The Lazarus Tree

by Robert Richardson

  ELEVEN

  ‘Mr Maltravers, you are a very devious man.’ Alexander Kerr sounded approving rather than accusatory.

  ‘That’s not what most people who know me say,’ Maltravers replied. ‘I’ve been told that I can be inconveniently honest. It’s considered a sort of inverted moral handicap. George Washington should have been a failure.’

  ‘Then it’s an excellent cover. Nobody suspects a man who’s known to be truthful.’ Kerr glanced towards Sally Baker, sitting on a padded carved settee in the window alcove of his front room. ‘And will you be able to play your part in this deception?’

  ‘I may not have to do very much,’ she replied. ‘But do you think it will get anywhere?’

  ‘I can’t see how it can avoid having some consequences — but don’t ask me what they might be. You are, after all, guessing.’

  Maltravers reached forward to offer a cigarette which Kerr accepted. ‘And you haven’t made any comment on my guesses,’ he said. ‘What do you think of them?’

  ‘They’re as plausible as anything, I expect, but that doesn’t mean they’re correct. You’ll have to try it and see.’

  ‘And what guesses would you make? You know Medmelton better than I do.’

  Kerr intrigued Maltravers for reasons he could not pin down. Eyes alert as a stalking cat and with the same stillness as he listened, the neat, slight man could not avoid revealing a natural intelligence only amplified by what sounded like deliberately naïve comments. When he had arrived with Sally Baker, Maltravers had made polite conversation about retirement in Devon after a career in the Post Office and had caught a subtle evasiveness. Kerr had never married, so his job appeared to have been his life — but there had been no sense of loss at having left it, none of the usual disparaging remarks about how standards had fallen since his day, no recollections. It was very tenuous, faint notes so slightly off key that there was nothing Maltravers could pin down, but he felt that Alexander Kerr’s abilities could have been put to better use than organising the delivery of the nation’s mail, however elevated a position he had achieved in that service.

  ‘Don’t overestimate my knowledge of Medmelton. As Sally will tell you, I rarely leave my warren.’ Kerr drew on his cigarette and tapped it unnecessarily over a glass ashtray. ‘However, it strikes me that you might give a little more thought to other possible owners of this first edition of Ralph the Talespinner. You’re concentrating on the ones you know — and once you’ve dismissed this reclusive couple, you’re left with Bernard Quex. You add this supposed affair and an interesting theory about Michelle’s paternity and ...’ He hesitated. ‘Well, couldn’t you be overlooking something else because what you’ve got can all be made to fit in some way?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone else who has the book,’ Sally said.

  ‘But who might have it?’ Kerr queried. ‘Quite a lot of people when you think about it. Some families have lived here for generations — a lot of families — and they hand things down.’

  ‘On that basis, God knows how many people it could be,’ she commented. ‘Most of Medmelton.’

  ‘True,’ Kerr acknowledged. ‘So whittle them down. Merely owning the book doesn’t prove anything — you need one in the hands of a certain type of personality, one with a capacity for mischief. From your knowledge of the village, Sally, you can surely knock out quite a lot of options. Put it this way. Of those who could have the book, of how many would you think it impossible — or at least incredibly unlikely — for them to be playing at witchcraft or whatever this is?’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘About a dozen off the top of my head. I’ll come up with more later.’

  ‘Now look at it from the opposite direction,’ Kerr said. ‘Likely possibilities. Those with a long connection with Medmelton and who are perhaps — how shall we put it? — the sort of people where you wonder what they’re really like. People who make you feel somehow uneasy, however well you know them.’

  ‘I’d have to think about that.’

  ‘Then do so.’

  Maltravers was suddenly aware that it was as though he was no longer in the room. Kerr was speaking only to Sally, coaxing her mind, and she was starting to look slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘I expect ... well I could imagine anyone if I wanted to ...’ She shook her head. ‘Alex, what are you trying to get me to say?’

  ‘I want you to see. Try to look at it like an outsider.’

  There was a silence before Maltravers spoke. ‘I’m an outsider.’

