“Perhaps not.” I said this without any genuine belief, but just to console him because he looked so wretchedly unhappy. “We’ll have to think what to do, Gervaise.”
“Ben Wyland may know what is best,” he suggested.
“Ben is in India,” I said coolly. “On business.”
“Tiens! But he will be back soon?”
“I expect so.”
Gervaise was quick to notice something in my face. “Have you quarrelled with him, Tess? You two seemed so close. I wanted to believe that...”
“Ben is married, Gervaise.”
“I see.” He was silent for long seconds. “What did he tell you about it?”
“He didn’t tell me anything,” I said, and I was conscious of my voice growing shrill. “That’s the whole point.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wearing white cotton gloves, Pearl was at work cleaning a silver filigree bonbon dish, one of the more fragile pieces that Vera was not allowed to touch. She looked up at me without interest, and I could tell at once that her mood was still as tense and edgy as on Tuesday. But now I could understand it. I stifled the temptation to charge straight in and demand the answer to some questions ... the most immediate one being where her son was right now.
She spoke first. “Vera tells me that Gervaise Duvillard is in hospital. How is he?”
“Not too bad, I suppose, considering that he was attacked last night by a burglar.”
She stared at me for a lengthy moment, her fingers clenching the polishing cloth she held. If she was anxiously trying to figure out whether Luke could have been involved, it suggested that she wasn’t in touch with him at the moment. Pure guesswork, of course. Even in a rattled state, Pearl didn’t reveal much of her emotions,
She bent over her task again, gently rubbing at the delicate lacework of silver. “Was very much stolen?”
I decided that for the time being I’d stick to Gervaise’s own version. “Nothing at all, apparently. He arrived home and disturbed the intruder.”
“Did he recognise who it was?”
Odd she should put it that way. Wouldn’t most people ask if someone in such circumstances had got a good look at his assailant, and would know him again? Why should Pearl suppose that Gervaise might have recognised the man? Or was I playing guessing games again?
I shook my head. “It was too dark.”
“I see.”
Relief?
She left me no time to think about that. “By the way, there was a phone call from Ben Wyland while you were out.”
My legs felt suddenly weak and I needed to sit down. But I managed to ask fairly calmly, “What did you tell him?”
“Just that Gervaise was in hospital and that you’d gone to see him. Was I supposed to say something else?”
“What did Ben have to say?”
“Something about being rather bogged down in a mass of detail ... I gather that he’s negotiating a deal out in India. He said to tell you he’ll be ringing again in a couple of days, but if in the meantime you’re anxious to reach him he left a number. It’s on the desk.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” It was a forty-eight-hour respite, before I had to make up my mind exactly what I was going to say to Ben.
Pearl had a phone call herself later on in the morning. I listened nosily to every word, but her half of the conversation gave nothing away.
“Oh, hallo ... I see ... well, yes, I could ... right, then.”
She put the phone down and said overcasually, “I think I’ll take an early lunch today. It won’t interfere with your plans, I suppose?”
“No, of course not.” As she obviously wasn’t going to say any more, I couldn’t resist asking, “Has something happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, It thought... getting a phone call, and then ...”
There was a flash of the old Pearl. “Is this a roundabout way of saying that you object to my receiving personal calls?”
“Oh Pearl, that’s absurd, of course not.”
She went upstairs to wash, reappearing five minutes later and sweeping through the shop without a word to me. I watched her go, wondering if I could ever pierce Pearl Ratcliffe’s armour and make human contact with her.
In less than two hours I was to receive an answer to this. A devastating answer.
When my usual lunchtime came I made myself some toast and spread on peanut butter, though I didn’t feel much like eating. Perched on a stool in the kitchen, I munched at it listlessly, and flipped on the transistor in an effort to drown out my spinning thoughts.
Music changed to the local newscast. Something about an inevitable rise in the local rates due to inflation, and roadworks somewhere causing traffic chaos. I only half heard. Next came mention of an accident... a young motorcyclist had lost control and gone off the road at a steep bend up by Devil’s Dyke ... killed instantly. I felt a languid flicker of pity at someone else’s tragedy, then the name shot out and hit me like a hammer. Luke Webster! I was alert for details, but the newscaster had already turned to the County Cricket score at Hove.
I sat there, frozen. I’d heard it right, surely? It couldn’t be my imagination ... another name something like Luke’s? Suddenly galvanised into action, I tore downstairs and along Meeting House Lane to the newsagents. I picked up an early edition of the Evening Argus, and scanned it as I hurried back.
The story wasn’t given big treatment. I gleaned little more than I’d heard on the radio. It gave Luke’s age—twenty-one—and said he’d worked for a local wine company. The accident had occurred around midnight on a quiet stretch of road, and there were no witnesses.
I didn’t go back upstairs to finish my meagre lunch. When Pearl arrived back I was sitting at the writing table in the shop, wondering what I was going to say to her.
In the first glance I saw that, mercifully, it wasn’t my responsibility to break the news to her. She knew already. She was in a quite dreadful state, her face pinched and shrunken, her hands trembling. She seemed to have aged at least ten years since I’d last seen her.
