‘Pen pals can be reunited. Orwell will pay.’
‘It has to be George Orwell, doesn’t it? Didn’t he fight in Spain?’
‘He may have done.’
‘Then he’s bound to have written about it. Park at the railway station and we’ll try in Hatchard’s.’
Half an hour later, they were scanning the autobiography shelves in Hatchard’s. Orwell was represented by Down and Out in Paris and London and one other volume whose title seized their immediate attention: Homage to Catalonia. Charlotte lifted it from the row and together they read the note on the back. This is Orwell’s famous account of his experience as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War. In it he brings to bear …
‘Orwell will pay homage to Catalonia,’ said Derek under his breath. ‘That must be what it means.’
Charlotte nodded, turned to the front of the book and pointed to the year of first publication.
‘1938. The year Tristram died.’
‘And the year he entrusted a document written in Catalan to Beatrix. Maurice was right.’
Charlotte marched to the counter and paid for the book. Derek waited until they were standing outside, with Saturday afternoon shoppers bustling past them, before asking: ‘What was Maurice right about?’
‘“Something’s snaked its way out of the Spanish Civil War – from fifty years ago – to wrap itself round our throats.” Those were his very words. I pooh-poohed them at the time. And less than twenty-four hours later he was dead.’ She turned to look at Derek. ‘He could feel it, you see. And now I think I can too.’
14
MAURICE’S FUNERAL WAS, in many respects, indistinguishable from Beatrix’s. Both were well-attended and efficiently staged. Both progressed smoothly from sun-lanced church to manicured crematorium. And both seemed to be over before they had begun. Yet there were also significant differences. Most of those who had come to Beatrix’s had done so out of love, whereas duty clearly impelled the score of senior staff from Ladram Avionics who turned out to bid Maurice a corporate farewell. The same could be said of Miller, Golding and D.C. Finch, who contrived to look more like miscellaneous employees of the undertaker than police officers, let alone friends of the deceased. And there was not even a pretence of mourning among the reporters and photographers who clogged Cookham churchyard and followed the cortège to Slough Crematorium and back.
Nor did a spirit of affectionate remembrance obtain among the few whom Ursula felt obliged to entertain afterwards at Swans’ Meadow. Aliki had returned from Cyprus in time to cater for the event, but nobody displayed much appetite for the food she had prepared and most departed as soon as decency permitted. The only exception to this rule was Uncle Jack, who clearly had his sights set on several more whiskies when Charlotte insisted, at Ursula’s request, on driving him to the station and seeing him aboard the London train.
When she returned to Swans’ Meadow, she found Ursula had embarked on a cold-blooded drinking bout and was reluctant to accompany her into the garden, the one venue where Charlotte felt she could safely disclose what had happened. But accompany her she eventually did. And sobriety was instantly restored when she heard Charlotte’s news.
‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ she responded, a sudden access of hope lighting up her face. ‘It means Sam still has a chance.’
‘Only if we can find the document,’ Charlotte cautioned. ‘That’s why I think it would be worth going to New York.’
‘Thank God you’re prepared to, Charlie. I’d never be able to without the police getting wind of it. And they mustn’t, they absolutely mustn’t.’
‘I agree.’
‘When will you go?’
‘As soon as you can supply me with Natasha’s address and telephone number.’
‘You propose to forewarn her?’
‘I can’t risk her being away. And I don’t think she’ll refuse to see me, do you?’
‘I really couldn’t—’ Ursula pursed her lips and suppressed her evident irritation. ‘No, I don’t suppose she will.’
‘Is the … er … the report Beatrix commissioned here?’
‘Yes. You may as well take it away with you. After all, I don’t need to insure myself against Maurice’s treachery any more, do I?’ Ursula flicked a fragment of cigarette ash off the sleeve of her black dress and added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Poor Maurice,’ before turning and walking away towards the house.
As Charlotte started after her, it crossed her mind that this throw-away remark was the kindest thing Ursula had found to say about the man she had been married to for more than twenty years since the day they had found him dead. She had succeeded in damning him with the faintest of eulogies.
Charlotte did not read the report until she was back at Ockham House. She wondered how Beatrix had reacted to its revelation of the double life Maurice was leading. Had it been the final confirmation of her suspicions? On finishing it, had she realized for the first time that he meant to kill her? If so, she had prepared for the event more thoroughly than he could ever have imagined. And she had needed to, for she had known – as Maurice had not – that there was more at stake than Tristram’s royalties, far more.
Poor Maurice, as his widow had truly said. He had expected everybody to abide by the rules he had applied to his own life. He had expected weakness to yield to strength. He had expected money to answer every need. No doubt, even at the end, as he saw the blade of the knife flash in the moonlight, he had assumed his killers would rob his corpse. But they had not. Instead, they had fed it with the only food he knew.
Charlotte wept then, more freely than at any time since his death. She wept for them all – Tristram, Beatrix, Maurice and Samantha. And lastly she wept for herself. Then she dried her tears and read aloud the epigraph Orwell had chosen for Homage to Catalonia to make sure her voice would not betray her.
