4
I DID NOT know how Charnwood intended to prevent the elopement and I did not want to know. Ignorance was, in my case, a guarantee against detection. I took the further precaution of opening a new bank account in my own name, into which I paid his cheque, Max and I having transferred our Canadian deposits to a joint account in London. I had every intention of pooling the money with our other resources in due course, but a good deal of dust would have to settle before I could.
It was then only a question of awaiting developments. As Friday evening drew closer, Max and I both grew nervous, though for different reasons. He was eager to start for Dorking and proposed, to my dismay, that I accompany him. I resisted the idea at first, but could not afford to make him suspicious by behaving as if I knew something was amiss. Faced with his desire for company during the midnight vigil on the downs that lay ahead, I reluctantly consented.
We dined at an hotel near Leatherhead, but still reached Dorking with more than four hours to while away before the rendezvous. Driving out aimlessly along the Guildford road, we stopped at a wayside inn and installed ourselves in the saloon bar. Several large whiskies later, Max’s confidence was at a high and garrulous pitch, whereas mine was rapidly ebbing. How was he going to react to whatever form Charnwood’s intervention took? What would he do when he realized Diana could not be his? And what, more to the point, would I do? The uncertainties multiplied in my head as alcohol leached away my ability to resolve them.
Fortunately, Max was too intoxicated with his own optimism to notice any trepidity on my part. One of the other customers, by the look and sound of him an opinionated commercial traveller, had been flirting with the barmaid all the time we had been there. He had eventually persuaded her to call him by his Christian name, which he had claimed, somewhat implausibly, to be Hildebrand. The barmaid had laughed uproariously at this, but Max had taken it for an omen.
‘Remember the “dwarfish Hildebrand”, Guy?’
‘In The Eve of St Agnes, by Keats. I remember. What about him?’
‘He was Porphyro’s sworn enemy, wasn’t he? But he couldn’t prevent Porphyro stealing off into the night with his beloved. Well, Charnwood won’t prevent me stealing off with my beloved either.’
‘Let’s hope not.’
‘Don’t worry. Nothing can go wrong.’
But it already had, as I was hard put not to tell him. Our glasses were empty and, as I went up to have them refilled, the un-dwarfish Hildebrand was entertaining the barmaid with a conjuring trick that involved plucking a red silk handkerchief from the front of her low-cut blouse. How I wished I could practise some similar magic for Max’s benefit and call up a happy ending to our night’s work. But I had ensured it could not end happily. So there was nothing for it but to blame my sentimental regrets on the whisky – and to order some more.
* * *
We lingered at the inn as long as we could, but were eventually obliged to leave. Max had shown me the positions of Amber Court and the meeting-place on a map, but the reality of narrow lanes winding up thickly wooded hillsides beneath a starless sky was infinitely less clear-cut. Moths swirled in the headlamp beams and a fine drizzle smeared the windscreen. When we reached the point where the footpath from the house met the road, Max nosed the car in beneath the trees and turned off the engine and lights.
It was nearly midnight, dark and silent enough to remind me of all the reasons why I distrusted the countryside. Not completely dark, of course. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the gap in the trees where the path began. Nor yet completely silent. My ears began to detect faint rustlings and stirrings in the undergrowth. An owl hooted somewhere. A fox barked. Then Max struck a match and offered me a cigarette.
‘You reckon I’m mad to do this, don’t you, Guy?’ he asked with a chuckle.
‘I never said so.’
‘No. But you came close. In your shoes, I might have come closer. So, don’t think I’m not grateful, because I am.’
His gratitude was like a blow to the solar plexus. It was the last thing I needed. ‘What time is it?’ I hastily enquired.
He struck another match and looked at his watch. ‘Four minutes past midnight. Less than two hours to go. A mere bagatelle compared with those stints we used to do at Lake Doiran. Sometimes, I thought we’d be there for ever, you know. But we weren’t, were we? We came through. And now Macedonia’s just a memory. Like this will be, one day. Except this’ll be a happy memory. For both of us, I promise. Charnwood will come round once Diana and I are married. You see if he doesn’t. He dotes on her really. And when it comes to spending my new father-in-law’s inexhaustible wealth, you can be sure I won’t forget my best friend. Or my best man, as you’ll soon have the pleasure of being. Amor vincit omnia. Old Carter dinned that phrase into my head twenty years ago and I never once believed it – till now.’
