Past Caring - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  “Hello, Martin.” She smiled weakly and moved with a jerky, apprehensive gait.

  “I got your message.”

  We began to walk slowly towards the brook. “Elizabeth has told me everything. Why Henry was so worried after that conference in Torquay. Why you came to see him last week.” She stopped and looked challengingly at me. “Did you know this would happen?”

  “No – as God’s my witness. When I left Henry last week, he was in good spirits.”

  She turned back and walked on. “That’s what I thought. Until …”

  “Until when?”

  “Sunday evening. He had a phone call and went out straight afterwards. Said he had an appointment at his club. He got back a couple of hours later just in time to speak to Elizabeth. He wouldn’t talk about that or his appointment, just went up to his study and worked for the rest of the night. Stayed there most of Monday.”

  “Did you know he’d sent in his resignation?”

  “No. He never mentioned it. When he set off that afternoon, I expected to see him …” She tailed off into a gentle sob, then recovered herself. “Have you seen the papers this morning?”

  “No.”

  “They’re connecting his resignation with the crash – implying suicide, and worse.”

  “It’s just paper talk.”

  She looked at me with her large, pleading eyes. “No it isn’t. We both know that. Henry could never have faced disgrace. Reputation, appearances, respect: they mattered to him. He couldn’t have lived without them.”

  “They weren’t threatened.”

  “He thought they were.” She walked on down towards the edge of the brook, but I didn’t follow. If she was right, something had happened since he’d bluffed it out the week before. Something on Sunday, while I’d been meeting Alec at The Royal Oak. And then … a blind bend on Gibbet Hill had beckoned him into oblivion.

  I went back to Rackenfield and ran over what Letty had said. But it was a riddle without an answer. I couldn’t believe Henry had been frightened into suicide by the prospect of meeting his half-brother and I couldn’t believe it had been an accident. The truth was waiting for me somewhere, but I couldn’t fix it in my sight. It was there, hovering at the edge of my vision. But when I looked in its direction, it vanished.

  At breakfast, Dora brought a note saying Elizabeth was staying in her room but wanted to see me that evening. I mooned the day away and then, as soon as I decently could, went round and was shown up to her room. She seemed composed and alert.

  She told me that she had arranged for the whole family to meet after the funeral to discuss what she’d originally hoped Henry could agree with Sellick – how to make good the fraud on which Sir Gerald had founded all their fortunes.

  “What do you hope will come out of this meeting?” I asked.

  “Agreement – and that’s where you come in. What I have in mind requires your consent above all others.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because it involves the Postscript and, as the person who found it, you must have the final say in how it is used.”

  “I passed it over to you, Elizabeth, as the person I thought Strafford would be happiest to have it, so I’ll respect your judgement. What do you propose to do with it?”

  She looked straight at me. “Destroy it.” I must have shown my shock. “I know it seems almost blasphemous in view of all the precautions Edwin took to preserve it. But I’ve thought about it carefully. In a sense, its contents cost Edwin his life. Had it not existed, Ambrose Strafford would certainly still be alive. And so, very likely, would Henry. I simply can’t believe Edwin would want such a high price to be paid for its existence.”

  “I don’t know what to say. After all the efforts I made to find it in the first place …”

  “I understand how you feel, Martin. It must seem awfully like a climb-down. It must seem that it suits my family all too well to …”

  “I don’t suspect you of such motives, Elizabeth. Others, perhaps. But not you. I see the logic of what you’re saying. It’s just that it’s awfully hard …”

  “I realize that, which is why I decided to tell you now, so you could give some thought to it before we meet.”

  “I can’t imagine Sellick agreeing to it.”

  “I hope he will. He may feel he’s had his … pound of flesh.” She looked past me and I saw her expression harden in a way I hadn’t seen before. “If not, I may have to go ahead despite him. You see, the truth is one thing, but I can’t let it destroy my whole family. We owe Mr Sellick something, but not everything.” She was right. They didn’t owe Sellick as much as he was clearly set on taking.

  “I’ll support whatever you decide.”

