Caught In the Light

by Robert Goddard

  ‘It was an accident, you know.’

  ‘No doubt. But that doesn’t make her loss any easier to bear. Nyman came back to this country after his release looking for her. His parents hadn’t even told him she was dead and he couldn’t understand why she’d stopped visiting or writing. Eventually he tracked me down and persuaded me to tell him what she’d been consulting me about.’

  ‘Flashbacks to the life of Marian Esguard?’

  ‘Correct. She’d been troubled by them since childhood, although at first she didn’t understand what they were. They grew much worse and more intense after she’d passed thirty, the age at which Marian disappeared. She came to me for a cure, but there was no cure. I convinced myself – and her for a while – that the Marian persona was a psychopathological delusion. But it wasn’t. We both realized that in the end. Somewhere, somehow, by some strange intersection of consciousnesses, Isobel and Marian were one. You can call it reincarnation if you want. I’d call it shared identity. Isobel couldn’t help remembering being Marian. Maybe Marian couldn’t help foreseeing being Isobel. I don’t know. At some point outside time, they meet; they are. I can’t explain it. I couldn’t then and I can’t now. But it was true. And it was way beyond my power to cure in any sense. It was also fascinating, of course. I don’t deny that. I urged her to keep coming. I waived my fee. At first out of curiosity to see what we could uncover about Marian. Then … out of love.’

  ‘Did Nyman know you were lovers?’

  ‘Oh yes. Isobel told him about the relationship during her last visit to him in Sweden. He hadn’t realized I was her psychotherapist, however. He hadn’t realized she even had one. She’d kept the Marian problem from him. Hadn’t wanted to worry him with it. Investigating that part of her life became a key element in the grieving process for him. By encouraging it, I thought I was helping him come to terms with his loss.’

  ‘But not so.’

  ‘No. Not so at all. I lost touch with him after a while and assumed that was the end of it. I noticed his meteoric rise in the business world with wry amusement. It was the exact opposite of my own career. I somehow lost my confidence after Isobel’s death. I couldn’t seem to trust myself as a therapist. I grew cautious and aloof. My client list shrank. I started to suffer from depression. Then, this time last year, Nyman made contact again. He was ready for what he’d evidently been planning all along: to move against you. Well, you must know by now what it was he proposed. Trick you into leaving your wife, abandoning your career and wasting months in a search for somebody who didn’t really exist, while Nyman took over your family much as he would some corporate minnow.’

  ‘And you went along with it.’

  ‘Yes. He set me up in Harley Street and gave me a renewed sense of purpose. The tapes Eris recorded were doctored versions of taped sessions I’d had with Isobel, grafted onto Nyman’s elaborations on what he’d subsequently learned about the Esguards, past and present. He’d met Niall and Milo during his investigation of Marian’s life. Niall’s weakness was money, of course. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do if the pay was good. One of the few things I did find at the flat was a file of statements from a Guernsey bank account in the name of Niall Hudson, showing a very healthy balance.’

  ‘So you were both on Nyman’s payroll.’

  ‘I never accepted a penny beyond the Harley Street rent. Nyman made it easy for me. In return for just a little play-acting, I got a ringside seat at your humiliation.’

  ‘And that’s what you wanted?’

  ‘Since you ask, yes. I thought you deserved what you got. Deceiving you also gave me my confidence back. My practice is on the up and up. I’m suddenly in fashion. And there was a stick as well as a carrot. Nyman could make out a good case of unprofessional conduct against me any time he chose.’

  ‘You’re saying he blackmailed you?’

  ‘I’m saying he might have done if I hadn’t co-operated. But I did co-operate. Gladly. You didn’t give a damn about Isobel. I could see that at the inquest. She was just a stupid woman who’d been inconsiderate enough to walk into the path of your car. I bet you don’t feel that any more. I bet she matters to you now.’

  ‘Yes. She does.’

