Moon in Pisces: neuroses/personality disorders/dishonesty

Leo rising: no sense of moderation. Resents demands on them.

They reached Warwick within half an hour and, as Satchwell had promised, found themselves in a town that could hardly have presented a greater contrast to the wide, sweeping white-faced crescents of Leamington. An ancient stone arch reminded Robin of Clerkenwell. They passed timber and beam houses, cobbles, steep sloping streets and narrow alleyways.

“We’ll go to the Roebuck,” said Satchwell, when Robin had parked in the market square. “It’s been there forever. Oldest pub in town.”

“Wherever you like,” said Robin, smiling as she checked that she had her notebook in her handbag.

They walked together through the heart of Warwick, Satchwell pointing out such landmarks as he deemed worth looking at. He was one of those men who felt a need to touch, tapping Robin unnecessarily upon the arm to draw her attention, grasping her elbow as they crossed a street, and generally assuming a proprietorial air over her as they wove their way toward Smith Street.

“D’you mind?” asked Satchwell, as they drew level with Picturesque Art Supplies, and without waiting for an answer he led her into the shop where, as he selected brushes and oils, he talked with airy self-importance of modern trends in art and the stupidity of critics. Oh, Margot, Robin thought, but then she imagined the Margot Bamborough she carried with her in her head judging her, in turn, by Matthew, with his endless store of anecdotes of his own sporting achievements, and his increasingly pompous talk of pay rises and bonuses, and felt humbled and apologetic.

At last, they made it into the Roebuck Inn, a low-beamed pub with a sign of a deer’s head hanging outside, and secured a table for two toward the rear of the pub. Robin couldn’t help but notice the coincidence: the wall behind Satchwell was dotted with horned animal heads, including a stuffed deer and bronze-colored models of an antelope and a ram. Even the menus had silhouettes of antlered stag heads upon them. Robin asked the waitress for a Diet Coke, all the while trying to repress thoughts of the horned signs of the zodiac.

“Would it be all right,” she asked, smiling, when the waitress had departed for the bar, “if I ask a few questions about Margot now?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Satchwell, with a smile that revealed his stained teeth again, but he immediately picked up the menu card and studied it.

“And d’you mind if I take notes?” Robin asked, pulling out her notebook.

“Go ahead,” he said, still smiling, watching her over the top of his menu with his uncovered eye, which followed her movements as she opened the book and clicked out the nib of her pen.

“So, I apologize if any of these questions—”

“Are you sure you don’t want a proper drink?” asked Satchwell, who had ordered a beer. “I ’ate drinking on me own.”

“Well, I’m driving, you see,” said Robin.

“You could stay over. Not with me, don’t worry,” he said quickly, with a grin that on a man so elderly, resembled a satyr’s leer, “I mean, go to an ’otel, file expenses. I s’pect you’re taking a good chunk of money from Margot’s family for this, are you?”

Robin merely smiled, and said,

“I need to get back to London. We’re quite busy. It would be really useful to get some background on Margot,” she continued. “How did you meet?”

He told her the story she already knew, about how he’d been taken to the Playboy Club by a client and seen there the leggy nineteen-year-old in her bunny ears and tail.

“And you struck up a friendship?”

“Well,” said Satchwell, “I don’t know that I’d call it that.”

With his cold eye upon Robin he said,

“We ’ad a very strong sexual connection. She was a virgin when we met, y’know.”

Robin kept smiling formally. He wasn’t going to embarrass her.

“She was nineteen. I was twen’y-five. Beau’iful girl,” he sighed. “Wish I’d kept the pictures I took of her, but after she disappeared I felt wrong about ’aving them.”

Robin heard Oonagh again. “He took pictures of her. You know.Pictures.” It must be those revealing or obscene photos Satchwell was talking about, because after all, he’d hardly have felt guilty about having a snapshot.

The waitress came back with Satchwell’s beer and Robin’s Diet Coke. They ordered food; after swiftly scanning the menu, Robin asked for a chicken and bacon salad; Satchwell ordered steak and chips. When the waitress had gone Robin asked, though she knew the answer,

“How long were you together?”