‘“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.”’ She was reminded of a remark in Tristram’s last letter to Beatrix – ‘Such a foolish conceit, in both senses, eh?’ – and she wondered if she was about to succumb to a similar temptation. To start what she could not finish. To initiate more than she knew. ‘No matter,’ she said to herself as she walked into the hall. ‘It must be done.’ She picked up the telephone and dialled the number recorded in the report for Maurice’s Fifth Avenue apartment.
‘Yes?’ The voice came distantly, accompanied by an echo that seemed to rob it of identity.
‘Natasha van Ryneveld?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Charlotte Ladram.’
‘Why, Charlie, you take me by surprise.’ The accent was superficially American, but beneath there seemed to lie some other tongue, threatening to emerge at the end of every sentence. ‘I hadn’t … Why have you called?’
‘Maurice was cremated today.’
‘Ah. Was he? I thought it would be about now. If only … But still you don’t say why you’ve called.’
‘I think we should meet.’
There was a lengthy pause before Natasha replied. ‘For what purpose?’
‘You asked about the circumstances of Maurice’s death.’
‘And you want to tell me about them?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will come here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just to satisfy the curiosity of your brother’s mistress? I don’t think so, Charlie, do you?’
‘When you hear what I have to say, you’ll understand. And I hope you’ll want to help.’
‘Help with what?’
‘We must meet if I’m to explain.’
Natasha sighed audibly and said nothing for so long Charlotte thought she had walked away from the telephone. But she had not. And when she spoke it was so suddenly and decisively that Charlotte felt her heart pound at her words. ‘Come then, Charlie. Perhaps, after all, it’s time we met.’
15
CHARLOTTE HA
D NEVER crossed the Atlantic before. It seemed so quick and easy when the time came that she wondered why she had waited so long. But as the taxi bore her in from JFK Airport along featureless expressways beneath a gun-metal sky, her wonderment fell away. This was an alien landscape, man-made in its totality according to a scale she could not comprehend. When the taxi emerged from a tunnel beneath the East River amidst Manhattan’s towering walls of glass, she suddenly felt unequal to the task she had set herself. She was too small, too weak, too long sheltered from the harshnesses of the world.
But inadequate and ill-prepared though she felt, she knew she could not turn back now. Already they were on Fifth Avenue, with the open expanse of Central Park on one side and a phalanx of elegant apartment blocks on the other. The taxi drew to a halt where a purple awning reached out to the edge of the pavement. She checked the number on the polished brass wall-plaque and knew she had arrived. As she climbed out and approached, the door was opened from within. A uniformed doorman smiled in welcome and confirmed Miss van Ryneveld was expecting her. And so she entered one more hidden compartment of her brother’s life.
Natasha was waiting at the door of the apartment when Charlotte emerged from the elevator. She was a dark-haired woman of medium height with a faintly Asiatic cast to her brow and complexion. She held her head proudly and, even before she moved, conveyed a feline quality of grace and languor. She was wearing a loosely belted grey dress and black high-heeled shoes with very little jewellery or adornment save a jet pendant at her throat. Charlotte was immediately disconcerted by this hint of mourning and was grateful when Natasha smiled and stepped back, inviting her to enter.
‘Come in, Charlie. You’re exactly on time. Just as I’d expect of Maurice’s sister.’
‘Half-sister, actually.’
‘Of course.’ The smile acquired a glacial edge. ‘Such a fine but vital distinction.’
She led the way down a short and curving hall into the lounge – a rugged expanse of blue and gold that seemed to glow in the light admitted by three high windows. Couches and armchairs as big as beds were surrounded by Graeco-Roman statuary and Oriental urns. Vases sprouted flowers on every surface, their blooms multiplied by huge gilt-framed mirrors. And when Charlotte glanced up, she was astonished to see that the ceiling had been painted as one vast rolling cloudscape. Beneath it, across the ornately worked rugs Maurice had undoubtedly paid for, Natasha strode purposefully ahead. She was of about Ursula’s age and height, Charlotte estimated, but narrower in the waist and somewhat heavier around the hips and bosom. She moved in a way that seemed to emphasize the body beneath the clothes, to hint at the purposes to which it might be put. There was no mystery about what Maurice had seen in her. It declared itself at every step.
‘Would you care for tea, Charlie?’
‘Er … Yes please.’
Natasha rang a small bell and, almost instantly, a maid entered through another door. They exchanged a few words in what sounded like Spanish. Then the maid retreated.
‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘Thank you.’
Charlotte chose one of the least ostentatious chairs, only to find, when she rested her hand on the rounded end of the arm, that it had been carved in the likeness of a naked woman bending forwards, between whose ample gilded buttocks one of her fingers was dangling. She pulled it abruptly away and felt herself blush.
‘One of Maurice’s favourites,’ said Natasha with a smile. ‘I can see you don’t approve.’
‘I’m not … It’s not for me to approve or disapprove.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so. But I’m sure I know what you really think.’
‘I didn’t come here to discuss the past, Natasha. I didn’t come to argue about what you meant to Maurice.’
‘Good. Because I meant a good deal, as a matter of fact. More than just what money could buy.’
‘Quite possibly. But Maurice is dead now. All that’s ended.’
