The Long Kill

by Reginald Hill

  This was frontier country. Here for centuries a line had been drawn, across which the English and before them the Romans had defended their heartlands against the Scots. He recalled Anya’s suggestion that she sensed in him the kind of make-up which would have maintained its stoic vigil on the barren heights of Hard Knott Castle. Was she right? Perhaps. But nowadays the frontiers were different. They ran through cities and villages, streets and houses; they split nations and parties and families and even single human minds; and the conflict was bitterer and more deadly than it had ever been before.

  He settled to his task.

  It didn’t take him long to realize he was wasting his time. These were what he had guessed, love letters. They began with the equivalent of darling, ended with expressions of love and longing. In between, so far as he could make out, lay nothing but what one would expect to find in such letters – descriptions of domestic events, gossip about mutual friends, all infused with a passionate desire to be sharing these things at first hand instead of in a letter.

  It was of course possible that there was a code here, but it would need a cypher expert fluent in Polish to spot it. He was neither. He put the letters back in his pocket, returned the dictionary to the shelves and went to the service desk.

  Yes, they kept copies of all the Cumbrian newspapers. He was vague about dates and got a supply of weeklies covering October to December of the previous year. He found what he was looking for in the last edition before Christmas.

  TRAGIC DEATH OF WELL-KNOWN LOCAL CLIMBER

  There was no reason to be looking at this, except that a careful man studied all aspects of possible opposition before starting an operation. There was something ghoulish about treating a dead man as a rival, but his presence was still powerful. Part of Anya was striving to let go, but another part seemed to be desperately clinging on.

  The facts of Wilson’s death were simple enough. He had been climbing Pillar Rock when he fell. He had been alone and had sustained severe back and head injuries. It had been well over twenty-four hours before he was found and he had died in the West Cumberland Hospital without regaining consciousness.

  Jaysmith rose and went back to the library shelves. There was no shortage of books on the Lake District and on mountaineering. Pillar Rock, he discovered, was a crag on the eastern face of Pillar Fell, overlooking Ennerdale. Remote, steep and dangerous, it provided rock-climbers with ascents ranging from ‘Difficult’ to ‘Very Severe'.

  Jaysmith returned to the paper, slightly puzzled why, on what was evidently such a famous and, in climbing terms, popular crag, Wilson’s fall should have gone unnoticed. It also seemed rather odd to him to be climbing alone.

  The inquest report answered the first point. Weather conditions, it seemed, had been atrocious. Sleet and snow lashed by near gale-force winds; none but the hardiest climbers had ventured out in such conditions, and only to destinations less remote than Pillar Rock. The coroner animadverted sternly on the foolhardiness of the inexperienced and ill-equipped treading the fells at this time of year, using the tragic death of Edward Wilson to show how even the most skilful, experienced and expert of climbers could become vulnerable in such terrible conditions. Verdict was death by misadventure.

  On the same page and of much greater length than the inquest report was an obituary appreciation, which provided the answer to Jaysmith’s second mental query.

  Even making allowances for local pride in a favourite son, Wilson came across as a formidable figure. Educated at Granton, a Scottish public school working on Outward Bound principles, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read law, he had eschewed the brilliant career forecast for him and opted for a Lakeland solicitor’s life in preference to the Inns of Court. The only thing which could draw him away from his beloved Cumbrian mountains was the challenge of other greater mountains. He had taken part in numerous expeditions, including the joint Anglo-Australian Himalayan venture of 1974. In 1976 he had married Anya Bryant, daughter of a fellow solicitor and there was one son, James, born the following year. He had been widely expected to be selected for the multinational attempt on Everest in 1978, but while climbing in the Alps in the winter of 1977, he had been taken ill and had nearly died before his companions got him to hospital where it was discovered he was suffering from diabetes mellitus. Though this disease for the purposes of normal everyday living is easily controllable via diet and insulin injections, it had virtually disqualified him thereafter from any major expedition. This had been a great loss to the world of climbing and a great tragedy to Wilson who had reacted by cutting himself off more and more from his old mountaineering circles and becoming very much a loner in his Lakeland climbs. The irony that this should have eventually contributed to his death was rather ghoulishly underlined, and the piece ended with a purple passage about his spirit on the mountains which would not have been out of place in Wuthering Heights.

