by Eric Brown
The heads vanished again, then reappeared a minute later. Maria tossed the coiled rope down to him; it landed on the steps above him and began to uncoil slowly of its own volition. He grabbed it, found the end and moved back down to the colonel.
Careful not to wake the old soldier, he eased the rope under the colonel’s arms and around his chest. Knotting the thick rope was far from easy, but after struggling for minutes he secured the old man with a passable rendition of a bowline knot.
‘Where … where the hell am I?’ The colonel blinked at him, slowly coming to his senses.
‘On the side of a cliff, tied to a rope, which is secured to a tree up there – so you can’t fall, okey-dokey? Now, step by step we’ll make our way back to the top. And for pity’s sake, don’t try to grab hold of me, because I don’t have the luxury of being tied to a safety rope. Understood?’
‘I’m in your capable hands, sir!’ Haxby replied.
‘Excellent. Now, easy does it, Colonel, one step at a time … Take my hand and follow me.’
Langham turned and, gripping Haxby’s hand and avoiding looking down at the drop to his left, he made his slow way back up the narrow flight of steps.
‘Just one thing,’ Haxby said, ‘how the bally hell did I come to find meself down here?’
‘You don’t remember anything?’
‘Last I recall, I … I was closeted with … with Connaught,’ he hiccupped, ‘listening to his infernal blather.’
‘You took whatever he said rather badly, Colonel.’
‘Is it any wonder!’
Langham looked up and waved at Maria who was staring at him with concern etched on her face.
‘Nearly there, Colonel. Easy does it.’
The colonel stumped up the steps, his artificial leg swinging wildly. He grimaced with the effort and clung on to Langham’s hand for dear life.
Langham looked up again. To his relief, he saw that his head was almost level with the lawn. He smiled at Maria, who was biting her lip anxiously.
‘Almost there,’ he said. ‘Just a few more steps …’
‘You’re a gent,’ Haxby declared.
‘My pleasure,’ Langham said, ‘and here we are. All’s well that ends well.’ He took the last few steps and reached the sloping lawn with an exultant sense of relief.
‘Excellent work, my boy!’ Charles carolled.
‘Well done, Langham,’ Pandora Jade said.
The butler and Wilson Royce grabbed the colonel, unfastened the rope from around his chest and led him back to the house.
Maria embraced Langham tearfully and plastered his face with kisses, then pulled away and regarded him with mock fury. ‘And don’t you ever, Mr Langham, do anything like that again!’
‘What, rescue an armed, suicidal, drunken, one-legged man from halfway down the side of a cliff? You have my solemn word, my darling, that I won’t ever do anything half so stupid.’
‘Thank you,’ Maria said.
‘I do think this calls for a little drink!’ Charles declared.
Taking Maria’s hand, Langham followed his friend back to the house.
Denbigh Connaught said, ‘Pass the wine, would you, Langham? There’s a good man.’
Langham did so, then topped up his own glass.
Colonel Haxby was absent from the dining table that evening, laid up in bed. Wilson Royce had volunteered to take it in turns with Watkins to sit with the colonel; earlier, Langham had asked Royce if there was somewhere he might secrete Haxby’s revolver, and Royce had suggested the safe in Connaught’s old study.
Monty Connaught had returned to the village immediately after his meeting with his brother. According to Pandora, he’d stormed from the study at two thirty, his face like thunder, and had said farewell to no one.
Langham wondered what had passed between the travel writer and his brother.
Denbigh Connaught, Lady Cecelia and Pandora Jade sat at one end of the table, while Langham, Maria and Charles sat together in the middle, chatting among themselves. Cook had prepared a side of roast beef, new potatoes and vegetables.
Langham had little appetite. After the excitement on the cliff path that morning, he, Maria and Charles had motored along the coast to St Austell and enjoyed a lavish lunch at a public house overlooking the bay.
