by Sean O'Brien
‘Where what is?’
‘Carson’s journal. I know he kept one.’
‘Then you know more than I do.’
‘Do you want me to cut your tongue out?’
‘Then how will I tell you anything?’
‘Tell me and you can go.’
‘I can’t help you. You belong in a madhouse.’
‘I’m bored. I’m bored. I want to get on to the next thing. Tell me.’
I shook my head. He came towards me. Maggie screamed and flung herself at him. He threw her off. I got in one blow of my own before the door opened.
‘Put that down, Rackham,’ said Hamer. Risman appeared behind him.
‘Or what?’
‘Or Sergeant Risman will shoot you.’
‘I doubt it. You can’t touch me. You must know that.’
‘So you haven’t heard? Goodness me, you really haven’t, Rackham?’
‘What’s that?’
‘The case is altered, I’m afraid. Your defender, your special friend, is dead. It was recent. Your protector is gone and you are alone.’
‘Put the knife down, Mr Rackham,’ said Risman. ‘Be a good gentleman now and come along easy. Best thing all round.’
‘Maggie needs medical attention,’ I said.
‘Rackham, think of your sister,’ said Hamer.
‘She can go to hell. I want safe conduct.’
‘Then give me whatever Carson wrote. He must have written something. Writing was all he could do.’
‘Maxwell knows where it is,’ spat Rackham.
‘Maxwell?’ said Hamer.
‘I can’t help.’
‘All right, Risman,’ said Hamer. Risman produced a pistol. ‘Let’s be sensible. I can read you the Official Secrets Act, Maxwell. Defence of the Realm, all the rest of it. But if you want to walk out of here, just help me. The story’s over anyway. For God’s sake, where is it?’
I reached into my pocket and took out the envelope. Maggie flew at me brandishing a bottle. Risman caught her and took the glass from her hand. I handed the envelope to Hamer.
‘And this is all of it? The only copy of all of it.’
‘You have my word as a gentleman,’ I said.
‘Don’t be funny. You might not be out of the woods yet yourself, Maxwell.’ He folded the envelope and pocketed it. ‘Well, now. What a to-do.’
‘You’ve got what you want,’ said Rackham. ‘So we’ll call it quits. Lorelei is to rendezvous with a Belgian freighter. I join it and sail to Antwerp. If I can get there, I’ll be gone. Into Europe. I’ll just disappear. Maggie is supposed to bring Lorelei back.’
‘Yes, you’ll be gone,’ said Hamer.
‘We’d better be off, Mr Hamer,’ said Risman. ‘Time’s getting on if we want to catch the tide.’
‘Very well, Sergeant. Maxwell, you and Mrs Rackham had better come along for the cruise.’
‘Best put some clothes on, ma’am, eh?’ said Risman.
THIRTY-SEVEN
It was dark on the river, a few lights showing on other vessels taking the tide, then, coming up to northwards, Axholme lighthouse signalling the final southward curve of the estuary out to sea.
We sat in the cabin. Rackham was at the wheel, with Risman stationed behind him. Hamer was reading over Carson’s document. Though we were in motion, everything seemed suspended. Hamer had ordered Maggie to sober up and make coffee. She had gone unwillingly below.
Now the wind from the south-east freshened as we passed through the mouth of the estuary. The boat, for all its solid size, rolled a little where the sea and the river’s tide met. Surf churned at the bows and then calmed again. Ahead of us, I made out something large, the wrong shape for a ship.
‘Kite Island,’ said Rackham automatically. Hamer looked up.
‘It looks manmade,’ he said.
‘It is,’ said Rackham. ‘It’s a fort built to keep Napoleon out. Then it was a naval prison.’
‘And now?’
‘Just seagulls, I should think.’ We came within fifty yards of the huge stone plinth on which the fort stood. It stank of guano. A few lights showed but there was no one home. Soon the fort slipped past into the darkness, its lights ghosting awhile in the chilly dark.
Maggie came unsteadily from below with a tray of mugs and a brandy bottle.
‘No milk, I’m afraid, gentlemen,’ she said. She put down the tray. ‘Drop of brandy to warm you up.’ Risman declined the brandy.