  ‘That was all we were supposed to be doing, according to Nyman. Reminding you, painfully but justly, of the consequences of taking a life.’

  ‘And what are the consequences, Daphne? You can tell me, now you’ve had some experience of it yourself.’

  ‘I had no part in Quisden-Neve’s murder. A private disagreement between him and Niall. That’s what Nyman told me. It was never supposed to happen.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘I did. I let myself believe it. But now … I wonder if even old Milo’s fatal heart attack was entirely natural. Niall was with him at the time. Maybe he … gave him a helping hand. I don’t know. As for Quisden-Neve, I think he worked out what was going on. Isobel had visited Milo, much as Eris described, only years ago, when Milo was still living at Bentinck Place. Milo later told Quisden-Neve about her strange familiarity with the life of Marian Esguard. Quisden-Neve tried to trace her, only to learn she was dead. He must have found out as much as he could about the circumstances of her death. When you went to see him, he’d have recognized your name from the inquest. He knew Nyman was paying Niall to set you up and he suddenly knew why. Maybe he had doubts about Milo’s death himself. What he certainly had was a saleable story about Nyman. The press would have gone for it in a big way, don’t you think? Remember, it was worse than Quisden-Neve knew, with Nyman’s criminal past likely to emerge if they dug deep enough.’

  ‘So Quisden-Neve had to go.’

  ‘That’s my reading of it. As for Eris, I never had the slightest inkling Nyman was planning to have her killed and you framed for her murder. But he must have been, right from the start. I see that now. It was to be the coup de grâce.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. I think he took against her because she wasn’t as indifferent to me as she was supposed to be.’

  ‘Maybe. It doesn’t really matter, though, does it? We’re all running now.’

  ‘Where will Eris have run?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nyman made sure we knew as little about each other as possible. We’ve only met once. I have the impression Nyman rescued her from bad times. But it’s only an impression. I don’t even know her real name. We’re virtually strangers. Maybe Nyman thought that would mean I wouldn’t care what happened to her. But I’m not willing to be a party to her murder – or anyone else’s. I’m going to call a halt to what he’s doing once and for all.’

  ‘How can you?’

  ‘To begin with, I can open your wife’s eyes to his true nature.’

  ‘That won’t stop him.’

  ‘No. But the threat of exposure will. I could ruin him overnight. Who’d trust Nymanex with their money once they’d learned what its founder had done on his way to the top?’

  ‘Not many.’

  ‘Exactly. I think he’ll see reason. I think he’ll realize he’s gone far enough.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No. But it’s worth a try. There has to be a way out of this. For all of us.’

  ‘Does there?’ I stared at the road ahead. ‘I wonder.’

  Neither of us spoke for quite a while after that. We drove on, absorbed in our own thoughts. I hadn’t a shred of a hope that Daphne could talk Nyman into giving up. He was going on to the end, whatever the end was, and I was going with him. But, before we got there, Faith and Amy had to be made to understand what was happening, and only Daphne could accomplish that. Until then, I couldn’t afford to question her strategy.

  Anger wouldn’t have helped much either. Strangely enough, though, there was none to suppress. Close to the heart of everything Nyman had done to me was a truth I was slowly bringing myself to acknowledge. I hadn’t cared about Isobel Courtney. I hadn’t wanted to know. But now I did care. Now, for the first time, I genuinely wanted to know.

  ‘Tell
me, Daphne,’ I said as we neared Reading, ‘have you ever seen Isobel … since her death?’

  ‘Since her death? What do you mean – a ghost?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘No. Nothing. I wish I had. Why?’

  ‘It’s something that happened while I was in Chichester. I’m not sure what it was, exactly. But the only thing separating us from the past, or the past from us, is time, right? I mean, when I walk along East Pallant, so does Isobel, so does Marian, in a sense.’

  ‘But only in a sense.’

