The Long Kill

by Reginald Hill

  ‘And found all well, I daresay,’ said Jaysmith. ‘No need to explain.’

  ‘I’m not explaining,’ snapped Bryant. ‘I’m telling you. And now I’m asking you not to say anything to Anya.’

  ‘Really?’ said Jaysmith in surprise. ‘Why not? She’s an adult woman. She can hardly believe you’re a monk.’

  ‘No. But she knows I am in … I have a strong commitment elsewhere. There are reasons why things are difficult in that area, reasons of distance and … other reasons.’

  He spoke with bitter longing and Jaysmith knew he was speaking of Ota, the woman in Poland who had written the letters he kept in his safe. But Bryant was not about to make a full confession of his love life.

  ‘I’m sure she would understand,’ insisted Jaysmith.

  ‘You’re an expert on my daughter suddenly?’ said Bryant. ‘Well let me tell you, it is my experience that women on the whole only pretend to understand such little arrangements as mine with Maggie Orbison whom, incidentally, Anya doesn’t like. At the very least she’d be … disappointed. And I don’t care to disappoint her. You see, Hutton, Anya has inherited from God knows where an almost feudal notion of loyalty.’

  He laughed rather sourly.

  ‘A notion which extends to her memory of her dead husband?’ said Jaysmith.

  The laugh stopped.

  ‘Meaning?’ said Bryant softly.

  ‘Anya put me right on a couple of things last night,’ said Jaysmith. ‘No details, but she just made it plain that her memories of married life, her attitudes to her husband’s death were … ambiguous. I’d like to know more but I don’t want to risk causing pain by an over-robust probing. Anything you can tell me, anything which might help me to help … And you needn’t worry. You’ll find me as discreet about this as you will about Mrs Orbison.’

  He smiled to show that the implication of blackmail was merely a joke. Bryant did not smile back but he clearly discounted the implication for he asked, ‘Why should I tell you anything?’

  ‘Because, perhaps, you did not care for your son-in-law much. No, no one’s said anything. It’s just my guess that this is at the root of the antagonism between you and Miss Wilson. A clash of blood loyalties.’

  ‘You’re a sharp bastard for an out-of-work salesman,’ mocked Bryant, running his fingers through his halo of grey hair. ‘But even if you’re right, it’s still hardly reason enough for me to lay out my daughter’s business before a stranger, is it?’

  ‘I love her,’ said Jaysmith flatly.

  ‘Love! You’ve only known her a couple of weeks!’ came the sceptical reply.

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  ‘And how does she feel about you?’

  ‘It takes sharper eyes and greater wit than I’ve got to know that,’ said Jaysmith. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think nothing. But if she put you right about Edward, that must mean something,’ mused Bryant. He came to a decision. ‘All right, Hutton, I’ll tell you what I can without breaking Anya’s confidence. In other words, I’ll tell you what I know from observation and report, but nothing that Anya herself has told me. That’s up to her to decide. So. Edward Wilson. I never liked the man from the start, but I am old enough to recognize bias. My daughter was eighteen, just finishing school, with a university place open for her in a good law faculty. I had high hopes for her, not just selfish hopes either. It was her future that seemed bright; it was her future that seemed in danger when she fell in love with Wilson. She was adamant that she was going to be married. She’d always had a mind of her own, but suddenly I didn’t know her. Nothing I could say swayed her in the least. And of course she was of age. The worst I could do would have been to cut her off without a penny in the good old Victorian tradition. I thought of threatening it, so you can see how troubled I was! But in the event, I swayed with the wind and walked her up the aisle and gave her away. I might as well have sold her into slavery. At least I’d have got a price!’

  He spoke with such bitterness that Jaysmith was filled with a retrospective alarm.

  ‘For God’s sake, what happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘I told you, I’m not breaking any confidences,’ said Bryant. ‘In any case, I’m sure I got from Anya only what little her desperate need for expression forced past that overdeveloped sense of loyalty I mentioned before. But what I saw with my own eyes I’ll tell you. I saw a happy, laughing, open and confident child on the threshold of life gradually turn into a taciturn, reserved, and introspective woman. She was a girl of such brightness, Hutton! Bright in thought, speech, movement, dress. And now there was none of this. It was early spring to late autumn with no summer between.’

