‘Out of what?’
‘Out of admitting what really happened on that mountain.’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘You don’t expect me to believe that.’
‘No. As a matter of fact, I don’t.’
‘What did you do to her? You may as well tell me before I beat it out of you.’
Harry saw it at last. He caught and held the perception in his mind. Fear was the component he had detected in Roy at their meeting on Profitis Ilias but had not identified till now: fear that emanated from the man like an odour, that fouled his every action and debased his every word. The truth he clamoured for was merely a lie he meant to force from Harry, a lie with which he meant to bury truth.
‘Well? What have you to say for yourself?’
Harry smiled. ‘She did have something to run away from, didn’t she?’ he replied. ‘She was running away from y—’
Roy hit him in the midriff before he could finish the sentence. His ribs were still sore from the car crash and the blow left him doubled up, gasping for breath. As he made to rise, he saw, through tear-blurred eyes, his opponent waiting for him, fist drawn back to strike, teeth gritted in a fury of concentration. An absurd thought flashed into his mind: did somebody not tell him once that Roy Mallender had boxed for Millfield? Then the blow struck him square on the jaw and sent him plunging backwards down the steps. This punishment was partly self-imposed, he realized, in a compartment of his brain where pain did not register. Then a harsh, blunt, metallic surface slammed into the back of his head. And impact and oblivion became one.
8
THERE WERE MOMENTS when dream and waking met. In one such ill-defined interlude, Alan Dysart seemed to be leaning over him, his hand touching his shoulder, his face creased with concern, his mouth moving as in speech – though what he was saying Harry could not tell. For the rest, confusion was all, but confusion of a strangely reassuring kind. Crisp, institutional linen and noises without context: these had already told him where he was before he had mastered collected thought.
Harry had not been in hospital since having his appendix removed in 1946. He had detested every moment of the experience and had determined to avoid a repetition. It was odd, therefore, to realize how congenial he found his new surroundings; perhaps it was a sign of growing old. Of course, in straitened post-war Swindon he had not been given a room to himself, nor the attentions of a strikingly beautiful Greek nurse; the medical resources of Rhodes seemed markedly superior to what he had always supposed.
A doctor visited him shortly after he had come to himself and informed him that he had been found unconscious the previous night at the foot of a flight of steps in the Old Town, with a badly gashed head; there was a dressing in place to confirm it. He had also suffered a bruised jaw and two broken ribs; hence the tight swathe of bandaging around his midriff. X-rays had happily established that his skull was intact, but concussion was always to be dealt with cautiously, especially in a man of his age (a shaft which Harry found particularly painful): several days of bed-rest and observation were in order. Harry protested that he felt well enough to leave at once, but the doctor assured him that he would not when the pain-killers wore off. Then Harry confessed what was really troubling him: he could not afford the cost of a lengthy stay. But the cost, it transpired, was to be entirely borne by Mr Alan Dysart: he had been adamant on the point. Nor was Harry in a position to contest his generosity, since Mr Dysart had flown back to England that morning. The doctor closed with a homily on the subject of drunkenness, to which, it seemed, he attributed Harry’s injuries; Harry bore the injustice in silence.
An hour or so later, the nurse woke Harry from a doze to say that Inspector Miltiades was there to see him. It was implied he could postpone the visit if he wished, but he chose not to, intent as he was on paying back Roy Mallender in any way he could.
Miltiades looked, it seemed to Harry, not quite himself. There was something vaguely apologetic about him, something almost shamefaced. He held a whispered conversation at the door with the nurse, then came forward and sat beside the bed, holding his uniform cap somewhat awkwardly in his hand.
‘Good news, Inspector,’ said Harry, attempting a sarcastic smile but finding that the dressing on the back of his head in some way prevented it. ‘This is an open-and-shut case.’
‘An open-and-shut case of what, Mr Barnett?’
‘Assault and battery.’
‘You wish to lodge a complaint against somebody?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Then you may wish to know two things before doing so. Firstly, a common symptom of concussion is an inability to remember accurately events immediately prior to the concussion being incurred.’
