Even bearing in mind Bunty’s serial horror story of precisely how Mrs Eisenkopp looked after the babies on her weekends off, I was tempted. Then common sense took over and I said, ‘It would be simply splendid, but I did promise I’d stick with Ben. His parents are so upset about these rotten kidnappings.’
It was the wrong line to take. The enormous eyes opened and Beverley said, ‘But honey, have you seen the security precautions? Why, there are two men patrolling the grounds right at this minute and of course I shan’t be alone: Paolo and his wife are there in the kitchen. You run along tomorrow and have yourself a good time.’
The clincher came with Johnson’s assenting voice. ‘Yes. Why don’t you?’ he said.
If he was convinced that neither Beverley nor the Italian couple wanted to kidnap Benedict, then it was all right by me. I wanted to see the yacht, and to sail again. My father used to race, once. I agreed.
The third week of April is too early for Squibnocket Beach, but the mild, sunny weather had brought quite a few cruising boats out next morning, as Comer collected his crew along with Grover and myself on the terrace. The crew consisted, it appeared, of one or two stockbroking neighbours and their polite sons. Then Johnson came downstairs in a stained yellow nylon kagool and promptly outraged both the Eisenkopps by ripping undone and taking off the tasteful Little Mermaid life jacket in which Grover had been dressed by his father.
‘Burn it,’ said Johnson.
‘My kids wear these,’ someone said. ‘Hey, they’re all right. They float.’
‘Of course they float,’ Johnson said. ‘It’s finding out whether they’ve floated face up or face down that’s the exciting bit.’ We boarded the boat: a handsome Australian-built auxiliary sloop my father would have approved of.
Grover objected to his orange cork lifesaver, his harness and his running leash, to the sound of the anchor coming up and the noise the engine made when it started. Then they got a sail up and the engine went off and he saw the house with Sukey in it falling behind and other beaches coming up, and gardens, and houses: and Johnson asked him to get the frozen octopus out of the ice box. And he stopped crying.
I won’t say there was much to do. Comer held the tiller and issued the orders, and the boat was so full of tanned, husky weekend sailors that there were three people to every sheet and the winches were whipped incandescent. Grover and I went and sat on the foredeck and watched Johnson baiting lines and waved at all the people we knew on their jetties or gardens or putting lawns.
Wabash Bay is a private community and the beachside properties are expensive and large: anyone from the Third Crusade would have felt instantly at home. And because the morning was wearing on by this time, a good many of the patios and terraces were occupied with neighbours having their pre-lunch stingers in company. I spotted at least a dozen of the Eisenkopps’ guests from the other night outside three different houses.
We drifted on, fairly close inshore and were passing the last house in the bay before sailing out into the Sound towards Chappy when someone onshore hailed us.
Among the knits and tight denims and jumpsuits, there was no trouble in identifying the one bald and volatile head. It was Hugo Panadek, in yellow fringed poncho and boots, and waving a drink in his hand.
What he heard could not be said, even though we could see him put down his drink, embrace his hostess and stride, calling, down to the boatless jetty. I said to Johnson, ‘Do you know he does all Mr Eisenkopp’s automation? Heat-sensitive burglar precautions, sit-up beds, garden sprinklers, dust extraction and humidity, robot snack-servers and squash players, magnetic door locks, movable wall dividers. The garage opens if you walk towards it with the key in your pocket. And the safe won’t open unless you put your gloves in the fridge before touching it. It’s your name he’s calling.’
Johnson went on fixing bait. ‘So it seems. My guess is that he wants a lift back to the house and is dying to spill a good joke he’s just heard about Comer.’
‘It’ll be a long lift,’ I said. ‘We haven’t started fishing yet.’
‘We haven’t even started drinking yet,’ Johnson said. ‘My other guess is that he has noticed there’s a girl on board, and who she is. Do you want him, or not?’
‘If you mean on board, I have no strong views either way,’ I said. ‘Provided he brings his refrigerated gloves. . . The glasses looked pained. ‘What else? You’ve just sent me, haven’t you?’ said Johnson, and disappeared aft. Grover put some bait in his mouth. ‘One for Grover,’ he said. ‘What did Josso want?’
