With Craven’s departure approaching, Mungo was determined to approach a last question in his own way – through the melancholy that sometimes infected the middle brother. ‘I spoke about Will last night, and he is worrying me. The darkness. There’s part of the true Highlander in him, you have to realize, from our father’s side. He had blood from the islands in him, too. Even worse!’ He laughed.
‘But Will learned to love that. They walked the hills for long days, far away in the northwest: camped in the back of beyond, and took to sea in a leaky black boat that we kept there. He treasured the connection with our past. You hear it in the old songs, you know. A longing that’s so powerful, for something gone. Everything’s about loss. He’s had that all his days, although we grew up in these gentler parts – still in the Highlands, though only just – and it’s what makes him attractive as a man. You can’t predict. He often leaves you wondering, like a musical chord that doesn’t resolve.
‘A generous nature but touched by something else, which I’ve known to be destructive in many people. So I worry.’
‘He’s one of us, you mean,’ said Craven, and laughed. ‘I recognize the type, don’t forget.’
‘Only you can say that.’ Mungo smiled back at him. ‘With Abel it’s different, although he chose the same game. You know I’m aware. He has his moods, and sometimes in appearance he’s an open book, just like Will – you can see everything in their faces – but I think Abel has always been more single-minded. It’s hard to explain, Freddy, but I think he worries less. Married, of course, and perhaps that helps.’
‘By single-minded, do you mean ruthless?’
‘I’m not sure. I think of him as a baby brother.’
Craven was leaning against the old wooden rowing boat, its fishing days over. Cracked ribs had sprung up from the keel and it was going to rot away where it lay, bottom-up, and turn into a little wreck of memories before the year was out. ‘We’ll burn her on the fire when the time comes,’ Mungo said, slapping the dry boards.
Craven had work to do, and the calmness of the scene made it easy. ‘You’re sure there’s nothing that explains why Will was so anxious on the phone? Any change you noticed at the time, or before?’
‘I’m sure not. There’s been no sign of trouble between us. It’s an old-fashioned thought really, but you do know that we love each other? I’m sure of that.’
Craven asked if Flemyng, in darker moments when he was at home, had expressed any worries about the life he had chosen, his trade. Was he regretting everything? ‘Have you sensed any doubts of late?’
Mungo, the historian who spent his days sifting evidence piece by piece, was emphatic. ‘I’ve thought about that, and watched, and the answer is no. He cares, and especially about you, if I may be personal.’
‘I know that.’ Craven pressed on. ‘Was there any talk about Abel before that phone call? Anything?’
‘No.’
‘But you know something’s happened, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you expect it? After a visit, a phone call, anything?’
‘There was nothing.’
Although long weeks often stretched between their conversations, which were short except for Flemyng’s times at home in the summer or at Christmas, Mungo said the brothers had preserved their intimacy. ‘What alarmed me was that the pattern was interrupted, all of a sudden, with no warning. Such a little thing, but so obvious to a brother. Almost violent.’
Craven asked him to try to explain it.
‘I believe it must have happened in Paris, and recently. This hadn’t been smouldering. I felt that his anxiety was new – fresh in his mind.’
Craven said, ‘You should have been in this business, too, Mungo. I’m sure you’re right, and I think I know where it came from.’
Mungo looked at him directly, but when it was clear that Craven was saying no more he stepped out to signal the start of the walk home. They turned back to the house in silence.
Babble’s voice interrupted them as they walked through the garden.
‘The phone. It’s Will.’
Mungo’s nervousness returned. ‘It’s only ten o’clock.’ After a few words, he passed the phone to Craven. Flemyng’s voice was heavy with emotion that couldn’t be disguised. ‘Please, Freddy, come back. There are things I need to tell you.’
Craven said, ‘I’m on the train from Victoria tonight, and we can talk through the weekend. That would be useful, away from the office, don’t you think?’
Mungo had taken himself out of range, but he was ready when Craven came away from the phone and found his way to the back of the house. ‘News from the front,’ he said to Mungo. ‘I should tell you what’s happening. There’s been a strange event in Paris. Bridger told me about it when he rang last night. You’ll be reading about it. An American journalist – Grace Quincy – murdered, it seems. All hell’s broken loose.’
