I slowly lifted my wallet out of my pocket and tossed it into the angle of the windscreen. “Short of cash, Emma?”
“You’ll get it back. The car too. I’ll leave them in Pangbourne. I just need to slow you down. Long enough to make pursuit useless.”
“I’ll find you sooner or later.”
“No you won’t. The supermarket job; the high-rise flat; the London phone number: they’re all about to vanish. Along with me.”
“What about Considine?”
“Just make sure he has the rest of the money by Friday. He’ll destroy the letters on receipt.”
“How can I be sure of that?”
“You can’t. But once you’ve made him a millionaire, he can hardly expose your father as a murderer without exposing himself as an extortionist. What you can be sure of is that he’ll use the letters to destroy your family if he isn’t paid on time. Now, get out of the car.”
I opened the door and climbed out, an awareness of my own folly growing as fear subsided. I’d chosen this spot to place her at a disadvantage, but suddenly the disadvantage was all mine.
She’d slipped out of her side of the car as I left and was training the gun on me now across the roof. “Start walking.”
“It doesn’t end here, you know.”
“For you and me, it does. Get moving.”
I began to walk away, listening to my footfalls on the tarmac, judging the gap as it stretched behind me. A minute or so passed. Then I heard the familiar note of the Stag engine starting. I swung round to see it complete a bumping U-turn between the verges of the road, then roar off into the distance, back the way we’d come.
I stood where I was for a moment, watching it dwindle from sight, then listening as the sound of its accelerating engine faded away. Finally, there was only a blank horizon and a silent sky. I swore, turned on my heel and strode away.
It was about a mile to the first hamlet. I had enough loose change to phone for a taxi from the call box there, but it took half an hour to arrive and Emma had the best part of a two-hour start by the time I reached Tredower House. I persuaded Pam to pay off the taxi driver, loan me the train fare to Pangbourne and drive me to the station. She was clearly sceptical of my claim to have been the victim of a car thief, since if that was the case I would have been reporting the matter to the police rather than racing to catch the next train home.
And she also suspected a connection with the bizarre behaviour of another of her relatives.
“Dad left for Tenerife this morning,” she announced as we sped around the bypass. “To see Trevor, according to Mum. Do you know anything about it?”
“Fraidnot.”
“He’s been behaving oddly of late, apparently. I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that, either.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“What are you two up to?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“For God’s sake, Pam, what could we be up to?”
“I don’t know. But I still don’t believe you.”
It was early evening when I arrived in Pangbourne, wondering if Emma really had left the car there. My house keys were on the same ring as the ignition key, so I was going to be in dire straits if she hadn’t.
But about that at least she’d been as good as her word. The keys were actually hanging in the front door lock, with the Stag stowed neatly in the garage and my wallet lying on the passenger seat. I’d had long enough on the train to plan my next move and it still seemed the best the only thing I could do. So, despite the weariness that was beginning to drag at my thoughts, I got the car out and headed for Clacton. Emma would be long gone, wherever I chose to look for her. I knew that. But I also knew how far her ruthlessness had surpassed my expectations. It meant she wasn’t the junior partner; she was altogether too self-controlled to be Considine’s pawn. Perhaps it was, as she herself had said, more the other way round. If so, Considine was the weak link. And he was going to find it rather more difficult to vanish into thin air.
Drizzle was blurring the amber haloes of the street lamps when I climbed out of the car four hours later and walked along the damp deserted pavement towards 17 Wharfedale Road, Clacton. Considine’s windows were in darkness, the curtains open but revealing nothing beyond the neon-splashed back of a dressing table in one of the bedrooms. I pressed the bell and heard it ring inside, but no sound of movement followed. It looked and felt like an empty house. It looked and felt, indeed, as if Neville Considine had done a bunk.
I rang a few more times and tried the knocker, all to no avail. Then I prised open the letter box and peered through, but could only see the vague outline of the staircase. There was no sign of life.
But next door was a different matter. As I stepped back out of the porch, a bedroom window in number nineteen squealed open and a voice carried tetchily down to me. “Give it a rest for goodness’ sake, will you? There’s no-one at home.”
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” I replied, squinting up at a pyjama-clad shape. “I’m looking for Neville Considine.”
“So I guessed.”
“It’s a matter of considerable urgency.”
“Well, he’s gone away.”
“Do you know where or for how long?”
“For a few days, he said. No idea where. Do you want me to tell him you called?”
“No thanks. That won’t be necessary.”