  ‘But the boy – she must have had him very quickly. That must have helped?’

  ‘In the first year,’ said Bryant. ‘And I suppose he helped from the point of view of company and occupation. But in real terms Jimmy’s birth just bound her to Wilson even more, at first because she had a double loyalty now, to husband and her child’s father; later, because Wilson made it clear that if she went, he would do everything in his power to make certain Jimmy stayed.’

  ‘If she went? Then she was contemplating leaving him?’

  ‘It came to that. That’s when she spoke to me openly for the first time. Not that I hadn’t tried to speak to her. I was away a lot in the early years of her marriage and perhaps didn’t pay enough attention to what was going on.’

  ‘Away in Poland?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  And, of course, thought Jaysmith, once he became aware of Anya’s problems, any thought of making a new life in Poland with Ota must have been put aside completely. The poor bastard probably even felt that his absence had been a kind of culpable neglect!

  ‘You still haven’t told me much about Edward Wilson,’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘He is not a man I care to talk about,’ said Bryant. ‘But I can see you will have to know. He was a strange, solitary man, not unpersonable, not without charm. I don’t know how much his upbringing affected him, but I tend myself to believe that what we are is written in our genes.’

  ‘His aunt brought him up, I gather?’

  Bryant nodded. ‘Yes, but I doubt if she was the major influence. His life was divided between Grasmere, boarding school – some god-forsaken hole in Scotland where I’ve no doubt that beating and buggery figured large in the curriculum – and visits to his doting father in London.’

  ‘You don’t like the father either?’

  ‘I met him at the wedding and I met him at the christening and I met him at the funeral. He struck me as a solitary like his son, who’d put what few emotional resources he had into the relationship. That was peculiar. He clearly thought that this odd upbringing was the very best he could have done for Edward. And any guilt he may have felt was assuaged by lavishing the best of everything on the boy when he saw him once or twice a year in London. No I didn’t care for the man. I think he would like to treat Jimmy in the same way if he could, but there’s no chance of that. To get back to Edward, you know he was a climber of some eminence?’

  Jaysmith smiled at the choice of phrase, but Bryant did not notice.

  ‘That was his means of self-expression. Completely typical. I’ve done some rock climbing myself. It’s a solitary, self-absorbed pursuit, even in a team. You’re pinned against a bare face, moving fingers and feet by slow inches, seeking the minute purchase which will hold you safe for a little longer. Yet it is not the desire for safety that holds you there; it is not hope of achievement which edges you upward by skill and will; no, what you fight against is what you want; it is the prolonging of pleasure by the delay of orgasm; what motivates the climber is the knowledge that at any moment, by chance or by desire, he may abandon this snail-like creeping, and push off from this sheet of cold unresponsive rock, and fly!’

  Bryant spoke with a violence of passion which made Jaysmith stare in surprise.

  He said softly, ‘I think perhaps you understood your son-in-law very well.�
��

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Bryant, recovering his composure. ‘Perhaps I understood his father too. We were both left with a child to bring up. I brought mine up differently. I too thought I’d done well enough by her, better certainly than James Wilson. Yet they both ended up, these children of ours, in a cold, lonely farmhouse halfway up a fellside in Borrowdale.’

  ‘Wilson ended up at the foot of Pillar Rock with a broken back,’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘You know that, do you? Yes, of course you would. You strike me as a very thorough man, Mr Hutton. Then you almost certainly know about his illness too. His physical illness, I mean.’

  ‘I know he was a diabetic.’

  ‘That’s right. For most sufferers these days it is merely a long-term inconvenience. But for Edward it struck at the most important area of his life which was not, I assure you, either his family or his profession. It meant the end of his career as an expeditionist. It removed from him the only good reason he ever saw for working with and relating to other people, for considering their needs and judgement.’

  ‘But it didn’t stop him climbing?’