He wondered how Denbigh Connaught was feeling now, having offered his apologies to those he’d slighted down the years. The novelist appeared a little morose, enthroned in his high-backed oaken seat at the head of the table. Langham thought he resembled a dyspeptic monarch: Henry the Eighth, perhaps; he certainly had that king’s bulk, with his jowly face and small, querulously pinched mouth and tiny, porcine eyes. Connaught hardly attended to what Lady Cecelia was saying to him, but concentrated on his food and wine.
Lady Cecelia, for her part, appeared to be in high spirits, addressing Pandora gaily when her overtures to Connaught fell on deaf ears. She asked the artist about her work and listened with polite, smiling attention while Pandora complained about the stranglehold that the major London galleries had on the art market.
After dessert of fruit salad and cream, Pandora made her excuses and said goodnight, soon followed by Lady Cecelia. Langham was about to suggest a turn around the garden to Maria and Charles when, from the end of the table, Connaught said, ‘Heard all about your heroics this afternoon, Langham.’ His tone suggested that Langham had committed some heinous deed.
‘Hardly heroics,’ he murmured.
‘You should have let the old sot shoot himself.’
Charles, pointedly, turned his back on Connaught and addressed Maria.
Langham said, ‘He was in a rather … agitated state.’
‘Makes a change from his usual condition of inebriation, then,’ Connaught grunted, finishing off his brandy and pouring another.
Langham sat back in his chair, considering his words. ‘I thought your intentions, today, were to apologize? What happened in the colonel’s case?’
Connaught scrutinized Langham with his piggy eyes. ‘What did he say to you?’
Langham hesitated. ‘Very little. He was a bit too far gone to say very much … other than to tell me how you first met.’
‘Should never have bothered with the man,’ Connaught said. ‘But back then … there was something about him. Possessed a bit of vim and dash. Could’ve made something of his life …’ He trailed off, his gaze distant.
‘I suppose it does something to a man, losing a limb like that.’
Connaught grunted a grudging agreement.
Langham considered the colonel’s claim that Connaught had killed a man. ‘What did you need to apologize to him for, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘As it happens, I do mind your asking, young man. That’s between me, Haxby and the devil.’
Langham smiled to himself and finished his wine.
Watkins approached the table, bent towards Langham and murmured, ‘A telephone call for you, sir.’
Langham dabbed his lips and rose from the table. ‘Excuse me.’
He followed Watkins from the room. ‘It’s Doctor Connaught, sir, about a boat trip.’ He indicated the drawing room, and Langham closed the door behind him and crossed to the ivory-handled telephone.
‘Donald, I hope I’m not interrupting dinner,’ Annabelle Connaught said.
‘Just finished.’
‘It’s about tomorrow. If you’re still interested in a little trip out on the boat …’
‘By all means.’
‘Excellent. Aim to arrive around twelve, would you? The forecast is for continued fine weather, so the sea should be calm. I’ll prepare a packed lunch.’
‘That sounds wonderful. We’ll see you tomorrow.’
Annabelle thanked him and rang off.
He was returning to the dining room when the door opened and Maria and Charles emerged.
‘We made our excuses,’ Charles said, ‘and escaped. I really couldn’t take much more of the man. He’s the worse for drink, and insist
ed on disparaging a few of his contemporaries, and then moved on to the Angry Young Men.’
‘I suggested we have a wander around the grounds,’ Maria said. ‘It’s a lovely evening. Who was on the phone, Donald?’
As they left the house and strolled across the lawn towards the walled garden, he told her about the following day’s boat trip. ‘Would you care to accompany us, Charles?’
‘Thank you for the invitation, my boy, but I shall decline. Small boats and the open sea hold terrors for me equivalent to your vertigo. So perhaps I should face them, as you so valorously did this afternoon. But no, I think I’ll spend a quiet Sunday browsing Connaught’s magnum opus.’
They stopped before the entrance to the walled garden and stared out to sea. A yacht sliced a white wake through the azure waters; the sun was westering and turning molten.
‘Have you decided whether or not to represent Connaught?’ Langham asked.
Charles struck an unconscious pose, his lips pursed in contemplation, his malacca cane lodged at an angle in the lawn. The warm breeze caught the drifts of his snow-white hair.