There was more, much more, in a similar vein as the time ticked slowly by. I was torn between wishing it would accelerate, so that we might have done with whatever the next few hours held, and wanting them never to elapse. Max had set so much store by what I knew he could not have that I alternately craved and dreaded the moment of his enlightenment. Meanwhile, there was nothing I could say or do to moderate his hopes. As they soared, so were they bound to fall. And, as they soared, so my fears increased.
At a quarter to two, Max set off for the meeting-place: a stile where the path crossed the boundary of Charnwood’s property, marked by a fence erected in the farther outskirts of the wood. He anticipated being back within half an hour, Diana by his side, and responded jauntily to my parting words.
‘Good luck, Max.’
‘Thanks, old man, but I won’t need it.’ Then he patted my shoulder through the open window of the car, set off along the track, paused to flash his torch back in farewell, and was gone.
Leaving me to debate with myself what would happen and how I should react. When he realized Diana was not coming, would he come back or proceed to the house to seek an explanation? If the latter, what would he find? Was she still there? Or had Charnwood spirited her away? How had he prevented her from going through with the elopement? Was it perhaps possible he had not succeeded? No. On this point I was certain. Charnwood would have found some way to come between Max and his beloved.
Two o’clock came and went. Then the half-hour Max had set himself expired. There was no sign of him, no sight or sound, nothing in the blanketing darkness to reveal what he had done. By half past two, I felt sure he must have realized he was waiting in vain. If so, he was obviously not returning to the car. I forced myself to calculate what I should do if I knew only as much as I had claimed. And the answer was plain: go after him. I thought it through again and the answer was the same. It was vital I behave like the innocent I was not. Bowing to the logic of my own argument, I climbed from the car and started down the track.
Max had bought a brand-new torch a few days previously. Mine, found in a cupboard at the flat, was a much inferior model with a sloppy switch and a beam that began to fade almost immediately. I should have fitted new batteries, but of course I had not bothered to and now I regretted it, as, by the faltering light it cast, I advanced along a narrow but distinct path between gnarled old oak and beech trees, the leaf litter of countless autumns swamping my feet at every stride. After what seemed like ten minutes’ walking, I considered calling out, but somehow felt forbidden to. By day, I might have been gambolling in a sunlit glade. By night it was a different place: silent, watchful and forearmed against my dull urban senses.
Then the path divided. It was a contingency I had not anticipated. Neither way seemed better trodden than the other and, even if I had been in the mood to play the tracker, I had not the skills for such a role. Nor could I call to mind the footpath routes marked on the map, which I had stupidly left in the car. I wondered if I should go back for it, then reflected that I was scarcely better at map-reading than tracking. I could simply have given up there and then, of course, but the situation s
eemed to demand rather more in the way of persistence. The left-hand way looked slightly broader and straighter. I decided to try it.
I soon began to suspect I had made a mistake. I had gone far enough to reach the stile, but there was no sign of one. Then the trees thinned and, almost before I had realized it, I was out of the wood and several yards into a field, an open gateway behind me. I cast about in dismay and was about to double back when, topping some unseen crest, I saw the lights of a house about a quarter of a mile way down the slope. The number and spacing of the illuminated windows suggested a substantial dwelling. It had to be Amber Court. The open gate implied there were no livestock in the field. On the face of it, there was nothing to prevent me walking straight down to the house. Max had said the path crossed a meadow beyond the wood, separated from the gardens by a ha-ha. If I stuck close to the edge of the wood, I must inevitably arrive at the same point. Yet it might still be best to go back to the fork in the path. At all costs, I had to avoid betraying myself. And I had to find Max. After some agonizing, I decided to retrace my steps.
