She remembered Bernard taking her by the shoulders and shaking her, and the last words he had ever spoken to her, Go on then! Live with this oaf! Sweat it out until you come to your senses. You stupid, silly bitch! Bernard had said that, and pushed her away into her chair, her head hitting the top of the wooden frame … What had she done after that? So far as she remembered she had just sat there, hearing him leave the house, reaching for her drink, numb and miserable, until life had come back to her and she had gone up to bed.
But it could have happened – just as it had happened in the town shops. She could have destroyed the papers. In that moment when he had pushed her away from him she had hated him, could have done anything. She turned over suddenly, put an arm around Maxie and held herself to him. He stirred in his sleep and mumbled something, and his movement and the blurred tones of his voice comforted her. She forced the thought away from her, shut her eyes and reached back in memory for other images. Bernard when he had first shown her the completed model: he’d been excited and pleased, boyish almost with a new toy. Those had been the days when she still hadn’t realized what was happening to them. In those days, she recalled, when he walked about the house she would hear him whistling to himself. He always did that when he was concentrating on his hand-work. He loved painting, smoothing the colour on some cabinet door with a brush, precise, exact, tolerating no bad workmanship. In Scotland on a visit together he had painted her aunt’s little dinghy. She remembered her last visit to her aunt and the old lady saying, ‘It’s time Bernard came again. The dinghy wants repainting…’ She had gone back to Bernard that time knowing that she would never see her aunt alive again – realizing, too, that she would never know Bernard again because he had moved out of the bedroom they had shared. He had taken over the guest room and bathroom, had repainted and papered it, and made it into his own private suite, rearranging it all to suit himself, and with not a word of explanation from him. She, knowledgeable at last, had been too proud to ask for a reason. And now he was dead, and all this fuss about papers and a wrist watch, a fuss which could only be far removed from her, from this new life with Maxie, because for her Bernard had been dead for many years. Slipping and falling to his death was not the moment of his going. He had been already long gone, unable to be touched by her or by any anger she might have had against him.
In the darkness she smiled suddenly to herself. It was odd about the wrist watch. Christmas would be with them in a few days and she had been undecided in her mind about the present she would give Maxie, narrowing the choice between a new pair of field-glasses or a gold wrist watch. Nothing now would make her buy him a watch. That would have to wait … a watch which was really a tape recorder … she began to drift into sleep … that was just the kind of gadget Bernard would love … this new-to-her Bernard, a man like Quint and Lassiter … secret government work … and, right in the middle of an important affair, slipping accidentally to his death after quarrelling with her … Lying out there in the rain … dear God, poor Bernard, knowing he had only a few minutes to live. If he had used the watch, what would he have said? Well, if they found it they would know. What would you say if you knew you were dying, leaving a life which had soured all happiness and a wife and marriage which had long been empty of love? Poor Bernard. She stirred as she felt tears lip the corners of her eyes.
Maxie moved in his sleep, turned and with a sleep-drugged sigh put his arm around her and drew her to him. She lay close to him, tears breaking across her cheek, as she remembered a naval officer walking up the lochside towards her, sunlight lacquering the pine and rowan growths of the shore cliffs, and cloud shadows racing across the first purple of the new heather on the high tops.
Warboys arrived at six o’clock in the morning. Quint had booked a room for him at the Empress Hotel.
Raincoated, untired because he had been chauffeur-driven, he stood in his room and took the watch from Quint. On his bed lay his suitcase which contained the special playback machine for the watch tape. Holding the watch in the palm of his hand, he said, ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Officially – there was a break in the back panel of the dressing-table drawer. It had slipped through and rested on a strut behind the drawer out of sight.’
‘Convenient. You can tell me the truth later.’ He rubbed his free hand across his chalk-white, pointed chin and went on, ‘I’ll play it alone. I’ll call you later.’
‘Yes, sir.’