  ‘And do you have any suggestions?’ Kerr was still looking at Sally.

  ‘I don’t know many people here, of course — but I find Mildred Thomson distinctly off-putting.’

  Kerr turned towards him. ‘I assume you’ve got more than her unfortunate appearance for saying that.’

  ‘I think so. I think she’s frustrated — not just sexually, but as a human being. She’s lonely, she’s not stupid and all that life offers her is gossip, people’s sympathy and serving groceries until she dies.’

  Kerr remained looking at him, but spoke to Sally. ‘Any arguments with that analysis?’

  ‘When did you work it out, Alex?’ she asked.

  ‘A long time ago, but it wasn’t important. I shop there regularly and I’ve watched her gathering nuggets of people’s lives. It even crossed my mind that she might blackmail someone. If we’d ever had an outbreak of poison pen letters in Medmelton, I could have told the police where they might start making inquiries.’

  ‘And she is from a long-established family who could well have had a first edition of Ralph the Talespinner,’ Maltravers added. ‘You also are a devious man, Mr Kerr.’

  Kerr laughed and the tension broke. ‘I’m a bored old pensioner with nothing better to do than dream up fantasies about my neighbours. I don’t know if I’m right about Mildred — I could be slandering her appallingly.’

  ‘But you think we should bear her in mind,’ Maltravers commented.

  ‘For what it’s worth — which may be absolutely nothing.’ Kerr stood up. ‘In the meantime, we’ll have coffee. Back in a moment.’ He left the room and they could hear him whistling in the kitchen.’

  ‘I like your friend,’ Maltravers said. ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘Through Peter — my husband. They were in the same club.’

  ‘Oh yes, so you said.’ Maltravers stubbed out his cigarette. ‘And what about Mildred, then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Sally appeared confused. ‘She could ... all right, it’s possible she’s putting this nonsense into Michelle’s head, but I can’t believe that she’d murder anyone.’

  ‘Neither can I, because I can’t see a reason. But if Michelle’s playing at stupidities like conjuring up the dead, there’s only one dead man who seems to fit. And someone murdered him.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘What we’ve already discussed because I can’t think of anything else. And at least we’ll be ready if Mildred floats to the surface.’

  For a few minutes, the only sounds were of Kerr bustling in the kitchen. Sally stared out of the window and Maltravers idly glanced around the room. Instinctively, he read titles and authors in the open bookcase next to him; what appeared to be a complete set of Graham Greene; three volumes of Horace; Donne’s Sermons; Don Quixote in Spanish; Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus Orbium; Molière and De Quincey. Alexander Kerr had been a very literate postman. On the bottom shelf was what looked like a first edition of Call for the Dead — the only Le Carré Maltravers lacked from his own collection — and he reached across to pull it out and check. It was a first edition and had a handwritten inscription on the title page: ‘To Alex Kerr — recognise anyone? D. C. June 5, 1961.’ Maltravers smiled to himself and put the book back just before Kerr returned.

  ‘A penny’s just dropped,’ he said as he placed a plastic tray with coffee and biscuits on an occasional table. ‘Somebody once told me that Mildred Thomson’s mother used to read the Tarot. Might be n
othing in it, but it could be another bit of the puzzle.’

  ‘The trouble is that we can’t see why she should want to murder Patrick Gabriel,’ Maltravers said.

  ‘Nobody can see why anyone wanted to.’ Kerr handed Sally her cup. ‘There were endless theories — although your suggestion that it could have been Michelle’s father, whoever he is, never came up to my knowledge. All options are open, including some nobody’s thought of.’

  ‘Then let’s hear some of yours,’ Maltravers suggested.

  ‘Mine?’ Kerr laughed dismissively. ‘This isn’t my business and if you choose to make it yours, that’s nothing to do with me either. Frankly, I’d much rather talk about your writing, Mr Maltravers. I enjoyed Burnt Offerings tremendously. All imagination, or did autobiography creep in?’

