Mount Everest if there is no one there to chronicle it, so too what pleasure can there be in winning Class 1 Chrysanthemums (incurved) if not to rub their competitors’ nose in it? All human life was here, recorded in detail by the diligent Express.

  The room was dusty, untidy, littered, and from the files of back copies lying under the window there rose the sour odour of drying newsprint. Desks were jammed together and covered in all the debris which goes with making a newspaper – rulers, pencils, litter galore, old bits of hot metal used as paperweights. Coats were slung over chairbacks as if their owners might shortly return.

  Being a reporter had not been what Miss Dimont was put on this earth for – there had been another career, most distinguished, which preceded her present occupation – but she was a very good one. Except, of course, on occasions like the Regis Conservative Ball last winter, but if ever anyone had the temerity to bring that up, she rose above.

  Now she must find Terry, beavering away in the darkroom, and get him to take her back to Bedlington, where, in their rush to get back to the office, her trusty Herbert had been abandoned.

  As she made towards the photographic department, she heard the sound of a door opening, followed by a muffled squeak. Miss Dimont stopped dead in her tracks. There was nobody else in the building except her and Terry – what was that rustling sound, that parrot-like noise?

  She swung round to be faced by a ghostly apparition – white-faced, grey-haired, long claw-like fingers, a rictus of a smile upon its features.

  ‘Purple,’ it whispered.

  ‘Oh, hello, Athene,’ started Miss Dimont, ‘you gave me such a fright.’

  Then, like the Queen of Sheba, Athene Madrigale sailed into the room, her aura wafting before her in the most entrancing way. She was rarely seen in daylight – indeed she was rarely seen at all – but despite her advanced age she remained one of the pillars upon which the Riviera Express had built its reputation. For Athene wrote the astrology column.

  What most Express readers turned to each Friday morning, immediately after looking to see who’d died or been had up in court, were Athene’s stars. In Temple Regis, you never had a bad day with Athene.

  ‘Sagittarius: Oh! How lucky you are to be born under this sign,’ she would trill. ‘Nothing but sunshine for you all week!

  ‘Capricorn: All your troubles are behind you now. Start thinking about your holidays!

  ‘Cancer: Someone has prepared a big surprise for you. Be patient, it may take a while to appear, but what pleasure it will bring!’

  These were not the scribblings of a simpleton but rare emanations from under the deeply spiritual cloak which adorned Athene Madrigale’s person. Though not quite as others – her rainbow-hued costumes set her apart from the average Temple Regent, not to mention the turquoise fingernails and violet smile – she exuded nothing but beauty and calm. It is quite likely her name was not Athene, but nobody felt the need to question it while she predicted such wonderful things for the human race.

  Equally, nobody was quite sure where Athene lived – some said in a mystical bubble on the roof of the Riviera Express – but what is certain is that she needed the protection of night to save her from being swamped by an adoring public, her aura too precious to be jostled. It is true Miss Dimont encountered her from time to time, but only because she would return late from council meetings to diligently write into the night until her work was done. Most reporters on late jobs kept it in their notebook and typed it up next day.

  ‘Purple,’ whispered Athene again.

  ‘But going green?’ replied Miss Dimont.

  ‘Mercifully for you, dear.’

  ‘It’s been a something of a day, Athene.’

  ‘I can tell, my dear, do you want to sit down and talk about it?’

  This was a rare invitation and one not to be denied. The strain of the day’s activities had taken its toll on the reporter and she was grateful for a sympathetic ear. Almost as if by magic a cup of hot, sweet tea appeared in front of her and Athene arranged her rainbow clothes in a most attractive way on the seat opposite, the manner in which she did it suggesting she had all the time in the world. Even though she had yet to write the astrology page!

  ‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen dead bodies,’ started Miss Dimont.

  ‘No, dear. That chemist with the pill-making machine.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lady Hellebore and the gardener.’

  ‘I’d almost forgotten that.’

  ‘The Temple twins.’

  ‘So many, oh dear . . .’

  Athene knew when to move on. ‘What is it, then, Judy? What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ came the reply. ‘Maybe it’s seeing two fatalities in one day. Two such different people – one so loved, the other so hated. But both lives at an end, equally, as if God cannot differentiate between good and evil.’

  ‘That’s not really what’s upsetting you, though,’ said Athene gently, for she was gifted with a greater understanding of people’s travails. ‘It’s something else.’

  Miss Dimont stirred her tea. ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘I just feel something’s wrong.’

  ‘Like you did with the twins?’

  ‘Oh . . . oh yes, something is wrong. I’ve been over it while I was writing my copy but I can’t see what it is. There was something about Gerald Hennessy, he sat there so calmly, but he was pointing – pointing!’

  ‘At what, dear?’

