As the Crow Flies

by Jeffrey Archer

  Daniel began to relax for the first time once he could no longer see the Statue of Liberty from the stern of the ocean liner. Mrs. Trentham, however, remained constantly in his thoughts during the five-day journey. He couldn’t think of her as his grandmother and when the time came to disembark at Southampton he felt he needed several more questions answered by his mother before he would be ready to carry out his plan.

  As he walked down the gangplank and back onto English soil he noticed that the leaves on the trees had turned from green to gold in his absence. He intended to have solved the problem of Mrs. Trentham before they had fallen.

  His mother was there on the dockside waiting to greet him. Daniel had never been more happy to see her, giving her such a warm hug that she was unable to hide her surprise. On the drive back to London he learned the sad news that his other grandmother had died while he had been in America and although his mother had received several postcards she couldn’t remember the name of either of the professors he had said he was visiting so she had been unable to contact him to pass on the news. However, she had enjoyed receiving so many postcards.

  “There are some more still on their way, I suspect,” said Daniel, feeling guilty for the first time.

  “Will you have time to spend a few days with us before you return to Cambridge?”

  “Yes. I’m back a little earlier than I expected, so you could be stuck with me for a few weeks.”

  “Oh, your father will be pleased to hear that.”

  Daniel wondered how long it would be before he could hear anyone say “your father” without a vision of Guy Trentham forming in his mind.

  “What decision did you come to about raising the money for the new building?”

  “We’ve decided to go public,” said his mother. “In the end it was a case of simple arithmetic. The architect has completed the outline plan, and of course your father wants the best of everything, so I’m afraid the final cost is likely to be nearer a half a million pounds.”

  “And are you still able to keep fifty-one percent of the new company?”

  “Only just, because based on those figures it’s going to be tight. We could even end up having to pawn your great grandfather’s barrow.”

  “And the flats—any news of them?” Daniel was gazing out of the car window for his mother’s reaction in the reflection of the glass. She seemed to hesitate for a moment.

  “The owners are carrying out the council’s instructions and have already begun knocking down what remains of them.”

  “Does that mean Dad is going to be granted his planning permission?”

  “I hope so, but it now looks as if it might take a little longer than we’d originally thought as a local resident—a Mr. Simpson on behalf of the Save the Small Shops Federation—has lodged an objection to our scheme with the council. So please don’t ask about it when you see your father. The very mention of the flats brings him close to apoplexy.”

  “And I presume it’s Mrs. Trentham who is behind this Mr. Simpson?” was all Daniel wanted to say but simply asked, “And how’s the wicked Daphne?”

  “Still trying to get Clarissa married off to the right man, and Clarence into the right regiment.”

  “Nothing less than a royal duke for one and a commission in the Scots Guards for the other would be my guess.”

  “That’s about right,” agreed his mother. “She also expects Clarissa to produce a girl fairly quickly so she can marry her off to the future Prince of Wales.”

  “But Princess Elizabeth has only just announced her engagement.”

  “I am aware of that, but we all know how Daphne does like to plan ahead.”

  Daniel adhered to his mother’s wishes and made no mention of the flats when he discussed with Charlie the launching of the new company over dinner that night. He also noticed that a picture entitled Apples and Pears by an artist called Courbet had replaced the van Gogh that had hung in the hall. Something else he didn’t comment on.

  Daniel spent the following day at the planning department of the LCC (Inquiries) at County Hall. Although a clerk supplied him with all the relevant papers he was quick to point out, to Daniel’s frustration, that he could not remove any original documents from the building.

  In consequence he spent the morning repeatedly going over the papers, making verbatim notes of the relevant clauses and then committing them to memory so it wouldn’t prove necessary to carry anything around on paper. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to stumble by accident across any notes he had made. By five o’clock, when they locked the front door behind him, Daniel felt confident he could recall every relevant detail.

  He left County Hall, sat on a low parapet overlooking the Thames and repeated the salient facts to himself.

  Trumper’s, he had discovered, had applied to build a major department store that would encompass the entire block known as Chelsea Terrace. There would be two towers of twelve stories in height. Each tower would consist of eight hundred thousand square feet of floor space. On top of that would be a further five floors of offices and walkways that would span the two towers and join the twin structures together. Outline planning permission for the entire scheme had been granted by the LCC. However, an appeal had been lodged by a Mr. Martin Simpson of the Save the Small Shops Federation against the five floors that would bring together the two main structures over an empty site in the center of the Terrace. It didn’t take a great deal of hypothesizing to decide who was making sure Mr. Simpson was getting the necessary financial backing.

  At the same time Mrs. Trentham herself had been given outline planning permission to build a block of flats to be used specifically for low-rent accommodation. Daniel went over in his mind her detailed planning application which had showed that the flats would be built of rough-hewn concrete, with the minimum of internal or external facilities—the expression “jerry-built” immediately sprang to mind. It wasn’t hard for Daniel to work out that Mrs. Trentham’s purpose was to build the ugliest edifice the council would allow her to get away with, right in the middle of Charlie’s proposed palace.

