‘Great. I would have got off on that,’ Justyn teased.
‘Furthermore, I know now that they – the Spooks – put off a dinner arrangement I had with a former colleague from my firm, Ian Fothergill, who was about to leave his home in Truro. When he phoned the pub to ask directions he was told dinner with me had been cancelled, while I was told that he had phoned to cancel our meeting. I think they earned whatever Trevor paid them.’
‘Another thing, why didn’t Suzie just shoot the old bird?’
‘I’m sure she was tempted, and for a few moments we all thought she had, but Estelle’s threats were now out there for others to exploit, and I guess Suzie knew that, which was why she tested Estelle’s intentions by asking her to repeat to all of us what she had whispered in her ear. She knew the retired doctor in St Mawes was a very unwelcome contact for those seeking to denigrate her precious father. Besides, no doubt Caroline’s outburst destabilized Suzie further.’
‘One last thing,’ continued Justyn. ‘When you last went to Cornwall, who tipped off Trevor Mullings? You only got to Ivan Youlen after seeing Trevor at Porthcurno and being told that Ivan was in the St Austell area.’
Grant stared ahead and after a gaping silence of some twenty-odd seconds, tried to speak, but no words flowed.
Justyn repeated the query.
‘I have no idea,’ Grant finally admitted.
‘I suppose, then, it must have been me.’
The atmosphere between them changed in an instant, as Grant felt a ‘someone’s walking over my grave’ sensation wash over him. ‘Why?’ he inquired in a low, shell-shocked voice after a pause that seemed to last an eternity.
‘Because’, started Justyn, after further deliberation, ‘I knew the weasel Mullings knew rather more about poor old Hector’s drowning than he made out. I wanted to get him rumbled before you got to him, so that he would incriminate himself. I guess I was trying to flush him out. I suspected from what you told me that you thought Hector’s death was self-inflicted, that it and he were both irrelevant, and I needed you to take it seriously.’
‘Oh, cheers,’ interrupted Grant, ‘so you had me half frightened out of my wits. And how did you track him down?’
Justyn saw the look of betrayal on the other’s face. ‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t intend to scare you, but I figured you might get further if Trevor knew you were on the case. I was only looking to warm things up for your investigations. I suspected his involvement all along when his name and address came up in the report Dad and Clive received from their private detective. I also recall Henry telling Mark Vernon about the last part of his film, where he captured Mullings and Hector waddling off to the beach.’
‘So did Mark give the police that information when he reported what you and Robert had said?’
‘I have no idea, but the lack of justice for Hector, for a dear friend, has been on my conscience since he died.’
‘Well, you could have told me you alerted Mullings.’ Grant was still angry. ‘He might have fled the county.’
‘Yeah, maybe I should have done, but I never thought Mullings would quit Cornwall after all these years. I mean, where would he go? I doubt he’s ever been out of the county.’ Justyn got up to pour them both a coffee, recovering some of his usual jauntiness as he hummed, ‘Death in the sea, death in the sea, somebody please come and help me …’
‘Hang on a moment, did you just say “the weasel Mullings”?’
‘Yeah,’ shouted Justyn from the kitchen. ‘That was the name Hector gave him. Never stood his round, apparently, and when he did he put it on Hector’s tab.’
‘Oh my God!’
‘What now, Grantie?’
‘Oh my God! What a fool I’ve been. Suzie called him the weasel as well. Now I know the meaning of the rhyme!’
‘What rhyme?’
‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle.’ Grant was in full flow.
Justyn returned to the sitting-room with two coffee mugs. He looked at Grant in alarm. They both heard it.
‘That’s the way the money goes …’
Neither Grant nor Justyn were singing. They heard the door to the outside of the flat slam shut. As the door from the corridor into the sitting-room swung half-open, a cold draught swept in.
Their mouths were gaping, both scared to move.
‘Pop goes the weasel.’
Justyn dropped a coffee mug. It smashed on the floor by his feet. Grant sat terrified in his seat.
The figure of a well-built man moved from the shadow of the dark hallway into the room. They instantly recognized the intruder. Standing before them was Danny.
‘Calm down, guys. It’s only me.’
‘Jesus Christ, Danny. You scared the shit out of us!’ exclaimed Justyn.
‘Well, you didn’t answer the bell, and I still had the door keys from when I used to live here. I figured you guys would still be up talking. By the way, the weasel was Mullings.’