I reckoned that, without the hook, the bait could do no permanent harm. ‘He’s gone to get Hugo,’ I said. ‘Look, the wind is blowing towards Grover now, and the boat has stopped. That’s to let Mr Johnson get into the dinghy.’
He did, too, without any fuss and also without any company: a fact accounted for by the unmistakable clink and splash of drinks being served in Comer’s saloon.
I went to find out if there was any juice for Grover, and didn’t even see the collision.
One moment there was a narrow strip of blue bay water, with Johnson’s dinghy and sundry small craft in it, and Hugo waiting, arms akimbo under his poncho.
The next, there was a shout and a crash, and the belting roar of a strong speedboat engine.
I swung up the companionway: the others jumped to the rail, or the portholes.
Where Johnson’s boat had been was the overturned wreck of the dinghy: a mess of curved and sprung wood with planks, rags and litter wagging about in the shearing wake of a white ocean racer. Of Johnson, there was no vestige. ‘Oh Great Christ,’ said Comer, and seizing the helm, put it down.
Someone said, ‘You’ve only got eight feet, and shoaling.’ Comer said, ‘I know. Jake, take Clem and unlash the speedboat. Marty, the lifebelts. Ready to anchor. Who swims best? Stewart?’
No sweat. I was down to my bra and bikini pants by then, with Grover screaming beside me. ‘No. I do,’ I said; and as she came round to anchor, I dived.
It was freezing. Who swims best? Comer, you’d think, with his thirty-two bloody lengths daily. But he was handling the yacht. Of course. I shook my head in the air, got a line on the wreckage and put my head down again, with my arms turning like ships’ propellers. There are two things I can do, apart from the jobs I am paid for. One is swimming. The other, as it happens, is sailing.
I thought, a speedboat from the local boatyard would have had to stop. So that was a stranger. An accident? A diversion? An effort by the kidnappers to get rid of Johnson? Hardly. Even at the Golden Wonderland, Johnson had scarcely made an impression as Benedict’s most dangerous ally. And anyway, no one could have known that Johnson would be alone in a boat in Wabash Bay at this moment.
Except, of course, Hugo.
I was close now, but there was no movement ahead in the water.
Behind, I heard the splash as the yacht’s speedboat was lowered. I heard Hugo’s voice shouting and realized that he, too, was swimming towards the overturned dinghy, from the opposite direction. I couldn’t move any faster.
He had been under for four minutes.
If he was thrown in the path of the keel, he could be broken in two. Not pretty. A lot nastier than the things you saw in a maternity hospital.
My mother’s voice: Johnson is coming over. He’s painting the duchess.
Painting was all he’d done really. And play jokes with the Eskimos and the baby alarm. And shoot badly. And forget to belt in the Brownbelly Bruin.
I had got to the wreckage. I was tired, and my breath was sobbing anyway. There was nothing on top, so I dived.
There was air under the hull of the boat, and something solid encased in slippery nylon. ‘I remember when you got a gold medal for doing that,’ said Johnson appreciatively. ‘Get me back in the launch. I’ve concussion.’
I made a mad sort of sound. Before I’d bitten it off, he had grinned, shut his eyes in the gloom, and slid off his perch into the water. I hung there, stupidly watching him sink. H
is hair waved up, black in the green, and his yellow nylon swelled out and his hand, white and limp, gave a couple of testy twitches and became white and limp once again. With a start. I let go of the boat and went headlong after him, before he drowned.
I met Hugo half-way with Johnson’s clothes in his hands, already shoving him up to the air. The gagging and choking he did when he got there had the stamp of true authenticity and won no sympathy from me. It was agreed, as we heaved him into the speed launch, that he’d had a bang on the head and was in a state of concussion. As a nurse, I got the job of getting his lungs clear of water, and I enjoyed that as well, I can tell you.
While I was pummelling, the speedboat got back to the yacht, and the anxious Comer and his craning son.
I wondered how in the last few minutes, I could have forgotten Grover. Then he saw Johnson and started to wail again.
I didn’t need to persuade anyone to send Johnson back in the launch: it was the obvious thing to do. It was also obvious that Hugo and I, who were cold and wet, should go with him and that Grover might as well come with us too, and give me rather than his dinghyless father the benefit of his hysterics.
