“But money, money, money.”
“Yeah. Anyway, like I say…” Tozer took another puff at his cigarette and started on the coffee. “Fact is, I need to ask you a favour.”
“Go ahead.”
“Thing is… Have I ever mentioned my brother?”
Had he? Harding had asked himself exactly that question during the drive from Villefranche. “Well, I know you have a brother, so… either you or Carol…”
“Humphrey. Humphrey and Barnabas, hey? Bloody stupid names. But Barney’s OK. Suits me, so I’ve been told. As for Humphrey, I used to call him Humpty when we were children. He’s five years older than me. I couldn’t get my mouth round the sound, see? And then there was the nursery rhyme. So, I thought Humpty was…” Tozer shrugged. “Funny.”
“Where does Humphrey live?”
“Humph. That’s what I settled for in the end. He’s still stuck in Penzance.” Tozer’s roots in west Cornwall had definitely been mentioned to Harding, more than once. “Have you even been to Penzance, Tim? I can’t remember if I’ve asked you.”
“Neither can I. But, yeah, I have. For what it’s worth. A family holiday in Cornwall when I was ten. We stayed near Land’s End. Sennen Cove. Must have gone through Penzance, but all I can recollect is a view of St. Michael’s Mount. Does that count?”
“Bet it rained a lot.”
“It did, as a matter of fact.”
“No surprise there.”
“So, this favour… has to do with… Humph?”
“Yeah. A narrow-minded misery-guts if ever there was one. But…” Tozer gazed past Harding into some unfocused vision of his childhood. “He is my flesh and blood.” His face creased into a rueful smile. “Worse luck.”
“And…”
“He’s asked for my help. My… personal help. That’s some kind of world record, so I don’t want to disappoint him. But it would mean I’d have to go to Penzance. Right away.”
“And you have business in Abu Dhabi?”
“Oh, that could be postponed. No, no. That’s not the problem. It’s a… tax thing.” Tozer lowered his voice, as if, despite the fact that there was no one else in the apartment, he was worried about being overheard. “I’ve used up my ninety-one days in the UK this fiscal year. I can’t set foot in Penzance, or anywhere else in the old country, before April sixth. It’s a nono. An absolute no-can-do. But Humph’ll just think I’m making an excuse if I turn him down because of that.”
“You will have to turn him down, though, won’t you?”
“As it stands, yeah. But… there’s such a thing as cushioning the blow. What I really need… is for someone to go in my place.” Tozer smiled cautiously at Harding. “Know anyone who might be available?”
Harding returned the smile. “You mean me?”
“It’ll only take a few days. A week at most. I’ll cover all your expenses. You can even bill me for your time at garden maintenance rates. It’s the quietest time of the year for you anyway. Look on it as a second Cornish holiday. You might get better weather this time round.”
“I can’t just drop everything and-”
“Come on. You’re always singing young Luc’s praises. I’ll bet he could cope without you for a month, let alone a week.”
That much was undeniable. Luc could always be relied upon and would probably relish the extra responsibility. “Well, maybe. But you haven’t told me what Humph wants help with yet.”
“It’s no big deal, believe me. It just needs… handling properly.”
“Wouldn’t Carol be a better choice?”
“She can’t stick Humph at any price. And vice versa. It’d be better to turn him down flat than send Carol. But it has to be somebody I can trust, obviously. And you’d be surprised how few of my so-called friends I do trust. But there is you, Tim.” Tozer stubbed out his cigarette and looked Harding in the eye. “You should be flattered.”
“Well, I am, of course. But…”
“I still haven’t told you what’s involved.” Tozer grinned. “Have I?”
TWO
You’re going, then?” said Carol, breaking the post-coital silence into which they had descended. Sex had failed to distract her for long from the subject of the strange mission Harding had agreed to undertake on her husband’s behalf. It was in Harding’s mind also as he lay in bed with her at his apartment in Villefranche late that afternoon. It could hardly not be.