It took a while for the other twos’ heartbeats to calm down, but soon the three relaxed. Grant made a conscious decision to feel less resentful of Justyn; he knew all along he had been very fond of Hector, and Grant now understood why Justyn felt the need to draw Trevor Mullings into the inquiries. Grant also knew that Justyn had been his one true ally, and he wasn’t going to fall out with him now. He felt further vindicated about taking his mad few months out of normal life, as he had discovered that both Caroline and Justyn shared his sense of unfinished business to a lesser degree. He had been the driver, obsessive about this ‘cold case’. But even though his two friends were not propelled by the same fear that had tortured him for over forty years, he now recognized that they, like him, had maintained a burning sense of injustice about what happened in 1972. His sorrow and horror at Suzie taking her own life was yet to sink in, and he suspected there would be trauma ahead. However, he now knew she had tried to kill herself twice before, and, even though he wouldn’t allow himself to say ‘third time lucky’, he was aware that she had been damaged for life by her childhood and, in particular, by her father.
As Grant put on his coat to depart, he could see the other two were far from ready for sleep. ‘Don’t get so pissed you start looking for mermaids in the sea!’ Danny let out a schoolboy’s guilty laugh, while Justyn rolled his eyes to the ceiling, struggling to conceal a half-smile.
45
PRESENT DAY
The interior of the quaint Norman church was illuminated by the strong autumn sunshine that poured through its stained-glass windows. A trickle of mourners became a procession as the starting time of two-thirty approached for the ‘Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of Suzie Barber’. Old friends and acquaintances nodded in recognition, with their faces set in looks of grim concentration.
The church didn’t exactly fill up. Tony and Frank sat in the front pews either side of the aisle. Danny arrived with his partner, Oliver, and they took seats behind Tony. They were joined by a middle-aged woman sporting a 1970s’ punk hair-style, who hurried into the church as the doors closed; she turned out to be Danny’s sister, Sharon. Tony glanced back and saw Grant with a woman he presumed to be Brigit. He beamed a warm smile at the mildly surprised Grant, as if reassured by his presence. Caroline caused the door to be reopened, and on spotting Grant she squeezed in next to him, on the other side to Brigit. The churchwarden reclosed the door and was visibly annoyed to see it immediately reopen. In filed Nick Charnley and his sister, Jenny Poskett, soon joined by Justyn with his on–off girlfriend, Clare, and his older brother, Henry. They took seats behind Caroline, Grant and Brigit.
The churchwarden shut the door firmly again as the organ music stopped, awaiting the formal start of the service. Although there was only a sprinkling of other friends, the contingent from Suzie’s past sufficiently swelled the congregation so that the small number of pews, no more than a dozen on each side, now seemed fairly full. Attention was taken by the door creaking open yet again. This time a frail, elderly lady, her hair and head
shrouded in a veil, stepped across the threshold. Grant froze, as he feared a final appearance of Estelle, but on removal of the veil he was mightily relieved to recognize the features of Suzie’s Aunt Mary. Grant recoiled slightly as he recalled the last time he had met her in such unpleasant, highly charged circumstances at her Bayswater home, where Suzie had revealed her disturbing true colours.
The congregation sat in silence to await the arrival of the vicar. It was now more than five minutes after the appointed time, and such was the tension that it felt more like the hiatus caused by a delayed bride at a wedding, with the bridegroom fidgeting and getting neck ache from constantly looking behind him. Once again the church door crunched and croaked open, disturbing the prolonged tense silence. If the appearance of Suzie’s aunt had been a dummy run, the assembled mourners were now confronted by the real thing. The gaunt, antiquated figure of Estelle stepped forward, assisted by a formally dressed man of middle years whom the assembled mourners assumed to be a chauffeur, butler or personal assistant. In any other situation an audible gasp would have been heard, but the congregation was too respectful of their surroundings to react.
This was the moment many had feared. Frank and Danny exchanged anxious glances as Frank rose to his feet; simultaneously Tony stood up as well, motioned with his hand to Frank to sit down and proceeded to the pulpit at the right-hand front of the church. There was no evidence of a vicar, and there was no one even to announce the traditional singing of a hymn to initiate proceedings. Instead Tony addressed the congregation with the words of Henry Scott Holland’s ‘What Is Death?’
‘Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we still are.’
And so it continued until Tony finished with the poignant lines:
‘I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner
All is well.’
The last lines were spoken in a barely audible whisper as Tony broke down. He climbed slowly and awkwardly down the steps from the pulpit. At that point a rather deranged-looking vicar with long, curly white hair strode to the front of the church from the left of the congregation. He announced joyfully, his eyes bulging as if he was exercising them, ‘We are here to celebrate the wonderful life of Suzie Barber, and I ask you all to sing the first hymn from the booklet, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord” …’ at which his own eyes seemed to widen further. At this Danny’s partner, Oliver, gave an involuntary giggle which was largely drowned out by the singing of the hymn.
The service continued on rather more formal lines with hymns and prayers, but Tony was unable to deliver the address he had prepared as a tribute to his sister. His face was awash with tears, and a number of those sitting close to him saw his distress. Ironically the man Grant had previously deemed without emotion was now weeping openly, revealing his true feelings in plain sight. Suzie’s widowed husband, Frank, motioned to him, offering to step into the breach. Tony politely declined the offer, as he did Danny’s overture. Surprisingly, Tony beckoned to Grant, inviting him to step forward and read the eulogy. Grant reddened momentarily but then responded and was handed the script. He climbed up the steps to the pulpit, paused and advised the congregation that he was reading the words written by Suzie’s brother, Tony.
