‘Because you thought I’d arranged the theft?’
Their eyes met and contended for a moment. Then he said: ‘No. But I thought you must have told somebody – or led them to believe – that I still had the letters.’ As soon as the words were out, Charlotte flushed and looked away, wincing at the thought of how her stupidity could have led to this. ‘It seems I was right,’ said Frank.
‘No … That is … I told Derek Fairfax nothing.’
‘Who did, then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maurice?’
‘Impossible. Besides …’
‘McKitrick?’
‘No. He wouldn’t. They don’t even—’ She looked back at Frank, insisting to herself that she must remain calm and logical. ‘I told Maurice and Emerson what you’d told me. It’s possible they didn’t believe you’d destroyed the letters. I didn’t myself. As for Derek Fairfax, I’ve no idea how he heard about them.’
‘From one of you three.’
‘I suppose so. It just doesn’t seem …’ She shook her head. ‘Whoever told him, I find it hard to imagine he attacked you.’
‘So do I. But somebody did. Somebody who wanted those letters very badly. Fairfax because he thought they might help his brother. McKitrick because he couldn’t stand to be denied the insight they might give him into Tristram Abberley’s mind.’
‘What insight would they give him?’
‘One that would wreck his carefully worked out—’ Frank stopped abruptly, mouth open, staring straight ahead.
‘You read them, then?’ Charlotte stepped closer. ‘What was in them, Frank? What was it Beatrix went to such lengths to hide?’
He looked at her. For a moment, she was sure he meant to tell her. Then his jaw set in a determined line. ‘All I want to know is how to find Fairfax and McKitrick.’
‘I can’t help you if I don’t understand.’
‘What makes you think I understand? If I did, I’d have taken Beatrix at her word and burned … burned …’ The sentence stumbled to a halt and Frank leaned back heavily against the work-top behind him. He had suddenly grown pale. His hand, as he raised it to his temple, was shaking.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t … don’t quite …’ He shook his head and blinked several times. ‘I’m sorry. I felt dizzy for a moment. But … it’s passed now.’
‘You need medical attention. Let me drive you to the hospital.’
‘No. I have to—’ He took a step across the room, then pulled up and bent his head forward, grimacing as if in pain. It was as he began to sway on his feet that Charlotte hurried across to support him.
‘You’re going to the hospital. Now.’
‘I can’t … can’t …’ The grimace faded. He raised his head and seemed to recover some of his colour. But still he was unsteady, his arm trembling as Charlotte held it. ‘Oh, God, I wish I was younger.’
‘Please let me take you to the hospital, Frank. All this can wait until you’re feeling better.’
‘Can it?’
‘It’ll have to.’
She could see the outward signs of his inner turmoil: the twitchings of his face, the darting of his eyes. But she could also sense the sudden weakness that was eroding his resolution. ‘All right,’ he murmured. ‘Have it your way.’
Charlotte led him out through the door. As they moved slowly down the hall, he shook his head several times and once said ‘Sorry’ for no particular reason. Charlotte did not reply. She had the impression there was no need, that Frank Griffith’s apology was directed not at her, but at somebody else altogether, somebody who was no longer alive to receive it.
3
COLIN FAIRFAX’S SECOND appearance before the Hastings magistrates was, if anything, more perfunctory than his first. He spoke just once, to confirm his own name. But for his position in the dock, he might otherwise have seemed uninvolved in the proceedings, a mere disgruntled observer of what was in reality another vital stage in his devourment by the law. He resembled the victim of some giant python, swallowed whole and helpless, conscious of his predicament yet aware that his every act of resistance only bears him further down to where the digestive juices wait.
Glancing across at him, Derek reflected on how quickly and easily he had forgotten all he had suffered at this man’s hands over the years. The lies, frauds and deceptions. The ingratitude, mockery and condescension. They did not matter now. They had vanished and taken with them the bluff and bluster beneath which Colin Neville Fairfax, defendant, was simply one more weak and squirming human unable to comprehend his fate. As well as being, of course, Derek’s only brother.
The charges were read. The Crown’s solicitor requested committal, which Albion Dredge did not oppose. A bundle of statements was handed over. Reference was made to seventeen exhibits, namely the stolen items of Tunbridge Ware, which were standing on a side-table. And thereupon Colin was, in the words of the chairman of magistrates, ‘committed to stand trial before a judge and jury at Lewes Crown Court’.
Before Derek had properly absorbed this development, Dredge had reapplied for bail in pessimistic tones and been refused. Colin was led away, the court rose and Derek found himself trailing out of the room amidst a clutch of lawyers and policemen. He had the vague impression that Dredge was trying to avoid him. Certainly the fellow showed no inclination to break away from a smiling conversation with his opposite number to speak to him. After lingering nearby for a few moments without catching Dredge’s eye, Derek decided to leave him to it. He turned and made his way to the exit.
As he pushed the main door open, he noticed – without paying her much attention – a woman standing at the foot of the short flight of steps. She glanced up as he began his descent and, in that instant, he recognized her. It was Charlotte Ladram.
