Hand In Glove Part 34

"Not exactly."

"Making trouble? He seemed the type."

"I suppose you could say so. But don't worry. I can handle the situation."

Charlotte's choice of phrase lodged in her mind and acquired a guilty resonance as the day progressed. After leaving Rye, she drove to Maidstone and located the street where she had been born and her parents had entered into their secret pact with Beatrix. The houses were more dilapidated than she remembered, the parked cars more numerous but less highly polished. Her birthplace had its sagging curtains drawn in the middle of a hot afternoon, with deafening rock music billowing from the only open window. For this she felt oddly grateful. Nostalgia and noise were mutually exclusive. And she had no use for nostalgia.

She returned to Tunbridge Wells just as the coolness of the evening was beginning to drain some of the heat from the day. She thought of what she had said to Mr Mentiply, of how true it was and yet how shameful. She thought of how intolerable it would be to continue, week after week, pretending Derek Fairfax and his imprisoned brother did not exist. And at that she surrendered to impulse.

He had written to her from his home address in Speldhurst, a well-to-do commuter village north-west of the town. Charlotte drove directly there and found Farriers, a cul-de-sac of widely s.p.a.ced bungalows, without difficulty. But at number six there was no answer and she retreated, uncertain whether to be disappointed or not. A few minutes later, pa.s.sing the pub in the centre of the village for the second time, she glanced into its garden and noticed a solitary figure sitting at one of the trellis tables. It was Derek Fairfax.

Charlotte overshot the entrance to the car park and had to reverse some distance up the lane to reach it. This manoeuvre, of which Fairfax had a clear view, seemed certain to attract his attention, but he failed to H A N D I N G L O V E.

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look up as she approached his table. He was casually dressed, doodling with a ball-point pen on a paper napkin whilst cradling his beer-gla.s.s against his cheek, completely absorbed, so it seemed, in his own thoughts.

"Mr Fairfax?"

He started violently and, as his eyes flashed up to meet hers, she noticed him screw the napkin into a ball and drop it into the ashtray.

"Miss Ladram, I didn't . . . I'm sorry, I never . . ." He frowned. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yes. I've just called at your house."

"Really? Why?"

"I'm not completely sure. I . . ."

"Would you like a drink?" He rose, smiling awkwardly.

"Yes. Yes please. A gin and tonic."

"Sit down. I'll go and get it." He drained his gla.s.s and set off with it across the garden. Charlotte sat down and watched him until he had vanished into the shadowy interior of the pub. Then, licking her lips nervously, she plucked the screwed up napkin from the ashtray and flattened it out on the table. A diagram confronted her, comprising names both familiar and unfamiliar, juxtaposed according to principles she could not immediately grasp.

BEATRIX---TRISTRAM .

SPICER----MAURICE--CHARLOTTE .

WHITBOURNE.

FITHYAN.

C.F.------D.F.

She realized D.F. and C.F. must represent Derek and Colin Fairfax and knew Fithyan & Co. was the accountancy firm Derek worked for, but who Whitbourne might be she could not conjecture. As for her own position, marginal to the rest, no more, in one sense, than an ad-junct to Maurice, she could not decide whether to feel relieved or insulted. Nor could she risk prolonged scrutiny of the diagram, for already Fairfax had reappeared in the pub doorway. She compressed 202 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

the napkin in her hand and replaced it in the ashtray, then looked up to meet his gaze. She wanted to smile, to a.s.sure him that his preoccupations were hers as well. But, in the event, she merely thanked him for her drink in a cautious murmur.

"So, why did you want to see me?" He took a gulp at his beer as he sat down.

"To . . . To ask if you'd done what you said you would."

"Tell my brother and his solicitor that I believe your brother was responsible for Beatrix Abberley's death, you mean?"

"Well . . . Yes."

"I told his solicitor. You'll be glad to know he was unimpressed."

He swallowed some more beer and Charlotte became aware of a vein of sarcasm in his remarks which alcohol could easily turn to bitterness.

"What about your brother?"

"I visited him today in Lewes Prison. In fact, I've just returned from there. The trip left me feeling in need of a drink. Of several drinks, come to that."