When Quint was gone Warboys took the playback machine from his case and carried it to the window table. He opened the back of the watch, took out the small tape cassette and fitted it to the machine, which was battery operated. The tape had run through its full length because Bernard had not switched it off whenever he had last used it. There was no doubt in his mind when that had been. He pressed the rewind key and sat down and lit himself a cigarette. He waited, looking out of the window, strengthening but weak daylight creeping over the river, the rain which had marked the night beginning to thin. The tide was running in, creeping up the mudbanks. An old gravel barge lay abandoned and rotting on the far shore, its bows plugged into the mud and rushes. He had seen more tides come and go than he wished to know, the tides of the sea and the estuaries and the tides in the unimportant lives of men who refused to acknowledge that unimportance. A small cloud of black-headed gulls in winter plumage hung over the water, dropping now and then to the surface to scavenge. Men did the same, he thought, but with less elegance and grace. Although he was untired by the long night drive, there was a weariness inside him which time would abate though never banish. The devotion to something afar from the sphere of our sorrow. He’d probably got it wrong. Bernard would have corrected him. A grief, while life persisted, never to be banished … And grief itself be mortal. But before then a grief to be rebuked, a secret love to be cruelly wounded … or, more deadly, simply ignored – just the quiet low hiss of an empty tape the only requiem for an unbidden, unwelcome love.
The tape rewound, he switched it to playback and sat listening as almost at once Sir Harry Parks’s voice came over.
Two reasons. The first few people can escape. I want the money. I’ve lived my life for a cause. I’ve a wife and grown-up children and grandchildren. You can have a cause and a family, Commander, but the family suffers. The work you do takes from them, and you give little back. You have to neglect them. You become a stranger to them…
The recording went on, still with Sir Harry, and Warboys knew why Bernard had made it. It marked the genuineness of the old man’s motives. Not their worthiness, but the clearance from deceit, from any trap being laid. This was the professional Bernard marking shrewdly the moments which had formed his decision to recommend the purchase of the documents.
Then as Sir Harry finished speaking – A nice, quiet, kindly winter morning. I wish though that I’d never lived to see it – Bernard’s own voice came crowding after it, almost without pause, but the passage of time between the recordings was marked by the anguish and shock in his words. Jesus Christ! Jesus, Jesus … And then silence for a while. Warboys, sitting there, was in the darkness of the night with him, lying broken on the rocks at the edge of the flood-filled brook, dying with him, knowing that if some miracle could have transformed time and chance that he would have taken Bernard’s place and gladly died for him. And then the voice came again more controlled now, but the shock alive in the heavy breathing and clearer still in the words … God in heaven … I would never have believed it. Never … That such a thing could happen … Bernard’s voice grew precise and deliberate, each word exhausting the slender store of his wasting seconds of life.
Warboys listening, a lean hand cupped tightly against his mouth as though to contain his own pain, knew that these words were not for him alone, that these were for other ears and would have to be heard, though there was nothing in them for him except the plainness of a duty to perform, a vital obligation never to wipe them from the tape unless he wished to add another betrayal to the lasting one which he
, himself had already made of Bernard. These words must stay and be heard.
When they were finished, there was for a moment or two the sound of the empty tape moving, the faint noise of the nearby brook, and then a long, choking groan, the fight for breath, for the grace of a few more seconds. Bernard spoke again for the last time, weakly – Tell Warboys … that we wound without willing it.
The tape ran on and on without words and finally ended. And of those last words there were two that carried all, said all that Warboys would have wished unsaid. Tell Warboys. With his last breath he had removed himself, refusing to speak directly to him, calling him Warboys. Tell Warboys.
With a cold, numbed mind, working automatically, Warboys erased the message to himself from the tape, and also the first section of Sir Harry Parks’s talk. He left only the middle section. That, though there could be little personal comfort in it for himself, was something he could do for Bernard even after death, something which justice demanded he did.
He went into Quint’s room and found Lassiter there, too.
