Helena swallowed hard, ‘Please don’t touch me.’
‘Why?’ he paused.
She couldn’t answer.
‘Because you like it?’
She nodded.
‘Well, it’s good to see you confirm it, because I was beginning to think I’d spent last night with someone else.’
Suddenly he was at her side, lifting her from her chair, kissing her, kissing her. She struggled against him, pummelled his chest. ‘It’s not night now, Adam,’ she pulled away from him.
‘Well I may be available to be used again tonight. Or I may not. Never count on it,’ he growled, but he smiled as he said it, looked at her with such open warmth, that it was only with an effort that she reminded herself of the situation.
‘There’s so much to be done,’ Helena mumbled once he had sat down again. ‘I’ll have to phone James at the Farm. I’ll pay, of course.’
Adam grunted.
‘And then arrange for the obituaries, the funeral. So many people will want to come from everywhere. I don’t know where to start with the funeral business here. In England… Or perhaps he should go back to the United States, where he belongs.’
He interrupted her. ‘Whoa. One step at a time. The inquest will be on Monday.’
She looked at him blankly. ‘Inquest?’
‘Well, it’s purely formal. But they don’t know how he died. Suicide…’
‘They don’t know that.’
‘That’s why. That’s what they’ll try and ascertain. Look,’ he stood up suddenly, began to busy himself with more coffee, dishes, talking all the while. ‘I know the last thing you probably want is my advice. But here it is, free. I don’t think you or anyone else should try and organize a big funeral here. The less people who come to this place, the better. You don’t want journalists prying, digging things up. If he decided to die, that’s his business. The suicide won’t do your cause any good. So just have him buried here, or cremated, and get the ashes back to the States. Have a memorial service there, and in England, and wherever else people think it’s proper.’
Helena looked at him in open astonishment.
‘Why are you so certain Max committed suicide?’
He shrugged.
‘He wasn’t the type. It’s not like him.’
Wittgenstein once said, ‘Death isn’t part of life.’
‘I don’t care what Wittgenstein or anyone else said. I knew Max.’
‘Helena,’ he tried to take her hand, but she avoided him. ‘I know this is hard for you. But the story goes that a little boy, just a few miles from here, let Max have his row boat for a few hours in return for a couple of marks. The boy came back at the appointed time. No Max and he saw his boat empty, floundering about in middle of the lake. He eventually told his parents, next day I think it was, who told the police. Both Max and the boat were washed or brought ashore some time after that.’
‘It could have been an accident.’ she glared at him.
‘It could. Perhaps that’s what you should tell the press. Yes, emphasize that. Otherwise you’ll get headlines like ‘Green visionary takes his own life in despair.’ But maybe that’s what you want. In any event, just keep the snoops away from here.’
‘Someone could have pushed him.’
He stared at her in disbelief.
‘You don’t really think that!’
‘I do,’ she set her face stubbornly. ‘Max did a lot of things people in power weren’t too pleased with.’
‘Well, suit yourself.’ He started to wash the dishes, broke into a whistle.
‘You just don’t give a damn do you? A man is dead and you don’t give a damn. An important man. A man who may have been my father. I would have found out in just a few days,’ her voice rose and suddenly cracked into a sob. She buried her face in her arms.
‘Get it out of your head, Helena. Max Bergmann was not your father. It’s a story you tell yourself because you like the sound of it.’ His voice was soft but insistent.
It infuriated her. ‘You know everything, don’t you?’ she jumped at him. ‘You muck about with your dusty books and you think you know everything?’ She scraped her chair back from the table noisily.
‘What my dusty books tell me is that the whole edifice of Max Bergmann’s ideas - those ideas you’re presumably so enamoured of - is based on soulful shit. No, shit’s too nice. Have you really read him? Have you?’
‘Yes,’ she raged at him. ‘And maybe you should tear your crumbling books up and look at the world for a change. Max did things. He…’ A sob overcame her words. She raced from the room.
Behind her she heard him mumble, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that.’
She got as far as the drive, then she turned back, wiping her tears. She poked her head through the kitchen door. ‘Look. I didn’t mean all that about your books. I’m just distraught. I’m going for a walk. To clear my head.’
He looked at her soberly. ‘If all this is too much for you, Helena, I’ll handle the funeral arrangements.’
She shrugged. ‘We’ll talk about it later. I have to phone the States first.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Another hour should do it.’
The lake was as calm as a looking glass. Surrounded by dappled meadows and picture postcard mountains, it hardly looked like a site for anything more extravagant than a little Sunday fishing amongst the swaying reeds.
Yet the voices clamoured in Helena’s head. This is where it had happened. Right here in this lake, Max had drowned, his body bloating, taking on that waxy pallor. By his own will? She didn’t know.
Beneath a clump of distant willows, shimmering yellow in the crystal sunshine, she saw some people fishing. Perhaps the boy who had lent his boat to Max was amongst them. She must go and talk to him. And to the police.
But there was something else bothering her. Something about Adam, something that went beyond the pettiness of the row she had instigated. She should never have slept with him.