  ‘Well, nothing. I thought when I looked at him that he was accusi
ng someone. There was just that look on his face. Somehow trying to say something, but not quite managing it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And then, when we went to Bedlington, the way he – oh, did you know Arthur Shrimsley was dead?’

  ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer chap,’ said Athene crisply, her perpetual sun slipping over the horizon for a brief second.

  ‘Mm?’ said Miss Dimont, not quite believing such harsh words could steal from the benign countenance. ‘Well, anyway, there was just something about it all. It wasn’t just Sergeant Hernaford, though he was obnoxious, it wasn’t even the way the body was lying. Just something about the way Mr Shrimsley had managed to get through that barrier right out on to the cliff edge. It didn’t seem . . . logical. It didn’t add up.’

  Athene did not know what Judy was talking about, but she did know how to refresh a teacup. Once done, she sat there expectantly, waiting for the next aperçu.

  ‘And, er, that’s it really’ said Miss D, disappointingly.

  Miss Madrigale was far too conversant in the ways of the parallel universe to see a complete lack of evidence in what she had just heard. There was something here, most certainly. She was glad to see that she had eradicated the purple from Miss Dimont’s aura and that it was almost completely restored to a healthy green.

  ‘You’ve been such a help, Athene,’ said Judy gratefully, but as the words formed in her mouth, she awoke to the fact that Athene had completely disappeared.

  ‘Still ’ere?’ barked Terry Eagleton, who had blustered into the room with a time-for-a-pint look on his face, startling Athene away.

  ‘Yes. And you’ve got to take me back to Bedlington to pick up Herb— the moped.’

  ‘Want to see what we’ve got?’ asked Terry, eager as ever to show off the fruits of his day’s labours. ‘Some great shots!’

  ‘Pictures of dead bodies? Printed in the Express?’ marvelled Miss Dimont. ‘Never in a month of Sundays, Terry, not while King Rudyard sits upon his throne!’

  ‘Yers, well. ’ Terry sniffed. ‘I’ll keep them back for the nationals. Take a look.’

  And since Judy Dimont relied on Terry for her lift back to Bedlington, she obliged. The pair walked through into the darkroom, where, hanging from little washing lines and attached by clothes pegs, hung the 10 x 8 black-and-white prints which summed up the day’s events. They were not a pretty sight.

  On the other hand, they were: an eery light percolated the first-class carriage containing the body of Gerald Hennessy (‘f5.6 at 1/60th,’ chirped Terry proudly). The image was so dramatic that, honestly, it could have been a publicity still from one of his forthcoming films. Terry had caught the actor in profile, his jaw as rugged as ever, the mop of crinkly hair just slightly ruffled, the tweed suit immaculate.

  The hand was raised, index finger extended in imperious fashion. Gerald’s lips appeared to be pronouncing something. It was indeed a hero’s end – until Miss Dimont noticed the litter on the carriage floor. ‘Thank heavens I got rid of that!’ she told herself.

  Her eyes switched to the pictures of Arthur Shrimsley, or at least the police blanket which covered Shrimsley – very little to boast about here in pictorial terms, she thought. A blanket – that’s not going to earn Terry a bonus. But, as she moved along the washing line examining the various angles he’d taken, the reality of what she’d seen, with her own eyes, supplanted the prints hanging before her. She recalled the odd feeling she’d had when craning around the obstructive body of Sergeant Hernaford and, as her eyes slid back to Terry’s prints, she realised why. In one shot – and one shot only – Terry had captured a different angle, which showed a hand, as well as the middle-aged man’s shoes, protruding from the blanket.

  The hand was clutching a note.

  Miss Dimont stepped back. ‘Surely not,’ she said to herself. ‘Surely not!’

  ‘Surely what?’ said Terry, busy admiring his f5.6 at 1/60th. The light playing over Gerald Hennessy’s rigid form, the etching of the profile, the shaft of light on the extended forefinger . . . surely, a contender for Photographer of the Year?

  ‘He can’t have committed suicide. Not Arthur Shrimsley. Why, he was the most self-regarding person I ever met!’

  ‘Speaking ill of the dead, Miss Dim.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, Terry,’ she snipped, ‘but I don’t remember you ever saying anything nice about him.’

  ‘Man was a chump,’ but Terry looked again at the picture in question. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Looks like a note in his hand. Has to be a suicide. Unless it was a love letter to himself, of course.’

  ‘Terry!’

  The pair emerged from the darkroom, each wreathed in their separate thoughts. That last portrait of Gerald Hennessy is indeed a work of art, marvelled Terry, which might spring me from a lifetime’s wageslavery at the Express.

  Miss Dimont meanwhile was struggling to arrive at a logic which would allow the awful but never less than self-satisfied Arthur Shrimsley to do away with himself.

  Then came the moment.

  Miss Dim had had them before – for example when she discovered Mrs Sharpham’s long-lost cat safe and well in the airing cupboard, when she suddenly knew why Alderman Jones had really bought that farm.

