Name To a Face

by Robert Goddard

  She arrived a few minutes after he had bought the tickets, wearing a lightweight parka over a sweater, a loosely pleated skirt and soft pinky-grey boots. She looked as pleased to see him as he felt to see her.

  “I can’t describe what a relief it is to be out of the house today, Tim,” she said as they boarded the train. “I know this auction is what Gabriel wanted, but it still seems indecent somehow.”

  “It’ll soon be over.”

  “Yes. And then Heartsease will be an empty shell. With just me left in it.”

  “Any idea yet what you’ll do when it’s sold?”

  “No. Like I told you, I don’t want to go back to London. But I may have to.”

  “D’you have family there?”

  She laughed. “Is this the start of a softly-softly interrogation to find out when we might’ve met?”

  He laughed too. “Sort of.”

  “Then we’ll have some rules. As far as life stories go, you start.”

  Harding’s potted autobiography was over by the time they had reached St. Ives. It would have been over sooner, but for Hayley’s disarming line in probing questions. These were not about the feasibility of some chance meeting they might both have forgotten, which she clearly did not believe had happened, but homed in rather on a subject Harding was far from comfortable with: the emotional journey his life had taken him on.

  “Do you blame yourself at all for your wife’s death?” she asked at one point.

  “No. Of course not.”

  “It’s just that I have the sense…”

  “What?”

  “Well, that you… feel guilty about it in some way.”

  It was true. Though how Hayley had sensed it Harding could not imagine. “When she was dying,” he said in an undertone, “it got to the stage when I just wanted it to be over. For her sake, so I told myself. But it was for my sake as well. I’ve always reproached myself for that. In the end, I was willing her to die, to release me, if you like, to… make it easier for me.”

  “That was only natural.”

  “Or plain selfish.”

  “It’s how you coped, that’s all. And regretting it since… is part of the process.”

  “Is it?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Then how come no one else has ever guessed that’s how I felt?”

  “Most people don’t have much of an imagination, Tim. And a few, like me”-she smiled-“have too much.”

  St. Ives. The wind was stronger than on the south coast, ripping and eddying along the narrow picture-postcard streets. But the cloud was thinner. Sunlight deepened the blue of the sea and gilded the lichened roofs of the town. They walked out from the station to St. Ives Head, where they were battered by the wind, and soon doubled back to the Sloop Inn on the quayside for lunch.

  It was there that Hayley finished a brisk summary of her life. Born in Colchester in 1971, the youngest of three daughters of chartered accountants, she was expensively educated, took a degree in music at Durham and pursued her dream of playing the harp for a living until an imprecisely diagnosed wrist disorder intervened. Her long-standing relationship with a concert violinist foundered on his ill-disguised belief that the disorder was psychological in origin. London readily became a hateful place to be for a newly single ex-harpist the wrong side of thirty. She remembered the passage in A la recherche du temps perdu in which Proust conjured up the magical appeal of the rail route from Paris to the far west of Brittany and impulsively took the train from Paddington to the far west of Cornwall.

  “A man reading The Cornishman joined the train at St. Erth. He left the classifieds section on the seat when he got off at Penzance. I picked it up. And there was Gabriel’s ad for a live-in housekeeper. Pure chance. Or maybe you’d call it fate. If you believe in fate.”

  “I think I might.”

  “But have you ever been to Colchester?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Or Durham?”

  “Once.”

  “When I was a student there in the early nineties?”

  “No. Not then.”

  “What about the brasserie in the Park Lane Hilton when I was playing the harp? Or when anyone was playing the harp?”

  “No.”

  “So you see, Tim, if fate has brought us together, it isn’t for a second time.”

  “Maybe not. But I can’t-”

  He had glanced out through the window they were sitting by as he spoke. Suddenly, his attention was seized by a familiar face among the passers-by on the quay. His gaze was met, coolly and cockily by Darren Spargo.

  Harding jumped up and made for the door. The pub was busy a Sunday lunchtime crowd milling at the bar. By the time he had forced his way through and made it outside, Spargo had vanished. Harding looked along the quay and the main shopping street. There was no sign of Spargo. The winding, twining back streets and alleys that led off in all directions offered a wealth of escape routes. Pursuit was not merely futile but impossible.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to Hayley as he made a shamefaced return to their table in the Sloop.

  “What happened?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  Harding sighed. “I saw someone who I’m more or less certain stole my mobile yesterday. At the Turk’s Head in Penzance.”

  “Really?”

  “His name’s Darren Spargo.”

  “Darren?”

  “You know him?”

  “Oh my God.” Hayley’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Tim. I’m really sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Darren’s my problem. But now it looks as if… he might be yours too.”

  NINE

  Hayley had met Darren while shopping at Morrison’s. He had broken off from shelf-filling duties to chat her up and ask her out. She had found him instantly and profoundly resistible and had turned him down. But Darren had not taken no for an answer, then or later. He had become first a nuisance, then a plague on her life, haunting the route she walked into town, materializing in her path when she emerged from a shop and now, it appeared, harassing any man he deemed to be a rival for her affections.