I re-entered the wood, moving as quickly as the inky blackness permitted, anxious to minimize my use of the torch in case I needed it for something more important than dodging tree-roots. Suddenly, away to my left, there was a shout. ‘Who’s there?’ It was a woman’s voice, raised in alarm, perhaps Diana’s, perhaps not. Either way, it was not aimed at me. There was a crashing in the undergrowth from the same direction, somebody bursting through leaves and branches. Then the sound was on the path ahead. No, on the other path, reaching and passing the fork as I listened, the sound of somebody running headlong towards the road. ‘Who’s there?’ came the shout again. ‘Stop, I say!’ It was Vita, not Diana, her voice cracking as she shrieked out the command. But the command was not heeded.
Anxiety flooded over me. What the devil was going on? I ran ahead, shining my torch at my feet to avoid tripping, and regained the main path. Whoever had raced by was now out of earshot. But where was Vita? What was she doing in the wood? ‘Oh, no!’ came a cry from behind me. This time, surely, it was Diana’s voice. ‘Oh, dear Lord, no!’ Then silence. I hesitated for a moment, but the appeal for help in her words seemed irresistible. I started along the path, flashing the torch at intervals. Almost immediately, I reached the stile and scrambled over. A torchbeam glimmered ahead.
‘Hello? Is that you, Diana?’
‘Guy?’ I could not see her, but judged her to be about twenty yards away.
‘Yes. It’s me.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Here.’
Suddenly, I rounded a bend and found them. Vita was standing directly in front of me, wearing a shapeless felt hat, long raincoat and Wellington boots. She was holding the torch, shining it down to where Diana knelt at the side of the path, bare-headed but likewise booted and gaberdined. In front of her, supine in a patch of ferns, lay a figure in a black overcoat, tweed trousers and stout shoes. The soles of the shoes were muddy, but the uppers were newly polished, gleaming in the torchlight. I could not see who it was from where I stood. The head was obscured in a way I could not at first comprehend. I stepped closer. And then I saw. It was Charnwood. The whole right side of his head had been smashed into a blood-choked crater of bone and brain.
‘Oh my God,’ I said, starting back instinctively.
‘Papa,’ Diana murmured, reaching out to touch his chin. ‘My poor dear Papa.’
‘What are you doing here, Mr Horton?’ asked Vita grimly.
‘I was with … That is …’
Diana looked up at me. ‘You were with Max, weren’t you?’
‘Yes. But—’
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We heard somebody running. Was it Max?’
‘It might have been. I …’ I heard it at the same moment they did. A car starting and accelerating away along the Dorking road, the sound carrying clearly through the trees. It was the Talbot, the note of its engine familiar and unmistakable. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’
‘My brother has been murdered,’ said Vita. ‘He came here to meet your friend after Diana had repented of her misguided plan to elope.’ Diana began to sob, slowly and insistently, but Vita took no notice. ‘When he did not return, we came in search of him. And this is what we found. My brother, bludgeoned to death.’
‘You surely don’t mean—’
‘Your friend has fled, Mr Horton. He has fled the scene of his crime.’
‘No. That’s not possible. Max wouldn’t murder anyone.’
‘In a fit of rage, realizing he could not have his way—’
‘No, God damn it, no! There must be some mistake!’
‘I wish there were, Guy,’ Diana murmured in the hush that followed. ‘With all my heart, I wish there were.’
I knelt beside her, averting my eyes from the sprawled body, the blood-spattered coat, the gory remnant of his face, the hideous gaping wound. ‘You can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘You should go back to the house.’ I took her gently by the hand.
‘Yes. Of course.’ She let me raise her to her feet. ‘Back to the house. But Papa—’
‘You can’t help him now.’
‘Mr Horton’s right,’ said Vita. ‘Let him take you back. I’ll wait here … with Fabian.’
‘It might be best if you escorted Diana, Miss Charnwood. This is … no place for a lady.’
‘He’s my brother,’ she said, jaw jutting protectively. ‘I won’t leave him.’
It was useless to protest. ‘Very well,’ I said.
‘Call the police as soon as you reach the house.’