"It's a depressing place, I imagine."

"Yes. It is. But it was worse today than usual."

"Why?"

"Because I lied to him."

"You did what?"

"I lied. He asked if I'd found anything out. And I said I hadn't."

"Why did you do that?"

"Why do you think?" He set his gla.s.s down and leaned forward across the table. "Because there's no evidence, Miss Ladram. Not a shred. I know what your brother's done. And so do you. But I can't prove it. I can't even suggest it without . . ."

"Without what?"

"Never mind." He waved away a gnat and took another gulp of beer. This gla.s.s, too, would soon be empty. "Your brother's in the clear.

And so are you. What more do you need to know?"

"Why do you say I'm in the clear?"

"Because, without evidence of his guilt, you can pretend he's innocent, can't you? And benefit from his crime."

"Benefit? In what way?"

"I a.s.sume some element of the royalties goes to you."

"You a.s.sume wrong." Charlotte felt herself flush. "My mother bequeathed all her royalty income to Maurice. As did Beatrix."

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"Wonderful." He smiled humourlessly. "That salves your conscience very neatly, doesn't it?"

"It doesn't need salving." But Charlotte knew otherwise. Fairfax was right. Indirectly, she was bound to benefit in some way. Perhaps she already had, for Maurice had never pressed her, as he reasonably might, either to sell Ockham House or to buy him out of his share of it. The sale of Jackdaw Cottage might solve that problem, of course, but it would not be Charlotte's to sell if Beatrix were still alive. "What do you want me to do, Mr Fairfax? As you say, there's no evidence to support your theory."

"What if there were?"

"That would be-" She broke off, reminding herself that Fairfax did not know-and must not know-why Maurice needed the royalties to continue. "But there isn't," she said with stubborn finality.

"And there can't be, because Maurice didn't do what you seem to think he did."

"You have to say that, of course. But you don't believe it, do you?"

His eyes were fixed on her in open challenge.

"I most certainly do." She glanced away, knowing what he would conclude from her inability to face him. "I think Emerson McKitrick stole the letters from Frank Griffith and destroyed them in order to protect his account of Tristram Abberley's life. I've told Frank so. And now I'm telling you."

"How did Frank react?"

"I didn't-" She forced herself to look back at him. "I haven't spoken to him. I left a note at Hendre Gorfelen when I drove there yesterday. He wasn't in."

"Couldn't you have waited?"

"I suppose so. But it's a long-"

"You didn't want to wait, did you? You were glad he wasn't there."

He quaffed some more beer. "Perhaps you should have left me a note as well. It's so much easier on paper, isn't it? So much more . . . convenient."

The truth of his words and the falseness of her own struck home at Charlotte. If she remained, she would either compound the lie she had told or confess to it and all she could be certain of was that she must do neither. "There's nothing more to be said, is there?" She stood up. "I think I'd better leave."

"So do I." Fairfax drained his gla.s.s and rose to confront her across the table, his glare crumpling suddenly into something forlorn and 204 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

appealing. "I'm sorry if I've offended you. I realize you're in an invidious position. But it's a great deal better than my brother's position, isn't it?"

"Yes. And-" The look that pa.s.sed between them in that instant carried with it a disturbing quality of self-recognition, as if each saw clearly their own frailties reflected in the other. "I'm sorry too. But sorrow doesn't help, does it?"

"Not a sc.r.a.p."

"Goodbye, Mr Fairfax." She was tempted to offer him her hand, then decided that any suggestion of agreement between them-of unity of purpose-was best suppressed.

"Goodbye, Miss Ladram."

She turned and walked quickly away across the garden. When she reached her car and glanced back, she saw he was already heading towards the doorway of the pub, head bowed, empty gla.s.s suspended in his hand. They would not meet again. If they did so by chance, they would pretend not to know each other. This was the end both of them had feared from the moment Frank Griffith had agreed to share his secret. This was knowing the truth and knowing it could not be changed.

CHAPTER.

TWENTY.

Tarragona, 20th February 1938 Dear Sis, I don't know what reports have reached you, but I hope this letter will rea.s.sure you that your little brother's still in the land of the living, though not exactly up and about. I am, in fact, recovering well from a bullet-wound in the left thigh despite-rather than because of-the rough-and-ready H A N D I N G L O V E.

