Straight. Part 9

'YeS I know.'

With a certain relief I rode down in the service lift and swung across to Brad in the car. He hopped out of the front seat and shovelled me into the back, tucking the crutches in beside me and waiting while I lifted my leg along the padded leather and wedged myself into the corner for the most comfortable angle of ride.

'Home?' he said.

'No. Like I told you on the way up, we'll stop in Kensington for a while, if you don't mind.'

He gave the tiniest of nods. I'd provided him in the morning with a detailed large-scale map of West London, asking him to work out how to get to the road where Greville had lived, and I hoped to h.e.l.l he had done it, because I was feeling more drained than I cared to admit and not ready to ride in irritating trafficclogged circles 'Look out for a pub called The Rook and Castle, would you?' I asked, as we neared the area. 'Tomorrow at five-thirty I have to meet someone there.'

Brad nodded and with the unerring instinct of the beer drinker quickly found it, merely pointing vigorously to tell me.

'Great,' I said, and he acknowledged that with a wiggle of the shoulders.

He drew up so confidently outside Greville's address that I wondered if he had reconnoitred earlier in the day, except that his aunt lived theoretically in the opposite direction. In any case, he handed me the crutches, opened the gate of the small front garden and said loquaciously, 'I'll wait in the car.'

'I might be an hour or more. Would you mind having a quick recce up and down this street and those nearby to see if you can find an old Rover with this number?' I gave him a card with it on. 'My brother's car,' I said.

He gave me a brief nod and turned away, and I looked up at the tall townhouse that Greville had moved into about three months previously, and which I'd never visited. It was creamy-grey, gracefully proportioned, with bal.u.s.traded steps leading up to the black front door, and businesslike but decorative metal grilles showing behind the gla.s.s in every window from semi-bas.e.m.e.nt to rooF.

I crossed the gra.s.sy front garden and went up the steps, and found there were three locks on the front door.

Cursing slightly I yanked out Greville's half-ton of keys and by trial and error found the way into his fortress.

Late afternoon sun slanted yellowly into a long main drawing room which was on the left of the entrance hall, throwing the pattern of the grilles in shadows on the greyish-brown carpet. The walls, pale salmon, were adorned with vivid paintings of stained-gla.s.s cathedral windows, and the fabric covering sofa and armchairs was of a large broken herringbone pattern in dark brown and white, confusing to the eye. I reflected ruefully that I didn't know whether it all represented Greville's own taste or whether he'd taken it over from the past owner. I knew only his taste in clothes, food, gadgets and horses. Not very much. Not enough.

The drawing room was dustless and tidy; unlived in. I returned to the front hall from where stairs led up and down, but before tackling those I went through a door at the rear which opened into a much smaller room filled with a homely clutter of books, newspapers, magazines, black leather chairs, clocks, chrysanthemums in pots, a tray of booze and framed medieval bra.s.s rubbings on deep green walls. This was all Greville, I thought. This was home.

I left it for the moment and hopped down the stairs to the semi-bas.e.m.e.nt, where there was a bedroom, unused, a small bathroom and decorator-style dining room looking out through grilles to a rear garden, with a narrow spotless kitchen alongside.

Fixed to the fridge by a magnetic strawberry was a note.

Dear Mr Franklin, I didn't know you'd be away this weekend. I brought in the papers, they're in the back room.

You didn't leave your laundry out, so I haven't taken it. Thanks for the money. I'll be back next Tuesday as usual.

Mrs P I looked around for a pencil, found a ball-point, pulled the note from its clip and wrote on the back, asking Mrs P to call the following number (Saxony Franklin's) and speak to Derek or Annette. I didn't sign it, but put it back under the strawberry where I supposed it would stay for another week, a sorry message in waiting.

I looked in the fridge which contained little but milk, b.u.t.ter, grapes, a pork pie and two bottles of champagne.

Diamonds in the ice cubes? I didn't think he would have put them anywhere so chancy: besides, he was security conscious not paranoid.

I hauled myself upstairs to the hall again and then went on up to the next floor where there was a bedroom and bathroom suite in self-conscious black and white.