  ‘A photograph lifts the barrier, though. It’s a snapshot of time as well as people and places. To take a photograph, as Marian did, before anyone else even understood what a photograph was, must have been … incredible. Did Isobel really find those negatives?’

  ‘No. That part was one of Nyman’s inventions. Though it seemed to me, when I heard how he’d told Eris to describe them, well, it seemed almost as if …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘As if he’d seen them.’

  ‘How could he have?’

  ‘I don’t know. But when he wasn’t building up Nymanex I reckon he was devoting himself to the mystery of Marian Esguard. How did he know Byfield settled on Guernsey, for instance? It must have taken a lot of painstaking research. Either that or he discovered some source of information Isobel had never come across.’

  ‘Of which the negatives could be part.’

  ‘It’s possible. They always sounded real to me. He grew up with Isobel, remember. He saw and heard more about her strange obsession than anyone else. I suppose that gave him a crucial advantage. Quisden-Neve spent years ferreting after the truth, but Nyman gave him a head start and still got there first. He told me the negatives didn’t exist, that they were just imaginary devices to lure you further into the thicket. But he only ever told me what he judged I needed to know. He could easily have been lying. He does it for a pastime. He’s not going to find it easy to go on lying, though.’

  ‘He won’t like that, will he?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘How will he react?’

  ‘You want my professional opinion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She pondered the point as we sped through another grey motorway mile. ‘Badly.’

  * * *

  We drove straight to Faith’s workplace in Hounslow. I sat outside in the car while Daphne went in ahead of me. No good was going to come of my being present when Faith learned what game Nyman was playing. I didn’t want her to think I was revelling in her disillusionment. What I wanted above all was for her to have no room for doubt in the matter. She had to be shown what he really was. And she had to believe it. Beyond question.

  Looking in from the car park, I spotted them in a ground-floor room. Faith was at the window, staring out expressionlessly, just too far away for me to be able to tell if she was looking at me or not. Daphne was behind her, in shadow, walking a few paces to and fro as she spoke. They could have been discussing any workaday problem. The gestures would have been much the same. Daphne was trying to sound calm and reasonable. Faith was pretending to be unmoved. But the dumbshow didn’t fool me. This was the shattering of a dream. I let it go on for ten minutes or so. Then some marginal loss of intensity in their tight-lipped exchanges told me it was time to join them. Faith knew now. She understood – if she was ever going to. Whether she railed at me or not was irrelevant. We had to plan ahead.

  They were waiting for me in silence, standing apart in the room, avoiding each other’s gaze. Faith seemed determined to avoid my gaze, too. She didn’t turn round as I entered.

  ‘Faith?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Daphne. ‘She believes me.’

  ‘How couldn’t I?’ said Faith dully. ‘She’s not a wayward husband with doubtful motives, is she?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I’m not enjoying this.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘We need to decide what to do.’

  ‘I have decided.’ Now she did look at me. ‘I’m going to take Amy to stay with my parents until the new term begins.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘That’s none of your business. I have Daphne’s promise that Conrad Nyman will be off our backs by then.’

  ‘Faith’s supposed to be meeting him at the Waldorf this evening at six thirty for drinks before going on to the theatre,’ Daphne explained. ‘I’ve suggested you and I meet him instead and propose a pact. A clean break on both sides. No police, no enquiries, no questions.’

  ‘Which has the handy advantage of leaving her professional reputation miraculously intact.’ Faith’s tone was flat, her meaning plain. ‘Nevertheless, I’m willing to go along with it.’

  ‘He’s a dangerous man, Faith.’ I held her gaze, urging her to remember what was far more important than all our petty resentments. ‘We have to give him a way out.’

  ‘Then you’d better make sure he takes it.’

  ‘He will,’ said Daphne. ‘It’s an offer he can’t refuse.’

  ‘I’m relying on you, Ian.’ Faith looked straight at me. ‘Don’t let me down.’ The unspoken word again hovered in the air. ‘Don’t let Amy down.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Are we agreed?’ asked Daphne.

