Chapter 17 Physique Pictorial #2
“That’s the tragedy of it,” said Honor. “He was very bright. Began reading at three.”
She knelt to check under the bed. There was a shoebox, a few magazines, and a much smaller cardboard box. It was heavy, thought Honor, and she saw why: It contained bullets.
“I’ll dispose of those, shall I?” said Saul, taking them. “What the devil are those magazines?”
The covers of Physique Pictorial showed lifelike, artistically rendered drawings of extremely muscular naked men, their dignity protected, just barely, by wisps of fabric or, in one case, the breeze-blown mane of a horse being energetically straddled.
Inside were actual photographs of a similar nature: weightlifters demonstrating their prowess, cowboys enjoying the sun on their bodies, and other wholesome examples of male health and fitness.
“Published by the Athletic Model Guild of Los Angeles,” observed a stunned Honor.
“Did you know Jack was interested in—um—bodybuilding?” said Saul.
“I did not know that. In fact, you might say I hadn’t the faintest clue.”
Poor Robbie, thought Honor, sitting back down in the drawing room. Of everyone, he knows the least about the man whose death we’re conspiring to hide.
Strange to contemplate, thought Robbie, how no one knew Jimmy quite like I did.
How unutterably bizarre, thought George, that Jimmy was somehow my brother.
The second Honor had said it, she had known it was true.
It was the way she had uttered the words, as though she’d rather be saying literally anything else.
Then Greta had come in and started talking about Jimmy’s pretty visitor, whereupon fate picked them all up and spun them around.
Last night, George had buttonholed Honor and begged for a private conversation, only for her to plead a bad headache.
Then this morning she offered to accompany her to the newspaper shop for chocolate, but Mina had declared herself “positively gasping” for fresh air and tagged along.
Honor would have to explain herself in the fullness of time.
George had her own theories. But that was all they were, theories.
“Did Jimmy have any other friends, do you know,” she asked, “or people who might miss him?”
Honor was about to say no, she didn’t think so, when Robbie piped up: “Oh hell, I just remembered. What about that friend who lent him the motorcar?”
Nobody seemed to know about the motorcar, so Robbie explained how Jimmy had driven him to the printer’s a few weeks ago. “He may have given it back. But if not, it’s probably parked somewhere nearby. Christ! How could this have slipped my mind? Of all the stupid…”
“What was the name of the friend?” asked Honor. She hadn’t thought Jimmy had any friends, not anymore. No one had ever visited him in prison, as he’d lamented.
“No idea,” said Robbie. “I ought to have asked him. I don’t know why I didn’t. Although for all we know, of course, the friend doesn’t even exist. The motorcar might be stolen or something.”
“Exactly, it probably was.” For God’s sake, thought Honor. If Robbie went on like this, getting his knickers in a twist over every little hitch, they were done for. “Still, why not go and see if you can find it.”
Obediently, Robbie rose. He grabbed his overcoat from the hallway and left the house. It was just past 5 p.m., still sunny after a bright spring day. A moist, leafy smell drifted through the deserted street.
He walked west, toward Brompton Cemetery.
There was an odd lightness in his head, in his legs, but at the same time a crushing sensation gripped his torso, as though he’d been run over by a tank and was slowly expiring from internal injuries.
Idiotic metaphors kept coming to mind. My heart’s been ripped out.
I’m all smashed to pieces. I’m dying inside.
And yet he wasn’t about to curl up and die.
If he were, why worry about anyone finding out what they’d done?
A selfish survival instinct, he knew, was feeding the thrum of panic, of adrenaline, that dulled all the pain and propelled his movement down the street.
He saw the motorcar, the rust-rimmed Ford in whose passenger seat he had sat the day his life changed forever.
It was innocently parked outside number fifty.
Was it bad news, he pondered, that Jimmy hadn’t returned it to his supposed friend?
They might come looking for it. This was precisely the type of loose end that caught people out, as Mina would no doubt remark.
“The motorcar’s there,” Robbie announced. “Parked just down the road.”
“Thank you, Robbie,” said Honor. “We’ve been talking it over, and we’ve decided what to do. If you agree, that is. This might actually be rather useful.”
He sat down and looked at her.
“You know how to drive, don’t you? None of the rest of us does, you see, and—”
“Yes, I do, but—”
“Supposing you drive the car to London Bridge and leave it there. Take the Underground back. We’ll have left something in the car identifying Jimmy. His wallet, say. If and when the car is discovered, it will appear that… well, you know.”
