Mill Inn? By God, is it little Lexie? Why didn’t you say, lass! You must be near on twenty now. I know her, she’s near on twenty!’
These last affirmations were directed towards Dalziel who finished his pint, placed the glass on the table and pointed menacingly into it, like Jahweh setting up a widow’s cruse.
A young man had come into the bar, of medium height, elegantly coiffured and dressed in a black and yellow striped blazer, cheesecloth shirt and cream-coloured slacks. His regularly handsome features broke into a gleaming smile as he spotted the girl and bore down on her, arms outstretched.
‘Dear Lexie,’ he cried. ‘I am late. Forgive me. Purge me with a kiss.’
Pascoe was amused to see that the girl ducked at the last second from his questing lips and got him in the eye with her big spectacles. Then the newcomer obtained two glasses of white wine and a plateful of sandwiches from Mahoney and he and the small girl sat down at the far side of the room, still within sight but now out of earshot.
He returned his attention to Dalziel who was saying, ‘That Mahoney, I’ll need to have a quiet word about going around slandering the police.’
‘Now?’ said Pascoe.
‘Don’t be daft! When he’s shut and we can get down to some serious drinking.’
And he bellowed with laughter at the sight of the pained expression on Pascoe’s face.
At their distant table, Lexie and Rod Lomas heard the laugh, but only Lexie registered the source.
‘I really am sorry I’m late,’ Lomas was saying. ‘But I’m afraid I still tend to think of all urban distances as minute outside of London. To compensate, I tend to treat all country distances as vast. Had we been meeting at your father’s pub, say, I dare say I’d have been there an hour ago.’
Lexie did not reply but bit into a sandwich.
Lomas said with a smile, ‘You don’t say a great deal, do you, dear coz?’
‘I were waiting for you to finish putting me at ease,’ said Lexie.
‘Oh dear,’ said Lomas. ‘I see I shall have to watch you, little Lexie.’
‘I’m not your cousin, and I’m five feet two inches barefoot,’ said Lexie.
‘Oh dear,’ repeated Lomas. ‘Are there any other sensitive areas we ought to check out straightaway?’
‘Why do you call yourself Lomas?’ said Lexie. ‘Your name is Windibanks, isn’t it?’
He grinned and said, ‘There you’re wrong. It was changed quite legally by deed poll. Rod Lomas is in fact and law my name.’
‘Why’d you change it?’
‘As I launched myself on what I hoped would be a meteoric theatrical career, but what now looks like being a long steady haul to the top, it occurred to me that Rodney Windibanks was not a name to fit easily into lights. Rod Lomas on the other hand is short, punchy, memorable. Satisfied?’
She continued to chew without replying. Her silence somehow declared its source as disbelief rather than good manners.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s a fair cop! Why Lomas? It was Mummy’s idea. Butter up Auntie Gwen - yes, I know she wasn’t my auntie but that’s how I thought of her. Mummy made a big deal of it, of course, writing and asking permission to resurrect the family name, promising that I would never bring anything but fame and good report on it. Auntie Gwen replied that I must call myself what I wished. Left to myself, I might have chosen something a little more evocative, like Garrick or Irving, but Mummy is very strong-willed in the pursuit of fortune. Do I shock you?’
She swallowed, opened the half-eaten sandwich, said disgustedly, ‘Brisket. And more gristle than brisket.’
Lomas looked nonplussed for a moment, then he said with an edge of malice, ‘Not that it should shock you, of course. You are a fellow-initiate in the great sucking-up-to-auntie club, aren’t you? Indeed, almost a founder member, since you joined shortly after birth. Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely Lexie is short for Alexandra, and I doubt if that was a simple coincidence!’
Lexie said abruptly, ‘What do you want? What are you doing here?’
Lomas looked at her as if considering taking up the challenge. Then he grinned boyishly and said, ‘Believe it or not, dear coz, I came back north in response to a cry for help. When I was up for the funeral, I popped into the Kemble to see some old chums. I’m sure a cultured young person like yourself will be aware that the Kemble has as its artistic director Ms Eileen Chung. Chung and I are long acquainted and I know all her ways, which include a rather distorting tendency to socialize or, worse still, feminize all material that she turns her big doe eyes on. She is not strong enough to resist the demands of the English set-book, however, and next week as you must know her very first production is Romeo and Juliet. At Salisbury we did it for art, in Yorkshire they do it for O-level! But disaster struck. Night before last, Chung’s Mercutio got beaten up and is hors de combat. Desperate for a top-class replacement well-schooled in the part, her thoughts naturally turned to me. By chance I was free. Or rather I was just on the point of signing a big Hollywood contract, but who can resist a friend’s cry for help? I dropped everything and came up last night. The show is saved!’
Lexie said, ‘I read in the Post the chap who got beaten up was black.’
‘Indeed yes. A little surprise for the good burghers, a black Mercutio. But Chung says it was not of the essence. She thinks his obvious homosexual passion for Romeo will be quite enough for the city council to bear. But enough of me, fascinating though I am. What of you? How goes the Law?’
‘All right,’ said Lexie, discarding another sandwich.
‘Any news on the will front?’ he asked casually.
‘How should I know?’ she said, alert.
‘Well, you are acting as old Thackeray’s secretary, aren’t you?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I don’t know. Keechie, I suppose.’
He laughed at her surprise.
‘Didn’t I say? I’m staying out at Troy House. Well, I needed digs. I can only afford the Howard Arms Hotel when Mummy’s with me, picking up the tab. Dear Mummy. It doesn’t matter how strapped she is for cash, she never settles for less than the best.’
‘She’s hard up, is she? Your dad didn’t leave her anything, then?’
Lomas stiffened.
‘Not much,’ he said, charm subsumed by some genuine emotion. ‘Why do you mention my father?’
‘No reason,’ said the girl.
He glowered at her, then burst out, ‘People said he was a crook, but if he was, he’d have left us stinking rich, wouldn’t he?’
She said, ‘You were telling me about staying at Troy House.’
Lomas