She made an attempt—and I had to admire the courage of the woman—to act as if nothing had happened.
“By the way, Tess, I was going to suggest rearranging the window this afternoon. Those old Brighton engravings should sell if we put them in a more prominent position ...” She caught her breath on a choking gasp and glanced away from me, unable to continue.
“Hadn’t you better sit down, Pearl?”
“Why... why do you say that?” But there was no argument in her voice, no fight left in her. The amber eyes were glazed over and I knew that she scarcely saw me. I decided that the time had come to be frank and direct—for her sake as well as my own.
“Pearl, I know about Luke.”
I spoke gently, but the shock struck her like a slap across the face. “Luke ... what do you mean? What are you talking about?”
I went to her and pressed her down into a Windsor chair. She sat there unresisting, her hands twisting and turning in her lap.
“I know that Luke is dead,” I said, “and I know that he was your son.”
She stared at me incredulously, and I saw the glitter of tears. “How ... how did you ..?”
“I heard about the accident over the radio just now. And as for the rest, Gervaise told me this morning.”
“So he knew! Maynard told him?”
“There were close friends, don’t forget.”
She sat there nodding her head, as if the rhythmic motion would somehow keep the dreadful truth at bay. I watched her with a feeling of helplessness, wondering how best to lead her into the conversation the two of us had to have now. After a minute or so I went to make sure the latch was on the door, checked that the CLOSED sign was showing, and led her upstairs to the living room, telling her to sit down while I made a pot of tea. She’d already had some brandy, I could smell it on her breath.
When I went in with the tray Pearl was sitting exactly as I had left her, stari
ng down at the rings on her hands.
“Here, drink this,” I said. The cup rattled in the saucer as she held it, but she managed to take a few sips. It seemed to revive her a little.
“What else did Gervaise Duvillard tell you about me?” she asked in a voice that only quavered slightly.
“He explained that you had Luke adopted when he was a baby. That recently he managed to trace you, and had been making... demands on you.”
She paled. “I was so afraid of what he might do. My ... my husband ...”
“Yes, Gervaise filled me in about that.” It seemed brutal, but I kept right on going. “He told me, also, that you and Uncle Maynard were talking about getting married.”
Pearl spilled some of her tea as she clutched at my wrist. “You will not reveal any of this, Tess? Promise you won’t. If Charles found out, he would ...
“But you can’t hope to keep it secret any longer,” I protested. “Your relationship with Uncle Maynard, perhaps. But the fact that Luke was you son will have to come out.”
“No, it mustn’t!”
I had to be harsh, while compassion for her gnawed at my heart.
“There’s a lot I need to know from you, Pearl, and now is the time. First I want to know about your son’s involvement—and yours —with the October Cabaret.”
“The ... what did you say?” There was incomprehension in those amber eyes of hers. I would have sworn she wasn’t acting.
“The breakfast set of Sèvres porcelain,” I explained. “Owned by Miss Ruth Willoughby. And the other one her sister had.”
Pearl said helplessly, hopelessly, “So it was, Sèvres was it? But I only heard about one set of porcelain. Luke said nothing about a second set.”
“Luke wouldn’t have known, I guess. Tell me what he told you.”
She made a visible effort to pull herself together, smoothing the pleats in her pale-green skirt, and adjusting the cuff of her blouse. Again I had to admire Pearl’s sheer guts. She caught my gaze and held it a moment before turning her face away.
“You know, presumably, that Luke pinched one piece of that set from the old lady’s cottage - a little sugar bowl, I believe it was.”
“A sugar box, it’s called. I didn’t know for a fact that it was Luke who took it, but I guessed it must have been him. And he brought it to Uncle Maynard?”
She nodded. “I knew nothing about this at the time, Tess. Apparently Maynard told him it was a specially rare piece, and that the complete set would be of immense value.”
I was suddenly filled with urgency. “What exactly did my uncle say to him? Tell me everything that Luke told you.”
Pearl gave me a stricken, bewildered glance, as if she found it difficult to collect her thoughts and remember.
“I gather Maynard said that if Luke could get hold of the rest of the set, he’d give him a very good price for it.”
“He suggested that Luke should steal it?”
She made a dismissive motion with her hands. “Maynard would ask no questions, I think that was how he put it.”
I closed my eyes against the burning disappointment. “Well, go on. Tell me what else you know.”
“No Tess ... I’ve said enough.”
I pressed her remorselessly. “I insist on knowing the rest, Pearl. I have a right to know.”
“Well, then ... he did what Maynard asked.”
“It was Luke himself who took the cabaret from Malt House Cottage? But how? When?”
She took her time, drawing several deep breaths before speaking.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you have to, I have to know what happened.”
“I don’t really know the details,” she said miserably, “but it must have been the night after Maynard’s body was found that Luke went back to the old lady’s place. It seems that he broke in somehow and was packing up the porcelain when suddenly a light went on and he could hear the old lady coming downstairs. Er … so he made a dash for the front door. But as he was passing through the hall, she lashed out at him over the bannisters with her walking stick. Luke grabbed it, in self-defence, and somehow she lost her balance and fell to the bottom of the stairs. She must have struck her head or something. Of course, Luke thought she was only stunned.”
