Part 26 (1/2)
”OK. Maybe it does. But listen. Do you know what was in the letters?” His smile remained, rueful and cynical, not one whit abashed or ashamed. ”I have to find out.”
She stepped back, certain now that he was innocent of what she had suspected, just as she was certain of his guilt on almost every other count. ”You disgust me,” she snapped.
He shrugged. ”It's an occupational hazard.”
”Get out of my way.” She moved towards the front door, but he stepped into her path and she pulled up. Still he was smiling, with a sparkle of duplicity in his deep brown eyes.
”Shall I tell you what really disgusts you, Charlie?”
”If you must.”
”Still wanting me.” He stretched out his hand and, before Charlotte could stop him, slid it down over her breast. ”Perhaps wanting me even more now you know what's available.”
It was the faint trace of truth in his remark-the incontestable stirring of desire she had felt whilst standing there and listening to what he had done to Ursula-that gouged the deepest. Why did he have to be so loathsome and yet so close to understanding her?
”What's in the letters? You wouldn't regret telling me. I guarantee it.”
She pushed his hand away and stared at him. ”I'd regret telling you anything. That I guarantee.”
”Harsh words, Charlie.”
”But meant. Sincerely meant. Unlike a single one of yours. Now, may I leave please?”
H A N D I N G L O V E.
153.
”Sure. I'm not stopping you.” He raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. ”Go right ahead.”
And she did, through the door and up the drive, walking fast without looking back, steeling herself neither to flinch nor falter, holding back the tears till she had reached the privacy of her car and could hold them back no longer. Then, amidst her sobs, she took from her handbag the florist's card he had sent her that bore his flouris.h.i.+ng signature. The first large ominous drops of a cloudburst were falling as she wound down the window and cast out the torn fragments.
Then she started the engine and accelerated away.
CHAPTER.
FIVE.
All the strength and self-a.s.surance Frank Griffith had seemed to possess when encountered on his home territory had vanished in the antiseptic surroundings of the Kent and Suss.e.x Hospital. Looking at him, Derek saw only a frail and wizened old man, propped up on a bank of pillows with deckchair-striped pyjamas fastened stiffly round his neck, barely distinguishable in fact from the dozing and dribbling occupants of the other beds in the ward. His eyes had grown dimmer, his voice more gravelly, since their last encounter.
”I didn't steal the letters, Mr Griffith.”
”I know.”
”Or pay anybody else to.”
”I know that too. If you had, you'd have realized by now they couldn't help your brother.”
”Maybe so. I only hope something can.”
”Why? Why do you care?”
”Because he is my brother, come what may.”
”I thought I had brothers once. Hundreds of them. Thousands.”
Griffith's gaze moved past Derek and beyond, it seemed, even the wall behind him. ”I should have known better.”
154.
R O B E R T G O D D A R D.
”But blood's thicker than water.”
”Not at my age. Not at any age if-” He broke off and looked back at Derek. ”What did you say you do for a living?”
”I'm an accountant.”
Griffith nodded. ”Balancing the books.”
”Sometimes.”
”Not these books though. They're long past balancing.”
”Not necessarily.”
”They are. Believe me.”
”How can I, when you won't tell me what I need to know?”
Griffith fell silent for a moment. A gurgling coughing fit came and went further down the ward, as it had done twice before. Then he said: ”What kind of a man is your brother, Mr Fairfax?”
”Colin? He's an antique dealer, as you know. A bit shady, I suppose. I shouldn't care to be responsible for his accounts.”
”But what kind of a man?”
”Charming. Entertaining. Plausible. Lovable, in a way. Also vain, untrustworthy and thoroughly unreliable.”
”But still you try to help him?”
”Who else would if I didn't?”
”Would he do the same for you?”
”I don't know. The situation's never arisen. Except . . .”