The Dying of the Light

by Robert Richardson

“ You’re too young to know anything,” she told him contemptuously. “Do you have any idea how many innocent men and women died at the hands of Fascism? Have you the least conception of how evil capitalism is at its heart? They ate rats in Stalingrad to defeat Hitler! Go and stand at the war memorial in Moscow and see if you can face the ghosts of twenty million war dead, more than all the other countries of the world! Some of those people were my friends — and friends of my husband — and they are the ones I have kept faith with. Who are you to mock that?”

  She spread her arms to include the others. “We have all kept faith as Fascism has been reborn again and again. It’s a battle that may never be won, but some of us will never stop fighting it, however old and weary and …” She shook her head helplessly. “No, it’s pointless trying to explain. People like you never understand. I can see it in your face.”

  She turned from Maltravers as though he were an alien being and he knew there was nothing he could say. They had a dogma as fervent and incorruptible as Rome’s and arguments about democracy, individual freedom and human rights would simply be explained away by the party line or dismissed as temptations of capitalist devils. Tanks in Hungary and Czechoslovakia were totally justified, Poland an aberration and glasnost and perestroika weasel words of betrayal. They had grown old, but had not changed, their belief more durable than the Berlin Wall.

  “But Martha lost your faith and found a new one, didn’t she?” he continued as though Edith had not spoken. “One that involved confession of sin, not perhaps your sin, but it had become hers. That’s what you quarrelled about in the Steamer. Martha’s Catholicism and your Communism were the immovable force and the irresistible object. She was saying her conscience gave her no choice. She had to expunge her guilt for her part in Agnes Thorpe’s murder and was trying to persuade you to do the same.

  “So eventually she went to confess it to a priest. I’ve been to see him. He was not in a position to tell me everything, but I know he would have granted her absolution, and also urged her to tell the police. She made it clear that was what she intended to do. The only thing stopping her doing it immediately was that the statue for Westminster Cathedral was not finished. Then she died. Is it any wonder that Ruth thought she’d been murdered?”

  “But had she?” It was the first time Dawson had spoken.

  “Frankly, I’m not sure,” Maltravers admitted. “But the other night when Belvedere was drunk in the Steamer he was rambling on about someone called Nancy and how something wasn’t his fault. Nobody seemed to know who Nancy was, but Belvedere invariably uses the diminutive. Edward becomes Ted, Dorothy is Dottie, Edith is Edie, Martha was Mattie. So I looked Nancy up in a dictionary, and she turned out to be Agnes.”

  He looked at Dorothy. “You left the pub just before closing time that night, and you could have heard Belvedere. Dangerous talk that. And on the way home, Belvedere fell down the steps.” Dorothy looked away as Maltravers turned to Scott. “You showed me where you fell. A level stretch about six feet long. If God really looks after drunks and little children, you should just have collapsed in a heap. Did you fall Belvedere? Or were you pushed?”

  “I was pissed.” Knotted knuckles tightened on his stick handle. “But somebody pushed me. Couldn’t see who it was in the dark.”

  His head slowly revolved towards Dorothy. “It was someone small and wearing a dress.”

  Dorothy shrugged. “You were drunk.”

  Maltravers looked from one to the other. Friendship, art, love, war, unswerving commitment to the cause, murder; Belvedere and Dorothy Lowe had shared a great deal. Suddenly he lost his temper. Like many easy-going men, Augustus Maltravers erupted violently if pushed beyond a certain point.

  “Christ, you’re pitiful!” he shouted. “You patronise Ruth and she’s the best human being among you! You’ve lived here for years believing that come the glorious revolution you will bring art to the masses whether they want it or not. You killed Agnes Thorpe because she didn’t agree with you and forty years later one of you could have gone into that studio and murdered Martha. Did you?”

  Nobody replied, but Edith Hallam-West looked at him sharply as though something had occurred to her. “Mr Maltravers, I’d like a private word with you, please.”

  “What about?” he snapped.

  “Just do me the courtesy of listening. It will only take a moment.” She went and stood by the flight of open wooden stairs leading to the flat above her studio. “It is important.”

  Maltravers hesitated a moment, then followed her. On one wall of her sitting-room was a framed poster of Lenin, flying like a god above cheering marching workers; others collected such things as pop art, but for Edith Hallam-West it was an icon of untainted faith.

  “I’m going to ask you to keep anything I say confidential,” she said as she closed the door. “In any event, I would deny it.”

  “I don’t think you’ll need to.”

  “We’ll see.” She paused as if sorting out something in her mind. “Frank Morgan used to call me the intelligence of the Porthennis School. My husband taught me how to spot weaknesses in an argument. I think you’re bluffing.”

  “Go on.” He did not contradict her.

  “Obviously you’ve spoken to Ruth, who must have told you a great deal,” she said. “But you still have to ask who killed Agnes. Ruth doesn’t know that does she?”

  “No,” he acknowledged. “Not even Martha would tell her which of you it actually was.”

