Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice

by David Coubrough

  ‘Gordon Bennett, are you staying a month?’ inquired Glen, partly delighted to see his big brother and partly anxious as to how things might play out with Mandy, who could be somewhat highly strung and rather temperamental. Glen shot her a swift glance, but much to his relief she had adopted her inscrutable face. Grant was slightly taken aback at Glen’s greeting, as he recalled that Danny had used the same expression a few days earlier; he hadn’t heard anyone say ‘Gordon Bennett’ for around twenty years until that week.

  Mandy made sympathetic noises as her brother-in-law revealed his temporary separation from his wife over dinner that evening, although she privately felt for Brigit. She thought poor Brigit must have been driven to distraction by Grant, whom Mandy had long regarded as a self-centred individual. (In addition, she had always been somewhat disconcerted by his eye movements, as he never seemed sure where to focus – but she was not proud of this.)

  Grant didn’t mention the events of summer 1972 to the pair. He waited for Mandy to retire before asking his brother if they could talk for a bit, and only then did the elder brother unburden himself, waiting for the fraternal fall-out he rather dreaded. Glen remained silent throughout, expressionless bar a few grunts, raising the odd eyebrow but taking in everything. Finally Grant asked the inevitable question: had he known or suspected anything?

  ‘What, anything at all?’ responded Glen rather glibly. While he appreciated his brother coming clean on a dark family secret and putting it in context in a lawyer’s concise way, he resented the slightly patronizing tone that Grant reserved for him, although their bond was strong and he knew that he meant well.

  ‘Well, anything at all or in particular? For instance, did you know that Mum was having an affair with Richard Hughes-Webb?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Glen, deliberately sounding authoritative.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was just before I took up that golf scholarship in America, after I left school, and Dad was in a pretty poor state.’ Glen looked close to tears.

  ‘I guess that would have been about September 1974.’

  ‘Yes that would be about right. Dad died the following spring, I remember that awful call from you when I was in Florida.’ Grant nodded as his brother continued. ‘She wanted me to know before I left the nest –’ Once again he found himself faltering.

  ‘Why?’ Grant couldn’t stop himself interrupting.

  ‘Because,’ Glen took a deep breath, ‘because, because …’ He froze like a tennis player getting a bad case of nerves as he tried to throw the ball up in the air, attempting a crucial first serve. ‘Because she was going to go and live with him!’ He blurted this out so loudly that the dog, a docile black Labrador, jumped up and barked.

  Grant didn’t twitch a muscle. He was suppressing painful memories of his father. He was imagining him lying there, his face contorted with discomfort, after being told that there wasn’t any chance of surgery, any chance of recovery. He knew he must remain calm, remain the responsible older brother. Finally he spoke. ‘So why didn’t she?’

  ‘Dad’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and I guess I gave her a volley of abuse – my gut reaction – which really seemed to shock her to the core. I can’t for the life of me think why, as I don’t think anyone else would have reacted any differently in the situation.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Grant said, showing the empathy he had always felt for his brother. ‘Your reaction was entirely understandable and justified. Did you find out how this affected Hughes-Webb?’

  ‘Yes,’ came another slow reply. ‘I sort of heard him give her an ultimatum, along the lines of “I’ve been waiting three years for you to get on with things. Sort it out by Christmas or it’s all off.”’

  The bastard! thought Grant repeatedly in his head. ‘So how did you overhear this?’ he asked as calmly as he could.

  ‘I listened to the telephone call outside her bedroom door. From her responses I could make out his side of the conversation. Dad was already in that converted room downstairs by this stage, with all his medications – deteriorating.’

  ‘Yes. I understand.’ Grant patted his brother gently on the shoulder, thanked him once more for giving him a port in the storm and made his way to the spare room. He had much to reflect on.

  Glen, meanwhile, wished Grant had lingered or had demonstrated some real emotion. He wanted a big hug from his brother; even after all this time Glen found it hard to deal with the events from their shared past. However, he knew his sibling all too well and knew he would always play the calm protector to his ‘little bro’. He also knew that Grant cared deeply for him and had tried to protect him from the fallout of their mother’s affair with Richard. What his brother hadn’t realized was that he had known all along.

  As Grant lay in bed, unable to sleep, he knew that he had been unable to admit one of the nastiest aspects of the whole nightmare – the demonic look he had seen in Hughes-Webb’s eyes that night when he accosted Hector Wallace – the full fury of the heart surgeon’s face caught by Tom’s car headlights. Grant wished belatedly that he had been able to give Glen a hug.

  Grant’s meeting with Suzie the following week now had an added complication: her father’s ultimatum to his mother. However, he knew he had to suppress his personal animosity towards her father if he was to uncover the truth. Throughout his dealings with Suzie, he had managed to control his feelings fairly successfully. In a way he was relieved to have heard Glen’s revelation, but he very much wished that none of this had ever happened.