  “He must have been at Heartsease yesterday afternoon and seen you come and go from my flat, then followed you to the Turk’s Head.” Via Morrab Gardens, Harding silently calculated. “I can only imagine he stole your phone to see if there were any messages from me on it.”

  “He’ll have been disappointed, then.” Or maybe not, Harding reflected grimly. What use might Spargo seek to make of evidence, as he saw it, that Harding was two-timing Hayley?

  “Unfortunately, seeing us together today will only make him more suspicious, however little he learnt from your phone.”

  “Has he followed you before like this?”

  “Not quite like this, no.”

  “Have you reported him to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “You can’t prove he stole your phone.”

  “What do you suggest I do, then?”

  “The same as me. Ignore him.”

  “How long have you been ignoring him?”

  “Quite a while.”

  “Maybe it’s time to try something different, then.”

  “Like what?”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Yes.” Hayley looked solemnly at him. “But I don’t think I’m going to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to be responsible for anything… extreme.”

  “You wouldn’t be responsible.”

  “Let me talk to him. Ask him to see reason. Return your phone. Leave me alone. Call a halt to this before it gets out of hand.”

  “Seems to me it already is.”

  “Let me try.”

  Harding sighed. “All right. But if it doesn’t work…”

  A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Then I’ll tell you where he lives. Meanwhile…”
Her smile strengthened. “I have a question for you that may take your mind off Darren. Did you speak to anyone while you were at the Turk’s Head-such as Ray Trathen?”

  It was Clive Isbister who had alerted Hayley to Harding’s interest in Ray Trathen. She had spoken to him at the end of viewing and he had mentioned Harding’s enquiries about where Trathen could be found. There seemed no point in denying it, nor in holding back anything Trathen had told him. Hayley had probably heard it all before anyway. She certainly did not react as if any of it was a revelation. She did warn him not to trust Trathen, however, a point she returned to later in the afternoon.

  They had visited the Turner exhibition at the Tate by then and retreated to the gallery café for tea. Harding had found it impossible to focus his mind on art and was surprised to discover Hayley had been similarly distracted.

  “I didn’t take much of that in,” she freely admitted.

  He grinned ruefully. “Neither did I, to be honest.”

  “I’m not sure Ray Trathen isn’t a bigger pain than Darren.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Conspiracy theories are self-replicating, you know. They’re like a virus. That diving accident’s become Ray’s private little Paris underpass, with Kerry Foxton standing in for Princess Di.”

  “Maybe so. But I can’t pretend I wouldn’t like to take a look at Metherell’s video.”

  “Ray’s got you hooked. First the video. Then some other titbit. You’d do better to trust your instincts. For example, is Barney Tozer capable of murder?”

  “I imagine we all are. In the right circumstances.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Yes. I think I do.”

  She nodded solemnly. “You’d better ask Metherell to show you the video, then. And see what you make of it.”

  The afternoon was turning towards evening by the time they left St. Ives. They had seen no more of Spargo. Hayley’s conclusion was that he had been frightened off by being spotted spying on them. Harding was far from convinced, though he did not say so. It seemed to him that the young man posed more of a threat than Hayley thought. He did not share her confidence that she could, as she put it, “handle Darren.” But he could hardly reveal why he was so doubtful. The theft of Harding’s phone gave Spargo the means to meddle painfully in his life. Whether he would was another question.

  Harding sensed Hayley was similarly holding back her reservations about his declared intention of probing the circumstances of Kerry Foxton’s diving accident. She thought he should leave well enough alone. That was clear. But she never actually said so. It was his decision. And she was happy to let him take it.

  It was a more complicated decision than she could know, of course. There was more to whet Harding’s curiosity than Barney and Carol’s conspicuous failure ever to have mentioned the incident. There was the need Harding was beginning to sense to arm himself against the unexpected-to learn as much as he could about two people he evidently did not know as well as they had let him suppose. Leaving well enough alone was not an option.

  He and Hayley parted outside Penzance railway station. During the train ride back from St. Ives, he had decided to ask her to dine with him at the Mount Prospect the following evening. He was surprised how disappointed he felt when she turned him down. But his disappointment did not last long.

  “I can’t tomorrow. But how about Tuesday? You’re not leaving until Wednesday are you?”

  “Tuesday’s fine.”

  “The auction will have come and gone by then. It’ll all be over.”

  “I suppose it will.” Somehow, though, Harding doubted it.

  “Until then, you’ll be careful, won’t you?”

  “You think I need to be?”

  “We all need to be.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thanks for today, Tim. I enjoyed it-despite Darren.”

  “So did I.”

  She smiled and nodded faintly. “Good.”

  There was only one Metherell in the directory with an Isles of Scilly address. Harding sat on his bed at the Mount Prospect, concocting a cover story even as he punched the numbers into the bedside phone.

  A woman answered. “Mercer House.”

  “Could I speak to John Metherell, please?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “My name’s Hardy But he… doesn’t know me.”

  “Hold on.”

