1958 - Not Safe to be Free Read online

  She glanced at her husband, who sat huddled down in his seat, his eyes riveted on the French subtitles while he strove conscientiously to follow the action of the film. She realized there was no hope of getting him to leave. He would never set the bad example of walking out on another man’s film. She knew he had always at the back of his mind the possibility that one day, someone as important as himself might be tempted to walk out on one of his films and she knew how superstitious he was about tempting providence.

  A man with a deep sore on his chest appeared on the screen and this picture revolted her. She touched Floyd’s hand.

  “Darling, do you mind? I think I’ve about had enough of this,” she said softly.

  In the semidarkness she saw his look of surprise, then because he loved her and treated her like a child, he nodded, patting her hand.

  “Yeah. You skip, honey doll. I’ll have to stay with this thing, but you go. Have a swim or something.”

  His eyes were drawn back to the screen as the camera tracked up to a close-up shot of the sore.

  She brushed his cheek with her lips.

  “Thank you, darling,” she murmured and then slipped past him into the aisle.

  The nine hundred odd men and women in the cinema observed the kiss and enviously watched her leave. Sophia sighed with relief as she left the dark auditorium. She glanced at her wristwatch. The time was ten minutes to four o’clock. She would return to the hotel, get her swimsuit and then drive down to the bathing station by the Casino, away from the activities in front of the Plaza and have a bathe in peace.

  Floyd would be tied up with that ghastly film and then with the discussion that would inevitably follow until six o’clock, so she had plenty of time.

  She walked from the cinema to the Plaza, along the crowded pavement, smiling at the people she knew and once stopping to exchange a few words with a famous Italian star who Floyd was anxious to sign up but who was showing temperament and demanding an outrageous sum for his undoubted talents. The Italian star caressed her body with his eyes and conveyed to her by his direct, insolent stare that he would be amused to have her in his bed.

  Sophia, long accustomed to this kind of approach, said the right thing, smiled the right smile and kept out of reach of the star’s wandering hands and then moved on, hoping the greasy little beast would be more amenable when Floyd’s casting manager approached him again.

  The lobby of the Plaza hotel was as usual crowded with celebrities as Sophia made her entrance. Over in a corner was Georges Simenon, pipe clenched tightly between his teeth while he listened to Curt Jurgens discussing his latest movie. Eddie Constantine, his peak cap at a rakish angle, waved to Sophia and pantomimed that he would like to join her only he was tied up with a producer who seemed determined to talk him into something. Michele Morgan and Henri Vidal were arguing amiably while photographers stalked them with their cameras. Jean Cocteau in his short dark cloak swept through the lobby and out into the sunshine without paying attention to anyone. Henri Verneuil, the famous French director, was listening with a broad smile to the gentle cajolings of Marese Guibert, who was trying to persuade him to make an appearance on the Monte Carlo television.

  Sophia moved through the crowd to the reception desk. The hands of the wall clock stood at four o’clock as she asked for the key to suite 27.

  “Mr. Delaney junior has it, Madame,” the clerk told her. “He went up a few minutes ago.”

  This surprised Sophia, but she thanked the clerk and then made her way across the crowded lobby, smiling and nodding and giving her left hand the way the Italians have to show special intimacy, but not stopping.

  The elevator whisked her to the second floor and she noticed as she stepped out of the cage that the hands of the wall clock now stood at seven minutes past four.

  She crossed the corridor, turned the handle of the door to suite 27, then frowned as she found the door locked.

  She rapped sharply.

  “Jay! It’s Sophia,” she said and waited.

  There was a long pause of silence and with a little movement of exasperation, she rapped again.

  She had been Floyd’s wife long enough now to have acquired the veneer of a millionaire’s wire and to be kept waiting in a hotel corridor was insufferable to her.

  “Jay—please, for heaven’s sake!”

  Again the silence and this time, becoming angry, she rattled the door handle and rapped again.

  “Excuse me, Madame.”

  The floor waiter had come from the stillroom.

  “Have you a key?” she asked, controlling her irritation and

  smiling at him. “I think my stepson must be sleeping.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  She moved aside and the waiter unlocked the door with his passkey and pushed the door open. Sophia thanked him and walked into the big lounge, closing the door sharply behind her.

  The first thing she noticed was a perfume in the air that was unfamiliar to her.

  She came to an abrupt standstill, sniffing at the fragile, almost imperceptible perfume, her lovely blue eyes narrowing. Their suite was strictly private. Floyd made a point of never having anyone up there, so the unfamiliar perfume meant that there had been an intruder in the room.

  Was it possible that Jay had brought a girl up here? Sophia wondered. Had she walked in on some sordid sexual adventure?

  Floyd had told Jay that they would not be back to the suite until after six. Had the boy dared to take advantage of this to brine to their suite one of those ghastly, half-naked little morons who paraded in the lobby of the hotel like lost souls in search of financial salvation?

  Sophia felt hot, indignant anger surge through her.