  Checking further, Jaysmith discovered Wilson had even made a couple of the nationals, which could have explained the familiarity of that brooding, bearded face. Jaysmith studied it thoughtfully. It was a potent spirit to exorcise. Somehow Wilson, dead, seemed to retain all the strengths and capacities of the living; while he, Jaysmith, could only offer a life as undefinable as a phantom’s existence, and a talent as unrevealable as the face of God.

  He drove slowly back to Grasmere, stopping en route in Keswick to call at Bryant’s office and make an appointment to see his partner, Donald Grose, the following morning. His purchase of Rigg Cottage must still go ahead despite all these alarums, and there were many details to sort out. Also, he was hopeful that Grose might be able to add some useful shading to the picture he was drawing of Bryant and perhaps even of Edward Wilson. No; not hopeful, he corrected himself. He could feel he was getting nowhere, and now he was ready to clutch at any straws at all.

  In the event Grose proved rather more substantial than a straw in several ways. He was a confusion of men. His round face and plump body seemed to promise a placid temperament and measured speech. Instead he was full of nervous energy, unable to find a pen without taking a turn around his office, opening and slamming half a dozen drawers, all the while talking rapidly in a Northumbrian counter-tenor.

  He had been to visit Bryant in hospital the previous night and his natural garrulity plus his understanding that Jaysmith was a family friend inclined him to talk freely.

  ‘He looked well – I said, how’re you going on, Steve? and he said, I’ll be better when I’m going out which won’t be long, and I believe him – he’s remarkable but he’s his own worst enemy – he’ll be out too early and coming home to get under Annie’s feet. I told him this and I said I’d rather rape a gorilla with gripes, and I certainly didn’t want to see him round the office this side of Martinmas – but it’s like talking to a lady magistrate with a hair appointment – her mind’s made up and it’ll not be changed even if it means hanging you for parking – will you sign here, and here, and here, Mr Hutton?’

  He signed and said, ‘I understood Bryant to say he rarely came into the office anyway.’

  ‘Rarely? No, not rarely. A year or so back and it was maybe getting towards rarely but this last year he’s been finding himself plenty to do in here – not that I object – we ought to have been training up a new man for a good while now, and without Steve, rare or not, I’d be hard pushed – that’s the way to lose business – they’re sharp-eyed these Cumbrians and if they think they’re not getting one hundred and fifty per cent attention, they’re off in a flash.’

  ‘But he’s not old,’ said Jaysmith. ‘Early sixties isn’t old these days. I’m surprised that he started to act semi-retired so early, a man like him.’

  ‘Semi-retired?’ Grose laughed. ‘You’re joking – no, he was working as hard as ever – you must know about this book he’s writing on Polish history – well, he doesn’t do things by halves does he? – well, he flung himself into it heart and soul a few years ago – lots of research trips to Poland, that sort of thing –
he discussed it with me first, of course, and I said, go ahead, I can hold the fort – and in any case it seemed likely that …’

  He paused. Jaysmith thought, he’s reached a point beyond which even my misconstrued status as a friend of the family doesn’t entitle me to go without a ticket.

  He made a guess and said knowledgeably, ‘Yes, it did seem to make sense that Edward would have eventually joined the business as a partner.’

  Grose nodded.

  ‘That looked as if it would be the way of it to most people,’ he said. ‘But Steve’s a hard man to please.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t like Edward?’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ said Grose, slightly offended. ‘He’s not the kind to discuss his daughter’s business with other people, you should know that. But he did once say to me that when we took someone new into the business, it’d not be someone who couldn’t give it any more time than he himself could!’