  Harding heard her call “John” and waited through a brief, muffled conversation before a gruff male voice came on the line.

  “John Metherell speaking. What can I do for you, Mr. Hardy?”

  “It’s a… delicate matter. I was wondering if I could come and talk to you about… Kerry Foxton.”

  There was a pause, during which Harding thought he heard Metherell sigh. “Oh yes?”

  “I gather you have a video… shot on the day of the accident.”

  Now there definitely was a sigh. “What’s your interest in this, Mr. Hardy?”

  “Kerry was a friend of mine. We lost touch. I only heard recently of her death. I’ve been… trying to understand what happened.”

  “What happened was a tragic accident. I don’t know that there’s anything more to be said. Especially not after all these years.”

  “It would really help me if you could… at least let me see the video.”

  “It won’t tell you anything.”

  “Maybe not. But-”

  “Where are you phoning from?”

  “Penzance. I’ve come a long way, Mr. Metherell. If you could just see your way clear to-”

  “All right.” A note of brisk compliance entered the man’s voice. “I don’t object to discussing it. Or showing you the video, come to that. If you’re willing to go to the trouble of flying over here.”

  “I am.”

  “Very well, then. When were you thinking of?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Metherell clicked his tongue thoughtfully, then said, “Tomorrow it is.”

  TEN

  The Isles of Scilly were a subtropical archipelago set in an aquamarine ocean beneath a cloudlessly blue sky. That, at any rate, is how they appeared in the posters adorning Penzance Heliport. As Harding viewed them during the helicopter’s descent to St. Mary’s on a grey chill, wintry Monday morning, they were wind-lashed out-crops of rock in an angry, spume-flecked sea. His summertime visit to Tresco with Polly felt half a world and rather more than seven years away.

  There was another and more substantial reason for his glum mood. Earlier, just before leaving the Mount Prospect, he had taken a phone call in his room. The caller had told the receptionist his name was Tozer and Harding had expected to hear Barney’s voice when he was put through. But instead…

  “That you, Harding? This is your new buddy, Darren.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to lay off my girl. Hayley”

  “She’s not your girl.”

  “Isn’t Carol Tozer enough for you?”

  “Now, listen. I-”

  “No, you listen. Lay off Hayley, or Barney gets to hear the message his missus left on your phone. I don’t think he’ll like it, do you? What d’you think he’ll do about it? He’s not someone you want to cross, man, that’s for sure. Carol could end up like that friend of hers, Kerry Foxton. So could you. It could get seriously nasty. Know what I mean? But it doesn’t have to. It’s up to you. Stay away from Hayley”

  Exactly how his life had become so complicated in the course of a single weekend was a mystery Harding pondered as he disembarked from the helicopter at St. Mary’s Airport. It had seemed such a simple errand at the outset. But at every step he had uncovered a disturbing secret. And he sensed his visit to Scilly would be no different. It was too late to turn back, though. He had to find out what was at stake. He had to give himself the advantage of knowing the truth.

  “Mr. Hardy?” A tall, stout, bearded man wearing a flat cap, Barbour and corduroys moved forward from the vehicles parked behind the sm
all terminal building. He unzipped a broad grin and extended a hand. “I’m John Metherell.”

  They shook. “How did you recognize me?” Harding asked, more than slightly perturbed by the possible answers that occurred to him.

  “Easy. You’re the only solitary male aboard I don’t recognize.” Metherell nodded to a couple of departing passengers he evidently knew. “Tourists are thin on the ground in February.”

  “You didn’t say you were going to meet me.”

  “Spur-of-the-moment decision. Plus I thought it might be useful if I showed you what the diving expedition was all about. Before you saw the video.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Wait and see. Hop in.”

  They clambered into a battered white Honda and set off. “So, you knew Kerry Foxton?”

  “Yes.”

  “But… you lost touch.”

  “I, er, went abroad. Lost touch with everyone. You know how it is.”

  “Can’t say I do, actually.”

  “Anyway when I heard she’d died, I… wanted to find out as much as I could.”

  “How well did you know Kerry?”

  “Very. For a while.”

  “I don’t remember her father ever mentioning you.”

  “I never met him.”

  “Right.” Metherell paused to watch for traffic at the end of the airport access road, then pulled out. “Who put you on to me?”

  “Ray Trathen.”

  “Ah. Good old Ray. Was it he who told you about the video?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m puzzled. He has a copy himself as far as I know.”

  “Mislaid.”

  “Really?”

  “So he says.”

  “Well, he’s capable of mislaying anything, I suppose. Still peddling his murder theory, is he?”

  “Yes.”

  “With sufficient conviction to make you think it’s just possible Kerry’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  “Exactly.” Harding was treading carefully and could only hope how carefully was not apparent from his tone. His cover was thin and could easily be blown. He had chosen to use a pseudonym on an impulse he now regretted. He should have deliberated longer and harder before contacting Metherell. But he had not, and now here he was, with Spargo’s squeakily menacing voice still echoing in his ear, risking exposure as an impostor with every word he spoke.