‘Yes. And you promised to tell me why and how it ended. Well, I should like to know, Charlie.’ She fondled the jet pendant. ‘Even a mistress has a right to understand her grief.’
The maid reappeared, carrying a tea-tray. Silence was observed as she moved a table to stand between Charlotte and the chair Natasha had sat in, then arranged the china and poured the first cups. During this interlude, Charlotte reminded herself of the different bluffs and deceptions each was practising. Would Natasha admit she had known of Maurice’s plan from the outset? Or would she pretend she had never known anything about the letters? How many lies should Charlotte let go unchallenged? How much should she reveal, how little assume?
As if determined to seize the initiative, Natasha said as soon as the maid had gone: ‘I was shocked to hear of Sam’s abduction. Ursula must be beside herself with worry.’
‘Yes. She is.’
‘Maurice told me nothing of it, you know. Not a word.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, he hardly had a chance, did he?’
‘He came to New York on the fourth. Didn’t he see you then?’
‘No. I last saw him in August. I had no idea he’d been since.’ But she should have been more surprised than she sounded. She returned Charlotte’s gaze and sipped her tea, apparently content to let the pretence go undisguised.
‘He gave up the letters, Natasha. All of them. They were the ransom – or part of it.’
‘What letters?’ The arch of her eyebrows declared the pretence was to be total.
‘Tristram’s correspondence with Beatrix. The correspondence proving Beatrix wrote his poems.’
‘You have me at a disadvantage, Charlie. I know nothing of any of this.’
‘I’m not here to accuse you, Natasha. I suspect we’re both well aware who telephoned Colin Fairfax-Vane in May, claiming to be Beatrix. But, since proving that person’s identity is impossible—’
‘All of this is way over my head.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I hope you’ll do what you can to help us rescue my niece.’
‘Your half-niece, you mean.’ Natasha smiled. ‘I fail to see what help I can offer.’
‘Then let me explain.’ As Charlotte did so, she felt increasingly impatient with the veiled sarcasm to which she had been subjected. Natasha gazed at her with an expression in which caution and disdain were perfectly balanced. It was impossible to tell if the plight of a girl she had never met made any impact on her at all. Even if it did, Charlotte sensed her response would be determined by a fine judgement of how her own interests might best be protected.
When Charlotte had finished, emphasizing how vital it was to find the document the kidnappers wanted, Natasha poured them both more tea before she made any remark. When she spoke, it was in a guarded tone. ‘If Maurice did these … these terrible things … it was without my knowledge. He mentioned no letters to me. Nor any accompanying document. He left nothing here.’
‘The terrible things you refer to were intended to ensure you could continue to live here – in the style you obviously do.’
‘I own this apartment outright. A gift from Maurice, it’s true, but not one I’m in any danger of forfeiting.’
‘He spent a great deal on you, I imagine. He meant to go on doing so.’
‘No doubt he did. I’m sorry he won’t. Sorry for him and for me.’
‘But at least you’re alive.’
‘Yes. I am.’ A distant look came into her eyes. ‘I never expected Maurice to die in such a way. Sacrificing himself for his daughter …’ She shook her head in puzzlement.
‘Won’t you help me prevent it being a pointless sacrifice?’
‘If only I could.’
‘He must have stored things here. Clothes. Books. Papers. Possessions of one kind or another.’
‘Clothes only. And not many of those. You’re welcome to search them, of course.’
‘I’d be grateful.’
‘Come this way, then.’ They rose and Natasha led Charlotte out into a short passa
ge. At the end, through an open doorway, she glimpsed a bedroom, richly hung in peach-toned fabrics, expanded by yet more mirrors in one of which she could see the reflection of a large oil painting. The subject was a nude, reclining suggestively across a bed. The picture was of such clarity that it might even have been a photograph. As to the identity of the nude, Charlotte was just too far away to be absolutely certain. Natasha moved ahead, closed the door and turned back, smiling faintly. ‘Maurice used this.’ She slid open a fitted wardrobe to their left to reveal a few suits and pairs of trousers hanging from a rail. ‘They’re all he kept here.’
As Charlotte checked the pockets, she knew she would find nothing. What she could not decide was whether there had ever been anything to find. She had pleaded for help as eloquently as she could. She had refrained from criticizing Natasha, far less condemning her. Yet her restraint had failed to achieve its purpose, perhaps because Natasha was genuinely unable to assist, perhaps because she was too frightened to do so. They returned to the lounge, but, this time, Charlotte made no move to sit down.
‘I’m sorry if you’ve had a wasted journey, Charlie.’
‘Is there nothing you can tell me?’
‘Only that you could try the company apartment on Park Avenue. Maurice might have stored some papers there.’
‘I’m going there when I leave here. In fact, I intend to spend the night there.’
‘Before flying back to England?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought you’d have any reason to stay longer.’
Suddenly, Charlotte’s patience snapped. ‘You know what this is all about, Natasha. Why pretend otherwise? Maurice took you into his confidence from the start.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Beatrix is dead. Maurice is too. For God’s sake give it up. There’s an innocent man in prison and an innocent girl missing from home. Don’t they mean anything to you?’
‘I’ve never met them.’
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