So, Considine too had gone to ground, presumably warned by Emma that I might come looking for him. My hopes of finding a crack in their allegiance were dwindling, along with my hopes of setting eyes on either of them before Friday. I drove down to the se afront and trudged out onto the beach, where the waves were breaking slackly beneath a starless sky. Like the Lanyons in their flight from Truro, I’d come to the end here, where the Essex coast shelved gently into the North Sea. Considine must have guessed there was a secret waiting to be uncovered in the tragic history of the Lanyons, but he’d needed the help of an insider to discover what it was. I was his choice, and he’d gone into partnership with Emma Moresco in order to recruit me. How amply I’d repaid his efforts. Oh yes, I’d done his work well. All too well. My reward was to know the truth at last and to watch others profit from it. There was a kind of justice in it: the harsh and arbitrary kind that had claimed Michael Lanyon. There was almost a lightness about it, but the taste it left in my mouth was bitter. And it was growing more bitter all the time.
I knew what would happen next. I went home and waited, judging I wouldn’t have to wait for long. And I was right. By Thursday, my father was back from Tenerife, looking for answers. He arrived in Pangbourne that afternoon, straight from the airport, and as soon as I opened the door to him, it was clear he was even angrier than I’d expected.
“Trevor didn’t tell Considine.”
“I know.”
“Then how the bloody hell did he find out?”
“I told him.”
“You?”
There was a girl. They set me up between them. I don’t have any excuses, and I don’t think you want to hear any explanations. The fact is… I’m responsible.”
“Good God, I can’t believe it. Even of you.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“How could you be so stupid? A girl. Is that all it took?”
“Say what you like. Nothing’s going to change. I was tricked into confiding in somebody who was actually working for Considine. The result’s the same. Pay up or suffer the consequences.”
“A million pounds because you couldn’t hold your tongue?”
“If that’s how you want to look at it, yes. They don’t know where Tully’s buried, but they have the letters and the ability to do you a lot of harm. The choice is yours.”
“What kind of choice is that?”
“The kind you face.”
“Thanks to you.”
I shrugged.
“And what guarantee do I have that they’ll destroy the
letters?”
“None at all.”
“Marvellous. Well, you can kiss goodbye to any kind of an inheritance after this, boy, that’s for sure.”
“I already have.”
“You’ll get nothing out of me from this moment on.”
“I never expected to.”
“I mean it, Chris. I can overlook a lot. But betraying your own family. It’s too much. It’s too bloody much.”
“As far as betrayal goes, maybe we’re about even now. Either way, I don’t need a lecture from you about anything. The door’s over there.”
“You ungrat All fool.”
“You’ve said enough, Dad, and so have I. Just go. Leave me alone.”
That’s exactly what I mean to do. I’ll leave you well alone in future.
In fact, I’ll do my best to pretend you don’t even exist.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t understand you at all, you know that?”
“You never have.”
“As far as I’m concerned, boy, you can go to hell.”
“Goodbye, Dad.”
After my father left, I did something I hadn’t done for more than ten years: I went out and got drunk. You’re never cured, only reformed, they say, and that night proved the point. I felt demeaned by my failure to understand whose purposes I’d really been serving over the past few weeks; diminished by the loss of what had turned out only to be a sham of growing affection; above all dejected at the emptiness I was left with. Alcoholism is partly a loss of self-respect. Well, I hadn’t so much lost it as had it stolen from me, but the result was the same. I took one drink, knowing I’d take another, and another after that. Then nothing mattered any more. The future was unimportant, the past couldn’t touch me and the present was a blur.
I encountered Mark Foster in one of the local pubs. He was keen to discuss his employment prospects, but my condition must have made him rate them pretty poor where Napier Classic Convertibles was concerned.
He ended up taking me home and all but putting me to bed.
I woke next day to a steam-hammer hangover and a black cloud of self-disgust. I was horrified by how easily I’d slipped back into using alcohol as a prop and by what the lapse suggested. Was I just a fair-weather abstainer? If so, every day since I’d pulled myself up out of the gutter had been a waste of time and effort.
I couldn’t let myself believe that. The possibility was not only appalling but sobering. As soon as a gallon of tea had blunted my hangover, I drove up onto the Lambourn Downs and walked for a mile or so along the Ridgeway into the teeth of a cleansing westerly. That seemed to give me the perspective I needed. However gullible I’d been, however culpable, I’d only make a still bigger fool of myself by giving way to self-pity. It was time to put my house in order.