  Daniel looked down to check his memory against the notes. He hadn’t forgotten anything, so he tore the crib sheet into tiny pieces and dropped them into a litter bin on the corner of Westminster Bridge, then returned home to the Little Boltons.

  Daniel’s next move was to telephone David Oldcrest, the resident law tutor at Trinity who specialized in town and country planning. His colleague spent over an hour explaining to Daniel that, what with appeals and counter-appeals that could go all the way up to the House of Lords, permission for such a building as Trumper Towers might not be granted for several years. By the time a decision had been made, Dr. Oldcrest reckoned that only the lawyers would have ended up making any money.

  Daniel thanked his friend, and having considered the problem he now faced came to the conclusion that the success or failure of Charlie’s ambitions rested entirely in the hands of Mrs. Trentham. That was unless he could…

  For the next couple of weeks he spent a considerable amount of his time in a telephone box on the corner of Chester Square, without ever once making a call. For the remainder of each day, he followed an immaculately dressed lady of obvious self-confidence and presence around the capital, trying not to be seen but often attempting to steal a glimpse of what she looked like, how she behaved and the kind of world she lived in.

  He quickly discovered that only three things appeared to be sacrosanct to the occupant of Number 19 Chester Square. First, there were the meetings with her lawyers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—which seemed to take place every two or three days, though not on a regular basis. Second came her bridge gatherings, which were always at two o’clock, three days a week: on Monday at 9 Cadogan Place, on Wednesday at 117 Sloane Avenue and on Friday at her own home in Chester Square. The same group of elderly women appeared to arrive at all three establishments. Third was the occasional visit to a seedy hotel in South Kensington where she sat in the darkest corne
r of the tea room and held a conversation with a man who looked to Daniel a most unlikely companion for the daughter of Sir Raymond Hardcastle. Certainly she did not treat him as a friend, even an associate, and Daniel was unable to work out what they could possibly have in common.

  After a further week he decided that his plan could only be executed on the last Friday before he returned to Cambridge. Accordingly he spent a morning with a tailor who specialized in army uniforms. During the afternoon he set about writing a script, which later that evening he rehearsed. He then made several telephone calls, including one to Spinks, the medal specialists, who felt confident they could have his order made up in time. On the last two mornings—but only after he was sure his parents were safely out of the house—he carried out a full dress rehearsal in the privacy of his bedroom.

  Daniel needed to be certain that not only would Mrs. Trentham be taken by surprise but also she would remain off balance for at least the twenty minutes he felt would prove necessary to see the whole exercise through.

  That Friday over breakfast, Daniel confirmed that neither of his parents was expected to return home until after six that evening. He readily agreed that they should all have dinner together as he was returning to Cambridge the following day. He hung around patiently waiting for his father to leave for Chelsea Terrace, but then had to wait another half hour before he could depart himself because his mother was held up by a phone call just as she was on her way out. Daniel left the bedroom door open and marched around in endless circles.

  At last his mother’s conversation came to an end and she left for work. Twenty minutes later Daniel strolled out of the house carrying a small suitcase containing the uniform he had obtained from Johns and Pegg the previous day. Cautiously he walked three blocks in the wrong direction before hailing a taxi.

  On arrival at the Royal Fusiliers Museum Daniel spent a few minutes checking the picture of his father that hung on the wall. The hair was wavier than his own, and looked from the sepia photo to be a touch fairer. He suddenly feared he might not be able to remember the exact details. Daniel waited until the curator’s back was turned, then, despite feeling a tinge of guilt, quickly removed the little photograph and placed it in his briefcase.

  He took another taxi to a barber in Kensington, who was only too delighted to bleach the gentleman’s hair, switch his parting and even to add a wave or two, creating as near as possible a duplicate of the sepia photograph from which he had been asked to work. Every few minutes Daniel checked the changing process in the mirror, and once he believed the effect was as close as could be achieved he paid the bill and left. The next cabbie he directed to Spinks, the medal specialists in King Street, St. James. On arrival he purchased for cash the four ribbons that he had ordered over the phone; to his relief the young assistant did not inquire if he was entitled to wear them. Another taxi took him from St. James to the Dorchester Hotel. There he booked himself into a single room and informed the girl on the desk that he intended to check out of the hotel by six that night. She handed him a key marked 309. Daniel politely refused the porter’s offer to carry his case and merely asked for directions to the lift.

  Once safely in his room he locked the door and laid the contents of his suitcase carefully on the bed. The moment he had finished changing from his suit into the uniform he fixed the row of ribbons above the left-hand breast pocket exactly as they were in the photograph and finally checked the effect in the long mirror attached to the bathroom door. He was every inch a First World War captain of the Royal Fusiliers, and the purple and silver ribbon of the MC and the three campaign medals simply added the finishing touch.