  Faith and I nodded. Then, realizing I was about to speak, she cut me short. ‘I don’t think anything more needs to be said.’ I shrugged, trying to communicate some of the sympathy and the regret she clearly didn’t want to hear put into words. ‘Only I do have work to do. And so, it seems, do you.’

  ‘She took it well,’ said Daphne as we walked away down the corridor.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Nobody likes to be made a fool of. And nobody likes to analyse the experience. It was a shock, naturally. Nyman’s been the perfect suitor. Too perfect, in a way. For what it’s worth, I think she was half expecting something to go wrong. It was all too good to be true.’

  ‘What about Nyman? Will he be expecting something to go wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, so long as he accepts our offer.’

  ‘And will he?’

  ‘He has to.’

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘Yes.’ She paused before adding, ‘If it works.’

  The appointment Nyman didn’t know he had with us left me time to call in on Tim to check if the police had been looking for me. They hadn’t. But someone else had.

  ‘Nicole? What did she want?’

  ‘Information about Nyman. It seems he was supposed to be at a press conference this morning to unveil Nymanex’s annual report, but he didn’t show. She seemed to think you might know why.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘I told her you wouldn’t. It gave me the chance to quiz her about Nyman, though, like I said I would. His past really is a total blank, apparently.’

  ‘Not any longer, Tim. I know as much about him as I need to know. And far more than I like.’

  * * *

  Daphne was already sitting in the bar, nursing a gin and tonic and a half-smoked cigar, when I reached the Waldorf shortly after six o’clock.

  ‘You look worried,’ I said as I joined her.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I thought it was all going to be very simple.’

  ‘I thought that, too. But I was wrong.’

  ‘Aren’t you being rather defeatist?’

  ‘No. Accurate. There was a message waiting for me when I arrived.’ She passed me a crumpled sheet of Waldorf-crested notepaper. ‘From Nyman.’

  ‘But … he couldn’t have …’ I flattened the sheet on the table and read the message aloud. ‘“Miss Sanger, Mr Nyman presents his apologies and regrets he will be unable to join you and Mr Jarrett as planned.”’ I looked up at Daphne. ‘“As planned.” He knew. How? Surely Faith wouldn’t have told him.’

  ‘I hardly think so. He must have guessed.’

  ‘Guessed?’

&n
bsp; ‘There was a car, a few places behind us, all the way along the motorway, just too far back for me to see the driver. I noticed it a couple of times, but I didn’t like to mention it. I … thought I was just being … paranoid.’

  ‘You think he followed us from Bath?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘That’s why he wasn’t at the press conference.’ I waved away her frown of puzzlement. ‘And he’ll have known what it meant when we left the motorway at Hounslow.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Where’s Faith now?’

  ‘En route to her parents’ with Amy, I hope.’

  ‘You hope? Christ almighty.’ It was all going wrong. I could sense it falling apart around me. I pulled out my mobile and punched in my old home number. Faith answered at the first ring. Her words and the tone of them told me at once what was wrong.

  ‘Amy – is that you?’

  ‘It’s not Amy, Faith. It’s me.’

  ‘Ian? Do you know where she is?’

  ‘Amy? Of course not. Why isn’t she with you?’

  ‘She wasn’t here when I got home. I’ve been phoning round her friends, but none of them have seen her. She must have gone shopping or something. I don’t know. A walk, maybe. It’s a fine evening. She’ll probably be back any minute.’ But she didn’t believe that. Any more than I did. ‘Are you at the Waldorf, Ian?’

  ‘Yes. Nyman isn’t coming here, Faith. He left a message. He knew what we were planning.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. What matters is Amy. Would she go with him, if he spun a plausible enough yarn?’

  ‘Probably.’ Her voice was flat, more despairing than grudging.

  ‘Then that’s what must have happened.’

  ‘Not necessarily. She may still—’