‘My sister Suzie was born on 15 October 1955 in St Thomas’s Hospital, the first born to Richard and Yvie Hughes-Webb. I arrived in the world a little more than two years later …’ For several minutes Grant told Tony’s story of Suzie’s life and of a brother’s love for his sister, with no mention of mental instability or suicide attempts or anything remotely controversial. This was until he read out the astonishing sentence ‘Our father was not a bad parent; he was a terrible one.’ Grant stared at the text he was holding, as if looking at a gun he had just fired that had killed someone before thinking, Oh no, I can’t have done this!
The assembled mourners gave a collective gasp. Grant, whose chin and jowls had wobbled in a sort of tango, now felt his face go crimson. He stopped abruptly. He couldn’t bring himself to articulate the next line written by Tony: ‘You see, he played God.’ Grant ignored this and instead ad-libbed, ‘And we will all cherish Suzie in our memories and miss her very much.’ He eased himself down from the pulpit, and the eccentric cleric took centre stage once more.
‘We will now sing our final hymn, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended”, oh yes!’
The congregation ripped into this with vigour and volume, relieved to avoid further tension and embarrassment. Several people cast skewed glances at Tony, who had now composed himself and was singing as if his life depended on it, his lungs belting out for England and St George.
Thoughts now turned to the après-service hospitality, and Tony wasn’t alone in wondering whether Estelle would be joining them at the designated hotel near by. The congregation slowly departed the church to the strains of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. The vicar had informed them that this was Suzie’s favourite song and declared ‘Imagine Suzie is here with us!’ The assembled looked sheepish and tried to ignore this strange request, averting their eyes from the clergyman. The first person to walk down the aisle out of the church looked steadfastly ahead. The fresh air blew hard against the autumn trees, now displaying the classic colours of the season, gold, russet and copper. Tony made a beeline for Grant who had become stuck in the middle of a random, mundane conversation between Brigit and Caroline.
‘Grant, I’m really sorry to have dumped that on you, and well past the last minute of the last hour …’
‘Don’t worry.’ Grant smiled warmly at Tony. ‘It’s just I’ve always respected you, and I know how Richard affected your life, damaging your family, and I couldn’t …’
‘It’s OK, Tony. For both of us it’s a case of revenge being a dish best served cold. Great choice of song at the end, by the way.’
‘Yes, Suzie played it constantly when she came out of hospital. I think it gave her a sense of calm at that time. What a weird vicar though.’
‘Are you sure he’s a vicar?’ Grant’s flippancy got the better of him.
They were interrupted by burly Frank joining them, announcing in a rasping, hostile voice, ‘If that woman follows us to the hotel I may not be accountable for my actions … !’ They both knew to whom he referred, observing the wizened, ancient figure with pink hair crouching on a stick near the church, her companion nowhere to be seen.
‘Ah, Anthony,’ she began as she walked towards them. ‘I wanted to come to say sorry. It was a wicked thing I did. You see, the hate I’ve held in my heart for your father for most of my life has been the reason of my failure …’
Tony moved forward and held her tiny, bony right hand between his, observing her closely before replying, ‘It’s all right, Estelle. You’re forgiven.’
But Estelle’s eyes were elsewhere, trying to focus on a row of gravestones behind him, looking past him as if he hadn’t spoken. The wind had whipped itself up into a gale, stirring up the autumn leaves that covered the graveyard into a blizzard of muddy brown. Through the flurry of dancing leaves she shouted, ‘Look! I think there’s a man over there.’
Grant and Tony turned to see where her eyes led. Justyn and Danny rushed to join them, as they shielded their eyes with their hands to see better. A hooded man came briefly into view some thirty yards away. Then a bottle came flying through the air, crashing and shattering at Grant’s feet, revealing a rolled-up piece of paper that rocked to and fro in the wind among the shards of glass, beating like an open heart in an exposed, shattered chest.
Grant bent down to read it.
‘What’s it say?’ yelled Justyn.
‘It doesn’t. It’s a drawing …’
The others present spoke as if with one voice: ‘Of a mermaid?’
Grant nodded.
<
br /> Justyn made to give chase, shouting, ‘I’m not having this. Hector doesn’t deserve this!’
He was grabbed by Grant, who failed to hold him. Justyn wriggled free but was brought crashing to the ground by Tony, the former rugby player, with a shoulder-barging tackle applied to his right thigh.
It was Grant, however, who was first in Justyn’s ear. ‘Let it go. It’s over.’
PETER OWEN PUBLISHERS
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First published in Great Britain 2016
© David Coubrough 2016
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Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice Page 24