Why was he so hostile about Max? A difference of ideas alone, didn’t breed that kind of hostility. And why should he be so worried about journalists? Snoopers, as he called them. Why was he so certain that Max had taken his own life? Why should he want to convince her of that? And that extra certainty, about Max not being her father. He had been so insistent about that. Adam knew something. Something he wouldn’t share with her. She had long suspected it. It had confronted her at every turn.
She ruminated on this as she walked along the shore, past the boathouse and the grave with its new border of primroses. Something was eluding her. She looked up through the budding trees and an idea came to her.
Adam had worked with the Yanomamo Indians in the Amazon, had defended their land rights. His father had pointed the latter out. Max too had been to the Amazon, had written about the rainforest, the annual loss of some twenty million acres. Had the two of them met, squabbled over something? Adam had originally pretended never to have heard of Max, and then suddenly, he had seemed to know a great deal about him. And she had felt that his lecture implicated Max. Her mind raced.
By the time she arrived at the arching beech with its empty swing, she had concluded that Adam was somehow involved in Max’s death. Why else should his house have featured so prominently in Max’s letter to her? Why else should Max’s body end up with Adam? She shuddered. But what was the link?
She found Adam in the library. He was ensconced behind his desk which burgeoned with what seemed an increasing array of papers.
‘Could I use the phone now?’
He nodded.
Was it her imagination or was he looking at her strangely?
‘There’s one right here,’ he pointed to his desk ‘and one in my bedroom. Take your pick.’
She felt the heat rising in her face despite herself.
‘Here?’ He unearthed the phone and brought it to the table she had sat at on that first night. ‘I guess you’d like to be on your own?’
‘I’d prefer it,’ Helena murm
ured.
She dialled the number quickly. It took some time to rouse James, but eventually she heard his somewhat fuddled voice at the other end.
‘Sorry to be so early, James. But it’s very bad news.’ She waited to give him a chance to prepare himself, then she told him, told him too that he should make his way here, in time for the inquest if possible. She asked his advice about the funeral, repeating in part what Adam had said.
James whistled. ‘I’ll have to think about all that. I can probably get a plane this evening, tomorrow at the latest. I should sort out things this end. Alert the lawyers. I imagine there’s a will somewhere. God only knows what will become of this place. Where are you?’
She gave him the phone number, told him she would come and meet him in Munich.
‘I’ll ring you at 12.30, my time. Will you be there?’
‘I’ll make sure I am. By the way, James,’ she turned towards the window, lowered her voice, ‘if you can, if there’s time, run a check on a Professor Adam Peters, for me, will you? He’s based in Princeton.’
‘Helena, this is hardly the moment…’
‘Try.’
She rang off.
For a moment, Helena fingered Anna’s Book absently. Then she glanced at Adam’s desk, so full of papers that there was an overflow on the floor. If only she could look through that mass. But it was hardly the moment. She reached into her bag instead, found a twenty pound note and placed it on an open periodical.
The name Max Bergmann leapt out at her, like an assault. It was the very article she had been thinking about. On the rainforest. A numbness seemed to settle over her. She walked slowly into the hall, didn’t call out her ‘I’m finished,’ until she had reached the door of her room.
She changed quickly, willing herself not to think for the time being, not until she was out of the house.
Her suit was too crumpled to put on. On the spur of the moment, while the taxi had waited for her in London, she had packed her black dress. As if in premonition, she thought now. She slipped it on. It would do admirably for the police, though when she looked in the small mirror, the dress seemed to have a little more slink in it then she remembered. She brushed her hair out and on reflection, clipped it into a smooth bun. Only the waves at her brow persisted.
She bumped into Adam at the base of the stairs. He was carrying a pot of coffee into the library.
‘Like some?’ His eyes flickered over her.
‘No, I’m off now.’
‘Going somewhere special?’
‘The police.’
‘Would you like some company?’
‘I thought you were working.’
‘I was. Deadlines…sorry, the calendar beckons. But if you like…’ he was scrutinizing her.
‘In fact, I’d rather go on my own.’
‘Will you be alright?’
‘Of course I’ll be alright,’ she was brusque. Too brusque, she realised as she saw his face. She was overreacting, letting her suspicions run away with her. And he suddenly looked so vulnerable.
‘Adam, it is true that 90% of suicides leave notes, isn’t it?’ she asked more softly now.
He shrugged, ‘My dusty books haven’t provided me with that statistic.’
‘I apologised about that.’
‘So you did,’ he met her eyes for a moment and then turned away instantly, ‘Yes, it is meant to be the case that most suicides leave notes of some kind,’ he said tersely.
‘And Max hasn’t?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they haven’t found it yet.’
‘I’m going to find it, if it exists.’ Her voice had a note of triumph. She brushed past him, ‘And I’ll be back at six-thirty. I’m expecting a call from the States.’
‘Your butler will undoubtedly be waiting, Ms Latimer. Drive safely.’
She didn’t. That last remark of his had infuriated her and for a brief moment it passed her mind that the reason she was so suspicious of his involvement with Max was his general duplicity. And the fact that he enraged her. But she chased that from her mind. He knew something. Something he wasn’t telling her. And if it implicated him in Max’s death, she was going to find out about it.