  33

  PRESENT DAY

  ‘Hello, Grant. Danny here. Can you please phone or text me with Ivan Youlen’s number? Thanks.’ Grant stared at the message on his mobile phone as he lay in bed at his brother’s house wondering whether it was too early to get up. It was five in the morning. He had woken with a start, his mind instantly alert. He knew himself well enough to know he had no chance of returning to sleep, and he decided to text back the number. He had been quite shaken by Danny’s behaviour at his home a few days before, and he could summon neither the inclination nor the resolve to speak to him now.

  Danny received Grant’s reply but waited about three hours before contacting Youlen, until the world was more properly going about its business. Danny guessed, from the speed of Grant’s texted response, that he must be getting right under his old friend’s skin, a thought that didn’t make him feel any better. He felt the whole matter was getting murkier by the day, bringing out the worst in people. How he wished it would all just go away.

  ‘Ivan Youlen speaking.’

  ‘Hi, Ivan, Danny Galvin here, Paul’s son.’

  ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ replied Ivan, in a more sombre and less detached tone than he had afforded Grant.

  ‘Er, yes. I mean why?’

  ‘Well, let’s be blunt here. Your old man ruined mine. If you care to remember, he never paid Sandersons in Penzance properly, and also I knows your mother got hold of some of my uncle’s poison. Now that pompous arse Morrison has been down here digging the dirt.’ Ivan stopped at this point, wondering what reaction he was getting. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Danny, who had been content to allow Ivan to make the running in the conversation he had initiated.

  ‘Why are you calling me?’

  ‘I think we need to meet.’ Danny realized he had to take the initiative.

  ‘Well, get down to Cornwall then. I work at the Lost Gardens of Heligan these days and live in Mevagissey.’ Ivan had been very direct, while avoiding the bad language to which he had subjected Grant. Danny had hoped for a halfway meeting point and suggested Cerne Abbas. However, Ivan was never a man to compromise, and Danny soon conceded, agreeing to meet at Ivan’s cottage in Mevagissey.

  ‘Yeah, OK. Um, I’ll come down soon. So what did Morrison want?’

  ‘He threatened me a bit and said he would get the truth out of Ken Holford until I told hi
m Ken was brown bread.’

  Danny was surprised by this. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘You had better ask Trevor Mullings that.’

  Danny knew who Mullings was and was anxious to learn more. ‘You know someone hounded Morrison when he was at Zennor, knocking on his door at night and other stuff. Were you behind that?’

  ‘No, but you should ask Trevor Mullings about that as well,’ replied Ivan knowingly.

  ‘I see.’ Danny tried to sound casual to keep him talking but to no avail; Ivan hung up without any niceties. Danny assumed that Mullings was behind Grant’s Zennor misadventure, which both pleased and perplexed him.

  He decided to take a risk and phoned Grant. He got straight to the point. ‘I know who hounded you in Zennor.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Trevor Mullings.’

  ‘What? Why?’ But Grant’s queries were answered by a dial tone, as Danny had hung up, much to Grant’s exasperation. What was Mullings’s motive? And why was Danny telling him this when it seemed he had so much to hide? Perhaps Danny had experienced a twinge of conscience after his performance in Mill Hill. Or perhaps he thought the information might cause Grant to back off. The latter, decided Grant as he paced around his borrowed bedroom. Not for the first time he started questioning himself. Am I particularly stupid? Am I missing some massive clue here? Mullings knew that someone had left the pub with Hector Wallace but was apparently too inebriated to say who, and he had deliberately tried to put Grant off the scent in Cornwall. Furthermore, Mullings knew that Ken Holford, ‘the Tyrant of Tintagel’, had died. Had he killed him? Could there be a motive for Mullings, the easygoing heavy-drinking fisherman, to do something like this?

  Grant stopped pacing, his reflection in the mirror above a chest of drawers revealing a drawn and haggard face he barely recognized. He studied his eyes. He had never felt sorry for himself over their condition, but he was concerned now that one looked very bloodshot. It was still a week before Suzie would land with the DVD. The wait was excruciating. He realized that he needed to calm down. However, he didn’t see what he could do for the next week apart from kick his heels, which he found very frustrating. His slow progress was wearing him down. He found himself humming ‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle …’

  He was stopped in his tracks when Glen knocked on the door. ‘Are you all right? Are you going to join us for breakfast?’

  Grant was keen to patch things up with Brigit, who he knew was on his side, but he was concerned about the outcome of viewing the fourth film. He would no doubt become further distracted and that could cause further damage to their relationship. And he couldn’t mull things over with Justyn, who was still in Morocco.

  He thought of meeting up with Caroline but decided that could set hares running, particularly as she seemed less than enthralled with her marriage. He still planned to fly to Majorca to see Danny’s mother, but he knew doing so would significantly raise the stakes with her son, and he wondered whether it was really such a good idea. He resolved to contact Henry Wilson, the film-maker upon whose evidence he was now pinning his hopes. Justyn had given him his brother’s mobile number some time back, and it didn’t take long to get Henry to return a call.