  ‘Oh no. It just meant that it was too risky to take him on long and arduous expeditions. In domestic and European terms, it needn’t have made any difference at all. But Edward Wilson wasn’t a man to accept a secondary role. His response was to throw it all up. Not the climbing, of course. That was a drug as important to him as insulin. But he severed all connections with official mountaineering bodies; he turned his back completely on the climbing fraternity and he became what I think he’d always been, except through necessity: an utter loner. He’d meet old acquaintances on the fells and walk right past them without a glance, let alone a word. There were reports of him doing incredibly difficult climbs, that is to say, climbs made incredibly difficult by his choice of route, his indifference to conditions and, of course, by his being alone.’

  ‘The coroner didn’t refer to this,’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘I was right. You are thorough, aren’t you, Hutton? Of course he didn’t. De mortuis and all that. But everyone at the inquest knew that no other climber in the country would have been out alone in those conditions doing what he did.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jaysmith slowly. ‘But it’s still odd he wasn’t found for two days.’

  ‘Odd?’ said Bryant sharply as if scenting a reproof. ‘Not at all. No one was looking for him, so why should he be found? Anya was visiting me here. It wasn’t till I took her back to the farmhouse that we realized Wilson was missing. She still feels guilty about that, of course. It’s natural. But time will cure that, I know. It’s been a slow change these past months, but she’s coming out of it. Much more quickly in these last few weeks. That may be something to do with you, but don’t flatter yourself overmuch. Any personable man showing an interest might have helped her process, particularly when he appears mature, middle-aged, safe.’

  ‘That’s how you see me, is it?’ said Jaysmith, smiling.

  ‘No,’ said Bryant seriously. ‘I don’t believe it’s how I see you at all. But at least I can talk to you. And this is what I want to say. Anya’s vulnerable, Hutton. Don’t be tempted to take advantage.’

  The note of threat was undisguised.

  ‘I can’t promise,’ said Jaysmith and laughed out loud as Bryant sat upright and glowered at him. ‘I mean, I can’t promise not to be tempted. As a lapsed Catholic, you should know that temptation is almost necessary to a pure soul. But I shall do all within my power not to take advantage! Will that do you?’

  ‘As a lawyer, I’d prefer something a little more binding,’ grunted Bryant. ‘But I suppose I’ll have to make do with what I can get. How do you like Jimmy, by the way?’

  First Miss Wilson, now Bryant! The question was clearly of the essence, and Bryant the lawyer would probably require a more detailed answer than the old lady.

  ‘I haven’t had much to do with small boys, not since I was one,’ he said slowly. ‘But from our acquaintance so far, I like him a great deal. He seems lively, affectionate, full of fun and with a lot of natural charm. On the other hand, I’ve no doubt he can be noisy, over-boisterous, stubborn, and reluctant to eat his crusts.’

  He spoke lightly but Bryant’s response was sombre.

  ‘You should have seen him a year ago, Hutton,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have known him. It’s been as though he’s rushed to catch up with all the boyish things he’d been missing.’

  He shook his head at some inner vision, then shook it again more violently as if to clear that vision away.

  ‘And now,’ he cried, ‘to you! In the space of one hour, you’ve seen me in an extremely, embarrassingly intimate position and I’ve poured out my private thoughts to you. Fair’s fair, Hutton. Now it’s your turn. We managed to drag something about your childhood out of you the other night. But now it’s time for serious talking. First, finance. How’re you fixed for money? What are your prospects?’

  There was a kind of heavy jocularity about the questions, but Jaysmith did not doubt they were serious.

  ‘I’m comfortably off,’ he said. ‘Fairly rich, I suppose, by most people’s standards. I have enough put away to see my time out, unless I miraculously survive to be a hundred and fifty. At the moment I’m jobless, an independent businessman who has given up his business …’

  ‘Why?’ rapped Bryant. ‘And what business?’

  Jaysmith was prepared for this; his cover stories were always well researched; in the past they had had to convince much more doubting and much more dangerous auditors than an anxious father.