He said, ‘ Telephone Mrs Tucker. I want to go out and see her later this morning. You can take me out there. You can tell her we’ve found the watch and that there’s part of the tape that concerns her. She must hear it.’ He paused, and then added, ‘ There was nothing on the tape which helps us about the papers. Commander Tucker never mentioned them. No matter what else has to be done – they still have to be found. I expect them to be found. When we’ve dealt with Mrs Tucker I suggest you concentrate on them.’
He turned and left the room.
Chapter Fourteen
Maxie had gone out after breakfast for his morning walk. Through the kitchen window where she was working Margaret could see the river at the bottom of the garden, bank high with racing floodwater. The rain had stopped. She smiled to herself as she thought of Maxie, walking somewhere across the fields or through the valley woods. He was unused to having someone to look after him and always left her after breakfast because he knew that she would not let him help about the house. Soon, she thought, they would have to talk about his future. But it was a move that would have to come from him. She would do nothing which in any way touched his pride and his natural independence. When he did talk, she knew that she would accept anything which he proposed. From her love that would come easily. There were plenty of things he could find to do, but he would have to find whatever it was for himself, and then she would be with him, encouraging and helping. Once or twice he had talked about farming. That would suit him. He was good with his hands, practical, and already knew a lot about the work. One thing he would never be was an artist. He knew it and she knew it. She turned and looked at a painting of a mute swan done by him which she had – overriding all his protests – hung on the kitchen wall. The bird looked like some wooden, haughty dowager, frozen in a clumsy moment of affronted dignity. She chuckled to herself. No, Maxie would do something … something which would satisfy him as a man, and no matter what it was she would be whole-heartedly with him.
The telephone rang. It was Lassiter speaking from the Empress Hotel.
He said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Tucker.’
‘Good morning, Mr Lassiter, I’m glad you rang because there’s something—’
‘Just a moment, Mrs Tucker. If I may speak first. I wanted you to know that we’ve found Commander Tucker’s watch. He made a recording before he died but said nothing about the hiding-place of his papers. But that isn’t the point at the moment. Part of the recording concerns you directly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I can’t say more than that because I haven’t heard it. The head of our department, a Mr Warboys, came down from London this morning and he’s the only one who has listened to the tape. He’d like to know if it would be convenient for him to come out later this morning and see you?’
‘Why, yes, of course.’
‘Good. He’ll bring the tape to play to you.’
‘All right. I shall be here. But what is it? I mean is it a personal thing from Bernard to me?’
‘I can’t tell you what it is, Mrs Tucker, because I haven’t heard the tape. All I know is that it is very important that you should hear it – otherwise Mr Warboys wouldn’t be concerning himself with it. What was it, by the way, that you wanted to say to me just now?’
‘Oh, that … Oh, yes – well it was something I thought of in bed last night, just before I went to sleep. You know, about, where the papers might be hidden. I don’t imagine it really will be of any help, but you did say that any little thing I could remember—’
‘Yes, I did. And you have remembered something?’
‘Yes. The last time I went to Scotland, a few months before my aunt died, well, when I came back I found that Bernard had moved out from the bedroom we were sharing. He had taken over the guest bedroom and bathroom. Quite frankly, I realize now, that was the end of things between us …’
She paused, the memory even now not an easy one to hold.
Lassiter said, ‘And what particular thing, as far as the papers are concerned, came into your mind, Mrs Tucker?’ His voice was quiet, sympathetic.
‘Well, he’d redecorated the bedroom and the bathroom. But what I was thinking – this was this morning, when I woke up and it came into my mind again – was about the bathroom door. The bathroom originally had a separate entrance from the landing, but he had blocked this door up and made another entrance directly from his bedroom so that it became a self-contained suite. So it would have been quite easy for him to have made some, well, hiding place, wouldn’t it? To do with the new or the old door.’
‘It certainly would, Mrs Tucker. And thank you for thinking of it. It might be very important.’