“That he took a long walk off a short pier,” supplied Mina helpfully. This was no time to be squeamish, she thought. “Delivered himself to a watery grave. Became fish food.”
Good grief, thought George. Where did she learn these phrases? “It’s a good idea, Robbie,” she said. “If it looks like he took his own life, then there’s no mystery for anyone to solve.”
The idea of driving the vehicle across London terrified Robbie. Supposing he was stopped by the police? It seemed a dreadful risk to put on his shoulders alone. “All right,” he said. “I suppose I’ll do it in the morning.”
Honor and Saul exchanged a look. “Now might be better,” said Saul. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
Robbie frowned, his misgivings plain. “Do I have a choice? I mean—”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Honor. “I’ll come with you. We’ll get the Inner Circle back, and I’ll buy you a drink at the Sloane Square platform bar.”
They left the room, and Mina stood up and shouted after them, “You will wear gloves, won’t you?” She sat back down. “Fingerprints,” she said with a do-I-have-to-think-of-everything glance at Saul and George.
“I suppose you’ve considered that you can never sell the house,” said Robbie, carefully changing gears as he sped up on Fulham Road.
Honor looked at him. “You mean…”
He grimaced. “Exactly.”
A double-decker bus, all lit up and billowing exhaust fumes, pulled out in front of them.
Honor gazed out at the darkening evening.
“Listen,” she said, “I know we’ve been through a lot.
But for all our sakes, you need to stop worrying about getting caught.
I’m not going to sell the house. No one’s coming looking for Jimmy.
But you need to believe it, and act accordingly.
A lie can become the truth, you know, so long as you’re willing to convince yourself, first and foremost. So the truth is that a young man called Jimmy stayed with us for a while, and then he left.
A brief and wholly unimportant episode in our lives.
Now please, let’s change the subject and talk about something more cheerful. ”
Except it wasn’t that easy. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Then Honor said, “I’m assuming you’ve guessed by now that Jimmy wasn’t the son of my grandmother’s housekeeper.”
“If I can be frank, I had my doubts about that from the outset.” They slowed to a stop at a red light, and Robbie lit a cigarette. “You were related, weren’t you?”
She smiled, but she was taken aback. “What makes you say that?”
“It might sound strange, but you have the same eyes. I know they’re different colors, but they’re the same unusual shape. Slanted, as though there’s foreign blood. It’s rather beautiful,” he added.
“Aren’t you observant. And yes. He is… he was my younger brother.”
She began, haltingly, to describe the events that led to Jack’s imprisonment. By the time she’d finished, they were at Hyde Park Corner and Robbie seemed not only shocked but shaken.
“Thomas is still in there,” she said. “We never divorced. Jimmy said he could expose me for bigamy.”
Robbie gripped the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t trust himself to speak. So Honor had allowed—invited!—this chaos into their lives. And hadn’t seen fit to alert them to the loose-pinned human grenade living among them.
“He arrived out of the blue!” said Honor, reading his face. “I had no time to think or decide what to do for the best. He put me in an invidious position, an impossible position, don’t you see?”
Robbie drew deeply on his cigarette. His thin, elegant fingers were stained with tobacco and he had three days of dark stubble, making him look almost rakish.
“I suppose I do see,” he finally said. Looking at Honor, he felt a kind of excitement build up in his chest. “Seeing as we’re spilling our guts,” he said, “did you know Jimmy and I were having an affair?”
“Oh, Robbie. I’m so sorry, I—”
“It’s all right,” he cut in, embarrassed.
“None of it matters now, does it? I thought it was… I thought he and I were, oh, I don’t know, real.
But I didn’t know him at all. Let alone that he was a convicted murderer.
” His tone was ironical. In a small, helpless gesture, he shrugged.
Then he said, “I asked George if there was something between them. She insists not. Do you believe her?”
She’d hardly admit to a fling with her own brother, thought Honor. “I don’t know what to believe. You saw them in bed together, didn’t you?” She paused. “Still, he was a homosexual. I’m convinced of that.”
Horribly close to tears, Robbie bit the corner of his lip until he tasted blood. “Some chaps are ambisexual, aren’t they? Horatian, they used to call it.”
“Is that what you are, then?”
“Gosh. Now you’re asking.” Keeping his eyes on the road, he said, “No, I wouldn’t say so. I think I’m oriented in the one direction. I just didn’t realize until recently.”
What a nuisance sex was, thought Honor. Life would be so straightforward, so civilized, without it.