Hamer stood up and looked past Rackham at the chart spread out on the map table.
‘What’s next?’
‘The sea. The last sandbars. Then the floor drops away at Fletcher’s Hole.’
‘Then that’s where we want to be.’
‘The rendezvous is further on,’ said Rackham, turning to look at him.
‘Yes,’ said Hamer.
‘I have plenty of money,’ said Rackham. ‘If that’s the issue.’ He remained calm.
‘I’m sure you have. It isn’t.’
‘Just let Charles go,’ said Maggie. ‘Please. It’s all over now.’
‘Almost,’ said Hamer.
‘There’s something you need to know, Maxwell,’ said Rackham. ‘It will change the complexion of things. Shall I tell him, Hamer?’
‘Up to you.’
‘Maxwell, you want to know why I killed Carson.’
‘Tell me, Rackham,’ I said.
‘I didn’t kill him,’ Rackham said, with his thin smile. Hamer put Carson’s envelope back in his pocket.
‘Get on with it.’
‘Carson had warned me to confess what happened during the war, or he would expose me. He knew I had an eminent protector, but now he said he was too old to worry on his own account, that he had to make up for his own cowardice, and that he would give me chance to atone for mine, and so on, all very tidy and virtuous and feeble. He gave me the weekend to think it over. I arranged to meet him on the Sunday evening after the exercise, discreetly, in the woods, to tell him what I’d decided. If he saw a need for caution about this arrangement, he clearly didn’t care. I watched from a safe distance as Risman did his rounds at the end of the exercise and then I went to the rendezvous point.’
‘The jetty.’
‘And Carson turned up, still in uniform – very apt – to hear my decision. And as arranged, Hamer came along and hit him on the head and put him in the water, and there we had it, the awful accident.’
‘Take the wheel, Mrs Rowan,’ said Hamer. ‘Are we there yet?’
‘Yes,’ said Maggie, ‘but what are you going to do?’
‘Circle awhile,’ said Hamer.
‘Hamer, is this true?’ I asked.
‘It is. We’d got to the point of no return. Carson couldn’t be relied on.’
‘And you let me think Rackham killed Carson.’
‘Well, Maxwell, I rather think that’s an assumption you made for yourself.’
‘So really, your enemy is Hamer,’ said Rackham, amused. ‘You’ve been barking up the wrong tree, Maxwell, you idiot. So what do you want to do with him, Hamer?’
‘Go below and bring up the stuff, Rackham.’
‘Tell Risman to do it.’
‘I’m telling you.’ Rackham disappeared down the steps.
‘This calls for an apposite quotation, doesn’t it?’ said Hamer. ‘Something from Bacon, perhaps.’
‘Why does anyone have to die?’ said Maggie.
‘That doesn’t sound like Bacon to me,’ said Hamer.
Rackham reappeared with rope, gaffer tape and the hoods. He went below again and returned lugging two buckets full of concrete. As he turned to close the hatch behind him Risman moved forward and hit him on the back of the head. Rackham fell to the floor.
‘Hands first, Maxwell,’ said Hamer, passing me the tape.
‘Stop this!’ Maggie screamed. She let go of the wheel. Risman moved closer behind and cocked the pistol.
‘Best not, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Got to let things take their cou
rse. Cut the engine now.’ The sound from below died, and we drifted in the dark. Maggie was weeping.
‘I won’t do this,’ I told Hamer.
‘But you wouldn’t like harm to come to anyone else, would you, Maxwell?’ Hamer replied. ‘Young David, or Rachel?’
I taped Rackham’s hands behind his back. As I worked on taping his ankles he began to regain consciousness and kicked out.
‘Hamer, I told you I would disappear!’ he said.
‘And that’s what you’re going to do,’ said Hamer. ‘Tape over his mouth, Maxwell. Then the hood. And tie a bucket round the ankles. Get him to the side.’ Rackham was thrashing blindly by now, making muffled animal cries.
‘Please!’ yelled Maggie. ‘Don’t hurt him. Tell me what you want and we’ll do it.’
‘Over he goes,’ said Hamer.
I shook my head.