‘And are you going to be involved somehow?’
‘Perhaps. She knew everyone, you see. That’s the problem.’
‘You don’t mean Will?’ Mungo said.
Craven smiled at him. ‘Oh yes, I do.’
The sun was splashing light on the hill, and as they passed through the garden the warmth of the day comforted them for the first time. Craven changed and got his bag to the back door and, while Mungo went to prepare for the drive to Edinburgh, took a few steps to the dining room and found the orrery, which Flemyng had often described to him and which Mungo had taken him to see soon after he arrived on the day before. The planets on their spindles were still, but the light coming through the eastern window was bringing the machine to life and its brass and copper glittered, the clockwork mechanism ready to turn at the touch of a lever. Craven stood motionless beside it, with a hand resting on the glass case, and thought of Flemyng. The man he knew, grown from the boy he had nurtured, had taken on a new colouring in these surroundings. Darker than before and, far from being revealed, more mysterious.
Rousseau leapt into the room. Time to go. On the road to Edinburgh, Mungo spoke again about the Flemyngs – their mother most of all, whose family name Abel had adopted in America and whose temperament was obvious in them all, in different quantities. ‘We’re all hers, but so different. An American, a painter. Mixed with that dark blood from my father. You have to understand the kaleidoscope of our nature – all the different pieces coming together in different shapes, and always on the move. I know I should find that reassuring because it’s natural. But I’m uneasy now, to my bones.’
By the time they drove down the ramp into Waverley for his train to London, Craven had a picture of the Flemyngs that was richer than he had expected. As Mungo clasped his hands on the platform, moved by the long journey he had undertaken in his frailty, Craven’s mind returned to Flemyng’s phone call to Altnabuie from Paris, and the pain his older brother had heard in his voice.
‘I’m taking the chance for a brief rendezvous in London with a friend. On the hoof, you might say. Then Paris. Thank you so very much. Your account of Will’s anxiety has helped me, and him I’m sure.’
Mungo wished him well, asked him to care for his brother, and said he could only hope that their alarms would subside soon.
‘I agree, for all our sakes,’ Craven said. ‘Try not to worry.’
But Quincy was gone, and had changed their lives. So, he knew, had Kristof.
*
In Paris, Will Flemyng arrived at Craven’s apartment just before noon on Saturday. There was evidence of upheaval. ‘I’m having the place cleaned up for a party. I’ll tell everyone on Monday morning. Sit where you can.’
‘How did you find it? Home.’ Flemyng asked, moving a pile of books from an armchair before he sat down. ‘I hope the sun shone.’
‘That hardly mattered,’ Craven said. ‘You’re lucky boys. I won’t forget that crystal air, the hills, and it was good to talk to Mungo.’
‘About me, I suppose.’
‘Indeed. Now what have you got
to say? Kristof first, please, then Quincy.’
Flemyng made his statement. ‘Freddy, I said I needed you here and it’s true. I haven’t been entirely straight with you, and I apologize. I hope you will understand. It’s time.’
Craven didn’t wave away the apology, nor did he reveal any anger or hurt. The sphinx didn’t blink. He was sunk between the wings of his favourite chair, and didn’t move. There was tiredness obvious in his limbs, and he looked thinner, more hollow around the eyes, but they were bright and alert. Flemyng had to continue.
‘Our friend Kristof. There was a hook, from the start.’
‘Of course there was,’ Craven said. ‘What did he say about Abel?’
Flemyng got up from his place, his face drawn. He turned away in frustration. ‘How did you know?’
‘Mungo was alarmed by your phone call last weekend. He got a message to me. It turned out that we wanted to speak to each other for the same reason, without knowing it. Why else would I have gone to Altnabuie? And it’s obvious Abel is in the middle of it. A schoolboy spy could have worked that out. A famous American is dead and your brother is coming to Europe. Mungo got it right. Something alarmed you quite recently, and we both know what it was.’ For the first time since he had sat down, he smiled.