Greville had slept there: the built-in cupboards and drawers held his clothes, the bathroom closet his privacy.

He had been sparing in his possessions, leaving a single row of shoes several white shirts on hangers six a.s.sorted suits and a rack of silk ties The drawers were tidy with sweaters, sports shirts underclothes socks Our mother, I thought with a smile, would have been proud of him. She'd tried hard and unsuccessfully to instil tidiness into both of us as children, and it looked as if we'd both got better with age.

There was little else to see. The drawer in the bedside table revealed indigestion tablets, a torch and a paperback, John D. MacDonald. No gadgets and no treasure maps.

With a sigh I went into the only other room on that floor and found it unfurnished and papered with garish metallic silvery roses which had been half ripped off at one point. So much for the decorator.

There was another flight of stairs going upwards, but I didn't climb them. There would only be, by the looks of things, unused rooms to find there, and I thought I would go and look later when stairs weren't such a sweat. Anything deeply interesting in that house seemed likely to be found in the small back sitting room, so it was to there that I returned.

I sat for a while in the chair that was clearly Greville's favourite, from where he could see the television and the view over the garden. Places that people had left for ever should be seen through their eyes I thought. His presence was strong in that room, and in me.

Beside his chair there was a small antique table with, on its polished top, a telephone and an aNSwering machine. A red light for messages received was shining on the machine, so after a while I pressed a b.u.t.ton marked 'rewind', followed by another marked 'play'.

A woman's voice spoke without preamble.

'Darling, where are you? Do ring me.'

There was a series of between-message clicks, then the same voice again, this time packed with anxiety.

'Darling, please please ring. i'm very worried. Where are you, darling? Please ring. I love you.'

Again the clicks, but no more messages.

Poor lady, I thought. Grief and tears waiting in the wings.

I got up and explored the room more fully, pausing by two drawers in a table beside the window. They contained two small black unidentified gadgets which baffled me and which I stowed in my pockets, and also a slotted tray containing a rather nice collection of small bears, polished and carved from shaded pink, brown and charcoaL stone. I laid the tray on top of the table beside some chrysanthemums and came next to a box made of greenish stone, also polished and which, true to Greville's habit, was firmly locked. Thinking perhaps that one of the keys fitted it I brought out the bunch again and began to try the smallest.

I was facing the window with my back to the room, balancing on one foot and leaning a thigh against the table, my arms out of the crutches, intent on what I was doing and disastrously unheeding. The first I knew of anyone else in the house was a m.u.f.fled exclamation behind me, and I turned to see a dark-haired woman coming through the doorway, her wild glance rigidly fixed on the green stone box. Without pause she came fast towards me, pulling out of a pocket a black object like a long fat cigar.

I opened my mouth to speak but she brought her hand round in a strong swinging arc, and in that travel the short black cylinder more than doubled its length into a thick silvery flexible stick which crashed with shattering force against my left upper arm, enough to stop a heavyweight in round one.

For a moment it didn't seem to reach her. I said

CHAPTER SIX.

My fingers went numb and dropped the box. I swayed and Spun on the force of the impact and overbalanced, toppling, thinking sharply that I mustn't this time put My foot on the ground. I dropped the bunch of keys and grabbed at the back of an upright black leather chair With my right hand to save myself, but it turned over Under mY weight and came down on top of me onto the carpet in a tangle of chair legs, table legs and crutches, tHe green box underneath and digging into my back.

In a spitting fury I tried to orientate myself and finally got enough breath for one single choice, charming and heartfelt word.

'b.i.t.c.h.'

She gave me a baleful glare and picked up the telePhone, pressing three fast b.u.t.tons.

'Police.' she said, and in as short a time as it took the eMergenCy service to connect her, 'Police, I want to repOrt a burglary. I've caught a burglar.'

'I'm Greville's brother,' I said thickly, from the floor.

again, more loudly, 'I'm Greville's brother.'

'What?' she said vaguely.

'For Christ's sake, are you deaf? I'm not a burglar, I'm Greville Franklin's brother.' I gingerly sat up into an L-shape and found no strength anywhere.

She put the phone down. 'Why didn't you say so?'

she demanded.