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techniques of the doctors who tend us in this large and cheerless hospital.

How did it happen? Well, to be honest, I'm not sure. My company was involved in a fairly desperate action to prevent the Canadian Battalion being cut off in the hills outside Teruel. In the course of it, we were exposed to rifle fire from a superior position and I was. .h.i.t. All very random, you see.

Nothing personal or even vaguely vicious about it. Just a misfortune of war.

And it may not have been such a misfortune. A friendly orderly brings me English papers when he can, so I know you'll be well aware how badly-and predictably-wrong the Teruel operation went. Rumour has it that the final battle for the city has already begun and, frankly, there can only be one result. So you'll understand that I'm more worried about my friends and comrades still stuck there than about my own condition, which seems to be a great deal better than I've any right to expect.

Frank Griffith and Vicente Ortiz both knew the generals were putting our heads in a noose at Teruel and, in many ways, I wish it could have been they who slipped out of it with nothing worse than a flesh-wound rather than I who was always thirstier than them for action. How they've fared since I was evacuated I dread to contemplate. I can't help wondering whether I'll see either of them again. If not, it won't be the end of the matter, because- But let that pa.s.s. Suffice to say my thirst for action has been well and truly slaked. Whatever happens after this, I aim to call it a day as far as the International Brigade's concerned. What follows I don't know. When I volunteered last year, I wasn't looking far ahead and I still can't.

But it seems I'll be back in England before many months are out, with a limp to add to that albatross of a poetical reputation, facing the future with far from starry eyes.

I don't know what sort of an impression my letters have given you of the seven months I've spent in Spain. Inaccurate and patchy, I dare say, as gauche and ill-formed as those sketches of poems you used to shape so adeptly into the real thing. When we can sit down together and talk it all through, you'll have the true picture, of course. Then I'll be able to tell 206 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

you everything, including things which can't be entrusted to the mail. And then you'll understand, I promise. Then you'll see it through my eyes.

Life's pretty uneventful here, as I'm sure you can imagine.

For once, it's all going on somewhere else. And for once, I'm grateful. But, as soon as there is something to report, I'll be in touch. Or maybe I'll see you first in person. Who knows? The future's a slippery commodity. You think you've grasped it, then it's escaped you. Perhaps we'd better just await what it brings.

Much love, Tristram.

I N T E R L U D E.

It is a late August day in the year 1928. Beatrix Abberley is reclining on a cushioned wicker sofa in the conservatory of her father's house, Indsleigh Hall in Staffordshire. She is a twenty-six-year-old spinster of plain but uncompromising looks, whose hair-style-centre-parted and coiled over the ears-and dress-square-necked, short-sleeved and ankle-length-are a few crucial years behind the fashions. Yet it is obvious from the jut of her chin and the intensity of her gaze that she is a woman of vigour and intelligence. Indeed, she has frequently expressed her impatience with the ways of the world and the place allotted to her in it.

Beatrix believes-and few could deny-that her abilities are wasted in the roles she has dutifully if reluctantly filled since her mother's death twelve years ago, those of housekeeper to her father and governess to her young brother, Tristram. She yearns to cut a figure on some wider stage, but knows the opportunity to do so-if it ever existed-is already past. Politics or literature would, she is certain, have proved more receptive to her talents than domestic economics and the limited society of rural Staffordshire. But both realms are closed to her and are likely to remain so.

To pile frustration upon unfulfilment, her hopes of finding consolation in her brother's career are beginning to fade. Tristram has enjoyed all the social and educational advantages she has been denied.

Since his boyhood, she has encouraged him to develop as independent and perceptive a mind as she herself possesses, to examine the world critically and impose himself upon it. But now, during the interval 210 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

between his second and third years at Oxford, it is no longer possible for her to believe she has succeeded. For Tristram, though a quick and ready thinker, is cursed by indolence and superficiality, two traits which Oxford, or, more particularly, the company he has kept there, have only exacerbated. His eagerness to impress has become a willingness to please. His opinions have become prey to his audience.