‘I must have been dozing for quite a time,’ Jonathan said.
‘You’ve every right to be worn out,’ Mason said, still on his knees, the poker in his hand. ‘You must be glad it’s over.’
‘I am.’
‘If I may say so, all of us in the house are very happy for you.’
‘Thank you, Mason. You’ve all been very kind.’
Mason poked vigorously, shifting as he did so some small squares of the leather of the diary cover which had failed to burn.
‘You should never have had to undergo it, sir. That’s what we all think.’
Shouldn’t I? Jonathan thought. Shouldn’t I?
‘Show Mr Benson in when he’s ready,’ he said, ‘and switch on the light over the chair opposite.’
When Mason had done what he had asked, Jonathan turned off the light beside him. The large room was now lit by the light coming from the hall, the pool of light from the lamp on the table opposite Jonathan and the fire, once again burning brightly.
‘It’ll be quite dark when the door to the hall is closed. Will there be enough light for you and Mr Benson?’ Mason enquired.
‘Yes. It will do. Show him in, please.’
When he heard Harold enter Jonathan called over the back of his chair, ‘Come in, Mr Benson. I wasn’t expecting you tonight, but I’m always glad to see you. Come and sit opposite me.’
Harold, his grey hair wilder and more tousled that ever, put his briefcase beside him on the floor and sat. The firelight flickered, lighting Jonathan’s feet and legs; the rest of him was in shadow. All Harold could see was the shape of the head with one hand resting against it.
‘Your coming gives me a chance to thank you, Mr Benson. You have been a tower of strength.’
Harold made no reply.
‘Would you like some whisky? I’m sure you need it and I know you deserve it.’
Harold was sitting very still and upright, both hands on his knees, his face set, his glasses glinting in the light of the lamp beside him. ‘I have just come from talking to Mrs Peachey,’ he began abruptly.
‘Mrs Peachey?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do I know Mrs Peachey?’ Jonathan asked.
‘You may not even know of her.’
‘Should I know of her?’
Harold had clenched his hands. Now two fists were resting on his knees. ‘Mrs Peachey’s mother,’ he said, ‘died last year.’ He paused. ‘She was called Willis, Mrs Willis.’
The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of logs crackling in the fire. Harold said at last, ‘She was a widow. Her husband, Mrs Peachey’s father, was killed in the war.’ He paused. ‘He was a sergeant, one of David Trelawney’s men. He was killed in North Africa.’
Harold saw the hand on which the head had been resting fall so that it lay along the arm of the chair. He still could make out only the shape of the other’s head, a white blur beneath white hair. ‘You were in North Africa with David Trelawney when he saved your life. Did you know Sergeant Willis?’
Again nothing was said for what seemed to Harold a long time. Then Jonathan broke the silence. ‘It is strange you should ask me about Sergeant Willis. Before you came I had been thinking of him. Now you are asking about him.’ He paused. ‘Yes, I knew Sergeant Willis.’
‘Mrs Peachey, his daughter, came up to me outside the court, just after you had been driven away. She told me that ever since her father’s death her mother had been receiving money from David Trelawney. Five hundred pounds, every month.’
Harold paused again, waiting. Then he went on. ‘It was paid each month for over forty years. That is a great deal of money. You told the court that Trelawney had no money. You told the court that you paid five hundred pounds in cash each month to Trelawney, and you produced your statements from the bank in Jersey to prove it. I now believe that that money was being paid to Mrs Willis and that you knew the money was going to her and not to Trelawney.’
Again there was a long silence. ‘Yes,’ Jonathan said. ‘I knew.’
‘Then you deceived the court by pretending this money was for Trelawney. That was a lie.’
‘It was, but it had nothing to do with what the court had to decide, which was whether or not I had killed David Trelawney.’
‘But you made the court believe those payments were paid to Trelawney because he’d been demanding money from you. In fact it was going to Mrs Willis.’