'What chance did you give me? And who the h.e.l.l are you, walking into my brother's house and belting people?'

She held at the ready the fearsome thing she'd hit me with, looking as if she thought I'd attack her in my turn, which I certainly felt like. In the last six days I'd been crunched by a horse, a mugger and a woman. All I needed was a toddler to amble up with a coup de grace.

I pressed the fingers of my right hand on my forehead and the palm against my mouth and considered the blackness of life in general.

'What's the matter with you?' she said after A pause.

I slid the hand away and drawled, 'Absolutely b.l.o.o.d.y nothing.'

'I only tapped you,' she said with criticism.

'Shall I give you a hefty clip with that thing so you can feel what it's like?'

'You're angry.' She sounded surprised.

'Dead right.'

I struggled up off the floor, straightened the fallen chair and sat on it. 'Who are you?' I repeated. But I knew who she was: the woman on the answering machine. The same voice. The cut-crystal accent. Darling, where are you? I love you.

'Did you ring his office?' I said. 'Are you Mrs WIlliams?'

She seemed to tremble and crumple inwardly and she walked past me to the window to stare out into the garden.

'Is he really dead?' she said.

'Yes.'

She was forty, I thought. Perhaps more. Nearly my height. In no way tiny or delicate. A woman of decision and power, sorely troubled.

She wore a leather-belted raincoat, though it hadn't rained for weeks, and plain black businesslike court shoes. Her hair, thick and dark, was combed smoothly back from her forehead to curl under on her collar, a cool groomed look achieved only by expert cutting.

There was no visible jewellery, little remaining lipstick, no trace of scent.

'How?' she said eventually.

I had a strong impulse to deny her the information, to punish her for her precipitous attack, to hurt her and get even. But there was no point in it, and I knew I would end up with more shame than satisfaction, so after a struggle I explained briefly about the scaffolding.

'Friday afternoon,' I said. 'He was unconscious at once. He died early on Sunday.'

She turned her head slowly to look at me directly.

'Are you Derek?' she said.

'Yes.'

'I'm Clarissa Williams'

Neither of us made any attempt to shake hands. It would have been incongruous, I thought.

'I came to fetch some things of mine,' she said. 'I didn't expect anyone to be here.'

It was an apology of sorts, I supposed: and if I had indeed been a burglar she would have saved the bric-abrac.

What things?' I asked.

She hesitated, but in the end said, 'A few letters, that's all.' Her gaze strayed to the answering machine and there was a definite tightening of muscles round her eyes.

'I played the messages,' I said.

'Oh G.o.d.'

'Why should it worry you?'

She had her reasons, it seemed, but she wasn't going to tell me what they were: or not then, at any rate.

'I want to wipe them off,' she said. 'It was one of the purposes of coming.'

She glanced at me, but I couldn't think of any urgent reason why she shouldn't, so I didn't say anything. Tentatively, as if asking my forbearance every step of the way, she walked jerkily to the machine, rewound the tape and pressed the record b.u.t.ton, recording silence over what had gone before. After a while she rewound the tape again and played it, and there were no desperate appeals any more.

'Did anyone else hear . . .?'

'I don't think so. Not unless the cleaner was in the habit of listening. She came today, I think.'

'Oh G.o.d.'

'You left no name.' Why the h.e.l.l was I rea.s.suring her, I wondered. I still had no strength in my fingers. I could still feel that awful blow like a shudder.

'Do you want a drink?' she said abruptly. 'I've had a dreadful day.' She went over to the tray of bottles and poured vodka into a heavy tumbler. 'What do you want?'

'Water,' I said. 'Make it a double.'

She tightened her mouth and put down the vodka bottle with a clink. 'Soda or tonic?' she asked starchily.

'Soda.'

She poured soda into a gla.s.s for me and tonic into her own, diluting the spirit by not very much. Ice was downstairs in the kitchen. No one mentioned it.

I noticed she'd left her lethal weapon Lying harmlessly beside the answering machine. Presumably I no longer represented any threat. As if avoiding personal contact, she set my soda water formally on the table beside me between the little stone bears and the chrysanthemums and drank deeply from her own gla.s.s.