Theoretically, of course, he could have joined Carol at the penthouse after Barney’s departure for the Gulf. In some ways, it would have been more convenient, as it might often have been in the past, given the frequency of Barney’s absences. But some scruple neither cared to put into words had always deterred them. The apartment in Villefranche was their territory. And they did not stray from it.
“I thought you might be able to talk your way out of it.”
“Not a chance.”
“How hard did you try?” Carol propped herself up on one elbow and squinted slightly as she stared at him. Her face was still faintly flushed from their exertions and her highlighted brown hair tousled, but the lubricious twinkle he had been pleased to notice in her eye earlier had turned to a steely gleam.
“As hard as I could in the circumstances. You know there was no way I could turn him down.”
“I suppose not.” Carol sighed and flopped back down on the pillow. “And what exactly does he want you to do?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“Told me some of it, you mean. I want to hear the whole thing.”
“OK. His uncle-their uncle, Barney and Humph’s-died just before Christmas.”
“I know. Uncle Gabriel. Lived in Penzance in a house full of junk.”
“Junk-or valuable antiques. Take your pick. The locals will be able to next week when the contents are auctioned. It appears Barney’s uncle specified in his will that’s how his possessions were to be disposed of. No bequests to relatives. No opportunity for them to help themselves to a memento of the old boy. Just… everything to the highest bidder. Proceeds to charity… or somesuch.”
“Nice.”
“There was a feud between him and Barney’s dad. You know about this too?”
“Not really. Their dad died before I met Barney. And he doesn’t say much about him. Or his mother. Anyway, what family doesn’t have its feuds?”
The question reminded Harding how little he really knew about Carol. Not to mention how little she knew about him. Their affair was sustained by need and habit. Neither had ever used the dreaded L word and they were unlikely to start now. “Well,” he pressed on, “feud there was, over the usual sort of stuff. Gabriel was the younger brother. He never married. Barney’s dad-”
“Arthur,” Carol interrupted matter-of-factly. “His name was Arthur. And Barney’s mum was called Rose.”
“Right. OK. Arthur and Rose. They started out their married life in Arthur’s parents’ house, which they took over completely when the old folks died. At that point, Gabriel asked Arthur for something their dad had supposedly promised him but hadn’t actually left him in his will. Arthur didn’t believe any such promise was made. He refused to hand it over, causing a lot of bad blood. And then… it went missing. Stolen by Gabriel, according to Arthur, though Gabriel denied it. There was no proof he’d taken it. It was hardly the sort of thing Arthur could go to the police about. Result? They fell out big time. Never exchanged another word, at any rate not a civil one. Gabriel didn’t even attend Arthur’s funeral. Went on denying theft, perhaps because he didn’t regard it as theft. But he had taken something. That’s certain. Because Humphrey’s spotted it among the lots to be auctioned.”
“And what is it?”
“Barney said he’d let Humph fill me in.”
“You mean you don’t get to find out unless you go.”
“That’s one way to look at it. Humphrey wants Barney to supply the cash to make sure he can buy back whatever it is, no matter what he has to bid for it. Humphrey’s poor as a church
mouse, apparently.”
“Poorer. You should see where he lives. Barney’s tried to help him, but… they’re another pair of brothers who don’t get on.” Carol rolled over and propped her chin on Harding’s shoulder. She gazed at him, her brow furrowed in thought. “Barney’s told me nothing except he needs you to go to Penzance to sort something out with Humph for him. Why the secrecy, I’d like to know. I mean, why does some old argument about a family heirloom matter so much?”
“I’m not sure it does. Barney’s happy enough to stump up the cash. He just wants me to nursemaid Humphrey during the auction and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid beforehand.”
“Such as?”
“Try to steal the thing back, I suppose.”
“Well, he’s crazy enough for that. I wish you luck.”
Harding grinned. “Thanks.”
“There’s something funny about it all, though. Why’s Barney so set on you going?”
“He said you can’t abide Humphrey.”