‘I told the court, Mr Benson, that over the years Trelawney had been demanding money from me, a great deal of money and that, year after year, I had paid him. That was true, and that was relevant to the issue the court had to try. The money for Mrs Willis was not.’
‘Then why did you pretend that money was going to Trelawney for himself? And why was the money going to Mrs Willis?’
Again Jonathan did not immediately reply. Then he said quietly, ‘Do you have to know, Mr Benson? You have said that Mrs Peachey’s mother, Mrs Willis, is dead. It is now all over. Is there any point in raking over the past? Why do you have to know?’
‘I believed in you, Sir Jonathan. I thought you had been falsely accused by very wicked enemies. Now I learn that you did not tell the court the truth. That you lied. I want to know the truth. I deserve to be told the truth.’
Jonathan raised his hand to his brow. ‘If anyone deserves the truth it must be you, Mr Benson. I owe you much for your loyalty and support. But are you so certain you need to be told?’
‘Yes. I believed in you, Sir Jonathan. I want to go on believing in you. You must tell me.’
There was another long silence before Jonathan spoke. ‘Very well. I shall tell you. But I shall not enjoy telling you the story, nor will you enjoy hearing it.’ He paused. ‘I did not pay all that money to David Trelawney because he saved my life, and that young judge, that clever but inexperienced young judge, suspected that there was more to it than that. No, I paid that money time and time again, because Trelawney threatened to expose me if I did not.’
Harold leaned forward in his chair, trying to make out the face in the shadows. ‘Expose you? For what? What had you done?’
‘The money paid to Mrs Willis, which I paid first through Trelawney and then, when he had his bank account removed, directly but anonymously in cash, was what in the past they called blood money.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Can’t you guess, Mr Benson?’
‘No. What do you mean by blood money?’ He saw Jonathan stir in his chair. ‘I can’t see you properly in this light,’ he added. ‘Will you not turn on the lamp beside you?’
‘I’d rather not, Mr Benson. My eyes are very tired and this light soothes them. We can talk just as well as we are.’
Harold now had his elbows on his knees, peering at the figure in the chair. ‘Blood money? Whose blood?’
‘Don’t you understand? I was responsible for Sergeant Willis’s death, so David Trelawney and I arranged that money should be paid to his widow. That is why I called it blood money, money paid for the price of blood.’
Harold half-rose to his feet. ‘You killed Sergeant Willis and Trelawney was blackmailing you?’
‘Sit down, Mr Benson,’ Jonathan said wearily. ‘Sit down, and listen. You have started this and you must wait until it is finished. You came here for an explanation. You said you wanted the truth. Now you must listen.’
Harold sank back into his chair.
‘Trelawney never saved my life in battle.’
‘That was not true?’
‘No, it was not true, although by keeping silent David Trelawney may have saved me from being shot, or hanged. In that sense, he saved my life.’
‘Hanged? I don’t understand. You said David Trelawney stood over you when you were wounded and saved you. Was that all lies?’
‘Yes, all lies. As I lied about much else. I’m telling you everything now, Mr Benson, because you have insisted that I should. I did not tell the truth to the court about what happened on the afternoon David Trela
wney died.’
Harold put both his hands to his head. ‘Are you going to tell me that you did kill David Trelawney? That you murdered him?’
‘I am going to tell you what happened, Mr Benson, as you have insisted I should. Then you can decide yourself whether I murdered David Trelawney. You can act, if you wish, as both judge and jury.’
‘This is too serious to joke.’
‘I am not joking.’ Jonathan paused. ‘I could never be tried now for the murder of Sergeant Willis. That is all buried in the mists of the past. But I could not have borne what Trelawney might have told about what I did in that battle. And I cannot be tried again for the murder of David Trelawney. But when you have heard me out then you can tell me whether you think I am guilty of the murder of David Trelawney.’ Then he said more loudly, ‘I lied to the court because I was not content to be convicted of the murder of David Trelawney.’ He paused and again spoke softly. ‘Are you still certain you want to hear?’