  She grasped my hand. “Thank you, Martin. That’s what I was hoping you would say.” It was, in truth, all I could say, the least, after all, that I could do for her.

  Downstairs, I encountered Helen in the hall. She appeared from the lounge in a way which suggested she’d lain in wait for me.

  “I want a word, Martin.”

  “What about?”

  “My father.” I followed her back into the room. “The inquest was opened and adjourned this morning. It resumes next Wednesday.”

  “And now you know all the background?”

  “Yes. And the press know they’re on to something. It’s such a bloody shame.” She rarely swore. It was the only sign she gave of her distress. “I don’t think he deserved to go this way.” She looked at me. “Maybe you think he did – and maybe you’re right. What I’m asking wouldn’t be for him, but for me – for Laura, if you like.”

  “And what are you asking?”

  “I’m asking you to say nothing about this document Granny has, nothing that would point the coroner towards suicide. If they bring that in, it’ll mean my father murdered the other poor man. And the press won’t leave it alone until they know everything – about this man Sellick, about Grandfather’s other marriage.”

  I surprised myself by how ready I was to give her some comfort. “Don’t worry. I’ll say nothing.”

  She looked taken aback. “Really?”

  “Really. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Surprise changed to bemusement in her face. “I thought you must do. I thought that’s why you started this whole business.”

  “No.” I shook my head slowly. “If you can believe it, I was just after the truth all along.” It wasn’t wholly true, but it wasn’t wholly false. “It’s not done me such good.”

  “It’s not done any of us much good.”

  “The truth’s like that. I should have learnt as much from history a long time ago.” I moved towards the door, but stopped when she spoke again.

  “Martin … I’m sorry if I misjudged you.”

  I looked back. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. Then I left.

  What did it matter, after al? A minor misjudgement. I couldn’t complain. I’d misjudged life as much as it had misjudged me. I didn’t blame Helen for blaming me. I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for doing that.

  On the way back through the churchyard, I passed a gravedigger at work, shovelling damp clay onto a tarpaulin in a practised rhythm. He nodded to me when he saw me glance in his direction and carried on. To him, just a job of work. To me, the hole he was slowly shaping adjacent to the grave of Sir Gerald Couchman presaged much more than just a burial.

  Friday, June 17th was a day of rain in Miston. First light brought a wind-blown drizzle which intensified as the air stilled and settled into a steady, slanting rhythm. Like the gravedigger, it was there before us and would return long after we’d stolen away.

  Whatever the rumour, however loud the whispers, officialdom had done Henry proud. A shabby funeral would have been an admission of guilt by association. So the cortège of glistening black limousines that swept silently into the village just before noon were numerous enough, the wreaths large and livid enough, the publicly proclaimed grief unmistakable enough to still – for a while – the clamour of d
oubt, the raising of questions. Yet the press photographers’ shutters clicked, the curious stood and stared. Everyone must have known that the solemnity of the service was only a truce.

  The small church was full, mostly of people I didn’t recognize: party grandees and their entourage, directors of Couchman Enterprises and some loyal staff, a few villagers there out of respect for Elizabeth. I took my place in a pew beside Dora. She touched my elbow and nodded across at Sellick’s measured progress to a seat. He could only have been just behind me, but I hadn’t noticed. The thought was a chilling one: that he was at his most dangerous when he was most overlooked.

  As the pallbearers carried the brassbound coffin to the altar, my eyes remained on Sellick: a keen-eyed sentinel scanning the black-clad figures and, yes, exchanging one eloquent glance with Timothy that signalled he wasn’t the pious mourner he seemed to be.

  The family took their places in the pew in front of us. Only Elizabeth turned to acknowledge us. For the rest, Letty’s eyes were to the floor, Helen looked straight ahead, Ralph cast his bland antiquarian’s gaze to the stained glass and Timothy fingered his lips as if missing a cigarette. Perhaps they’d hoped I wouldn’t be there.

  As the service proceeded, my mind went back only a matter of weeks to Ambrose’s brusque and ill-attended committal in Dewford. Only a matter of weeks? A matter also of revelation and reversal. So much had changed, yet so little had changed. Another tragic accident unsatisfactorily accounted for, another observation of ritual inadequate to the occasion.