  ‘Hello, Henry. This is Grant Morrison. I don’t know if you remember me.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Hello, Grant. I know exactly who you are. I remember you well – and Justyn has told me about your investigation. How’s it going?’

  ‘Wheels stuck in the mud at this moment, but I have made some progress, thanks, and I have seen some of your films, which are an unbelievable record. Well done.’

  ‘Seen some? Which haven’t you seen?’

  ‘The last one, which I am led to believe is the most revealing.’

  ‘So where is it now?’ asked Henry, his voice betraying anxiety.

  ‘Suzie Hughes-Webb, er, I mean, Barber has it. She’s bringing it from South Africa on Wednesday.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘So this one is the hot ticket, Henry.’

  Henry hung up after saying a hurried goodbye. This threw Grant. He couldn’t fathom why the conversation should have been curtailed so suddenly. He tried Henry’s mobile number again, but this time there was no response.

  The reason that Henry had cut short their discussion was that he had seen Danny Galvin park his car in the road, and he was now approaching his front door. Being a person of nervous disposition, Henry hesitated before opening it and greeting his uninvited guest as calmly as he could.

  ‘Danny Galvin, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you for …’

  ‘Yeah, years, decades probably, whatever. May I come in?’ Before Henry could consider the request Danny had moved over the threshold and was heading to a living-room chair. ‘This used to be your folks’ place, didn’t it?’ Danny asked, making an attempt at small talk.

  ‘Yes, I bought out the other two after Mum died.’

  ‘Yeah, thought so. I remember Justyn’s twenty-first party here. Quite a night, if I remember correctly. I got lucky with Jenny Charnley.’

  ‘Didn’t everyone,’ countered Henry, recalling one of his brother’s former conquests and trying to lighten the atmosphere. Henry was feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and his feelings were exacerbated by the fact that it was his own territory that had been invaded. An awkward silence enveloped them, prompting Danny to reveal his agenda.

  ‘Look, I know you shot film footage of our holidays in Cornwall, and I want to see it.’

  ‘Why?’ Henry feigned ignorance.

  ‘Because I used to have copies. Well, Dad did, and he gave them to me.’ He paused. ‘I mean, Morrison is muck-raking, and those films should be destroyed.’ Warming to his theme he continued, ‘They won’t do anyone any good. They’re nothing but trouble.’

  Henry had to think quickly. The films had been stolen when his home had been burgled – although he later found out that the Galvins had gained possession of them. His own family had told him to leave matters alone, not to involve the police. The Silvers and the Galvins hadn’t been close in the intervening years. Bob regarded Paul as a charlatan, and Alison Galvin had never really felt she had been on the same wavelength as the GP Margaret Silver.

  ‘So how did you lose them?’ inquired Henry.

  ‘They were stolen from my flat in Fulham years ago,’ Danny replied.

  Well, what goes around … thought Henry; yet something made him suspicious. He felt that Danny’s bluster was just that and that he didn’t really believe that Henry had the films at all. No, he was sure this little bit of theatre was really for someone else, someone Danny wanted Henry to warn off the whole business. He assumed that person was Grant.

  Danny wanted to know whether he had made any copies, but Henry was able to dismiss that idea with a nonchalant wave of his hand. Danny continued, ‘You know that madman Grant Morrison has taken it upon himself to try to dig up all that crap from 1972. I expect Justyn has told you all about it, and it won’t be long before Morrison gets hold of the films, which I gather have been converted to DVD.’

  ‘So you’re in a race against time?’

  ‘I’m not in a race against anything’ replied Danny tersely. ‘I simply want to keep the doors to the past firmly shut – bolted and chained, in fact. Why does Morrison have to do all this now? What’s he on?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Why’ve you come to see me?’

  ‘I thought you might know something – you might know if there are any unwanted copies lurking around.’ Danny looked accusingly at his host.

  Henry considered his response, but he shared his family’s general distaste for the Galvin family, particularly as he knew they had stolen the films in the first place. By contrast, of all his brother’s friends he had always rather liked Grant, and he resolved to do all in his power to help him. He began to doubt whether the films were even stolen from Danny at all and suspected that his approach was to determine whether any copies had been made.

  ‘Look, I lost poss
ession of that footage a long time ago, which I was very angry about at the time. After all, I shot the film in the first place. Anyway, I don’t see how I can help you now. Frankly, I think we should all let bygones be bygones.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, but that lunatic Morrison is going on as if he’s tracking a lost NASA satellite, as if this is the Holy Grail, the discovery of Tutankhamen and all that bollocks.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. He’s even been down to Cornwall to see Ivan Youlen and Trevor the fisherman. I mean, what is he on? He tried to find Ken Holford and was seen visiting the grave of Ken’s old lady.’

  ‘You seem to know an awful lot about what he’s been doing,’ Henry challenged, deciding it was time he stood up to this bully who seemed totally changed from the teenager he had once known.