When I got back to Pangbourne that afternoon, I telephoned my bank and made an appointment to see their loans manager on Monday: I’d need an advance on however much the insurance company ultimately coughed up if I was to get the business back off the ground. Then I went to see Mark and told him the score. He was visibly relieved that I was stirring myself and happy to forget all about my exhibition the previous night.
I planned to devote the weekend to spying out possible new premises and preparing a realistic set of figures to show the bank. The irony didn’t escape me that, while I was scraping around for funds, my father had just handed a million pounds over to a stranger. At least, I assumed he had. In the circumstances, I didn’t expect him to keep me informed. As to the letters, their destruction was, as Emma had implied, a technicality. A million pounds verifiably paid over would look too much like hush money if it ever came to light for them to risk asking for more. Besides, who needed more than a million? They’d surely be satisfied with that, just as I’d have to be satisfied with whatever the future held for a hard-pressed car restorer on the brink of middle age.
But if I thought drawing a line under the recent past was a decision for me alone to take, I soon had a rude awakening. I’d just got home from a tour of potential workshop sites on Saturday afternoon when the telephone rang. The caller’s voice was instantly and bewilderingly familiar.
“You made it back from Cornwall OK, then?”
“Emma?”
“Yeh. Don’t put the phone down, Chris.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“You don’t know the whole story. I’m just as much a victim as you are.”
“You said something like that on Tuesday. The second before you pulled a gun on me.”
“I had no choice. I had to get away from you. Otherwise Considine would have
“Would have what?”
“I can explain now he has the money. And I’d like to. Honestly.
I don’t want you to hate me. Please listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. Could I… Look, can I come to your house this evening? We have to talk. Please, Chris. Give me one more chance.”
“I can’t stop you coming here.”
“But will you hear me out if I do?”
“Maybe.”
“I suppose I’ll have to settle for that. Will you be alone?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Look, it could be late. I have to make sure Well, I’ll be there. OK?”
“If you say so.”
“See you later, then. And Chris ‘
“Yes?”
“I am sorry.”
And so she should have been as it turned out, because the phone call was evidently just a farewell hoax. I waited all evening, with ever decreasing patience, and there was no sign of her. The telephone rang just after midnight, when I was about to give up and go to bed, but, as soon as I answered, the person on the other end rang off.
I didn’t know what to make of her failure to show up. Everything else she’d done had served a purpose, however devious. But what purpose could there be in stringing me along now the ransom had been paid? The only way I could find to spite her was not to exhaust myself thinking about it. I couldn’t put her out of my mind. Not yet. But at least I could behave as if I had.
By Monday morning, I was thinking more about my pending interview at the bank than Emma Moresco’s machinations. I was on the point of setting off, dressed in a suit I judged would look businesslike but not affluent, and was giving my tie a final adjustment in the hall mirror, when the doorbell rang.
My visitor was a stockily built, hard-faced man in a raincoat, dark hair streaked with grey ruffling in the wind above heavy-lidded eyes that gave him a look of boredom mixed with scepticism.
“Mr. Napier?”
“Yes, I’m Chris Napier. What can I do for you?”
“Detective Inspector Jordan, Essex CID.” He flourished a warrant card.
“Mind if I have a word?”
“Well, I’m in a bit of a hurry, actually.”
“Won’t take long.”
“All right. Step inside.”
“Thanks.” He followed me into the lounge, closing the front door behind him.
“Essex, you say, Inspector? Aren’t you rather a long way from home?”
Getting no response, I added, “How can I help you?” Already I was apprehensive. Essex meant only one thing to me: Neville Considine.
“This yours, sir?” Jordan held out one of my business cards for inspection. Since I handed them out by the dozen at classic car shows, it was hardly a collector’s item. I nodded in confirmation. “And you’re the proprietor?”
“Yes.”
Though not of very much at present, I gather. I called at the address shown in Station Road. They said you’d had a fire at your workshop recently. Gutted, apparently.”
“That’s right. But I don’t quite see ‘
“We found your card in the wallet of a man murdered in Essex over the weekend. Wondered if he might have been a client of yours.”
“What’s his name?”
“Neville Frederi
ck Considine.” Seeing the startled look of recognition that crossed my face, he went on, “I take it you did know him, sir?”
“Yes. I did. Though not as a client. What.. . what happened?”
“We’re still trying to establish that. Do you know Clacton at all?”
“Slightly.”
“Jaywick?”
“I’ve … been there.”
“Really? It’s not exactly on the tourist route.”
Beyond Recall Page 31