‘I am still unsure,’ he said at last. ‘I think it might be churlish of me to refuse, after his apology, but …’ He smiled at Maria. ‘But we are in partnership, my dear, so perhaps we should discuss this when we return to London.’
Langham opened the timber gate and they walked widdershins around the walled garden. The scent of rose and honeysuckle filled the warm evening air.
He considered the prospect of the boat trip tomorrow, and the leisurely drive back to London on Monday. He had a new novel to think about; he’d work on the notes on Tuesday, and then put in his two-day shift at the agency. He wondered whether Ralph had turned up anything interesting on Wilson Royce.
They turned right along the path and came upon Lady Cecelia seated on a bench. She had been weeping and quickly dried her eyes on a tiny lace kerchief as they approached.
Another casualty of Denbigh Connaught’s attempts at apologizing, Langham wondered.
She smiled up at them as Charles, as if to deflect attention from her distress, waxed lyrical about the beauty of the roses.
‘I was just contemplating my good fortune,’ Lady Cecelia said.
Charles appeared surprised, but rallied. ‘Always a fine way to spend a late-summer evening, Lady Cecelia,’ he said.
‘Your good fortune?’ Maria enquired.
‘During the war,’ Lady Cecelia said, ‘when my husband and I separated …’ She shook her head. ‘I look back and wonder how I survived, and recently it has been something of a struggle to make ends meet. And then … and then something like this happens.’ She looked up at them, tears pooling in her eyes again. ‘Denbigh is such a wonderful, generous man, isn’t he?’
Langham opened his mouth, but was too surprised to speak. Charles, ever the diplomat, murmured, ‘Quite …’
‘But don’t let me interrupt your evening stroll,’ Lady Cecelia said. ‘I was just about to turn in. Goodnight.’
They returned her valediction and watched the dowager leave the garden.
‘And what,’ Maria said, ‘was all that about?’
‘It sounds as though Connaught has settled a sum on the old girl,’ Langham said, ‘by way of an apology.’
‘But an apology for what, I wonder?’ Charles said.
As they left the garden, Langham considered what Colonel Haxby had said that afternoon. He gazed across the lawn towards the cliff edge, lost in thought.
‘What is it, old boy?’ Charles asked.
‘The colonel told me something while we were down there,’ Langham said. ‘He claimed that Connaught had killed someone, back before the war, and now wanted to apologize for it to Haxby.’
‘Killed someone?’ Maria exclaimed.
‘That’s what he said. But why,’ he went on, looking from Charles to Maria, ‘would Connaught want to apologize to the colonel?’
‘You must remember that Haxby was in his cups,’ Charles said. ‘Talking tommyrot, in all likelihood.’
‘I don’t know,’ Langham said. ‘Something very odd is going on here, and I’d like to get to the bottom of it.’
FOURTEEN
Langham and Maria were leaving Connaught House late on Sunday morning when Langham heard a call from the hallway.
Monty Connaught strode out into the sunlight, hitching his rucksack on to his shoulder. ‘Donald! Pandora mentioned you were off to meet Annabelle. I don’t suppose I could beg a lift into the village?’
‘Of course. Hop in.’
‘That’s awfully good of you. It’s a two-mile walk, and hell on my old pins.’
They climbed into the Rover and Langham drove from the grounds.
‘How is the research coming along?’ Maria asked, looking over her shoulder.
‘I’ve been working up at the house since seven this morning,’ Monty said, ‘scouring the maps I bought by the crate-load years ago. That’s the disadvantage of living a life on the open sea, free of all worldly possessions. I must admit that I do miss my books and maps. At the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to live on dry land again.’
They passed through the forest, sunlight flickering through the fir trees. ‘How did your audience with Denbigh go yesterday?’ Langham asked.
‘Fine, fine … He just wanted to sort out one or two outstanding financial matters. Nothing “urgent” at all. In fact, it could have waited.’
Langham recalled Pandora’s description of Monty’s having a face like thunder on leaving his brother’s study. ‘He didn’t want to apologize?’ he asked.
