by Janet Tanner
‘No wonder Dad hated him!’ Juliet said. ‘If he was trying to take over and do things Dad believed to be wrong who could blame him?’
‘And it wasn’t only that, I’m afraid. There was Molly too …’ Catherine broke off, horrified as she realised what she had said.
‘Molly? You mean my mother? What has she got to do with it?’
‘Oh my dear …’ Catherine was thoroughly distressed now, desperate to remedy the situation but not knowing how. ‘I didn’t mean … Well, not like that … my tongue runs away with me, it always has. Please don’t think for a minute …’
‘Aunt Catherine, stop blathering for goodness’ sake! Are you saying my mother was involved with Louis?’
‘Well no, not exactly … it wasn’t like that …’ But her face was telling a different story, flushed with embarrassment at her gaffe, anxious, concerned, indecisive.
‘I see,’ Juliet said grimly. ‘Yes, believe it or not, I really do begin to see. Louis and my mother. That’s what is behind it all. Not the business at all. I thought there was something that didn’t ring true. I mean, it really is not easy to imagine Dad getting so steamed up about the business. But if Mum was involved then it’s a whole different ball game. He would certainly get very worked up indeed. But I still don’t really see why they went to Australia. A future for me – yes, I suppose so. But I would have had a future here. And Louis was dead by the time they went. There would have been no danger of anything starting up again.’ She broke off suddenly as the first terrible hint of suspicion flashed into her mind. ‘Oh my God! Oh no!’
‘Juliet – stop it this instant! Stop it, please!’ Catherine said insistently, but her distress only served to remind Juliet of how desperately Catherine had tried to warn her off investigating when she had first come. She hadn’t been able to understand her aunt’s impassioned plea then, hadn’t known why she should have tried so hard to make her leave the past well alone. Now the first glimmerings of comprehension were coming and she did not want them to.
‘Aunt Catherine – you’re not trying to tell me …’ She stopped again, unable to voice her fears. Her throat was dry and going into spasm; she thought she might be going to be sick.
‘I am not telling you anything, Juliet, except that you must stop this here and now!’
Juliet’s throat closed again. Catherine did not need to say a word. It was all there in her eyes.
‘Thank you. I think I’d better go now.’
‘Juliet!’
‘No! Not now!’
She had to get out of here. If she didn’t she would choke. Or faint. Or both.
‘Juliet!’
She fled to her car. The engine fired first time. Juliet let out the clutch with a jerk and drove away from Catherine’s cottage, tyres screaming.
Catherine could do nothing but stand helplessly by and watch her go.
Fortunately there was not too much traffic on the roads this afternoon. Juliet put her foot flat to the floor, driving as fast as she dared as if sheer speed would somehow take her away from the nightmare that had closed in around her in Catherine’s cottage. But after a few minutes common sense took over and she slowed down. There was no way she was going to leave this behind. Wherever she went it would go with her.
There was a car park at the side of the road, a gravelled square surrounded by trees and obviously meant for tourists who wanted to leave their vehicles here and walk down to the beach below. Juliet pulled on to it, switched off the engine and sat gripping the steering wheel and staring unseeingly at the vista of green and blue below her. She still felt sick, not as violently as she had done in the cottage, but a heavy dragging nausea, and she struggled with a sudden urge to scream hysterically.
No! No! Not Dad! He couldn’t have killed Uncle Louis! I don’t believe it!
But she did. That was the trouble. It all fitted together too well. It all made sense. The fact that they had left Jersey for the other side of the world, the reluctance to talk about the family they had left behind, the secrecy, even the concern about what she would discover. What was it her mother had said on the telephone? ‘Have they been telling you stories about us … when we were young?’ Presumably she had been referring to the possibility that Juliet would find out that she had been having an affair with Louis. And that because of it Robin had killed him.
Juliet covered her face with her hands, trying to shut out the images, trying even now to find some evidence that it was not true. But everything pointed towards his guilt. Everything. Even the fact that Sophia had willingly confessed to something almost everyone who knew her was convinced she could not have done. That most of all.