‘And you’ll be out later this morning?’
‘Not me, Mrs Tucker. Mr Warboys and Mr Quint will come.’
‘I see…’
Margaret, after Lassiter had said goodbye, put the telephone down. As she did so she heard the letter-box flap rattle in the hall, and knew that the morning post had arrived.
There was only one letter. It was for her, the address typewritten. She took it into the kitchen and sat down at the table, dropping it in front of her, her mind still occupied with the telephone call. Bernard had used the tape recorder before he died. What could he or would he have said either to her or about her? Lying out there in the rain … dying, and probably still full of anger towards her … more than probably very angry because he was not a man to go from one mood to another quickly. She was suddenly full of a weakness of spirit which was almost physical at the simple thought of hearing his voice again. She would be taken back to that night. She could feel his hands on her now, pushing her away in contempt and anger, wounding her, rejecting her. What words would he have left for her?
She pushed the thought away from her. Dear God, she thought, they’ve got the watch and there was nothing she could do that could alter what Bernard had said. Let them find the papers and go away from her life altogether. She just wanted to be left alone in peace and love with Maxie … just left alone to begin to live in the tranquillity and the security of this new life here with Maxie, with all its promise for the future.
She picked up the letter and opened it. It was typewritten and carried no address or date. It read:
Dear Madam, I want you to be sensible and not frightened about this letter. I’ve got nothing against your good self, but have to think of number one, and we can arrange things between our good selves without any trouble. But don’t think I’m not serious. I just want one thousand (£1000) pounds for keeping quiet about what I saw the night Commander Tucker died. This to be a once for all payment, absolutely, but don’t think I wont make trouble if you try any tricks or mention any of this to somebody else. Just between us it all is – and arrangements to be told you by me for payment in another letter soon to your good self. Any nonsense and the police will know, so I rely on your complete complience.
The night of that Sunday Commander
Tucker died I was for my own personal reasons up at Lopcommon. Barton and saw him leave the house and your good self some time after also leaving it. (You was wearing a raincoat, and a beret sort of hat.) Briefly, to spare you the memory, I followed you and saw you, after hiding, step out of the bushes and push your late husband over the path edge. No more I will say, except that Commander Tucker was no friend of mine, and I think he got what he deserved which explains this letter. Also I don’t blame you because I know about your little shop-lifting spells without knowing about it and reckon this was probably per the same.
So don’t worry, £1000 is nothing to you and I wont bother you
again. But no tricks or else. A further letter to follow with instructions
and so on.
Yours respectfully,
A genuine wellwisher
Margaret sat, holding the letter in her shaking hands, staring at it, the black lines of type fogged by the sudden tears in her eyes, her mind a chaos of swift, disjointed thoughts. Had she gone out that night? Gone out, not knowing it, just as in some shops … Dear God, no, no, no!
But this man had seen her. He described her clothes. Bernard going to his death over the path edge; Bernard lying there in the night while she walked back, unknowing, and then waited for him to return; Bernard knowing she had done it; Bernard knowing why … knowing … and lying there as his life went. Suddenly she remembered the recording watch. She saw him lying there, knowing he was going to die. With that night’s anger in him still he would never have spared her.
She dropped the letter and leaned forward, holding her head with her trembling hands, a storm of silent grief and anguish shaking her body … The men would come, would play the tape to her. That was why they were coming … Her whole nature rebelled at the thought. That was something she could never face. From out of the darkness Bernard, his brief love for her soon dead, had reached back for her, denying her all the, freedom and love she had longed for fromhim and finally discovered in another man; Bernard who had made her what she was so that in the end, from deep within herself, uncontrolled, unknowing, she had found the strength and the dark power to walk out into the night after him and destroy him. Only a little while ago she had felt herself standing on the lip of all happiness, watching Maxie slipping on his pilot coat before leaving the house, going with him to the door and kissing him as he went.
The Mask of Memory Page 25