She put her foot down on the accelerator and drove too fast, taking the curves in the road precariously. She realised that if she let her mind move into that dreaming trance that usually accompanied driving, all she saw was that plastic sheet over Max’s body. And the tears would start to blur her eyes. So it was better to stay alert, angry.
The police station took far too long, an exceeding politeness masking an exceeding inefficiency. The officer in charge of the case wasn’t available and no one else could tell her anything. She waited, uncomfortably aware of the fact that Max lay close-by in that plastic winding sheet.
When the officer - a middle aged man with a dour face - finally arrived, he seemed to be willing to do little more than offer his condolences.
She grilled him, told him she was a relative and wanted to see the file on the case, which he said was impossible.
Irritated, Helena flashed her press card, impressed on him Max Bergmann’s importance, and finally he gave her a narrative of the events.
It was little more than Adam had told her, but at least she knew for certain that the police had no suicide note. She also had the name and address of the little boy who had rented Max his boat.
‘And where was Max Bergmann staying at the time? I hope you’ve searched the place.’
The man’s temper was rising, ‘Not only did we search it, but we had to search it out. Not easy I can tell you. A chalet, rented out by Schluss, eight miles from the lake. But there was no car, that puzzled us. He was an old man, after all. He wouldn’t have walked.’
‘And what did you find in the Chalet?’
The man looked at her suspiciously. ‘It’s all in the bag. It’ll be handed over after the inquest.’
Helena smiled her sweetest smile, ‘Thank you, officer. It’s a relief to know that everything has been properly handled. One worries, so, you know.’
She could feel him looking after her as she strode out of the office.
Outside the day was waning. Helena cursed the fact that she had risen so late, held herself back from blaming it on Adam. There wouldn’t be time now to drive out and find the little boy’s place or an estate agent. It would have to wait until tomorrow.
The affluent little town had a sleepy air about it. Only a few strollers were visible on the high street near the stone fountain with its youthful Madonna. Beyond, there were the district hospital precincts, loudly signposted, and a small hotel complete with heraldic arms set into its turrets. On a whim Helena thought she might check in for the night. She could ring James at the appointed time and set about her business early tomorrow. She would avoid Adam that way.
How was it that he could tempt her to transgress against all her principles? And more than that, Helena stilled the sudden ache inside her, despite all her suspicions.
No, she would have to confront him. And she wanted to ask him some more questions, search the library, perhaps even his room if the opportunity arose.
She drove back to Seehafen, her pace slowed by the gathering darkness and the steady stream of weekend traffic. Somehow, she managed to miss a turn and had to retrace her route.
By the time she arrived, it was already six-thirty and she raced up the steps, certain that she could hear the telephone ringing. She prodded the bell fiercely.
‘Right on time, Ms Latimer,’ Adam opened the door to her. The lazy smile played round his lips. ‘There’s a Mr. James Whitaker on the phone for you. Max Bergmann’s Chief Administrator.’ He bowed ceremoniously.
Helena rushed past him.
‘James, sorry. I got lost on my way back here. When are you arriving?’
‘Nine on Sunday. It’ll give me another day to sort things here. I’ve rung round the Trustees. Haven’t been able to get hold of Brad or two of the others, but I’ve managed to reach Jerome and Ch
arlie. They think the funeral itself should be in Germany. Simpler that way. Memorial service here in New York. Maybe Boston. Ashes here, if that’s feasible. I’m preparing the Press Release now. We’ve agreed not to mention suicide, since it’s not certain. Just ‘died tragically while vacationing’ - something like that. They’re both going to try and come to the funeral, as soon as you name a time. By the way, they’re a bit perplexed about you.’
‘So am I,’ Helena muttered.
‘I’ve spoken to the lawyers office. There is a will. Max was very correct, as we know. But all that will take time to unravel.’
‘You will ask them if there’s anything about all this in the will. A letter or something,’ Helena said on the spur of the moment.
‘Jesus, Helena, I’ve got enough on my hands here to cover the next three weeks, let alone twenty-four hours.’
At that, she almost let her last query drop, but something prodded her. ‘And you’ll check out Adam Peters?’
She could almost see him slamming his fist on his desk.
‘What is this, Helena. You chasing a murderer or something?’
She blanched, but kept her voice even. ‘Don’t be dramatic, James. Just do it.’
Adam was pacing between the hall and the front room when she emerged. For a moment she thought he might have been eavesdropping.
‘I didn’t want you sneaking out on me as you’re wont to do,’ he grinned at her so that the dimple played in his cheek.
Helena smiled back. The straightforwardness was irresistible, ‘I wasn’t planning to at the moment.’
‘Good, because I’ve used the payment you so kindly left me to buy some very good champagne. And there’s a salmon waiting to be cooked. I thought we might try to have a friendly evening. No rows, no tiffs, no unwanted ironies, no…’
‘Sex,’ she finished for him, blushed.
She saw the spark in his eye, saw him control it, perform a little pirouette.
‘What? In my best suit?’
Helena laughed, noticed for the first time that he had changed, was wearing a loose linen suit in some tawny shade, a fresh blue shirt.
Dreams of Innocence Page 65