‘I couldn’t let him take the blame,’ she had said. Juliet had thought she meant David. It had never for one moment occurred to her that all the arguments applying to David also applied to Robin, only more so. Robin had been older. Robin had had a perfectly good motive – two motives – whilst David was still too young to have cared much about the business. The fact that he now headed it had sidetracked her, Juliet supposed. It was possible, of course, that he had been an unusually ambitious nineteen-year-old, but she couldn’t see it somehow, and Aunt Catherine had said he hero-worshipped Louis. No, the obvious candidate for jealousy on all counts was the brother who was so much closer to him in age, the brother who had competed and fought with him from schooldays on, the brother whose wife Louis had been trying to steal. That, most of all. Juliet knew how much her father adored her mother. She was the only thing in life that Robin cared passionately about. It must have torn him apart to know that she was having an affair with his own brother.
‘And Cain slew his brother Abel …’
I should have known, Juliet thought. I should have realised what they were warning me about. How could I have been so blind? I was intent on proving Grandma’s innocence and I never really stopped to take stock of the implications. She would never have taken the blame for anyone but one of her beloved sons. It could have been David, her baby. But it was not. It was Robin, the one she felt she had neglected in her efforts to over-compensate Louis for the fact that he was not Bernard’s son. Robin. My father.
How could he have let his mother take the blame? Juliet could not even begin to understand. Except of course that Sophia was a very powerful personality. Perhaps she had persuaded him that she would be dealt with leniently and told him to leave while he could for the sake of his wife and child. To give her a good start in life, wasn’t that what Catherine had said? Well, he’d done that. In Australia. On the other side of the world.
‘And the Lord set a mark upon Cain. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.’
Juliet laid her face against her arms on the steering wheel and wept.
Chapter thirty-six
When Juliet had left Catherine went straight to the telephone and dialled the number of La Grange. Deborah answered, Catherine asked for Sophia and a few minutes later Sophia was on the line.
‘Catherine! What a nice surprise!’
‘No, Sophia, I’m afraid it isn’t. Something really rather dreadful has happened. Look – I don’t want to upset you but I think must tell you. Juliet came to see me this afternoon. She asked me some very pertinent questions. Sophia, I think she knows.’
‘Knows?’
‘About her father.’
‘What do you mean? What do you think she knows?’
‘Oh Sophia, don’t let’s beat about the bush. I’m talking about Louis’s death.’
There was a lengthy silence. Then Sophia said: ‘How?’
‘I don’t know. I think she put two and two together.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t tell her?’
‘Sophia – as if I would! I have to confess though that it might have been something I said that put her on to it. I was talking about Louis and I said Robin hated him because of Molly …’
‘Catherine, you didn’t! Won’t you ever learn how to stop that tongue of yours r
unning away with you?’
‘Probably not,’ Catherine said ruefully. ‘I’m really very sorry, Sophia. It just slipped out – only one word, but she picked up on it. The next thing I knew she was practically asking me …’ Her voice tailed away. ‘I think she’s upset,’ she continued. ‘And I thought you should know.’
‘You didn’t actually tell her anything?’ Sophia asked.
‘No.’
‘All right. Thanks for letting me know, Catherine.’
‘Try not to upset yourself, Sophia.’
‘I think,’ Sophia said, ‘ that I have known ever since Juliet came that something like this was going to happen.’
She replaced the receiver and sat staring into space. It was true – in a strange intuitive way she had known. And she was almost glad.
How strange it was, she thought, it had been talked about so little over the years, this momentous thing that had changed all their lives. Perhaps it was the curse of their generation that so many subjects were taboo. She had talked to Catherine about it at the time, of course, but only because it had become necessary when Catherine had come dashing home to Jersey, determined to prove Sophia’s innocence. ‘ I’ll never forgive you if you tell a soul,’ she had said then and Catherine, though shocked and not in complete agreement, had gone along with her wishes. They had never mentioned it again.