She nodded ruefully. “That’s true.”
“And he said he could trust me.”
“Did he?” Carol closed her eyes. “Oh shit.”
“Don’t let it get to you.” Harding raised his head and kissed her. “It’s a good thing he does, you know.”
“Yeah.” She opened her eyes again. “I know.”
“I’ll go, make sure Humphrey’s on his best behaviour, hold his hand at the auction, then leave him beaming over the spoils and jet straight back here.”
“Sounds easy.”
“No reason why it shouldn’t be.”
“Maybe not. But…” She chewed her lip as her mind dwelt on the evident mystery of her husband’s thought processes. “How did Barney react when you told him you’d been to Penzance in August ’ ninety-nine?”
“He didn’t bat an eyelid. But, then, why should he? It’s just a coincidence that I paid my first visit to the town since childhood the same summer you floated into his life. It’s not even a very big coincidence. Lots of people visited Penzance in August ’ ninety-nine to see the eclipse. And it wasn’t there he met you, anyway, was it?” As Harding knew, Carol had been running a café in the Isles of Scilly when she had first encountered Barney Tozer in the summer of 1999, with life-changing consequences. Meanwhile, Harding’s wife, Polly, had been dying slowly of cancer. Their journey to Cornwall to witness the total eclipse on 11 August that year had been her last journey of any kind before the final decline. The day after the eclipse, they had taken a helicopter trip to the island of Tresco. But Carol’s café had been on its larger neighbour, St. Mary’s. Coincidence stretched only so far.
“It’s strange, though, isn’t it?” Carol mused. “The idea that you and I could have met then, in Cornwall, rather than four years later and a thousand miles away.”
“Not quite a thousand. And nearer five years than four.”
Carol sighed heavily. “Do you have to be so literal?” She pushed back the sheet, sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Harding watched her cross the room, rubbing a muscle in her back as she went. He called to her as she reached the open doorway. “Hey.”
She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, frowning slightly. “What?”
“You’re beautiful, you know.”
“Oh yeah? All over? Or just in parts?”
“Do a few slow pirouettes and I’ll give you a part-by-part assessment if you like.”
“Fool,” she said, laughing lightly as she headed on towards the bathroom with a sashay of her hips.
Harding stayed where he was, staring up at the ceiling, across which the lowering sun cast a golden triangle of light. He listened to the hiss and spatter of the shower and wondered if he had been right to deceive Carol as he had. It had been as much as anything an instinctive lie. To have told the truth would have raised too many questions openly between them. Why had he not mentioned the August 1999 trip to Barney? Why had Carol so evidently not mentioned it either? And why was she so bothered by the prospect of him going to Penzance now, at her husband’s bidding?
Harding did not really know why he had held the information back. It had something to do with Carol’s reaction the first time the subject had cropped up. It had disturbed her. There was no doubt about it. The coincidence-slight as it was-had troubled her. And it still did.
It also had something to do with Polly and his eagerness to suppress the active recollection of their final few years together. He would never have returned to the scene of their last holiday of his own volition. But it was a chance to come to terms with his past, to prove he could cope with the memories the trip was bound to revive. He had moved to France to escape those memories. And he had succeeded. Now he would discover how complete his success really was.
THREE
Harding flew to England two days later. Luc drove him to Nice Airport in time for the early-morning flight, assured him coping in his absence would be “pas de problème,” then roared away in the Jardiniera truck at a speed that suggested he for one would be enjoying the interlude.
Harding had not told his parents, siblings or any of his friends back home that he was going to be in the country. Already, for reasons he could not properly analyse, there was something faintly furtive, if not secretive, about the trip.
The flight was two hours, shorn to one on the clock by the change of time zones. But a coach ride to Reading, a long wait at the station and a train journey to the far end of the West of England main line swallowed most of the rest of the day. It was five o’clock on a dull and windless Friday afternoon when the train pulled into Penzance.
