The body was discovered near Rottingdean and so Edgar and Bob drove to a nearby pub, the White Horse, and took the sloping path down to the undercliff walk, a raised walkway between the cliffs and the sea. The tide was out but Edgar could hear the waves rushing into the shore. A fitful moon illuminated the dark figure of a uniformed policeman with a sprawled shape at his feet. As he saw them approaching, the PC turned on his torch. In the arc of light Edgar saw Sam Collins and a photographer standing a discreet distance away.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘We heard that a body had been found,’ said Sam. Edgar couldn’t see her expression but he could hear the note of excitement in her voice.
‘Is it a suicide?’ said the photographer, a man called Harry Payne, whom Edgar knew from various civic events.
‘We don’t know anything yet,’ he said. ‘Keep back. Have some respect for the poor girl’s family.’
‘So it is a female then?’ said Sam. Edgar ignored her. He approached the constable, who was talking to Bob. Edgar knelt and drew back the coat that was covering the body. The moon emerged from behind the clouds and he saw blonde hair partly covering a white face.
‘It’s not Rhonda,’ he said.
‘Any ideas of cause of death?’ asked Bob.
‘No,’ said the PC, ‘but she didn’t fall. There’s no blood. Body was found by two men leaving the White Horse to walk back into town.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘I sent them back into the pub to wait for you.’
‘Good work,’ said Edgar. ‘How long have the journalists been here?’
‘They arrived soon after I did. Must have had a tip-off.’
Edgar turned back to the body. It was a young woman, wearing a dark cloak over what was obviously a minidress. Long pale legs sprawled pathetically and she was barefoot.
‘Shine your torch on her face,’ said Edgar.
Now he could clearly see bruising around the girl’s neck. One hand was still clenched in a fist.
A voice behind him said, ‘That’s Sara Henratty.’
‘I told you to stay back,’ said Edgar.
‘It’s Sara,’ said Sam, taking no notice. ‘I recognise her from the photo. Look at her hair.’
The platinum-blonde head gleamed in the moonlight. Edgar thought that Sam was probably right. They had found one of the missing girls.
‘Well, that’s the evening finished then,’ said Emma. As soon as she said it, she realised how callous that sounded.
Max didn’t seem shocked though. ‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘Would you like a pudding? Or coffee? Or brandy?’
‘I don’t want pudding or coffee,’ said Emma, ‘but I would like a brandy.’
They took their brandies into the lounge and Emma was appalled to find herself saying, with real bitterness, ‘Edgar won’t ask for my help on this case, you know. It’ll be all “let’s not talk about work now”. He’ll leave it all to Bob, who hasn’t got a clue, and the amazing, resourceful Meg Connolly.’
‘You miss it,’ said Max, swilling the brandy to and fro in his glass. It wasn’t a question.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Emma. ‘I suppose you think that’s very strange, to miss murder.’
‘Not at all,’ said Max. ‘I miss staying in freezing boarding houses and performing to sparse audiences in filthy provincial theatres.’
‘Do you?’ said Emma, turning to look at him.
‘Yes,’ said Max, his eyes meeting hers. ‘I miss it unbearably sometimes.’
‘But couldn’t you still perform on stage?’
‘Variety’s dead,’ said Max, taking a hefty swig of brandy. ‘It’s all film or TV these days. You have to do what Ruby’s done, become a TV personality, as they’re called now. It’s not enough just to have a talent. You have to be a personality. To make the public love you.’
‘But you’re a film star,’ said Emma. ‘That’s better than being a TV personality.’
Max laughed, rather harshly. ‘I’ve been fairly successful in a few films but I’m not really an actor. Not the way that Lydia is. She’s an actress to her fingertips; it’s extraordinary the way she can become another person, from her walk to the way she moves her mouth. I’ve been lucky to have had roles that have allowed me to play a version of myself. No, I’m a magician. It’s all I really know how to do.’
‘But do you have to go on acting?’ said Emma. ‘I mean, you’re so . . .’ She was going to say ‘rich’ but compromised with ‘successful’.
‘No,’ said Max. ‘I don’t have to act or perform magic. And you don’t have to go out and solve crimes. We’ve both got nice, comfortable lives with loving partners and beautiful children. But it’s not enough, is it?’
Emma wanted to disagree but, faced with Max’s sardonic gaze, she could only nod and look away. He was right; it wasn’t enough.
They walked back along the seafront. The lights were still shining on the piers and they could hear laughter coming from the pubs on the edge of the beach. Brighton was getting ready for the summer. The covers were off the merry-go-round and as they wandered past it Emma could see the glint of the horses’ teeth, bared in that slightly threatening carousel smile.
‘It’ll be the Whitsun bank holiday soon,’ she said. ‘Edgar’s worried about the mods and rockers causing trouble.’
‘Joe Passolini is a mod, apparently,’ said Max. ‘Or he just likes the clothes. We don’t have all this in LA, the tribal thing. Or rather, we have different tribes.’
‘When are you going back to America?’ asked Emma. She noticed that he said ‘we’.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Max. ‘If Bobby gets the finance in place for the film, he wants to start shooting immediately. That would mean that I’m here for the summer. Lydia and the kids might come and join me.’
‘What’s she like?’ said Emma. ‘Lydia?’ She would never have asked this normally but something about the night, and the fact that they were walking side by side, created an odd feeling of intimacy. Besides, she was still slightly drunk.
Max hesitated before replying, inhaling on his cigarette, the tip glowing red in the darkness. ‘Lydia’s very bright,’ he said at last. ‘Very intense. She’s had a hard life. She started out with nothing, apart from her extraordinary looks, of course. And her acting talent. But it makes her very insecure. She always has to be striving for the next thing. We fell in love on the set of The Conjuror when I played this Svengali figure and I’m afraid that she still has me cast in that role.’ Max was silent for the next hundred yards and then he said, ‘I’m not sure that I’ve ever been properly in love. Apart from that one time with Florence but that was over so soon. Who knows what would have happened?’
Florence had been murdered. Emma remembered finding her body, the dark hair brushing the floor, the macabre staging to make the scene look like the death of Cleopatra. She wished that she hadn’t talked about missing murder. ‘That must have been awful for you,’ she said.
‘Awful for her and her family,’ said Max. ‘She had so much talent. I’ve still got the plays and sketches that she wrote. That’s something I want to do while I’m here. Try to get them played on the radio. Florence deserves to be remembered as something more than a murder victim.’
Florence had died eleven years ago and Max still carried her writings round with him. Emma had never realised how deeply he felt about her.
‘It’s like the old stage trick,’ he said, as they made their way up St James’s Street. ‘The girl is in the cabinet and, when you open the door, she’s gone. Now you see her. Now you don’t. The Vanishing Box. I went walking around Brighton yesterday, Mrs M’s boarding house, the Hippodrome, the Royal Albion. I kept seeing Florence everywhere.’
‘Maybe it’s being back in Brighton,’ said Emma.
‘Maybe,’ said Max. ‘Maybe it’s just because I’ve avoided thinking about her all these years. I should have found a shrink and poured out my emotions to them. That’s what all the film stars do.’
Is that what Lydia Lamont did? Emma wondered. Aloud she said, ‘Sometimes it’s good to keep your feelings hidden.’
Max stopped under a streetlight to look at her. ‘But you’re lucky, you’ve got Edgar to talk to.’
‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones.’
They had reached Emma’s front door. She didn’t know whether to invite Max in or to kiss him on the cheek when they parted. He solved that for her by making her a sweeping bow.
‘Goodnight, Mrs Stephens.’
And, as soon as she had the door open, he set off down the dark street.