  She heard a movement in Jay’s bedroom and then the door opened into the lounge and very carefully closed the bedroom door. He was wearing his heavily tinted sunglasses. This habit of his, wearing sunglasses indoors, always irritated her. The glasses made a barrier between them. She never knew of what he was thinking or how he was reacting to what she said to him. When speaking to him she always had the impression that she was talking over a high wall to a voice that answered her from the other side.

  But this time, although his face was, as usual, expressionless, she was immediately aware that he had brought into the room an atmosphere of extreme tension and she also noticed that his upper lip glistened with tiny beads of perspiration.

  “Why, hello, Sophia,” he said and his voice was just a shade too casual. “You’re back early, aren’t you?”

  Had he got a girl in his bedroom? Sophia wondered with a feeling of disgust. Was there some wretched little slut trapped in there, listening against the door panel to what she was saying?

  “Didn’t you hear me knocking?” she asked and because his tension made her uneasy she spoke sharply.

  He moved further into the room and she noticed that he kept between her and his bedroom door.

  “I did think I heard something,” he said, “but I didn’t imagine it was you.”

  He took out his gold cigarette case she had given him and as he lifted his left arm, she saw on the inside of his forearm three ugly red scratches, one of them bleeding slightly.

  “You’ve hurt yourself,” she said. “Be careful: it’s bleeding.”

  He glanced at the scratches, then put the cigarette case on the table and took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood away.

  “There was a cat in the corridor,” he said. “It scratched me.”

  The stupid, transparent lie made her very angry.

  She bit back a sarcastic retort and moved away from him, crossing to the window, turning her back on him. Should she accuse him of bringing a girl up here? Her position as his father’s third wife made such an accusation difficult. He might well tell her to mind her own business. Also she might have made a mistake, although she was sure she hadn’t. Perhaps she had better tell Floyd and let him deal with the boy.

  “Wasn’t the movie any good?” Jay asked.

  “No.
”

  There was a pause, then he asked, “Where’s father?”

  The anxious note in his voice tempted her to say his father was on his way over. If there was a girl trapped in the bedroom, the idea of his father walking in might frighten him enough not to dare do such a thing again, but she resisted the temptation.

  “He’s still in the cinema.”

  Impatiently, she pushed aside the right-hand curtain that was hanging loose, looking for the curtain cord to fasten back the curtain.

  She saw the cord was missing.

  “Are you looking for something, Sophia?” Jay asked and his voice sounded very gentle.

  She turned quickly.

  His handsome young face was still expressionless. He was smiling, but it was a meaningless smile of a shop window dummy.

  She could see the twin reflections of herself like miniature snapshots in the lenses of his sunglasses. She noticed how very still she stood and how tense she seemed.

  “There’s a curtain cord missing,” she said.

  “How observant you are I” he said and pulled from his hip pocket the scarlet cord. “You mean this? I forgot to put it back. I’ve been amusing myself with it.”

  She didn’t know why, but this remark had an oddly sinister sound.

  “What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

  “Oh, nothing. I was bored. I was just fooling with it.”

  He began to move slowly and deliberately across the room towards her. The scarlet cord hung limply in his hands and it formed a noose.

  There was something about his silent approach that suddenly alarmed her. It seemed stealthy and somehow threatening.

  She moved away from the window, her heart beating fast and she stepped around the table that stood in the middle of the room so that it was between him and her.

  Jay paused, looking at her across the table, the cord still held in a loop between his slim brown fingers.

  Sophia realized that she was beginning to be frightened. She felt instinctively that something had happened in this room. The smell of the unfamiliar perfume, the scratches on Jay’s arm, the loop made by the curtain cord formed a pattern that she couldn’t bring herself to analyse. She wanted now badly to run out of the room, but she controlled the impulse. This was absurd, she told herself. Nothing had happened. Why should she be suddenly afraid of Floyd’s son? She forced herself to remain where she was, aware that her heart was now thumping and she was slightly breathless.

  “Jay—have you brought a girl up here?” she demanded and she was surprised to hear how harsh her voice sounded.

  Jay released one end of the cord and let it swing like a scarlet pendulum. He continued to stare at her.

  “Did you hear me?” she said, raising her voice.

  “How did you guess?” he said. He waved his hand towards his bedroom door. “You are quite right. As a matter of fact—she’s in there now.”

  Chapter Two

  I

  There had been a time when Joe Kerr had been considered by editors and agents as a top-flight journalist: probably the best in the game.

  There had been a time when Joe could call his agent, tell him he was going over to London or Paris or Rome or wherever it was to cover some special event, and, within the hour, his agent had sold the article, sight unseen and had also got a generous expense allocation to cover the cost of the trip.

  At that time Joe could not only write brilliantly but he was also a class photographer and that made a very lucrative combination.

  He reached the peak of his success in 1953. He not only had a book chosen by the Atlantic Book of the Month Club, but he also had a profile running for three weeks in the

  New Yorker and Life had given a five-page spread to his remarkable photographs of the birth of a baby. But the highlight of that year for him was his marriage with a nice but thoroughly ordinary girl, whose name was Martha Jones.

  Martha and he set up home at Malvern, which was a little over an hour’s run from Philadelphia, Joe’s working headquarters. Married life agreed with Joe. Martha and he were as happy together as two people really in love can be happy. Then something happened that was to alter completely the rhythm of Joe’s life.