Concern for the health of his favourite international portrait painter had given way, already, to a blast of fury directed against the invisible and unknown hoodlum in the speedboat. The stockbrokers climbed back aboard the yacht. I could hear them all having stiff drinks as Hugo took the wheel of the launch and I sat behind him in a large borrowed sweater with Grover, our feet on Johnson’s motionless torso. We began with a sweep to pick up the sad, floating Ophelia of Hugo’s mad poncho, and in five minutes arrived at the Eisenkopps’. You could hear the screaming babes from the jetty. Obligingly, Johnson recovered enough to paddle his feet up the garden, an arm round each of our necks. I left Hugo to cart him to his bedroom, and dragging Grover, made for the nursery. Sukey and Benedict, lunchless and reeking, screamed each in his or her cot: our suite was otherwise empty.
The sitting-room was empty, and so, literally, was the pool.
There was no one on the patio, or in the garden, or in the Health Room, the card room, the dining-room, the breakfast room or the sauna. I managed to convey to Grover, who was yelling for her, that Bunty was still off for the day. He then wanted his mother.
In the kitchen, I found the Mafia, having its luncheon with the door firmly closed. No, they had not heard any sounds from the nursery. The Signora came when she required heated food for the babies. The Signora had not come so far. Perhaps the Signora was still asleep.
True enough, the door to the pink silk bedroom had been closed. An odd silence reminded me that I was still wearing a chest 44 cableknit sweater and little else, so I explained quickly about Johnson and tacked on a bit about hot soup and brandy and hot water bottles, which fell somewhat flat as they had only just put the lasagne, I could see, on the table. Then I hared off, with Grover, to Beverley’s bedroom.
The door was shut, and when I tapped, no one answered.
I tapped again. Grover said, ‘Are you there, Momma? Come out to Grover?’ The sight of the Mafia had settled him.
I had almost turned away when I heard the voice talking. When I pressed my ear to the door, I could just make out what it was saying. Relax. You are going to lose weight. You will not be able to overeat. Sometimes you will not be able to finish a meal . . .
It figured. After all those Easter eggs, a quick weight therapy session with her Lady Schick Face Sauna, her bio rhythm machine, enzyme peeler and even perhaps oral wormer were just what anyone might have predicted. I said, ‘Mummy can’t hear, Grover: she’s got her weight record playing.’
‘Open the door,’ Grover said. ‘It’s locked. We’ll see her later,’ I said.
‘Key,’ said Grover. In both hands, he held something I recognized as Beverley’s new blonde crocodile handbag.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Lunchtime, Grover. Let’s go and have lunch. Would you like chicken sandwiches?’ Distantly, the hoarse squeals from the two cots redoubled.
‘Key,’ said Grover, undisturbed. He walked up to his mother’s bedroom door, still bearing her handbag. And with a click and a whine, the bedroom door opened.
As I have said, I had been there before. The pink taffeta I knew to expect, and the white and gold paintwork, and the bright mirrored ceiling. I expected the console of switches, and the soothing voice from the record player, assuring Beverley she would gag over cream cakes. But gazing wildly around, I was at a loss to locate Grover’s mother. On the bed with a Danish pastry? Upside down on the Porta-Yoga with a headache? In the Jacuzzi jet bath for two with a loofah?
Wherever she was, she was entitled to privacy. It wasn’t her fault that a combination of Grover and her magnetic locks had given us entry.
I had my hand on Grover’s head and had already switched him round to march out of the room when I saw her. Not in front of my eyes but reflected out of the pink mirrors set in the ceiling.
The angle was too high for Grover. But I saw her, and she saw me before I shut the door firmly and left her.
In the Jacuzzi jet bath for two, with Simon Booker-Readman.
TEN
I got the sack later that evening.
That is, with Grover, Sukey, Benedict and Johpson to look after, the afternoon passed in an orderly frenzy, and the only other people I saw were Comer, come to inquire after the invalid and Hugo, who had taken a liking to Johnson and outfitted him, while he was still officially semi-conscious, in a green quilted kimono with a copper rheumatism bracelet.
Almost immediately after, making a brilliant recovery, Johnson pointed out that he had his own dressing gown, but Hugo insisted and went off, busily, to search in the kitchen for calves-foot jelly. Johnson said, ‘Well?’