‘I remember them perfectly.’
‘Secondly, Mr Roy Mallender left Rhodes this morning and is not expected to return.’
‘What?’
‘He is no longer here, Mr Barnett. And he is not coming back. So to accuse him of anything would be a waste of time and effort.’
Harry’s immediate reaction was to thump the mattress in protest, but a stab of pain from his ribs deterred him. Instead, he merely glowered at Miltiades. ‘Why the …’ he began. Then another thought intruded. ‘Just a minute. How did you know I was going to accuse Roy Mallender of doing this to me?’
Miltiades smiled. ‘I fear I owe you an apology. Not for letting Mr Mallender leave Rhodes, but for practising a small deception on you last night.’
‘Deception?’
‘The woman resembling Miss Mallender was one of my female officers. She wore a blond wig and dressed according to the description you yourself gave us.’
Harry let out a small sigh of exasperation and surprise. So that was it. She had been neither wraith nor simulacrum, but a policewoman in disguise.
‘I did warn you that I had not excluded the possibility of your having murdered Miss Mallender. It seemed to me that a murderer, confronted by the ghost of his victim, might well give himself away, whereas—’
‘If I’d been telling the truth, I’d be taken in by the disguise.’
‘Quite so. And you were taken in, Mr Barnett, you were. I no longer suspect you of murder. You should be pleased.’
‘You had me followed when I left your office yesterday?’
‘Yes. Every step of the way. Until the time seemed ripe. And afterwards as well. Not closely enough to intervene in your altercation with Mr Mallender, it is true, but at least you were not left to lie where you fell.’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘But you will be wondering, of course, why I allowed Mr Mallender to go free when one of my own officers had witnessed his assault on you.’
‘Surprise me.’
‘The answer is that I did not. Higher authority determined that Mr Mallender should be released. It was felt that a charge against him would make him the subject of public sympathy, especially in England, where it might also arouse some anti-Greek feeling. For all Mr Mallender knew, you were still under suspicion for murdering his sister. What he did could therefore seem to some exactly what a conscientious brother should do. I believe Mr Dysart made certain diplomatic representations on Mr Mallender’s behalf which proved decisive. They left together this morning.’
Harry said nothing. He should have foreseen this, of course. He should have read it in that floating, remembered face at his bedside. The action was typical of Dysart. It captured perfectly his politician’s instinct for compromise. Pay Harry’s hospital bill. Escort Roy back to England. And subvert the relevant officials. It was like a prefect resolving a dispute between two schoolboys. Which was only fitting in a sense, since, but for Dysart, there would have been no dispute in the first place. But for Dysart, come to that, Harry would know nothing of the Mallender family.
It was the close of a quiet lunchtime at the Glue Pot Inn about ten days before Christmas, 1972, and Harry had just measured himself a sly double scotch. When he turned back from the optics, it was to find Alan Dysart sm
iling at him from the other side of the bar, looking prosperous and absurdly well-groomed in his civilian clothes.
‘Christ! Alan! What are you doing here?’
‘Looking up an old friend. Can I get that for you?’
‘This?’ Harry grinned sheepishly. ‘OK. Thanks.’ Harry poured a drink for Dysart as well, then suggested they adjourn to a table. The only other customer was devoting an age to half an inch of stout; he did not look in need of service.
‘I went to the garage first,’ said Dysart, after one sip of his scotch.
Harry felt himself flush with embarrassment. How to explain or excuse what had happened was beyond him.
‘They told me you closed in August.’
‘That’s right.’ A rueful smile. ‘We did.’
‘They implied … bankruptcy.’
Harry took a deep breath. ‘It was.’
‘Enforced?’
A weary nod. ‘Total would be a better word. Barry saw it coming. He skipped to Spain a few weeks beforehand, taking what cash was in hand and leaving me with the debts.’
‘Good God.’
‘Jackie went with him.’
‘She would.’
‘Yes. You were right about her.’
‘So what are you doing now?’