‘As you wish. You lack stomach, Maxwell. That’s hardly a surprise. Sometimes I wonder if you’re really a Blake’s man at all.’ Hamer raised Rackham’s legs and tipped him into the water. Maggie collapsed, screaming.
Rackham did not resurface.
‘For God’s sake stop the caterwauling, ‘said Hamer. ‘Pull yourself together. You’re going to repeat the process with Mr Maxwell.’
‘No,’ sobbed Maggie.
‘Oh, do come on. You’re only delaying the inevitable.’
‘Let her be,’ I said.
‘Be practical, Maxwell. Or do I have to kill her as well?’
‘You’re going to do that anyway.’
‘Very well,’ said Hamer. ‘Risman, get hold of the woman.’
Risman passed the gun to Hamer. As Hamer moved towards me, raising the gun to strike, Risman was suddenly at his side. I didn’t see the knife, but I saw a wide grin spread across Hamer’s throat and he fell forward, clutching the spurting wound and making a gargling noise.
We stood and watched him bleed out.
Risman retrieved the envelope from Hamer’s coat and handed it back to me. ‘There you are, Mr Maxwell,’ he said. ‘Now we can stop playing pass the fookin parcel.’ He turned to Maggie. ‘Pardon my French, Mrs Rowan. Right, ma’am, you need to get Mr Hamer ready for his swim. Quick as you can, ma’am. You only need to do the bucket, of course.’
She stared at him.
Soon it would be Christmas.
Epilogue
2010
Tomorrow it will all begin again at Blake’s. Autumn term. As I have put it in my volume of history, ‘Blakeans, wherever they may be around the globe, cannot hear the word “September” without a quickening of anticipation at what adventures the new term will offer. They know what a gift they have been given, and are ever-generous in their support.’ Is that too much?
There were, for a while, other women, and once or twice vague thoughts of a future sketched themselves out, but somehow never became a reality. There would not be a wife, there would be no children. Something I cannot quite come at in myself seems to regard this as a fitting outcome. It was bound up with Maggie. Even at her worst she attracted me like no other. There has been loneliness, but I have learned to conflate it with a desired solitude, like that of some self-sufficient antiquary of an earlier time, moving steadily from relic to relic as if the past could be appeased. I wrote a textbook on the 1939–45 period, but then found myself feeling I had written enough, although somehow a ‘literary’ reputation continued to attach itself to me in the school. Hence the commission to write volume two of the history – which I find I have, not unhappily, neglected in order to try to complete this account of things.
How fine it is, to speculate at leisure. Not that there is any other urgent matter in prospect. Once again I find that times and places fold in on themselves, resistant to the simple sequence you and I should both prefer. Bear with me now. One thing is clear to me: the past – every morning on waking I discover with alarm and excitement that my life is now mostly the past – is more substantial and beguiling to me than anything else, despite what it holds. Each day I write looking out between the bare plane trees on to a setting I have known for fifty years, but the place is not what it was. Mere persistence has earned me the right to say that.
And soon it will be November once again. Fog, frost, churned-up rugby pitches, the ghosts of masters past stalking the touchlines and delivering their ferocious exhortations to the troops. The dead men seem like old children now, and I am almost of their party, walking through the woods and down to the lake to join them, or setting sail on that last foggy night from the creek on Lorelei.
Since my retirement, as well as pottering in the library, I enjoy the privilege of sitting up on the balcony during the Service of Remembrance. Usually nowadays the bugler makes a decent fist of ‘The Last Post’ and the boys manage a respectful silence, though now the great conflict must seem very remote to them – the faint report as though of another age, as indeed it is. There are discussions, I understand, about whether Blake’s will continue to hold a service, but I think it will be a few years yet before the staff and governors feel easy about renouncing such a ritual.
What rituals do we have to offer in its place? There is something called a Prom, an American-derived event, a dance held jointly with St Clare’s, with whom it is planned to amalgamate before long. This Prom, which involves a great show of expense on costumes for the girls, is to take place in the Carson Performing Arts Centre. So be it. Ruddigore was never staged. Now there is talk of Evita.