On his nose, the bifocals or their substitutes rested glinting once more. I said, ‘I shall sue you. I swear it. For a full nurse’s uniform, and my hospital bills, if I come down with pleurisy.’
‘Well,’ Johnson said. ‘I wondered why Beverley wanted us out of the way. Did you find out?’
I must admit, I gaped before I remembered how cross I was. I remembered something else. I said, ‘Good lord. What day is it?’
‘Tuesday,’ said Johnson. He looked, sitting up in Hugo’s caftan, once more like a lush from a quilting bee. He added, ‘Who was she with? Simon Booker-Readman?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I didn’t add where.
‘I thought so,’ said Johnson. ‘Remember how Comer came bursting in one evening? He thought they were together then. He had certainly supplied himself somehow with a key. But he still isn’t quite sure, I fancy . . .
I said, ‘Why were you run down? Was that an accident?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Johnson said. ‘Someone may be tired of seeing me hang about Benedict, except that I have been rather carefully refraining from hanging about Benedict. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Benedict at all. Perhaps someone wanted an excuse to send Comer or his friends back to the house to discover exactly what you did discover. Except that if that was it, they were unlucky. Neither you nor I is going to make Simon’s visit public . . . What did they say to you?’
‘Nothing, yet,’ I thought. ‘I wonder if Rosamund knows. Was that why she was so upset . . .’
‘ . . . when you told her about the broken ikon in Bunty’s loo? Yes, of course. If it was a copy Simon was hoping to pass off as the real thing, and if it got itself broken during a visit by Simon to the Eisenkopp house, then it explains both why Simon had to pretend he had lost it, and why Rosamund was so furious. We don’t know why it was broken, but we can speculate. Perhaps Simon told Beverley he was going to defraud her loving Comer as well as cuckold him, and Beverley didn’t think it was funny and smashed up the copy. I can imagine that possessions mean a lot to that well-pleated lady. But why put the pieces in Bunty’s loo?’
‘On Bunty’s day off,’ I said. ‘It was Beverley’s bad luck that Bunty came back and promptly jammed a nappy down after it . . . Where are you staying in Veni
ce?’
‘In luxury,’ said Johnson with satisfaction. He was worse than Hugo. ‘The Warr Beckenstaff Corporation have chartered a cruising ship for the party. We fly to Venice to board her. Hugo is going to row us all out.’
Hugo came in as he spoke, bearing a vase of arum lilies, which he placed with a flourish at Johnson’s bedside. A steaming trolley made its appearance. Napkins were unfolded. Hugo bent over the flowers, and selecting a stem, presented a branch of lilies to me.
‘We are staying, dear heart, on board the Glycera, and do not tell me you don’t know of her. She is chartered for every extravagant party afloat. You will find her half the summer off Monte Carlo and the rest of the time in the Aegean. A seagoing millionaires’ pleasure club. It’s a great pity, Joanna, that you are not to be with us.’
‘With Benedict, Sukey and Grover?’ I said.
‘I should create a robot nursemaid to look after them. By the way, do you know, darling, that your employer has arrived? One at least of the Booker-Readmans has returned from Florida. Rosamund remains to attend the latest charity fash-thrash in Palm Beach, and Simon has flown up to persuade my dear Comer to allow you to stay here next week. Will you like that?’
‘Nothing better. When did Mr Booker-Readman arrive?’ I asked. I avoided Johnson’s glittering glass.
‘Just five minutes since. In a taxi from Logan. You like the soup I arrange?’ said Hugo to Johnson.
‘It tastes,’ said Johnson, ‘as if they’ve boiled your poncho in it. Why did you get me into this mess anyway? Anyone could have rowed you across.’
‘Ah,’ said Hugo. ‘But I was going to tip you into the bay and row myself across to spend the morning sailing with Nurse Joanna. As it was, we both did better. Have you any idea, darling, what you looked like? From Nantucket to Newport, the boys were out with their binoculars. The legs! The waist! What the apron-bib has been concealing from us! The . . .’
‘The children,’ I said, ‘will be yelling for tea. Excuse me.’
In fact, the children were asleep, and Simon Booker-Readman was waiting in the empty day nursery.