‘Getting by. I’ve a job here till Christmas.’
‘And then?’
‘I don’t know. Something’s bound to turn up.’
Harry’s optimism must have sounded as false to Dysart as it did to Harry himself. He did not, in truth, foresee anything turning up. For Dysart even to go to the trouble of seeking him out was more than he would have expected. After all, Harry had done him no conspicuous favours during those university vacations he had spent working at Barnchase Motors. Now that he was a rising young naval officer, there seemed no reason for him to be concerned about his ex-employer’s present plight. But concerned, it transpired over a second drink, he nevertheless was.
‘Have you ever thought of leaving Swindon, Harry?’
‘Often. But where would I go?’
‘Well, the skipper of the first ship I served on – who also happens to be a good friend – retired three months ago. He’s set up a small marine electronics company in Weymouth. As a matter of fact, I supplied some of the capital. The point is, he’s looking for several good people on the managerial side. I could mention your name.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘It’d be a pleasure.’
‘But an undischarged bankrupt—’
‘I worked with you, Harry, remember? I wouldn’t be doing this just for old time’s sake. I happen to think you’d fit in rather well at Mallender Marine.’
* * *
During the days of enforced immobility and abstinence that he spent in Rhodes Hospital, Harry thought more clearly about his life than he could ever remember doing before. He found it surprisingly easy, when all his wants were catered for and all his pastimes banned, to view his fifty-three years as a continuum, in which the false hopes of the past were as significant as the predictable disappointments of the present. It was not a pretty tale, he was bound to admit, not a glorious succession of ever-outstripping achievements. Assessed objectively, indeed, it had more the appearance of a shabby march-past of dismal failures. Yet, for all that, it was his own.
In the opinion of his form master at Commonweal, Harry’s academic promise was ‘blighted by weakness of purpose and a tendency to self-deprecation’; the phrase from his last school report was as memorable as its author’s disapproving face. His Uncle Len put matters less tendentiously but perhaps more succinctly. ‘Treat life as a joke, son, and that’s how it’ll treat you.’ Uncle Len was known to think that Harry’s lack of a father was a handicap to proper character development. There had even been a time when he aspired to fill the role himself, until life decided to remove him so suddenly and ludicrously from its arena that it might almost have been trying to tell him something. It was strange that both Barnett brothers should die accidentally – Stan, Harry’s father, when a wheel fell on him in the GWR locomotive erecting shop; and Uncle Len in collision with the laden bicycle of a butcher’s delivery boy, whose brakes had failed on Prospect Hill. Perhaps it explained why Harry never took life quite as seriously as others thought he should.
From school, Harry passed straight, at fifteen, into the deadening maw of Swindon Borough Council, his mother deeming a steady clerk’s job with the municipality infinitely preferable to any of his more fanciful notions. And there he remained – bar a two-year spell of national service – for fifteen dull, unvarying, ill-rewarded years: excellent training, he always maintained, for growing old, bored, cynical and disagreeable before one’s time. But for Barry Chipchase, his spivish, scapegrace chum from national service days, he would probably still have been there twenty-three years on. As it was, Barry’s invitation to open a garage business with him offered an irresistible escape route from bureaucracy. And so was born, by happy combination of their surnames, Barnchase Motors. It proved, in the long run, to be both the best and worst of Harry’s decisions in life, the best because it brought him into contact with Alan Dysart, the worst because every penny he had was lost in its fall.
Dysart spent six Oxford vacations working at Barnchase, initially as cleaner-cum-pump attendant, later in a variety of administrative roles. He had originally looked for a job in Swindon simply to be near a girlfriend in Wootton Bassett. Later he made the thirty-mile journey from Oxford because he had become genuinely attached to the firm. Looking back, Harry could see just how astute many of his commercial suggestions were. That was why Harry had so often claimed the credit for them. Perhaps if Dysart had still been involved, Barnchase would not have collapsed when it had.