  Kerr was not to be moved back to Medmelton affairs and Maltravers indulged in the pleasurable conceit of talking about his own work while they drank their coffee. But he noted the understated probing that went deeper than a detached discussion of his books and plays, encouraging him to reveal more about himself than he consciously allowed out in his writing.

  ‘What exactly was your job with the Post Office?’ he suddenly asked.

  ‘When I retired, I had the wondrous title of Divisional Postmaster South-west Region, brackets Outer London close brackets. It sounds incredibly important, but was actually no more than pushing pieces of paper around until they disappeared into some happy limbo.’

  ‘It sounds like a waste of a good Cambridge degree,’ Maltravers commented.

  The flame of Kerr’s gold-plated lighter paused as he raised it to another cigarette and his eyes narrowed. ‘Did Sally mention that to you?’

  ‘No.’ Maltravers indicated a framed photograph on a rolltop desk across the room. ‘But you were cox for the Boat Race crew in nineteen ... I can’t quite see the full date. What did you read?’

  ‘Classics — and I got a First.’ Kerr finished lighting the cigarette. ‘However, that was a long time ago. Were you there?’

  ‘No, nor any other university. I had endless arguments with my father who wanted me to go, but I was determined to become a journalist.’ Maltravers stood up. ‘Anyway, I must be off. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.’

  ‘And meeting you. I’ll see you out. Can you hang on a minute, Sally?’

  Without waiting for a reply, Kerr led Maltravers to the front door and returned looking thoughtful.

  ‘ “Blades of Sheffield is sharp”,’ he remarked drily.

  ‘You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?’ Sally sounded concerned. ‘About you?’

  ‘Mr Maltravers certainly doesn’t believe I was a postman ...’ Kerr sat down and tapped the fingers of one hand against the fist of the other. ‘But I think we can rely on his discretion, so there’s nothing to worry about ... and he may have enough wit to solve Medmelton’s little local mystery. I hope for his sake that he doesn’t find it painful.’

  ‘Would that bother him?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. With the right training, he could have worked with my people — but that sentimental streak would have made him a dangerous liability.’

  *

  Gilbert Flyte’s panic was becoming terminal. Simply being in his car driving home before lunchtime was so alien to the orderly processes of his life that it added its own disorientation. Another car followed him for half a mile, imagined menace in the rear view mirror growing with every second, until he swerved abruptly into a layby and let it pass, gibbering the registration number to himself as he scrabbled in the glove compartment for a piece of paper on which to write it down. But it made no difference. They’d have dozens of vehicles tightening the net; what use was the number of one of them? And stopping was disastrous, giving them more vital minutes to search and question. As he pulled out, the blast of a horn howled behind him and a juggernaut’s air brakes oozed violently. Blind to the looming shape inches from his bumper, Flyte sped on, sobbing. By the time he reached the Medmelton turn, he was trembling and twice scraped the car’s endlessly polished bodywork against the roadside hedges. As he raced down the hill, the sight of Maltravers walking back towards the village produced an irrational sense of relief. He braked violently and leapt out of the car, leaning against it panting as his tormentor approached.

  ‘All right!’ he gasped. ‘I’ll tell you.’

  Still several yards away, Maltravers made a rapid adjustment to the totally unexpected, using the distance between them for thinking time. He wondered which one of several possible branches of authority Flyte believed he belonged to.

  ‘Tell me what, Mr Flyte?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Everything. Where do you want to take me?’

  ‘We can talk here for a moment.’

  Flyte’s breath stuttered and he croaked with fear. This was how they did it, of course. Casually at first, fishing for indiscretion. Well, he wasn’t going to be played with. He just wanted it out in the open. ‘Aren’t you going to record it? Write it down?’

  ‘No need for that yet.’ Maltravers smiled slightly. ‘You look as though you need to sit down. Shall we get into the car?’

  Flyte obeyed automatically, sitting in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead. He jumped as Maltravers tapped on the passenger door window.

  ‘Could you unlock the door, please? Thank you.’ Maltravers sat beside him. ‘Take your time, Mr Flyte. There’s no hurry.’