‘Yes,’ Harold said. ‘Now I must know everything.’
‘Very well, you shall hear everything. As you will remember, Trelawney urged me to come to him because he said he was very ill and wanted to give me some letters from the woman he knew I had loved all my life and who, during the war when the bombs were falling on London and life was so precarious, had borne his child, which later died. After the war she went back to America and married and once, years later, I met her again with her husband, an older man – a surprising man, I thought, for someone as beautiful as she. But I supposed he’d been kind to her. So when Trelawney said he had letters from her and they were about me, I thought they would be letters written when we were young and I wanted very much to see them. This was the inducement which led me to go and see the man who for so many years had been taking money from me in exchange for his silence, silence about what he called my cowardice, silence about what I had done to Willis. My pride, Mr Benson, would not permit me to allow the world to know what I had done, even though it was so long ago and little could have been done had Trelawney published what he alleged. When I heard about his illness I was glad, glad that, instead of me, the trust would now be paying him. But I was not distressed for money, although I pretended I was. So another reason for going to see him was that I hoped I would find that he was dying. All that I told the court, and that was the truth. And he did explain the pain-relieving apparatus which was attached to him, and he did say that the doctor had told him that if all the contents were pumped into him in one dose it would kill him. And he did say that was what he had decided he would do, that he’d had enough, that he wanted to go. And he did speak about the past and told me he was sorry. All that was true. It was when we spoke about the letters that I did not tell the court the truth. For he did not tell me to keep the envelope and only open it when I got home, as I told the court he had. On the contrary, he told me to open the envelope there and then, and to read the letters which he so much wanted me to have. “They are about you,” he said. “About what she felt about you, and you will be interested by what you will read.”
‘I took the envelope from the box to the chair and opened it. Inside were not blank sheets of paper, as I told the court, but a number of letters, all in her handwriting. “The letters,” Trelawney said, “will show you whom she really loved.” And when he said that I, in my foolishness, thought that what he meant was that the letters would show that she had always loved me. Then I began to read.’
Jonathan turned and took the letter from the top of the small bundle on the table beside him. ‘They were love letters, from her to him, written over almost forty years. They showed that it was him that she loved, had always loved. Some parts of some of the letters were about me, laughing, derisive. About me. And he had tricked me into coming and reading them, while he watched.’
He stretched and turned on the lamp on the table beside him, and now Harold could see his face.
‘I shall read you one. It is the last she wrote to him, for she is dead now. It was written in 1973 from her home in California, and it was addressed, as all the letters were, to him.’
He began to read:
Darling, I’ll be in Paris in October, arriving on the 8th. Ted has his usual business in Lyons and Marseilles, and this year he has also to go to Zurich and Geneva. So we’ll have longer together. I’m counting the days, which is pretty silly after all these years and me with my grey hairs!
Jonathan looked up and Harold could see plainly the pain on his face. Then Jonathan went on reading:
Speaking of years, you’ll not believe who I ran into a few weeks ago. That dreary old Jonathan Playfair! I hadn’t seen him since London in the war. He looked every inch the judge he now is – silver hair, very grand, still as pompous as ever. Looking at him, I could not believe this was the man who you told me had run away in the battle and shot his own sergeant before your eyes! But there he was, so dignified and respectable. In the old days he was in love with me. Grandma doted on him. She would! I think she wanted me to marry him. She made me go to Cambridge just before the war, and I only went because I hoped I’d see you. It was the weekend before you took me to Bray. Our first time together. Remember? Anyway, he still has no idea about you and me because he flinched when he said something about your mother, as tho’ the name Trelawney must be painful to me! I had to turn away to stop myself from smiling. When I had last seen him during the blitz in London and I was pregnant, and very blue, I remember he asked me why you didn’t marry me. I think I said you hadn’t asked me! I didn’t say you always said you couldn’t afford me!!! You’d have been impossible as a husband. You’ve been far better as my constant and, I hope, faithful? lover. He’d be terribly shocked if he knew that Ted knew all about us, and always had. But talking to him took me back to my childhood in Sussex when I first saw you.