He pulled up. ‘Miss … Miss Ladram,’ he said lamely, struggling to identify what it was about her that was so different from his recollection of their earlier meetings. She was less elaborately dressed, it was true, in trousers and a plain blouse, and was wearing dark glasses, where before her large, brown, faintly startled eyes had been clear to see. But something else had altered too, something, much less obvious but, it seemed to him, far more profound. ‘I … I didn’t …’
‘Hello, Mr Fairfax.’ She removed her glasses and looked directly at him, but did not smile. ‘Could you spare a few moments, please?’
‘Of course.’
‘Perhaps we could talk in my car.’
‘Certainly.’
She turned and began walking briskly towards the car park. He had to hurry to catch up with her.
‘Is this … about my letter?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Then what?’
She countered the question with one of her own. ‘I take it your brother’s been committed for trial?’
‘Yes. He has.’
‘No last-minute evidence was produced to save the day?’
‘No.’ He frowned. ‘How could it be?’
‘I gather you’ve been making efforts to unearth some.’
Suddenly irritated by her tone, he snapped back: ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
She glanced round at him, too briefly for him to read the thoughts behind her expression, then said, pointing ahead: ‘Mine’s the Peugeot.’
They reached the car and Derek moved to the passenger door. Charlotte gazed at him momentarily across the roof, then turned her key in the lock. They climbed in alongside each other and Derek was about to fasten his seat-belt when he remembered they were going nowhere. Self-consciously, he slid it back into its harness.
‘I meant what I said in the letter … you know.’
‘No doubt.’
‘All I’m trying to do is—’
‘Who told you about Frank Griffith?’ The question fell like a blade across his words.
‘I … don’t know what—’
‘You visited him yesterday at Hendre Gorfelen and asked about Tristram’s letters to B
eatrix, didn’t you?’
‘Well … yes.’
‘So, who was the source of your information?’
Late, but not too late, his thoughts caught up with his reactions. ‘Why should I tell you anything – when you tell me nothing?’
Her head drooped slightly. He heard her sigh, though whether from weariness or exasperation he could not judge. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘I’ve no right to interrogate you. Besides, I think I know the answer before I ask the question. You didn’t steal the letters, did you?’
‘Steal them? You mean they really do—’
‘Exist? Yes. Unless the thief has already destroyed them.’
‘Then what … what do they contain?’
‘I don’t know. Frank Griffith arrived at my house early this morning in a bad state. He’d been attacked. It happened last night, while he was removing the letters from their hiding-place. Your visit had prompted him to burn them as Beatrix had originally asked. But he didn’t get the chance. He’s in the Kent and Sussex Hospital now, suffering from concussion. He hasn’t told me what’s in the letters or why Beatrix should have wanted them destroyed, partly because he thinks I’m to blame for what’s happened, as in a way I am.’ She had rested her hands on the steering-wheel and now, as Derek watched, her grip tightened. ‘He trusted me and I betrayed that trust. Which is why I’d like to know who your informant was.’
‘I promised not to reveal his identity.’
‘It was Emerson McKitrick, wasn’t it?’
‘Who?’
‘Emerson McKitrick.’ She turned round and stared at him.
‘But … you mean … Tristram Abberley’s biographer?’
Incredulity was legible in Charlotte’s expression. ‘Are you saying it wasn’t?’
‘Of course I am. I’ve never met him. I’ve read his book. But that’s all.’
Charlotte frowned. ‘Then … it must have been Maurice.’
Whilst Derek was still debating whether to lie or not, he realized that to do so was pointless. His incapacity to deceive was never more evident within himself than now, when somebody whose trust he badly wanted to win defied him to throw away his chance.
‘It was, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. He asked me up to Ladram Avionics on Wednesday and told me all about Frank Griffith and the letters.’
‘Why? What reason did he give?’
‘He said he was no longer certain my brother was guilty, but couldn’t do anything about it without arousing family opposition.’
‘From me, you mean?’
‘I suppose so. Among oth—’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ She slapped the steering-wheel in irritation. ‘Ow!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ She winced and shook her right hand, then inspected it. ‘Well, a bruise perhaps. I probably deserve it for letting Maurice think I wouldn’t—’ She broke off, then resumed in an altogether different vein. Derek had the disquieting impression that she was talking more for her own benefit than his. ‘Other than you, only Emerson McKitrick had a compelling reason to steal those letters. That’s true whether or not Maurice put you up to visiting Hendre Gorfelen. And I was the one who told Emerson I believed Frank had hidden them there. So, either way, I’m still to blame. For letting him make a fool of me. For breaking my word. For—’ She stopped and leaned back in her seat, massaging the heel of her hand as she stared out through the windscreen of the car.
‘Miss Ladram, if there’s anything I can do … to help, I mean …’
‘There is.’
‘What?’
‘Go and see Frank Griffith. Tell him what you’ve told me. Tell him that if Emerson McKitrick does have the letters, I … Well, just say I shall find out for certain today, one way or the other.’
‘How?’
‘Leave that to me.’ She looked at him and, a second later, past him. He was aware of wanting to say much more than he either could or should, conscious and resentful of how marginal his own concerns were to Charlotte’s. ‘I must go now,’ she added, in a tone bordering on impatience. ‘I really must.’