  “So what are you left with? You don’t know if Martha was murdered — perhaps she wasn’t — and you don’t know who killed Agnes. All you have is some clever theories — and I’ll admit you’ve been very clever — and Ruth’s hysterics. Not exactly proof, is it? You’re no threat to us.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid I am,” he replied. “Because Martha did tell Ruth one very important thing.”

  A few minutes later they went down to the studio again. During their absence, its occupants appeared to have remained as still as the wildlife frozen in paint around the walls.

  “May I have a cigarette, please?” Edith asked him. “I don’t often, but I think I need one at the moment.”

  “Of course.” He offered the packet then held his lighter forward. She held the cigarette with the tips of her fingers, pulling her head back sharply as it ignited.

  “Thank you.” She smiled thinly and went to stand by Dawson.

  “Edith will tell you what we’ve been talking about.” Maltravers lit his own cigarette. “She accepts that I could go to the police with what I know and all of you could end up in jail.”

  “And is that what you’re going to do?” There was resignation in Dorothy’s question, as though a very long journey was finally over.

  “No,” Maltravers replied. “What would be the point? In a few years you’ll all be dead and in the meantime you’ll have to live with the fact that we know your secret. All that concerns us is Ruth. She’s not totally innocent, but she’s a damn sight less guilty than the rest of you. She knew Agnes had been murdered but had nothing to do with it. After all she’s gone through, she deserves to live out her life in whatever peace she can find.”

  He left a deliberate pause as he looked for an ashtray, crossing to a table by the door when he spotted one.

  “So leave her alone. Understand?” He reinforced his order with a flash of anger in his voice. “She now believes Martha was not murdered and won’t talk to anyone about Agnes because that would bring out Martha’s guilt as well. She has other friends — Helen for a start — and they’ll look after her.”

  “Yes I will.” Helen spoke very quietly, but with an undertone of fierceness. “I didn’t want to say anything until Gus had finished, but I want to tell all of you now that I cannot understand you. Artists should create, not destroy. For appearances’ sake, I’ll still chat to you in the Steamer or wherever, but I’ll be doing it for Ruth, not any of you.”

  There was absolute silence as Maltravers opened the door for Helen and then
he and Lacey followed her out of the studio and walked away. None of them spoke until they reached the harbour wall and leaned against it, each wrapped in their own thoughts.

  “All right, Mortimer,” Maltravers said finally. “Who was it?”

  “Patrick,” he replied. “You were quite right there. And Dorothy killed Martha.”

  “Shit.” Maltravers’s voice was dead. “I really would have preferred that one to have been an accident.”

  “What’s our position in law?” Helen asked. “If anything ever comes out aren’t we in some sort of trouble for not telling?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Maltravers. “That won’t keep me awake at nights. Ruth Harvey might, though.”

  “We’ll look after her,” Lacey assured him. “They’ve got a few other secrets that they don’t want to come out. Believe me.”

  “I believe you.” Maltravers turned round to look at evening light smothering the quiet rooftops of Porthennis climbing from the sea. “It’s everything else I don’t believe. Now I’ve got to go and collect Tess and tell her what she doesn’t know.”

  *

  Applause rippled up from below the cliff out of Maltravers’s sight as the final performance of Private Lives reached its end. A few minutes later the car park was filled with chattering people, laughingly quoting fragments of lines, reminding each other of moments of amusement. Doors slammed, engines roared into action and for twenty minutes he was surrounded by activity and noise. Then the last cars drove away and silence settled on the Botallack again. He was standing in front of Agnes Thorpe’s statue as Tess joined him.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  Tess shuddered. “Don’t ask. I forgot my lines three bloody times. I’ve not done that since I left RADA.”

  “Oh, dear.” He smiled sympathetically. “I trust the others closed ranks.”

  “Wonderfully,” she said feelingly. “Neil was magic, but I could see how worried he was. I told them afterwards I wasn’t feeling well. All I could think of was what you were all doing. How did it go?”

  “They’ll do as they’re told.” He took hold of her hand. “And it could have been worse for you out there tonight. There’s something I haven’t told you.”

  She frowned at the seriousness of his voice. “What?”

  He looked back at the statue. “Her body is in the plinth.” Tess made a raw sobbing sound and he put his arm around her as she turned away abruptly. For a moment she trembled and did not look back as he led her away.

  “How do you know?” Her whispered question was compelled by a perverse desire to pursue an unspeakable truth.

  “Martha told Ruth and Ruth told me,” he replied. “Edith challenged me this evening by saying that I had no absolute facts to prove anything. But that body means I have. God knows where and how they hid it for however long it was, but when Martha made the statue they hollowed out the plinth and put her inside. Then they probably filled it up with concrete. At least they brought her home to her theatre.”

  “I’ve been asked to come back next year,” Tess said. “I told them I didn’t think I’d be able to. Now I’m certain.”

  As Maltravers drove away, the last light of day died in the sea and the features of Agnes Thorpe’s statue became veiled in darkness and solitude until only a black stone figure gazed towards the empty stage. In the crowded, noisy, laughter-filled bar of the Steamer, Belvedere Scott held rum-drunken court. Asked where the rest of the Porthennis School were, he said they had not felt in the mood that evening. But they would be there again soon.