‘Before I tell you,’ Flemyng said, ‘I have another admission that involves my brother.’
‘Ah,’ Craven said, smiling for the first time. ‘You’re going to tell me that you’ve been reading my notebook. There’s an entry about him from the other day, in my childish code.’
‘Oh God,’ Flemyng said, as if it was the confession he had never intended to make. ‘I have, and I’m sorry.’
‘I know you are. But I would have done the same – have done, indeed, in even more awkward circumstances. I want you to sit down, Will, have a drink and talk it through. Abel, Grace Quincy, everything.’
He reached behind his chair and produced an open bottle. ‘Have a drop of red.’
Flemyng talked and out it came. The story of their second encounter in the metro minute by minute, the first mention of Abel in the café, and then the glistening, frightening lure cast by Kristof to pull him in. ‘He said his people knew Abel well. Implied he was working with them. As brutal as that.’
Craven watched from his chair, and Flemyng noticed the old quickness in his eyes. He also thought there was fear.
‘Repeat that please.’ Craven’s tone had changed, and words came quickly.
Flemyng said that Kristof had described a relationship between Abel and the other side, and left no doubt about it. ‘He accused my brother of betrayal. I couldn’t read it any other way.’
‘Stop there,’ Craven said. ‘I want the exact words. And did you ask how he could prove this?’
Flemyng repeated the phrases that were etched on his mind, and said, ‘The first thing I said was that it was obviously rubbish. The stupidest thing I’d ever heard, and hurtful. He then said he could produce evidence.’
‘Did he offer any clues about what that proof might be? Anything at all? A name?’
Craven’s mood had changed utterly. He got up and turned away. To Flemyng’s surprise, he thought he heard him speak under his breath.
Turning round, he said, ‘Anything else?’
‘Only a hint from him. A threat, maybe. He says he might ask me for help. Something personal.’
‘Nothing is personal with them,’ Craven said. ‘We know that.’
Flemyng said they all understood that. He would never co-operate. ‘But it’s hard to step back. You can see why.’
Craven said he was sorry, and picked up his wine glass. Flemyng could see shadows on his face, and a trembling in both hands. ‘You seem shocked, Freddy,’ he said. ‘I was angry. But the idea that I’d take it seriously is absurd. Abel? Ridiculous.’
‘I know,’ Craven said. ‘I’m shocked, of course. How could anyone expect this? Will, I’m so sorry.’
‘For what?’ said Flemyng. ‘It’s hardly your fault. Our world, that’s all.’
He spoke of a crisis whose dimensions he couldn’t gauge, and turned to Quincy. ‘One of the reasons that this is so difficult for me, apart from the anger, is her. Freddy, she confided in me.’
There were newspapers on the floor of Craven’s apartment. He waved at the heap. The murder still commanded space on the front pages – had her life been taken by a lover, a rival, a gangster? – but there was no conclusion from the police that was yet public. Everyone now knew the victim, but it was still assumed that her attacker had a grudge that was unknown.
Flemyng picked up a paper, and threw it down. ‘She told me she was excited about a story that would somehow touch… people like us, I suppose.’
Craven was watching closely. ‘You have to tell me everything. A story. About whom?’
‘Kristof and his like,’ Flemyng said, ‘though she never used his name.’
‘Her words precisely please, Will.’
‘The East Germans.’
‘That was all? No detail? People?’ Craven was holding both arms of his chair.
Flemyng said, ‘What she had found out, I have no idea. I had hoped to see her again.’
Craven took the cue to alter course, as if they needed a break. ‘For personal reasons as much as this stuff, I take it.’
‘You can be a hard man, Freddy.’
‘Observant, no more than that. Mungo said to me the day before yesterday, before I left him: your face is easy to read, for those of us who live with you.’
Flemyng said that he was willing to confess his attraction to Quincy. ‘But I was intrigued and alarmed, as you will imagine.’