4
NOT TILL SHE had driven across the bridge at Cookham and turned in to Riversdale did Charlotte’s resolution falter. Till then, indignation had blotted out her shame. But now, when confrontation with Emerson McKitrick was imminent, her mood changed. She halted at the roadside several driveways short of Swans’ Meadow and twisted the rear-view mirror round to reflect her own face, then stared at it intently, at the puffy eyes, the flushed cheeks, the quivering lips. About her neck and nose and forehead there was a sheen of perspiration and, when she withdrew her hand from the frame of the mirror, she could see that it was trembling.
She wound the window down and took several gulps of air. But all that was cool and fresh had been crushed out of the afternoon and replaced by a hazy and oppressive stillness. Whatever courage she needed she must find within herself. That at least was clear.
Yet nothing in Charlotte’s life had prepared her for an occasion such as this. A sheltered childhood and an unadventurous youth had left her ill-equipped to understand her emotions, let alone command them. It was not the probability that Emerson had deceived her that wounded her, so much as the growing certainty that she was to him merely a means to an end, as uninteresting and unappealing as she had long feared she truly was.
She glanced up at her reflection and saw the tears brimming in her eyes, swallowed hard and climbed abruptly from the car. If she delayed any longer, she would be in no fit state to continue. And continue she must. She began to walk fast towards Swans’ Meadow, clenching her teeth as she went, rehearsing in her mind all that might be said and done when she stood before him and scanned his face for the glistening snail’s trail of a lie.
There was no answer to the doorbell. It was the last eventuality Charlotte had anticipated. Peering through the bull’s-eye window into the hall, she could see no movement within, yet she could not bring herself to believe there would continue to be none. It was scarcely credible that everybody was out. She had supposed Emerson might well be, but had assumed one or all of the others would be there to let her in. She pressed the doorbell again and waited. Still there was no response.
Turning, Charlotte looked back up the drive and knew, if she had ever doubted it, that to return to Tunbridge Wells with nothing accomplished was out of the question. If she did, what would she say to Frank Griffith? What, for that matter, would she say to herself? No. She must remain where she was for as long as necessary. She must not let Emerson McKitrick elude her.
She walked round to the side of the house and entered the garden through the honeysuckle arch, wondering if she would come upon Samantha, recumbent on the lawn despite the lack of sun. But the lawn was empty. There was no sign of Samantha or of anybody else.
She walked over to the gazebo and reached up into the shadowy recess above the entrance. Sure enough, the reserve house key was hanging in its place on a nail. She took it down, retraced her steps as far as the kitchen door and let herself in. Dropping the key on one of the work-tops, she carried on towards the lounge, reckoning that would be the best room in which to wait.
It was as she reached the hall that an awareness of something amiss – some discrepancy in the atmosphere – stopped her in her tracks. A second later, just as she was about to dismiss the sensation as a symptom of her anxiety, she heard from above a sound more like a slap than anything else, then a cry that was also a laugh, and then … the voices of Emerson and Ursula, neither raised nor muted, pitched as naturally and casually as those of two people who believed they were alone were likely to be.
‘Come back to bed,’ said Emerson. ‘Whoever it was has given up and gone.’
‘Yes,’ replied Ursula, her tone buoyed up by the residue of a giggle. ‘You’re right.’
‘I’m always right.’
‘About what a woman like me really wants, you mean?’
‘That especially.’
Charlotte gazed up the stairs at the empty landing and caught a glimpse of shadows moving against the wall. She clutched at the newel-post for support, unable to retreat or advance, compelled by the acoustics of the house to listen as the very worst she had feared was eclipsed by events.
‘You really are insatiable, aren’t you, Emerson?’
‘So are you.’
‘Just as well.’
‘Get down.’
A second passed, then another, then Ursula moaned: ‘Oh God, that’s good.’
‘There’s better to come.’
‘Spare me … your Harvard puns … but … nothing else …’
Their words petered into panting breaths, rising steadily together towards what Charlotte was as powerless to prevent as she was to evade. She stood where she was, struggling to keep from her mind the images conjured by what she could hear. The pleasure they took from each other was undeniable and somehow worse than the knowledge of what they were doing. Just as the sound of their coupling was worse than the sight of their joined and naked bodies could ever be.
Then the climax, the groaning and the falling, the clammy unravelling of their sweat-soaked limbs, the moist and meaningless kisses, the husky heartless laughter.
‘Better?’ asked Emerson.
‘Than Maurice could ever imagine.’
‘And Charlie?’
‘You’re too good for her. Far too good.’
‘But not for you?’
‘Oh, no. I deserve the best. And I appreciate it.’
‘Yuh.’ Emerson sniggered. ‘Reckon you do.’
Two impulses wrestled for mastery in Charlotte’s mind. To walk upstairs and confront them where they lay. Or to turn and creep away. She did not have enough courage for the first, but she did have enough to resist the second. She walked back into the kitchen, paused to compose her face in the mirror beneath the clock, then opened the door to the garden and slammed it with enough force to set the glasses singing in the cupboard.
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