The last Harry had heard of Barry Chipchase, and the ruinously spendthrift wife he had insisted on making a partner in the firm, involved a car-hire business in Alicante. Only ill he wished them of it, considering that even his house had been forfeited to Barnchase’s creditors. Lodged with his mother in the tiny railway worker’s cottage where he had been born, contemplating through a haze of alcohol the circular nullity of his achievements, he could not afford to be scrupulous when Dysart offered to recommend him to Mallender Marine.
It had gone well at first; Harry could not say otherwise. Charlie Mallender’s contacts in the Navy and the Admiralty, taken together with the proximity of the Portland Naval Base, ensured steady demand for Mallender Marine’s products, whilst Harry concentrated on the private market in yachting gadgetry – not so different, in its way, from the world of car spares. Harry settled in Weymouth, found some lodgings and began to believe that the bad days really were behind him.
The awareness that they might not be started to dawn on him soon after Roy Mallender joined the business in the autumn of 1977. It was popularly believed that Roy had tried to follow his father into the Navy, but had failed to make the grade. Whatever the truth of this, he was clearly aggrieved at not enjoying as much power over others as he held to be his due. The fact that Harry declined to play the part of a fawning subordinate would therefore have been enough to make him a marked man even without the personal antipathy that sprang up between them. Just as he had failed to appreciate Barry Chipchase’s duplicity until it was too late, so he failed to realize what lengths Roy Mallender would go to in order to be rid of him until the trap had already closed about him. Charlie Mallender told him at the time of his dismissal that he was lucky to be spared prosecution for fraud; little did the old man know that his own son was the real fraudster.
Once more, however, Alan Dysart came to the rescue. He had owned the Villa ton Navarkhon for less than a year then and was keen to have somebody reliable in Lindos to keep an eye on the place. Rent-free accommodation in the gatehouse flat in return for light caretaking duties appealed to Harry more than he could properly say. Unemployed and well nigh unemployable in Weymouth as the harsh winter of 1978/79 dragged down both his finances and his spirits, Rhodes sounded to him like the p
romised land: warm, inexpensive, undemanding and a long way from all his troubles.
And so, in many respects, it proved. Looking after the villa was, of course, a sinecure: Mrs Ioanides cleaned whilst Mr Ioanides painted, repaired and gardened. Harry was simply the man on the spot, the familiar English face to greet Dysart and his guests, free to earn enough during the season as barman or tour guide to sustain himself through the winter. He slipped happily into the Greek approach to life: why do yesterday what you can put off till tomorrow? Best of all, as they said and believed, perasmena, ksehasmena: past things are forgotten things. In Lindos, Harry was merely the overweight Englishman who pottered about the town in faded cricket flannels, shirt and sunhat, ogling the topless sunbathers and drinking too much, a figure of fun and a source of amusement. What he had been in England was a matter of no consequence; his slate was clean, his reputation spotless. Unsophisticated, indeed primitive, though a year-round existence in Lindos might be, it offered him everything he required. It was his home-from-home, his safe haven, his general amnestic, his painless admission of defeat. It was sufficient, in short, for his every purpose. Until Heather came.
* * *
On the third afternoon of his confinement, Harry was allowed to get out of bed for a few hours. This gave him a chance he had been waiting for, since it had occurred to him that Jonathan Minter might be interested in the circumstances surrounding Roy Mallender’s sudden departure from Rhodes; he had, after all, spoken of a fee. Accordingly, Harry made his gingerly way to the pay-phone down the corridor and dialled the number Minter had given him.
‘Astir Palace Hotel.’
‘I’d like to speak to one of your guests: Mr Jonathan Minter.’
‘Wait please.’ A delay, then: ‘Mr Minter is no longer with us, sir.’
‘No longer with you?’
‘He booked out yesterday.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘Back to England, I believe, sir.’
So Minter had gone. As had Dysart. And Roy Mallender. And Heather, as well. They had all gone. They had abandoned him, he suddenly realized, to an obscurity he no longer desired. They had left him to relapse into the somnambulism of exile. But he could no longer close his eyes.
Into the Blue Page 7