I stared at Pearl in horrified amazement. “Are you telling me it was Luke who caused Miss Willoughby’s death? He actually admitted it to you?”
“But it was an accident,” she pleaded, and a shadow of pain crossed her face. “I’m sure he didn’t mean the old lady any harm.”
“When did he tell you all this?” I was trying to make some logical sense of what I was hearing.
“Why ... what difference does that make?”
“It’s important, Pearl.”
“It ... it was on Sunday. He telephoned me at home ...”
“He told you all this over the phone?” I said incredulously.
She put her hands to her head, pressing the fingers against the temples. “No ... we arranged to meet, and I told my husband I was going for a walk.”
“Go on, then. Are you saying that Luke still took the cabaret away with him, even after the old lady had fallen?”
“Well, yes… and the next day—the Monday—he tried to see Maynard, but the shop was closed and it wasn’t until the evening that he learned Maynard was dead.”
“And then?”
Pearl’s voice was dulled with resignation, with the inevitability of telling this painful and sordid story.
“Well … Luke didn’t know what to do with the porcelain then and he was worried sick, especially when he discovered that the old lady had died. But at least with her dead there was no reason for anyone to suspect him. So he knew he was safe ... until last week …”
“Yes,” I said impatiently, “what happened then?”
“Well, when he went back to that cottage -in Plyming, wasn’t it? - because it was one of his regular calls with her wine order, and he decided it would be best not to admit knowing that Miss Willoughby was dead, or it might cause someone to wonder. Anyway, there was a man at the cottage, and ...”
“‘Ben Wyland,” I said grimly. “I was there, too, as it happens, but I made sure Luke didn’t see me. I knew that he’d recognise me from the time I’d found him here, having an argument with you.”
Pearl nodded her head listlessly. “You saw Luke? Well... anyway, he couldn’t have had any idea who Ben Wyland was. I mean, it wouldn’t have worried him at the time. But later, the two of you challenged Luke outside the wine store as he was leaving work, and he realised you must know something. His only thought was to get away and go into hiding. He went back to his room, packed all his stuff, and moved to a different place.”
“And the cabaret, what happened to that?”
“Well … Luke took it with him. And as soon as possible he destroyed it.”
“Destroyed it?” I cried, outraged. “Your son destroyed the October Cabaret?”
Colour flooded Pearl’s face and she glanced away from me. “Er … it was too dangerous for him to keep, wasn’t it? So … so he broke it up and threw the pieces it into the sea from the top of the cliffs.”
With sickening clarity I envisioned the scene. Luke smashing and stamping on that precious porcelain until it was shattered into a thousand fragments, then casting it from the high clifftops to be swallowed up by the sea. An irreplaceable artistic masterpiece lost to the world forever.
“It can’t be true,” I protested in furious disbelief.
“It is, it is,” Pearl insisted, then paused. “I wish to God it wasn’t true, but it is.”
I let a moment of silence go by, then said, “So what happened after that?”
“You know what happened.” Her voice was barely audible.
“I mean between Sunday, when Luke talked to you, and ... and last night.”
Pearl seemed, as it were, to hold the question between her two hands. Then with a helpless movement, she let it fall.
“
I don’t really know. He was worried to death. He told me he was going to go far away... abroad perhaps. I too was almost out of my mind with worry. If any whisper of this business came out, it would mean the end of my marriage.”
“Is that all you were concerned about, Pearl?”
She glanced up at me swiftly, and I believe she was genuinely shocked.
“That’s a cruel thing to say. Whatever else Luke might have been ... no matter what he’d done, he was still my own flesh and blood. I was desperately afraid for him, naturally.”
“I’m sorry.” I rose to my feet and paced restlessly about the room. “So Sunday was the last time that you saw Luke?”
Was it a momentary hesitation? “Yes, Sunday.”
“Where was he ... what could he have been doing, between then and the time of the accident last night?”
“Accident?” she cried, her voice rising to a stifled scream. “Can you really believe it was an accident? Luke was an expert motorcyclist.”
I looked at her and said very quietly, “What are you suggesting, Pearl?”
“The poor wretched boy killed himself. With that old lady’s death on his conscience, he couldn’t face the future ... to be forever looking over his shoulder.”
She broke down then and began to sob with a wild abandon—her lack of control made worse, I think, by the iron grip she’d kept on her emotions for so long. I let her cry, and wondered bleakly what I was going to do.
Chapter Seventeen
I took Pearl home in her car, because it was clear she was in no fit state to drive. Not that I was much better. It was my first experience of driving on the left, and in this press of summer traffic I felt very jittery. Along Marine Parade the sea was a shimmering sheet of silk, and I envied the holiday-makers lounging carefree on the beaches in the sun.
Pearl seemed scared sick that her husband might have read the paragraph about Luke’s death in the Evening Argus.
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