  Having checked over every last detail against the stolen photograph Daniel began to feel unsure of himself for the first time. But if he didn’t go through with it…He sat on the end of me bed, checking his watch every few minutes. An hour passed before he stood up, took a deep breath and pulled on his long trenchcoat—almost the only article of clothing he had the right to wear—locked the door behind him and went down to the lobby. Once he had pushed his way through the swing doors, he hailed another taxi which took him to Chester Square. He paid off the cabbie and checked his watch. Three forty-seven. He estimated that he still had at least another twenty minutes before the bridge party would begin to break up.

  From his now familiar telephone box on the corner of the square Daniel watched as the ladies began to depart from Number 19. Once he had counted eleven of them leave the house he felt confident that Mrs. Trentham must, servants apart, now be on her own; he already knew from the parliamentary timetable detailed in the Daily Telegraph that morning that Mrs. Trentham’s husband would not be expected back in Chester Square until after six that night. He waited for another five minutes before he came out of the telephone box and marched quickly across the road. He knew that if he hesitated, even for a moment, he would surely lose his nerve. He rapped firmly on the knocker and waited for what felt like hours before the butler finally answered.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Good afternoon, Gibson. I have an appointment with Mrs. Trentham at four-fifteen.”

  “Yes, of course, sir,” said Gibson. As Daniel had anticipated, the butler would assume that someone who knew his name must indeed have an appointment. “Please come this way, sir,” he said before taking Daniel’s trenchcoat. When they reached the door of the drawing room Gibson inquired, “May I say who is calling?”

  “Captain Daniel Trentham.”

  The butler seemed momentarily taken aback but opened the door of the drawing room and announced, “Captain Daniel Trentham, madam.”

  Mrs. Trentham was standing by the window when Daniel entered the room. She swung round, stared at the young man, took a couple of paces forward, hesitated and then fell heavily onto the sofa.

  For God’s sake don’t faint was Daniel’s first reaction as he stood in the center of the carpet facing his grandmother.

  “Who are you?” she whispered at last.

  “Don’t let’s play games, Grandmother. You know very well who I am,” said Daniel, hoping he sounded confident.

  “She sent you, didn’t she?”

  “If you are referring to my mother, no, she did not. In fact she doesn’t even know that I’m here.”

  Mrs. Trentham’s mouth opened in protest, but she did not speak. Daniel swayed from foot to foot during what seemed to him to be an unbearably long silence. His eye began to focus on an MC that stood on the mantelpiece.

  “So what do you want?” she asked.

  “I’ve come to make a deal with you, Grandmother.”

  “What do you mean, a deal? You’re in no position to make any deals.”

  “Oh, I think I am, Grandmother. You see, I’ve just come back from a trip to Australia.” He paused. “Which turned out to be very revealing.”

  Mrs. Trentham flinched, but her eyes did not leave him for a moment.

  “And what I learned about my father while I was there doesn’t bear repeating. I won’t go into any details, as I suspect you know every bit as much as I do.”

  Her eyes remained fixed on him and she slowly began to show signs of recovery.

  “Unless, of course, you want to know where they had planned to bury my father originally, because it certainly wasn’t in the family plot at Ashurst parish church.”

  “What do you want?” she repeated.

  “As I said, Grandmother, I’ve come to make a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I want you to abandon your plans for building those dreadful flats in Chelsea Terrace, and at the same time withdraw any objections you may have to the detailed planning permission Trumper’s has applied for.”

  “Never.”

  “Then I fear the time may have come for the world to be informed of the real reason for your vendetta against my mother.”

  “But that would harm your mother every bit as much as me.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Grandmother,” said Daniel. “Especially when
the press find out that your son resigned his commission with far from glowing testimonials, and later died in Melbourne in even less auspicious circumstances—despite the fact he was finally laid to rest in a sleepy village in Berkshire after you had shipped the body home, telling your friends that he had been a successful cattle broker and died tragically of tuberculosis.”

  “But that’s blackmail.”

  “Oh, no, Grandmother, just a troubled son, desperate to discover what had really happened to his long-lost father and shocked when he found out the truth behind the Trentham family secret. I think the press would describe such an incident quite simply as ‘an internal feud.’ One thing’s for certain—my mother would come out smelling of roses, though I’m not sure how many people would still want to play bridge with you once they learned all the finer details.”

  Mrs. Trentham rose quickly to her feet, clenched both her fists and advanced towards him menacingly. Daniel stood his ground.

  “No hysterics, Grandmother. Don’t forget I know everything about you.” He felt acutely aware that he actually knew very little.

  Mrs. Trentham stopped, and even retreated a pace. “And if I agree to your demands?”

  “I shall walk out of this room and you will never hear from me again as long as you live. You have my word on it.”

  She let out a long sigh, but it was some time before she replied.

  “You win,” she eventually said, sounding remarkably composed. “But I have a condition of my own if I am expected to comply with your demands.”

  Daniel was taken by surprise. He hadn’t planned for any conditions coming from her side. “What is it?” he asked suspiciously.

  He listened carefully to her request and, although puzzled by it, could see no cause for any alarm.

  “I accept your terms,” he said finally.

  “In writing,” she added quietly. “And now.”

  “Then I shall also require our little arrangement in writing,” said Daniel, trying to score a point of his own.