Out of loyalty to Max, I wanted to object. But what could I reasonably say when the evidence of his guilt seemed so stark and incontrovertible? Already, I had ceased to wonder if he had killed Charnwood and begun to wonder why. But I knew why. We all did.
‘There must be no delay,’ said Vita emphatically. ‘I want him found.’
Diana and I said not a word to each other as we made our way out of the wood and down across the meadow to the garden-gate. She leant heavily on my arm as we went, breathing deeply to hold back the tears. I could think of no comforting words to offer, no explanation or apology I might venture. For my part, the meaning of what had occurred grew worse with every additional realization. There must have been an argument, I reasoned, one beyond peaceful resolution. Perhaps Charnwood had infuriated Max with a show of arrogance, even of contempt. Perhaps a weapon had come all too readily to Max’s hand: a heavy stone, a lump of wood, maybe the torch he had been carrying. Whatever the weapon, it had been used in a frenzy, a spasm of murderous violence for which, in some measure, I was responsible. It could not be changed now. It could not be averted. The act was irretrievable. One human was dead. But a dozen others had to live with the consequences.
I was aware of Amber Court as we approached it merely as a random scatter of illuminated windows against a dark mass of chimneys and gables. We entered beneath a high stone porch. Diana composed herself briefly in the panelled hallway, then went to alert the live-in staff: a cook, two maids and a chauffeur. She returned after a few minutes, led me into the drawing-room and proceeded at once to telephone the police. Some vagary of the line obliged her to shout to make herself understood and the words echoed around the room. ‘My father has been murdered. Please come at once.’ My gaze wandered to a portrait above the fireplace: an elegant dark-haired woman in a cream dress of Edwardian style. Her eyes were Diana’s, set in another face.
‘My mother,’ Diana said quietly, looking at me as she put the receiver down. ‘Painted thirty years ago.’ A tremor ran through her as she spoke. She hugged herself and closed her eyes.
‘You should drink some brandy. I’ll pour you a glass.’
‘I don’t want any.’ But after she had sat on a sofa near the hearth, she accepted the brandy, with a trembling hand. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘Sip it,’ I cautioned, low
ering myself on to the sofa beside her. ‘It’ll … lessen the shock.’
‘Nothing can do that.’
‘No. Of course not. But … What exactly happened?’ I needed to know as much as she knew, more importantly how much. ‘What made you decide not to go through with the elopement?’
She looked at me and, for an instant, I expected her to throw the question back in my face, but all she did was shake her head in sorrow. ‘Papa found out what we were planning. He confronted me immediately after dinner and—’
‘Dinner last night?’
‘Yes. He called me into his study and told me he knew about the wedding. He wouldn’t say how he’d found out. Perhaps he just guessed what our intentions were and checked with every registrar’s office between here and London till he found the right one. It doesn’t really matter now, does it?’
I hesitated for a moment, then replied: ‘I suppose not.’
‘I admitted it. All of it. What else could I do? At first, I was angry – angry that he’d been spying on me. We had the most awful argument.’ She put her hand to her forehead, pained, it seemed, by the recollection. ‘But when I saw how disappointed he was in me – how stricken at the thought of my stealing away like a thief in the night – I realized I simply couldn’t do it. Not with Mama dead and no son – or other daughter – for him to put his trust in.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Max was asking me to betray Papa’s trust, you see. In the end, that’s what stopped me.’
‘And your father went to meet Max in your place?’
‘Yes.’ She glanced down, then raised the hem of her dress and stared at several dark bloodstains hiding among the polka-dots. ‘Why did he do it, Guy? Why did he do such a dreadful thing?’
‘I don’t know. I was waiting in the car. I followed when he didn’t return and took the wrong path. Until I came upon you, I had no idea … no inkling …’
‘Oh, God.’ Suddenly, she took my hand, then, turning, sank her head on my shoulder. I thought she would cry, but instead, after a few seconds, she pulled herself upright and took a long slow breath. Her eyes were moist, but there were no tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Papa would want me to be strong,’ she said. ‘For his sake, I must be.’
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