After the events of this narration I came to feel, rather surprisingly, that I should involve myself in the Cadets, so I applied to the local Territorial unit and a while later joined Risman and other colleagues in their military activities at Blake’s. I have not been entirely able to account for this sense of obligation. True, it followed in Carson’s footsteps and Major Brand’s, and it helped, I suppose, to embed me more firmly in the life of the school, but at the bottom there is something irrational and tribal – and weirdly satisfying – in this assertion, and acceptance, of belonging.
When we returned to shore, steered by Maggie, who had ceased to speak, the envelope seemed more like a fetish than evidence. I called Hamer’s number. Colonel Dennison replied. A doctor was called for Maggie and she was admitted to hospital for psychiatric assessment. The papers ran respectful obituaries of a senior member of the aristocracy who had spent much of his life abroad while loyally serving the nation in various unsung capacities.
Risman and I went to see Gammon. The conversation was cordial. Gammon was accommodating. After a day or two it was discreetly announced that Rackham had decided to leave in order to devote himself to his literary work.
I was tidying up in the library after lessons a few days later when Colonel Dennison appeared.
‘A moment of your time, if I may, Maxwell.’
‘Please come in.’
‘I believe you have something for me.’
‘Give me a moment,’ I said. I went to the Special Collection case and retrieved the envelope from its hiding place among the works of Allingham, Carson and Rackham. I returned and made to hand it to the Colonel. He shook his head.
‘Fine evening for a walk,’ he said.
After a time we came to the lake, and the jetty where the raft was moored. It was a clear starry December night and our breath made clouds.
‘No more ambushes, I hope, Colonel.’
‘Not my line, I’m glad to say.’ A breeze silvered the dark water. ‘I think it’s time to call a halt.’
‘What would that require?’
‘Whatever Carson gave you.’
‘And in return?’
‘Nothing. No further action.’
‘No more Hamer.’ The Colonel smiled.
‘No, no more Hamer. Seems to have dropped off the radar. Gone native.’
‘I dare say.’
‘The trouble with chaps like Hamer,’ he began, and I thought, The trouble with chaps like Hamer is chaps like you, and all the other chaps. ‘The trouble with chaps like Hamer is t
hey risk a loss of perspective. Engage too closely. Forget what’s really at stake.’
‘And what would that be, Colonel?’
‘Continuity in change. Stability.’
I took out the envelope.
‘I have your word,’ I said.
‘Of course you do, Maxwell.’
‘I hope you mean that, Colonel,’ said Risman, emerging from among the trees. ‘We’ve had enough bullshit here at Blake’s. There’s the future to consider.’
Dennison gave his gouty grin.
‘Then, Sergeant, you have my word as a fellow soldier,’ he said. I handed Dennison the envelope. ‘This is it? All of it? You swear?’
‘It’s all I’ve got,’ I said. He looked at me for a few moments.
‘I think we’ve all got the same interests at heart,’ he said. ‘At least I hope so. Chap has to be able to rely on something.’ He went off round the lake towards the railway crossing.
‘Where is it?’ asked Risman.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.
‘Good.’ He stared at the lake. ‘Hamer showed up and thought I was his man. Colonel Dennison thought I was his man. But what I serve is the school, and now we’ll say no more about any of it. And wherever you haven’t got whatever it is you haven’t got, I hope it’s safe.’
I’m out of it these days, of course, though I see the manoeuvres in the woods from my study window. I think of Risman, long gone now, with his mixture of self-possession and atavistic loyalty. He never did speak of the events of that winter night again, though I wanted him to.
Rackham was forgotten with surprising speed. Poetry, after all, was not what Blake’s was about. Maggie, on the other hand, seemed to recover quite quickly from her breakdown, but the drink took an ever more serious hold and within a year she was discreetly asked to resign. We no longer met. She had private means, of course, but occasionally Smallbone and I would spot her in some pub in town, sometimes in rough company and sometimes alone. Her husband, whom she apparently visited more often than before, died of a heart attack, and soon afterwards Maggie was found floating in the fish dock with a high level of alcohol in her blood. The verdict was misadventure. For obvious reasons I had doubts about attending the funeral. It was perhaps a good thing that in the end I did, as I was almost the only mourner. The other one was Gammon.