Craven looked straight at him. ‘You’re in the firing line. Family, friends, the lot. And now your friend – your acquaintance, anyway – is dead. And you wonder if her murder could be part of this whole business. That’s natural. And it means we have to consider, don’t we’ – in a theatrical pause, he filled his glass – ‘that this may be a state crime, and nothing less. Even without a shred of evidence.’
Flemyng nodded. ‘I suppose we have to. But by whom and why?’
‘Anything else?’ Craven was still more interested in his knowledge and his reticence. But Flemyng was done. About Bolder, his extravagant story at Brasserie Lipp and his trip to London – nothing. And Kristof’s visit to his apartment after Quincy’s death could wait. Another betrayal to add to the pile, but he convinced himself that Craven had heard enough for one morning.
‘Surely that’s a good start?’ he said.
‘Very well,’ Craven said. ‘We’ll return to the politics of this murder in the office,’ as if his flat was no place to discuss assassination. ‘The police will have to say more, and colleagues will hear things, no doubt. She spoke to you about our East German friends, so the investigation is important to us. It’s not only an American affair, although for public purposes that is how it has to be, and they don’t want to give too much away. But we know something that they may not: what she told you at lunch about her story. And we both know that Bridger need not be told about this conversation, at this stage anyway, and with any luck – never. Let me worry about that, but meanwhile keep out of his way.’
They returned, finally, to Abel.
Craven said, ‘He’s coming to London, I gather, this month. A proper posting, not a fly-by, so a friend tells me. The question for us is obvious. Should we tell his people what has been alleged? Obviously not. It’s an accusation against your brother that you consider to be vile. I cannot disagree with that. But do we keep what Quincy told you under our hats? We want their help to crack it, and we do have a lever. A knot, and a nice little problem.’
Flemyng said that nice was not the word that came to mind.
*
Like most political manoeuvres dressed up as entertainment, Freddy Craven’s May Day party was expected to be a disaster.
His announcement at Monday morning prayers, deliberately giving only two days warning, so that it was awkward for any
one to refuse the invitation. The ambassador had already departed for an official visit to the Midi that he said couldn’t be postponed, Flemyng’s only cause for relief. He was back in his place at the end of the table and could watch every face when Craven said he had decided they might as well celebrate, since Paris appeared to be preparing for a drama of its own. ‘My terrace is rather small, as most of you know, but we can take turns looking over the city, and enjoy the day.’
Bridger, looming out of his wide chair, said they might smell some cordite. ‘Bracing.’ He would look forward to it and he hoped that he might bring Grizelda. ‘Of course,’ Craven said at his side. ‘A welcome adornment at any party.’ Bridger bowed his head in thanks, and, stiffening in his place, he tossed back a lock of blond hair that had tumbled down, and said he could tell them things about the preparations being made by the riot police that would make their own hair stand on end. Bending forward to peer along the table, he laughed in Bolder’s direction. ‘Even Sandy’s.’ Bolder beamed, touched and evidently deaf to the tone.
‘I’m happy to say I have some sources of my own,’ Bridger went on, his eyes still on Bolder to make the contrast. ‘They tell me the coming days will challenge us all.’
‘It could still be a slow boil, Pierce,’ Flemyng said, raising a hand. Bridger frowned at the papers in front of him, and Flemyng added, ‘Perhaps you know best.’
Craven, concealing his anger, picked up quickly and said he would lay in a decent supply of drink and they were all welcome to lose themselves in the afternoon with his books and his jazz collection. ‘No one will be thrown out, and you needn’t leave until the last of the tear gas has dispersed.’
In truth, Craven had told Flemyng the night before, the point was to repair the damage in the station’s relationship with the rest of the embassy. ‘Especially between you and Bridger. It’s bad for you both, and this place, and I want it to stop.’
Flemyng said that he had no interest in perpetuating a feud, but found it impossible not to respond to Bridger’s barbs, which had become more wounding in recent days. ‘Janet knows, from the talk on her twinset circuit, that he’s been whispering in the ambassador’s ear. Dropping poison. I’m sorry, but the Quincy business has tested me to the limit.’
Paris Spring Page 17