  And still there was Sellick. What did he think when he let the handful of clammy earth fall heavily onto the coffin where it had been lowered into the grave? What did the emphatic wiping of his gloved hands signify? Nothing to those who wept or wandered away. Something to those who thoughts they were watching the consignment of a victim.

  The lounge at Quarterleigh, with extra chairs and a sideboard loaded by Dora with unwanted salads. The Couchmans, complete with old excisions and late additions, foregathered in distracted poses, some sitting, some standing, shaping and discarding maquettes of conversation, drinking a little, eating less.

  Helen and her mother on a settee by the fireplace, talking aimlessly about how the proceedings had gone to take their minds off what the proceedings had meant. Ralph and Timothy by the window, Ralph explaining how to spot fake oil paintings while Timothy looked indolently uninterested and regularly topped up his gin. Elizabeth gently chiding Dora for preparing too much food while remembering, perhaps, a similar occasion 23 years before. Sellick eying me with silent threat from the opposite end of the room while toying with a tiny Wedgwood vase.

  Elizabeth had evidently slipped out of the room briefly, because, at that moment, I noticed her come back in, carrying the package I knew contained the Postscript. She unwrapped it and laid it on the coffee table in front of Helen and Letty in a way which drew everybody’s attention.

  “My dears,” she said, “you’ve now all met Mr Sellick” – she pointed over to him – “and you all know what this document is.” She patted the Postscript. “The time has come for us to discuss what to do with it. When I first invited Mr Sellick here, it was to make good this family’s neglect of him: there is no easier way to word it. But, with Henry’s loss, there is no-one left who could be said, even indirectly, to have been a party to that neglect.” I looked at Letty: her face grey, expression erased. Then at Helen: hands and eyes moving, uncertain how to take such a candid statement. “With Henry’s loss, we have suffered a blow from which we will neither easily nor swiftly recover.” Sellick, eyes like diamonds in a face of granite, assaying his disowners. “For that reason, it could be argued that it would be fairest of all to destroy this document, now that only Henry’s memory remains to be diminished by its contents.” Ralph was fiddling with something in his jacket pocket to cover a mixture of perplexity and embarrassment. Beside him, Timothy reclined languidly against a windowsill and indulged every leisurely nuance of lighting a cigarette. Elizabeth sat down in an armchair behind her. “So now, it’s up to you.”

  Those at the edges of the room moved towards the centre, eyes focussed on the Postscript. Timothy sat in a chair opposite his sister and stretched out his legs. Sellick walked behind him and took up station by the fireplace, one arm stretched along the oak beam above it, positioned as if in dominion over all of us. I stood behind Elizabeth’s chair, while Ralph joined Helen on the settee and took a clumsy hold on her hand.

  Letty sat forward and peered at the Postscript. “Nothing can bring Henry back,” she said. “But I feel as if this book is in some way responsible for his death. I’d be happier if it was no longer around … to trouble us.”

  I spoke out. “We can hardly blame Strafford for what others make of his words. Any responsibility for Henry’s death must surely rest in the present, not the past.”

  “Very epigrammatical, old man,” Timothy drawled. “But what do you actually mean?”

  “I mean – old man – that what may have upset Henry to the extent of causing him to crash was whoever or whatever confronted him at his club a few hours earlier. Who or what that was we don’t know.” I was speaking to Timothy, but looking at Sellick.

  “We never will now,” put in Helen. “That’s just the point. I wish this whole wretched business had never started.” She shot me a glare, as if to suggest a decent hostility for Ralph’s benefit. “It’s gone far enough for heaven’s sake. I’ve lost my father. There are press sniffing round the house. Now I hear the firm’s in trouble …”

  “What’s this?” said Ralph. The last remark had him worried, no doubt about his own stake.

  “Spot of turbulence,” Timothy assured him. “We can ride it out easily – as long as we don’t panic.”