Harding had already adjusted by then to the thinness of the light, the altogether greyer tone of his homeland compared with the crystalline brilliance of the Côte d’Azur. He and Polly had driven down from Worcestershire, so there were no reminders of their trip in the manner of his arrival. But his first glimpse of St. Michael’s Mount out in the bay as the railway line curved to meet the shore a couple of miles short of Penzance was the first of what he knew would be many tugs at his memory.
They had stayed in a b. and b., which Harding was not sure he could find even if he wanted to. This time, with Tozer covering his expenses, he was putting up at the Mount Prospect. It was a short taxi ride to the hotel’s lofty perch up a narrow side street on the eastern fringe of the town. And there again, in the view from his room, was St. Michael’s Mount, afloat in the grey plane of the bay.
Unpacking took no more than a few minutes. He was travelling light, physically at any rate. He phoned Carol and they talked so warmly and casually that he could almost believe he had imagined her anxiety about the trip. She said she was missing him already, which could not really be true, given how irregular their assignations were. Barney was due back the following morning. She said nothing about missing him.
“Met Humph yet?”
“No. I’m going round there now.”
“Brace yourself. He’s not what you’d call the sociable type.”
It was a warning Harding had already absorbed. He consulted the street map of Penzance he had bought at the station and set off.
On his way through reception, he spotted a copy of the local weekly paper, The Cornishman, lying on the counter. He took it into the deserted lounge and leafed through the property supplement to the auctions page. There it was, as he had anticipated, prominently advertised.
ISBISTER & SONS AUCTIONEERS AND VALUERS
HOUSE CONTENTS SALE TUESDAY 21ST FEBRUARY-10AM
Viewing: Saturday 18th February 10am-4pm
and Sunday 19th February 12 Noon-4pm
At HEARTSEASE, POLWITHEN ROAD, PENZANCE
We are favoured with instructions to SELL by AUCTION as above
CHINA, GLASSWARE, JEWELLERY, BOOKS, PAINTINGS,
STAMPS, COINS, BANKNOTES, TOYS, MODELS, FURNITURE,
LINEN AND GENERAL HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS
The summarized list of items filled the ent
ire column. Gabriel Tozer had evidently been a formidable hoarder, accumulating more crockery, cutlery, wineglasses, clocks, watches, cufflinks and old books than any single man could plausibly need. The tin soldiers and 00-gauge train sets hinted at a childhood collecting mania which the first-day covers and Georgian guineas implied had been carried on into adulthood. But had he really wanted to give a mob of strangers the pick of his gramophone records and walking sticks and the run of his house while they made their choices and marked up their catalogues? The answer, baffling as it was, appeared to be yes.
It was dark by the time Harding left the hotel, and colder than he had expected. He turned up the collar of his coat, descended to the shore road that ran alongside the railway line and followed it through the fumes of sluggish traffic to the roundabout where it met the bypass at the eastern edge of town. The adjacent superstore was doing a brisk trade. The weekend was taking its customary British shape.
Beyond the roundabout lay an industrial estate and the heliport from which he and Polly had flown to Tresco. Wedged in among the warehouses was a jumble of stark, white-rendered, low-rise flats and maisonettes. A more dismal contrast with a penthouse in Monaco could hardly be conceived. Such were the widely different domiciles of the brothers Tozer.
Humphrey had a first-floor flat overlooking the heliport, reached by a flight of wooden stairs. There was a light showing through the tissue-thin curtains, but a response to Harding’s stab at the doorbell was a long time coming.
The man who eventually opened the door was faintly recognizable as a relative of Barney Tozer, but only because Harding knew him to be a relative. Humphrey Tozer was several stones lighter than his brother, gauntly thin and grey-skinned, with lank, greasy hair and a sad, sullen gaze. He was wearing decrepit horn-rimmed spectacles and a drab outfit of darned sweater, frayed shirt and trousers worn to a grubby sheen. His head twitched slightly to an irregular rhythm as he stared at Harding, breathing audibly and exuding a sharp, sour reek.
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