  ‘Oh, you mean all this climbing?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Grose. ‘Now, let’s talk about money, shall we?’

  He left the solicitor’s office with no significant new information but a picture was forming. Anya had married. Bryant, left alone, had launched himself into his Polish project. It was during these years that the period of his frequent visits to Poland had begun, visits during which he had either resumed or begun an affair with the woman called Ota. Then, going by the entry stamps on Bryant’s passport, the visits had stopped about a year ago and they had since kept in contact by letter. This was the time in which Anya, recently widowed, had returned to Naddle Foot. So the simple explanation was that Bryant had felt reluctant to leave his grieving daughter alone for any significant length of time.

  But visits even to Poland need not be long. Perhaps there was another dimension. Perhaps Bryant, finding himself responsible not only for a grieving daughter but also a much-loved grandson, did not feel he had the right to put himself in danger.

  Yet something had put him in danger despite, or could it be because of, his efforts.

  It did not surprise Jaysmith. His own experience was teaching him the hard way how hard it was to retire from danger. It was harder to shake off than a spurned lover.

  If you did not go looking for it, it came looking for you.

  Chapter 15

  Two days later against all medical advice and filial pleading Bryant discharged himself from hospital.

  Jaysmith had not visited him again. There was a faint chance that Jacob had a man watching the hospital, though in Jaysmith’s eyes this would have been stupid and unnecessary. There was also a faint chance that Jacob’s man didn’t exist. Perhaps Bryant was concussed and imagining things. Or perhaps another slightly faster crawler had indeed grown impatient and gone past him on the Struggle, quite unaware of the accident happening in his wake.

  In either case, he felt Bryant was as safe in hospital as he could be, outside a top-security jail.

  Jaysmith did get involved in the homecoming, however. He had rung Anya each evening, ostensibly to ask how her father was, but really to check on her own well-being. She seemed to welcome the calls and it was usually Jaysmith who, reluctant to seem importunate, broke them short. He made no attempt to suggest a meeting, but passed his days walking the high fells in the still-persisting rain which gave him physical horizons to match the brume of his mind. The near view was quite clear – he had to protect Bryant, if protection were needed – but beyond that, it was all a confusion, shifting and deceptive. On the Wednesday night when he rang, Anya told him that Bryant was coming out in the morning, though the hospital would have preferred him to stay till the weekend at least.

  ‘But he’s very strong willed,’ she finished. ‘The doctor said he couldn’t spare an ambulance and I said I certainly wasn’t going to fetch him, and he announced that he would walk, if necessary.’

  ‘But you are going to fetch him?’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘I learned early not to call pappy’s bluffs,’ said Anya.

  ‘Want any help?’

  She paused.

  ‘Well, the only compromise we got out of him is that he said he’d use a wheelchair till he’s told he can start exercising his leg. Getting in and out of the Fiat’s not going to be easy …’

  ‘What time shall I pick you up?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it’s all right, I’ll meet you there and save you the double journey.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘That’d mean I’d have to drive him back unchaperoned. He’d probably hijack the car and make me head for the nearest pub.’

  She laughed and said, ‘All right.’

  Beneath her exasperation with her father, he sensed a deep relief at having him home, and this was confirmed as he drove her to the hospital the following day. She was full of life and chatter and around her throat she wore a scarlet and golden scarf, the first truly gay colours he had seen her wearing. The weather too looked as if it was doing its best for the occasion. The cloud had risen above all but the highest peaks, its greyness now more inclined to white than black, and in one place it was positively threadbare to the light where the sun was trying to rub its way through.

  Bryant greeted his presence without surprise and accepted what assistance was necessary with a good grace, and with no signs of any over-macho assertion of independence. It wasn’t till he got back to Naddle Foot and discovered that Anya had made up a bed for him in his study on the ground floor that he showed any signs of exasperation.

  ‘I am a temporary invalid, not a permanent cripple,’ he said to Anya. ‘I have not broken out of that penitentiary in order to rest uneasily on any put-you-up. I desire the comforts of my own house which include my own bed.’