  Bryant interrupted him before he’d got to the end of his authenticating detail and said, ‘And your personal circumstances, what about them?’

  ‘If you’re still wondering whether I have a wife and family hiding in the bushes, the answer’s still no,’ retorted Jaysmith. ‘Neither present nor past. I have never been married, nor do I have any emotional entanglements. Nor am I homosexual.’

  ‘You do function physically, I take it?’ said Bryant sardonically.

  ‘Adequately; though whether I could make it with my shoulder out of joint and my leg in plaster, I’ve not yet had to discover.’

  Bryant smiled widely and said, ‘This tea’s cold. There’s a bottle of Islay malt in the sideboard. Why don’t you fetch it and a couple of glasses?’

  ‘Are we celebrating something?’

  ‘Do we have anything to celebrate?’

  ‘Hope,’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘Yes. Perhaps you’re right. Nadzieja!’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Hope in Polish. That’s where my hope really lies, you see, Hutton. I’ve been thinking things out. There’s a woman there, that other commitment I mentioned before. Whatever time remains to me I’d like to spend with her. And my book, I’m never going to finish it here. England’s been good to me, but my stay here has been an interruption merely, a respite.’

  ‘Forty years? A bloody long respite!’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘Not really. How old are you, Hutton? Forty plus? Think back. I bet you blinked your eyes when you were in your early twenties, and here you are now. Blink them again and you’ll be as old as me. No, time’s a much overrated element, Hutton, much overrated. We imagine that, to use legal terminology, it is of the essence. It never is. We are of the essence, Hutton, you and me. To blink or not to blink, that is the question!’

  ‘You’d go back to Poland? To live?’ asked Jaysmith.

  ‘I’d think about it, if once I was happy that Anya and Jimmy were in good hands,’ said Bryant.

  Jaysmith raised his glass.

  ‘Nadzieja!’ he said.

  The two men drank together.

  Chapter 22

  That Sunday evening was one of the happiest Jaysmith had ever passed. The new understanding between Bryant and himself seemed to fold itself round Naddle Foot like one of those isolating and insulating autumn mists which cuts off the outside world, shifting its intrusive shapes and sounds to a separate dime
nsion. Within, there was warmth and ease and a sense of safe and comfortable domesticity which made luxuries and excitements seem a tinsel toy.

  Anya and Jimmy had returned from Grasmere after a pleasant visit, but not without relief at being home. They dined late, to let Aunt Muriel’s tea settle, and Jimmy inveigled Jaysmith into playing at the video game his other grandfather had bought him for his birthday. It was a complex and obviously highly expensive piece of equipment and Jimmy was delighted with it. The speed of Jaysmith’s reactions made it necessary for him to hold back considerably to make a match of it. Anya observed this and smiled her thanks.

  The boy would have played all night, but Anya said, ‘We’re eating soon, Jimmy, and you’ve still got some of your thank-you letters to write. Have you written to Granddad Wilson yet?’

  ‘Don’t need to,’ said Jimmy. ‘I can thank him when he comes, can’t I?’

  Bryant said without enthusiasm, ‘He’s coming up, is he?’

  Anya glanced at Jaysmith apologetically and said, ‘Aunt Muriel said he wanted to come up before the house-sale went through. He doesn’t really approve, I gather.’

  ‘Well if he’s got any ideas about stopping it, he’s out of luck,’ said Bryant gleefully. ‘Contracts have been exchanged, finance is all tied up, not all the wheeling-dealing of Whitehall can stop Rigg Cottage becoming Jay’s next week.’

  ‘Perhaps he just wants a last look at the place before it passes away from the family,’ said Anya.

  ‘If it does,’ murmured Bryant slyly.

  ‘Sorry, pappy?’

  But to Jaysmith’s relief Bryant did not repeat his comment.

  They had a casual meal, washed down with cider and beer. Afterwards Jimmy persuaded his mother to let him play one more game. Jaysmith let the boy run away into an almost impregnable position, then, with a devastating burst which excited at the same time his young opponent’s admiration and his fear of being overtaken, he drew level before dropping behind again in the dying moments.