  “The point is,” said Helen, “that we can ride it out more easily if we act sensibly where this document is concerned. Why provide our enemies with ammunition to fire at us?”

  “What enemies?” I asked.

  “There are lots of people who enjoy deriding those who are more successful than they are.” She was beginning to sound like her father. “What would happen if this book fell into their hands?”

  “My dear,” said Elizabeth, “there’s no danger of that.”

  “While it exists, there must always be that danger. Hasn’t it done so already?”

  “You must mean my hands,” I said. “Well, I found it, as anyone could have. I suppose that’s your point, isn’t it?”

  Helen settled back in the settee. “If the cap fits, Martin.” She’d soon forgotten the allowances she’d made the day before.

  Elizabeth tried to ease the atmosphere by shifting the emphasis. “We’ve heard nothing from you, Mr Sellick. What have you to say on this matter?”

  Sellick brought his arm down from the beam over the fireplace as if swooping across the proscenium of his personal stage. “Well now, Lady Couchman, I don’t think you would deny that my origins represent a source of shame for your family, would you?” It sounded like a declaration of war breaking into a trivial domestic squabble and, on the faces of those least prepared for it – Helen, Letty and Ralph – there were looks of shock. But not Timothy’s – his was masked by suavity and cigarette smoke – or Elizabeth’s, to judge by the firmness of her words.

  “No, I would not deny it.”

  “Nor that the Postscript constitutes proof of that shame?”

  “Nor that. I take your point, Mr Sellick. My family has an obvious and vested interest in the destruction of what could be regarded as incriminating evidence.”

  “So,” said Sellick, bending swiftly to the table and seizing the Postscript, “if the contents of this were publicized, you would lose your title, your family its legitimacy and Couchman Enterprises its” – he glanced at Timothy – “resilience.”

  Elizabeth looked up at him calmly, where he loomed above her, Postscript in hand. “Precisely, Mr Sellick,” she said icily. “You hold that power.”

  He lowered the volume slowly to the
table, placed it at the end nearest Elizabeth and stepped back. “Then I agree that it should be destroyed,” he announced. “I wish to wield no such power. With Henry’s death, let us put it to rest.”

  I stared at him incredulously. Could he be serious? For Sellick voluntarily to surrender such a powerful instrument of his will contradicted every twist of his plot to bring us to this moment, confounded everything I’d come to believe about him. From the silence which followed, it seemed others felt the same.

  Except Timothy. “You’re a gentleman, Mr Sellick,” he said. “I’m sure we all appreciate the good sense of what you’ve said.”

  Elizabeth roused herself. “If that’s what you really think, Mr Sellick, I can only say that I’m very grateful to you for such a generous gesture, a gesture we had no right to expect but which I rejoice you have felt able to make.”

  There was unanimity in the stunned faces round the table, relief edging towards self-congratulation. To them, of course, it made perfect sense and, somehow, to Sellick also. Only I was baffled, yet bound by my earlier promise to leave the matter uncontested.

  “There is no need for any form of thanks,” Sellick continued. “If the prospect of meeting me here on Monday was in any respect contributory to Henry’s accident, I would hope the erasure of this document could serve as a token of my regret.” So well-turned, so smoothly toned and yet, I felt certain, so utterly false.

  The power of Sellick’s words lay not, of course, in honeyed phrases but in the consuming eagerness of his audience to believe them. They were quick to do so, too quick for my mind to assess the significance of his concession or set it against the uncertain inferences of our earlier, unfinished conversation.

  It had stopped raining. The sky was grey and still, the garden of Quarterleigh hushed and expectant in a lull of late afternoon. The group moved as if in some secret extension of the funeral’s ordered ritual to the incinerator behind the greenhouse. Ralph loaded it with crumpled newspaper and a few sticks of kindling, Timothy sprinkled on some petrol and tossed in a lighted match, the flames licked and spat. Elizabeth handed him the Postscript and asked him to deal with it as agreed. She might not have had the heart to do it herself or to ask me to do it for her. At any rate, it was Timothy, with a dexterity his father would have admired, who tore each page from its binding and cast it into the fire.