Darling David, we have lasted a long time, haven’t we? Middle-aged and grey as I am, I can’t wait to see you soon – in Paris.
All my love, darling,
Nicola
Jonathan lowered the letter to his lap. For a full minute he remained silent. Then he said, his face turned to the fire, ‘That was the last of the letters he tricked me into reading. The earlier ones were written before the war, in the war and after the war. In some of those she sometimes referred to me. In the same way, making clear what she thought of me. And I sat there in his room while he watched me read them. That’s what Trelawney wanted me to do. He wanted me to know. He had got me there to learn what she thought of me.’
‘It was abominable,’ Harold whispered.
Jonathan turned his head and looked at him. ‘Their love affair had lasted all her life, up to and throughout her marriage to her American.’ Again he was silent. Then he went on, ‘With the letters was a typewritten statement, headed “An Eye-witness Account of the Shooting of Sergeant Willis.” It was the story he had told her, of how I had broken during the battle, of what he called my cowardice, of what I did to Willis.’
He put the letter back on the table. ‘The letters,’ he said, ‘were to taunt, to provoke; the statement to threaten. And they did. It was what he wanted, what he had planned. He was going to die, to kill himself, and he would implicate me. He hated me so much, for what I was and what he had become.’
He bent forward in his chair. ‘Do you understand, Mr Benson? Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Harold quietly. ‘I understand.’
‘When I had read the last of the letters, the one I have just read to you, I looked up and saw he was smiling, grinning. “I wanted you to know what she thought about you,” he said. “I wanted to prove it to you. You believed, didn’t you,” he said, “that she loved you, that secretly she was sorry she hadn’t married you? That’s what you wanted to hear, didn’t you? Well, now you know. You! You, at whom we used to laugh. You, whom she despised.”’
Jonathan was not looking now at Harold. He had turned his head and was again staring into the fire. ‘I got to my feet, the letters in my hand and I went across to hi
s bed. I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me. I wanted to strike that grinning face, to beat it to pulp. I wanted to kill him. And that was what he wanted. He looked up at me, his eyes full of derision. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said. “You haven’t the guts. You’ll run away, as you always have.” Then he opened his pyjama jacket so that I could see the tube taped to his chest, he pointed to the syringe lying along the top of its case on the table beside him. “Go on,” he said. “Press the syringe.” He was grinning up at me. “Press it,” he repeated. “You wouldn’t dare, would you? Press it.” And I did.’
Jonathan stopped. He was looking down now at his hands as he had done so often during the trial. In his chair Harold sat very still.
‘My hand was shaking as I started to press the head of the syringe. He said, “You haven’t emptied it. Press it further.” When I made no move, he himself with his right hand stretched over and pressed the head of the syringe and held it down for several seconds. “There,” he said, “now you can watch how a brave man dies. You, who were always so frightened of death. I knew I could make you, once you’d read the letters. You’ve done what I intended you should.” He pulled his pyjama jacket across his chest and turned on his side. “For killing Willis,” he said, his face on the pillow turned from me, “you had to pay in money. For this, you’ll have to pay with more than money.” And he did not speak again.’
Jonathan stopped and sat very still. Then he picked up the letters from the table beside him. ‘I did not then understand how much he had already prepared in his plan to implicate me, to have me suspected of killing him. And by leaving that house as I did, I helped his plan succeed. That, and Trelawney’s statement about the death of Willis. I kept the letters because they were from her, even though they were addressed to him and showed what she really thought of me. Even though every time I read them they pained me more, I read and re-read them. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy them. You see, Mr Benson, I had loved her all my life.’
Again he paused, looking at Harold. ‘An hour or so ago I started to burn my past. Now that I have told you everything these too can go.’
Indictment for Murder Page 27