  ‘Just a moment, Terry!’

  She was back in the darkroom, staring hard at Terry’s masterpiece. Part of her had admired, the other part recoiled from, this undeniable award-winner. When she’d looked before she had concentrated on Hennessy’s face, the pointing finger, the irritating litter which nearly spoilt the picture. Now she concentrated on the light beams filtered by Terry’s use of lens – light beams flooding from outside, throwing shadows on the thick carpet beneath the actor’s feet.

  ‘Come back here, Terry,’ said Miss Dimont, very slowly. There was something in her tone of voice which made the photographer obey.

  ‘Do you have a magnifying glass?’ she asked.

  ‘Got one somewhere. But you don’t need—’

  ‘Magnifying glass, Terry,’ said Miss Dimont crisply. ‘And another for yourself if you have one.’

  He obliged. Both moved forward towards the print.

  ‘Do you notice Gerald Hennessy’s hand – his index finger?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, the way I shot it, the light does a nice job of—’

  ‘The finger, the finger!’ interrupted Miss Dimont urgently.

  ‘Yes,’ said Terry, not seeing anything at all.

  ‘The tip of it is dirty,’ she said slowly. ‘The rest of his hand appears clean.’

  ‘Ur. Ah.’

  ‘Now look at the window by his side. D’you see?’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘Where you have been so clever with the light. The light streaming through the window,’ said Miss Dimont. ‘The window is covered in a thin layer of dust. Your f8 at 1/30th has caught something on the window which you couldn’t see – and neither could I – when we were in the carriage. Do you see what it is?’

  Terry moved closer to the print, his eyes readjusting to the moving magnifying glass. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yes. Looks like he was writing something on the window.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Not much . . . just three letters as I can make out . . .’

  ‘And they are?’ asked Miss Dimont, as soft as silk.

  ‘M . . . U . . . R . . .’

  FOUR

  It was the fashion to mock the overblown grandeur of Temple Regis Magistrates’ Court, though it was actually rather pretty – redbrick, Edwardian, nicely stained glass and masses of oak panelling. Its solidity added weight to the sentences handed down by the Bench.

  Miss Dimont, who had spent more Tuesdays and Thursdays on the well-worn press bench than she cared to recall, approached Mr Thurlestone, the magistrates’ clerk, for a copy of the day’s charge sheet. The bewigged figure turned away his head as she neared his desk and held up the requisite document as if it had recently been recovered from a puddle. He did not ackn
owledge her.

  Curious, because it was hard to ignore such an amiable person as Miss Dimont.

  After all, Mr Thurlestone had never been the object of the angry huffing and puffing, and the hefty biffing, from which Miss Dimont’s Remington Quiet-Riter weekly delivered its judgements. He’d never had to submit to a sharp dressing-down in print like the disobliging council officials she sometimes excoriated, nor had he ever been on the receiving end of the occasional furies directed at the judges at the Horticultural Society for the self-serving way they arrived at their deliberations.

  In fact, Miss Dimont had always been perfectly sweet to Mr Thurlestone, but still he snubbed her.

  Perhaps it was because, though this was his court and he virtually told the magistrates what to think, no mention of his life’s work was ever made in the Express. The daily doings he oversaw in this room, with its heavy gavel and magnificent royal coat of arms, filled many pages of the newspaper, and quite often the stern words of one or other of the justices sitting on the bench behind him made headlines:

  ‘JP ORDERS MISSIONARY “GO BACK TO AFRICA”’ (at the conclusion of a lengthy case concerning an unfortunate mix-up in the public lavatories behind the Market Square).

  ‘MOTHER OF SIX TOLD “ONE’S ENOUGH” BY THE BENCH’ (the joys of bigamy).

  ‘“YOU BRING SHAME TO TEMPLE REGIS,” RULES JP’ (something about Boy Scouts; Miss Dimont rose above).

  Mr Thurlestone, for all his legal training, his starched wing collar and tabs, and his ancient and rather disreputable wig, yearned for recognition. But he would wait in vain, for he was no match for the vaulted egos, the would-be hangmen and the retired businessmen who made up his cadre of Justices of the Peace – for they it was who made the headlines.

  Chief among their Worships, though not cast in quite the same mould, was Mrs Marchbank, the chairman of the Bench, or, to give her the full roll-call, The Hon. Mrs Adelaide Marchbank, MBE, JP.

  In many ways Mrs March, as she was generally known, summed up the aspirations of the town – hard-working, exquisitely turned out, ready always with a smile and an encouraging word. Fortunate enough to be married to the brother of Lord Mount Regis, she gave back to life far more than she ever took. Her tall, grey-haired good looks were tempered by a sharply regal streak, the combination of which went down well in a part of the country largely deprived of real Society. Everyone agreed she wore a hat exquisitely.