  ‘Well that’s fine if that’s all you want,’ retorted Anya. ‘But I also presume you’ll expect to enjoy the comforts of your garden and your study and your dining room too. In other words you’ll be wanting to be downstairs as much as upstairs and you’re in no fit state to manage those stairs.’

  ‘I’ll fall down if necessary.’

  ‘But you can’t fall up,’ said Anya. ‘And I’m just a weak woman, remember? I’ll nurse you if I have to, but I’m not in the business of giving piggy-backs.’

  Jaysmith listened to this exchange with considerable amusement. The strong will was clearly firmly printed in the genes.

  ‘You’re right, my dear,’ said Bryant, suddenly and unconvincingly humble. ‘I can’t expect you to bear my weight, physically or metaphorically. I’m sorry.’

  Anya looked triumphant, but suspicious. She was right to be.

  ‘What we need is a man’s strength around the place,’ continued Bryant. ‘Mr Hutton, it must be costing you a fortune staying at that hotel. Why not come and spend a few days here till Rigg Cottage is yours? No strings, but if you happen to be around when I need a shoulder to lean on, that would be a kindness to a poor, sick man.’

  He spoke with a heavy irony directed at his daughter. But there was more to it than that. Jaysmith felt himself once again closely observed, and Anya too, by those still sharp eyes beneath their grizzled brows. Bryant was still probing their relationship, trying to understand what it meant and where it might lead.

  If he finds out, I hope he’ll tell me, thought Jaysmith sardonically.

  He said, ‘Look, hadn’t you two better talk privately? I mean, done like this, it’s very difficult for Anya to say she doesn’t want me here …’

  Father and daughter replied almost simultaneously.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ declared Anya.

  ‘It’s my house,’ growled Bryant.

  They glared at each other, a glare diffusing gradually into the glow of an amused, exasperated affection which was exclusive enough to make Jaysmith feel a pang of jealousy.

  Anya said, ‘Jay, I can’t imagine why you would want to be within a hundred miles of the world’s worst invalid, but if you can bear the prospect for a few days, then please stay. It would be a great help and might even bring a little eas
e to undeserved suffering and stoically borne pain. I refer of course to myself.’

  It was the right note. Bryant smiled almost triumphantly as if he had prepared the way for this, or had some theory confirmed by it.

  He said, ‘That’s settled then. Let’s have a drink to seal the contract.’

  To unseal the contract would be a better phrase, thought Jaysmith.

  And wondered why it was that so often with both these two he felt as if he had spoken his thoughts out loud.

  The move was made that same afternoon. Parker, scenting a romance, accepted his guest’s sudden departure with an almost Pandar-like joviality, insisting that Jaysmith take a bottle of champagne to speed the invalid’s recovery. His wife, on the other hand, frowned a little and took an almost formal farewell. Jaysmith guessed that, while her hopes for Anya’s happiness did not altogether exclude the involvement of a well-to-do middle-aged man, the speed at which things seemed to be progressing gave her pause. It was clear that she did not know Bryant very well, if at all, otherwise her common sense would have seen that his perceptive care was more than likely to compensate for Anya’s vulnerability.

  Yet she’s right, thought Jaysmith, they’re all right to be suspicious. I am a deceiver. The sensitive nose must be able to smell it on me. What confuses them is the unguessable nature of the deceit.

  And it confused himself also. He was in a trap from which there was no escaping. Even the route of altruistic chivalry was not open to him. If he simply vanished, any pain he caused Anya was likely very soon to be subsumed by the greater pain of losing her father, perhaps having him killed before her eyes, perhaps even being endangered herself by the nature of his killing.

  If he stayed, as he knew he must, he could offer some defence, but for how long? And what would be Jacob’s response when he discovered, as he must, Jaysmith’s involvement? What could he believe but that Jaysmith had been bought off by a higher bidder?