“Coupla years, all told. We broke up, then got back togevver. She didn’t like me using other models. Jealous. Not cut out for an artist’s muse, Margot. Didn’t like sitting still and not talking, haha… no, I fell hard for Margot Bamborough. Yeah, there was a damn sight more to her than being a Bunny Girl.”

Of course there was, thought Robin, though still smiling politely. She became a bloody doctor.

“Did you ever paint her?”

“Yeah,” said Satchwell. “Few times. Some sketches and one full-size picture. I sold them. Needed the cash. Wish I ’adn’t.”

He fell into a momentary abstraction, his uncovered eye surveying the pub, and Robin wondered whether old memories were genuinely resurfacing behind the heavily tanned face, which was so deeply lined and dark it might have been carved from teak, or whether he was playing the part that was expected of him when he said quietly,

“Hell of a girl, Margot Bamborough.”

He took a sip of his beer, then said,

“It’s her ’usband who’s hired you, is it?”

“No,” said Robin. “Her daughter.”

“Oh,” said Satchwell, nodding. “Yeah, of course: there was a kid. She didn’t look as though she’d ’ad a baby, when I met her after they got married. Slim as ever. Both my wives put on about a stone with each of our kids.”

“How many children have you got?” asked Robin, politely.

She wanted the food to hurry up. It was harder to walk out once food was in front of you, and some instinct told her that Paul Satchwell’s whimsical mood might not last.

“Five,” said Satchwell. “Two with me first wife, and three with me second. Didn’t mean to: we got twins on the last throw. All pretty much grown up now, thank Christ. Kids and art don’t mix. I love ’em,” he said roughly, “but Cyril Connolly had it right. The enemy of promise is the pram in the bloody ’all.”

He threw her a brief glance out of his one visible eye and said abruptly,

“So ’er ’usband still thinks I had something to do with Margot disappearing, does ’e?”

“What d’you mean by ‘still’?” inquired Robin.

“’E gave my name to the police,” said Satchwell. “The night she disappeared. Thought she might’ve run off with me. Did you know Margot and I bumped into each other a coupla weeks before she disappeared?”

“I did, yes,” said Robin.

“It put ideas into what’s-’is-name’s head,” he said. “I can’t blame him, I s’pose it did look fishy. I’d’ve probably thought the same, if my bird had met up with an old flame right before they buggered off—disappeared, I mean.”

The food arrived: Satchwell’s steak and chips looked appetizing, but Robin, who’d been too busy concentrating on her questions, hadn’t read the small print on the menu. Expecting a plate of salad, she received a wooden platter bearing various ramekins containing hot sausage slices, hummus and a sticky mess of mayonnaise-coated leaves, a challenging assortment to eat while taking notes.

“Want some chips?” offered Satchwell, pushing the small metal bucket that contained them toward her.

“No thanks,” said Robin, smiling. She took a bite of a breadstick and continued, her pen in her right hand,

“Did Margot talk about Roy, when you bumped into her?”

“A bit,” said Satchwell, his mouth full of steak. “She put up a good front. What you do, when you meet the ex, isn’t it? Pretend you think you did the right thing. No regrets.”

“Did you think she had regrets?” asked Robin.

“She wasn’t ’appy, I could tell. I thought, nobody’s paying you attention. She tried to put a brave face on it, but she struck me as miserable. Knackered.”

“Did you only see each other the once?”

Satchwell chewed his steak, looking at Robin thoughtfully. At last he swallowed, then said,

“Have you read my police statement?”

“Yes,” said Robin.

“Then you know perfectly well,” said Satchwell, waggling his fork at her, “that it was just the once. Don’t you?”

He was smiling, trying to pass off the implied admonition as waggish, but Robin felt the spindle-thin spike of aggression.

“So you went for a drink, and talked?” said Robin, smiling, as though she hadn’t noticed the undertone, daring him to become defensive, and he continued, in a milder tone,

“Yeah, we went to some bar in Camden, not far from my flat. She’d been on an ’ouse call to some patient.”

Robin made a note.