  As the terrified man remained silent, Maltravers tried to work out what was happening. He knew virtually nothing about Flyte and their one meeting had been very brief. He had turned the virtue of orderliness into the vice of an obsession but was otherwise an apparently harmless inadequate. What had brought all this on? And what was ‘it’?

  ‘Can it be kept quiet?’ Still staring straight ahead, Flyte had started to cry.

  ‘That’s not for me to decide.’ Maltravers suddenly felt sorry for him. Whatever he was about to confess was crucifying him with guilt. ‘Just tell me everything. From the beginning.’

  Flyte sniffed. ‘I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t think I was doing any harm. I don’t know why I did it. It’s very ... I felt bad afterwards. Ashamed. I have a position. At the bank.’ He turned to him urgently. ‘Please ... it’s my mother, you see. And Doreen.’

  Maltravers suppressed an urge of sympathy with an edge to his voice. ‘Mr Flyte, I can’t promise anything until you tell me exactly what you have done.’

  Flyte fumbled in his pocket and produced that day’s spotless linen handkerchief with his initials embroidered in one corner, wiping away tears then blowing his nose noisily. The action seemed partially to control him.

  ‘I bought the telescope in Plymouth,’ he began unexpectedly. ‘A lot of shops there sell them. It was for bird-watching, but then I began to ... to use it round the village. It’s very powerful and you can see all sorts of things. I mean ... into people’s houses. And ... and there are special lenses that work at night.’

  Maltravers wound down the window and lit a cigarette, light partially dawning, but wondering where this was all leading. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There wasn’t much at first. People leaving the Raven, coming home late at night. And sometimes in the summer, people didn’t draw their curtains ... their bedroom curtains.’ Flyte swallowed nervously and looked down. ‘This is very embarrassing for me.’

  ‘It’s best that you tell me,’ Maltravers prompted. ‘Everything.’

  ‘One night ... I can’t remember the date, which isn’t like me ... I saw a movement in the churchyard. I looked across the green and saw ... the moon was quite bright ... and I saw it was Michelle Dean. It was very late and I wondered what she was doing. She was alone, just sitting on the ground leaning against one of the tombs. Then Patrick Gabriel — the poet, you know all about him — came from behind the church and they started to ...’ Flyte lowered his head and there was a very long silence. Maltravers had to force him through the next stage.

  ‘They started to have sex
, Mr Flyte? Is that what they did? And you watched them?’ The mumbled admission was barely audible. ‘And this must have been about eighteen months ago when Patrick Gabriel was staying in Medmelton. Do you know how old Michelle Dean would have been then? Fourteen, Mr Flyte. Which means that you witnessed a criminal act — however willing she was. Did you tell the police about it?’

  ‘I couldn’t!’ Flyte protested desperately. ‘I’d have had to explain how I knew about it and ... and everything else would have come out.’

  ‘So what did you do? Waited until you could watch them again?’

  Flyte’s face filled with shame. ‘Yes. It happened several times, and I couldn’t resist the ...’

  Maltravers let him cry. Confused and frightened, Flyte had presented him with the proof of what he had suspected about Gabriel’s behaviour — although he doubted that Michelle Dean had begun her personal sex life with him. The least he could do was offer the pitiful little man a possible escape by playing on his spurious temporary reputation as an authority figure.

  ‘You’ve done the right thing in telling me, Mr Flyte,’ he said. ‘I can’t promise, but this may not have to go any further — as long as I have your assurance that you will never do this sort of thing again. Will you give me that assurance?’

  Flyte shook his head helplessly. ‘You don’t understand. I’ve stopped doing it. I haven’t done it since the night I saw him killed!’

  Having thought he understood what was happening, Maltravers had difficulty controlling his reaction. Was Flyte lying to give his pompous personality a twist of self-importance? Was he really so psychologically weakened that public humiliation would become a sort of perverse fame? It was impossible to tell. But if that had been his case of need, he could have admitted this long ago, whereas the naked terror in his face revealed that confession was tearing him apart.

  ‘The night you saw him killed,’ Maltravers repeated. ‘That’s ... rather more important. Tell me what happened.’