  One night coming back from a rather wild party, Joe, not exactly drunk, but certainly fuddled, accidentally killed his wife.

  They had driven back to their home in Joe’s Cadillac, with Joe driving. He knew he was a little high and he had driven the thirty odd miles with extreme care. He was carrying with him his most precious possession and he wasn’t going to put her in the slightest danger just because he had had one whisky too many and was a little dizzy in the head.

  They arrived home without incident and Martha got out of the car to open the garage doors while Joe slid the automatic gear into reverse and had his foot on the brake pedal.

  As Martha was about to open the garage doors, Joe’s foot slipped off the pedal and the car began to move backwards. Fuddled and realizing Martha was directly behind the car, Joe stamped down hard on the brake pedal, missed it and his foot descended on the accelerator.

  The massive car swept back at a speed that made it impossible for Martha to jump clear.

  She was smashed against the garage doors and, with the splintered and broken doors, hurled into the garage and crushed against the back brick wall.

  Joe never recovered from this experience. From the moment he got out of the car and ran to the lifeless body of his wife, he began to go downhill.

  He began to drink. He lost his touch and editors soon discovered he could no longer be relied on. After a while, the assignments didn’t come to him and the articles he wrote lost their bite and didn’t sell.

  Anyone knowing him in 1953 wouldn’t have recognized him as he shambled up the drive of the Plaza hotel after his brief conversation with Jay Delaney when he had hopefully asked if Jay could arrange an interview for him with Jay’s father.

  Joe Kerr was a tall, thin man who looked a lot older than his forty odd years. He stooped as he walked and he was always a little short of breath. His hair, the colour of sand, was thin and lank, but it was his raddled plum-coloured face that shocked people meeting him for the first time.

  Since the death of his wife, he had been drinking two bottles of whisky a day and his face was now a mass of tiny broken veins. With his ruined face, his watery frog’s eyes and his shabby clothes, he looked beaten and broken and people moved out of his way when he approached them.

  Somehow, he still managed to scrape up a living. He was now employed by a Hollywood scandal sheet called Peep that paid him enough to buy his drink and the bare necessities.

  Peep had a large circulation. It specialized in near-pornographic photographs and an outrageous gossip column. In his heyday, Joe wouldn’t have dreamed of contributing to such a paper, no matter what he had been offered. Now he was thankful to do so.

  As he walked into the Plaza lobby, his Rolliflex camera hanging around his neck and bumping against his chest, Joe was thinking of the letter he had had that morning from

  Manley, the Editor of Peep. Manley hadn’t pulled his punches. If Joe imagined he had paid his fare to Cannes to get the insipid junk that Joe was turning in, Joe had another think coming.

  “How many more times do I have to tell you that we have got to have something that’ll stand our readers on their ears?” Manley wrote. “Cannes is a cesspit: everyone knows that. The dirt’s there. If you’ll only lay off the booze and dig for it, you’ll find it. If you can’t find it, then say so and I’ll wire Jack Bernstein to take over.”

  This letter had shaken Joe’s nerves. He knew no other paper would employ him and if Manley dropped him, he might just as well walk into the sea and keep on walking. Ever since Floyd Delaney had arrived in Cannes, Joe had been desperately trying to get a personal interview with him.

  Floyd Delaney was the most colourful character at the Festival and Joe hoped that, if he could get him talking, he could trap him into saying something indiscreet. He had wor
ried Harry Stone, Delaney’s publicity manager, to get him an interview, but Stone had been brutally frank.

  “If you imagine F.D. wants to talk to a rumdum like you Joe,” he said, “you must be out of your mind. That pickle puss of yours would give him a nightmare.”

  Joe’s drink-sodden mind glowed with resentment when he remembered Stone’s words. If he could only dig up some dirt on Delaney, he was thinking, something really hot with photographs, maybe the snoot wouldn’t be quite so sensitive about how a man looked if his own face was turning red.

  It was a quarter to four when Joe took up his position in an alcove window that gave him an uninterrupted view of the door to suite 27. He was out of sight of anyone going into the suite and also out of sight of the occasional waiter who passed up and down the corridor.

  He sat on the window seat, his Rolliflex at the ready, satisfied that there was enough light in the corridor to get good pictures without using his flash equipment.

  He had had four double whiskies since two o’clock and his mind was a little fuddled. He wasn’t quite sure what he was waiting for, for he knew Delaney and his high-hat wife were in the cinema and they wouldn’t be out much before six o’clock. He had seen Delaney’s good-looking son sunning himself on the beach and he looked set to remain there some time. So, on the face of it, Joe was wasting his time sitting outside this door. Nothing seemed likely to happen in suite 27 until around six o’clock, and, even then, the chances of anything of value to Joe happening was remote.

  But that didn’t bother Joe. It simply supplied him with an excuse to sit still for a while and to get away from the mad crush downstairs.

  The Cannes Festival had exhausted him. The competition had been unbelievably fierce. Joe felt old and washed-up when jostling with the other photographers for position when some famous star condescended to pose for a very brief moment to allow the photographers to go into action.