Part 33 (1/2)
SEVENTEEN.
Six weeks ago, all in Charlotte's life had been sane and normal.
Beatrix had still been alive, whiling away her octogenarian days in Rye. Maurice had still seemed the model half-brother, affectionate without being overbearing. And Tristram Abberley had still been the poet whom one remembered as a brother and the other as a father.
Even a week ago, Charlotte's vision of her world had been intact.
Beatrix was dead and strange discoveries had been made in the wake of her death. But fundamentally nothing had changed. Charlotte had understood the past as readily as the present. Or so she had supposed.
No longer. All now was altered, thrown into a chaos from which it could never be rescued. It was as if a jigsaw-puzzle she had completed 194 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.
years before had been suddenly overturned and, kneeling to re-a.s.semble it, she had realized the pieces were no longer the same, that a new and nightmarish picture had been subst.i.tuted for the old and rea.s.suring one and that the subst.i.tution might have taken place long ago without her even noticing.
For an hour or so after Maurice's departure from Ockham House, she was scarcely able to move, let alone think. Her body and mind were numb with the shock of what he had said, revealing as it did much more than he could ever have intended. She wandered from one room to another, staring about at the brightness of the morning whilst dread and disbelief wrestled queasily within her.
Then, at last, she abandoned the mental struggle and gave way to the desire for physical flight. She left the house and drove west, retracing at first the journey with which she had set the wheels of her present plight in motion. But she did not stop at Cheltenham. Lulu could be left in enviable ignorance. Instead, she pressed on into Wales and so arrived, in the heat of the early afternoon, at Hendre Gorfelen once more.
The yard was still and silent, held in a windless trance. Of dog and chickens there was no sign. The door of the house stood ajar and to Charlotte's knock there was no answer. Some quality of the atmosphere in the pa.s.sage as she walked in told her that Frank Griffith was not at home. Which might, she reflected, be just as well.
She entered the room to her right: Frank's study. There was a mustier air there than before, disclosing stray signals of dust and neglect. There were no flowers on the mantelpiece and the ashes of a long spent fire lay uncleared in the grate. Stepping towards it, Charlotte noticed a half-empty vodka bottle standing beside one of the armchairs. On the broad arm of the chair was a book. Charlotte had to crook her head to decipher the t.i.tle on its frayed and dis-coloured dust-jacket. The Brow of the Hill by Tristram Abberley. The 1932 first edition. She might have known.
She picked the book up and opened it at the page marked by a slip of card, guessing before she saw it that the poem she would find there was ”False G.o.ds.” And so it was. Tristram Abberley's finest work. And Frank Griffith's favourite.
Hold out your hand and ask for a job.
They'll make you a promise and spare you a sob.
H A N D I N G L O V E.
195.
For theirs is the truth that does not pay, While yours is the dog that has no day.
Heed, if you must, the G.o.ds of tin And let them explain your original sin , But never- In an instant, the focus of Charlotte's gaze switched from the familiar lines of verse to the card held between her fingers. There was a date pencilled in the top left-hand corner: 23 Dec '38. When she turned the card over, she saw that it was in fact a pa.s.sport-size photograph of Beatrix, smiling warmly at the camera, young enough in appearance to confirm the recorded date of December 1938, when Frank had stayed with her in Rye-and taken away, it seemed, at least one memento.
Charlotte stared at a Beatrix she could not herself remember-at a confident and self-possessed woman of exactly her own age-for a minute or so, then she slipped the photograph back into its place, closed the book and replaced it on the arm of the chair. There must be no more reading between the lines, no more peeping between the pages. She knew that now. What would Frank Griffith do if she told him all she feared and believed about her brother? It did not bear contemplation. Certainly he would not sit idly by and wait for Tristram's letters to be made public. That was certain. What had she been thinking of ? What had she been hoping to provoke?
She moved to the desk, found a sheet of paper and wrote a hasty message on it in capitals.
FRANK,.
I CALLED BUT YOU WERE OUT AND I COULD NOT.
STAY. I WANTED TO TELL YOU THIS. I AM CERTAIN.
NOW EMERSON McKITRICK STOLE THE LETTERS AFTER ALL AND DESTROYED THEM ONCE HE HAD.
REALIZED THE MOCKERY THEY WOULD MAKE OF.
HIS BOOK. SO, THE OUTCOME IS WHAT YOU YOUR-.
SELF INTENDED. THERE'S SOME COMFORT IN THAT, ISN'T THERE? PHONE ME IF YOU WANT TO TALK. I HOPE THE HEAD IS HEALING WELL.
CHARLOTTE.
She wedged the note under the Tunbridge Ware stationery box in the centre of the desk, where it could not be missed, took a glance 196 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.
around the room to make sure she had disturbed nothing else, then hurried out, praying she could make good her escape before Frank returned, shaking her head at the folly of her visit. And her prayers were answered. He was nowhere to be seen. She climbed into her car and drove back up the track as fast as she dared, looking neither to right nor left, sure of little beyond what Beatrix had seemed silently to tell her from fifty years away. Make an end of meddling. Let the bad become at least no worse. And leave the good, the dead and all the rest in whatever peace they may have found.
CHAPTER.
EIGHTEEN.
Albion Dredge leaned back awkwardly in his chair and pushed the window behind him open still further, though the total lack of movement in the air ensured his action would do nothing to lower the temperature in his oven of an office. He had already discarded his jacket and his grimaces as he prised at his s.h.i.+rt collar suggested his tie would have gone the same way had he been alone. As it was, the presence of a client deterred him, though it occurred to Derek that this was just about the only concession he did seem willing to make to him.
”I don't want to be a wet blanket, Mr Fairfax,” Dredge said, abandoning his various efforts at ventilation, ”but I'm obliged to be realistic. The theory you've put forward-”
”It's more than a theory!”
”Quite possibly. But though you may believe it, I have to prove it.
So, let me just be clear what it is you're saying. One-” He held up a pudgy forefinger. ”The late Miss Abberley wrote her brother's poems for him. Two-” He raised a second finger. ”Her nephew wanted her to make this fact public so copyright in the work would be extended and royalties would continue to be paid to him. Three-” Up went a third finger. ”Miss Abberley refused, so he decided to overcome her objections by murdering her. And four-” His little finger joined its perpendicular fellows. ”He made sure your brother took the blame H A N D I N G L O V E.
197.
for her murder by decoying him to Jackdaw Cottage and later planting the stolen items of Tunbridge Ware in his shop.”
”Correct.”
Dredge sighed. ”Well, it's an interesting theory. Very interesting indeed. If true-”
”It's true. I've no doubt of it.”
”I'm sure you haven't, Mr Fairfax, but others less-how can I put this?-less eager to entertain notions of your brother's innocence might regard it as fanciful and entirely unsupported by the available evidence.”
”How can you say that? Frank Griffith will confirm the stolen letters prove Beatrix's authors.h.i.+p of the poems.”
”Mr Griffith sounds an unreliable witness to me, Mr Fairfax.
Didn't you say he had a history of mental illness?”
”Yes, but-”