‘As I told you yesterday,’ Monty said, ‘if he started, he’d never stop. No, he owed me a couple of hundred pounds from some annuity he uncovered a few months ago, taken out for us by our father.’
‘That will fund the Morocco trip,’ Langham laughed.
‘The more the merrier,’ Monty said. ‘Do you know, I live in perpetual fear of the bottom dropping out of the travel book market.’
Langham smiled. ‘The nightmare of the professional scribbler,’ he said.
‘Only in this case, I think I have a legitimate reason to worry.’
‘And why’s that?’ Langham asked.
‘Reading between the lines after meeting my editor, Gilby and Watson are going through a bad time. I keep wondering when they’ll pull the plug.’
Maria glanced over her shoulder. ‘What would you do then?’
Monty gave a laugh that was far from humorous. ‘I dread to think.’
Maria hesitated, then asked, ‘Who is your agent, Mr Connaught?’
‘Strange as it may seem, I don’t have one. I sold my first book to Gilby just after the war, without an agent, and it’s gone on from there. The thought of paying someone ten per cent of my scant earnings …’
Maria smiled. ‘Well, if Gilby and Watson do fall on hard times, and you find yourself without a publisher, you could do worse than drop me a line, and I’ll put some feelers out.’
‘That’s tremendously kind of you,’ Monty said. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ He pointed through the windscreen as they drove into the cobbled harbour. ‘Anywhere around here will be fine. Thank you.’
Langham braked in front of the Fisherman’s Arms and Monty climbed out. He leaned back towards the open window. ‘It’d be nice to meet up for a drink and a chat at some point.’
‘That sounds excellent,’ Langham said.
Monty tapped the roof of the car and strode into the public house.
It was almost twelve o’clock when they drew up outside Threepenny Cottage. The sun shone from a blue sky innocent of a single cloud, and the sea, to Langham’s inexpert eye, appeared perfect for boating: still and glassily calm.
‘Will you be all right on the steps?’ Maria asked as they climbed from the car.
‘After yesterday, girl, I could scale Mount Everest in my sleep.’
Maria had dressed for the occasion. If her get-up wasn’t quite nautical, it was certainly fetchingly casu
al: a white blouse with rolled up sleeves and green canvas slacks cut off just below the knee.
Annabelle Connaught was standing in the garden beside the timber picnic table, on which sat a wicker basket covered by a red-and-white checked cloth. She was staring across the bay at Connaught House and turned when they pushed through the gate. A pair of sunglasses sat like a tiara in her auburn hair. She looked like a film star got up for a publicity shoot.
‘Excellent timing,’ she said. ‘If you’re ready, we’ll set off straight away.’
She picked up the basket and led the way to the steps. ‘Ham and horseradish sandwiches, and an apple pie. I hope that’s OK? Oh, and home-made lemonade to wash it down.’
‘That sounds lovely,’ Maria said.
Langham gestured for Maria to follow Annabelle down the steps, and hesitated before approaching the edge of the cliff. Despite his exploits the previous day, he felt queasy as he contemplated the long drop to the small boat rising and falling beside the concrete jetty.
Maria turned and looked up at him. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Donald?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, taking a breath and following her down.
At least on this descent, he thought, there was the chain pegged into the cliff face to assist him. He clutched the rusting links with a white-knuckled grip and stared at Maria’s back all the way down.
At the bottom she took his hand. ‘You look as pale as a ghost.’
‘Honestly, I’m fine.’
Annabelle stepped into the boat and reached out to help Maria. Langham followed and seated himself on a wooden bench that ran around the inside of the stern.
‘Are you OK, Donald?’ Annabelle sat at the tiller, staring at him with concern. ‘You don’t get seasick, do you?’
‘I’m fine with the sea,’ he said, and pointed back to the steps, ‘but not so good with heights. You’d have thought that after yesterday …’
‘What happened yesterday?’
Maria settled herself beside him. ‘Donald saved the colonel’s life,’ she said.
‘Well, hardly.’ He put up a token protest. ‘The colonel got himself into a drunken tizz and took himself off down the cliff path behind Connaught House.’