But even Catherine did not know the whole truth. As for the others …
Sophia closed her eyes briefly, remembering that November night almost twenty years ago. How clear it still was in her memory! Clearer and sharper than many things that had happened since.
She had been to the gala, she remembered. She was wearing a gown of midnight blue lace and silver lamé with a corsage of freesias – the scent of them never failed to bring it back to her in all its shocking detail – the insistent little worry that had nagged at her all the way home, the growing sense of foreboding that had filled her when she saw that the lights were burning in the ground floor windows. Louis, she had thought. It must be Louis. Sophia had sighed. The last thing she had wanted that night was another scene. She hated the arguments, hated the rows. But Louis had become such a monster they were inevitable.
‘Thank you, Le Grand, I’ll see myself in,’ she had said. She had walked up the steps and opened the door. All the lights in the hall were blazing but there was no sign of life. ‘Louis?’ she had called, crossing the polished floor.
And then she had seen him and gasped in shock and horror.
He was lying in the doorway of the drawing-room, a patch of scarlet spreading across his white evening shirt and soaking into the carpet. She tried to move towards him and her legs almost gave way beneath her. Then she was on her knees beside him.
‘Louis! My God – Louis!’
He was dead – there was no doubt of that. Sophia looked wildly this way and that. Had he surprised a burglar? Was that it? She couldn’t think straight. Her mind simply refused to work. And then she saw the gun, his gun, lying on the floor of the hall. She reached out and picked it up.
Louis’s own gun. Oh God, she’d told him he shouldn’t have it! For one thing it was illegal – he must have smuggled it into Jersey. And besides she hated guns – always had done since the war. It had worried her dreadfully knowing he carried it. He’d got it in America, he had told her, and he had it for self-protection because of the business he was in. ‘What business?’ she had asked. ‘ Your father never needed to carry a gun!’ But Louis had only laughed. Now he was dead. His gun hadn’t done him much good in the end.
A small sob caught like a hiccough in her throat. What the hell was she going to do? What did one do first in a situation like this? Call an ambulance? Too late for that. The police then? She levered herself up, started for the phone. Just as she was about to pick it up it began ringing. She reached for it, shaking as if in fever.
‘Hello?’
‘Mother? It’s Molly. I must speak to Louis.’
‘I’m sorry. That’s not possible.’
‘I have to! It’s terribly important!’ Molly sounded almost hysterical. ‘Please – please!’
In some strange way her hysteria had an almost calming effect on Sophia.
‘Why, Molly?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong? Why is it so important?’
‘I have to speak to him … warn him. Robin knows about us.’
‘About you?’ But she knew only too well to what Molly was referring.
‘Yes. Louis and I … we’ve been …’
‘I know what you have been doing,’ Sophia said coldly. ‘ I’m not quite blind. I hoped you’d have the sense to keep it from Robin.’
‘I did … we did … but Raife Pearson found out. He phoned Robin tonight and told him. God knows why. Robin is in a terrible state about it. He said he was going to kill Louis.’
Sophia had begun to tremble again.
‘And where is Robin now?’
‘I don’t know – that’s just it. He slammed out of the house and he hasn’t come back yet. He’s been gone for hours. I’m scared – really scared!’
As Molly spoke Sophia felt her whole body go weak just as her legs had done a few minutes ago and shock flooded her with a hot tide. Yet at the same time she was aware of a strange feeling of inevitability. Robin. Louis and Robin. She had always known something like this would happen one day. Only she had never expected it to be Robin …
Suddenly Sophia was very calm. There was not a single moment’s doubt in her mind – she knew what she had to do.
‘Have you told anybody but me about this?’ she asked.
‘No – no, I wanted to tell Louis – to warn him.’
‘Then don’t tell anyone. Do you hear me, Molly? Whatever happens – don’t tell anyone.’
‘But …’
‘Just do as I say and everything will be all right. When Robin comes home tell him the same. Keep him there and tell him to say nothing.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I haven’t got time to argue with you, Molly. Just do it.’
She replaced the receiver, looked back for a moment at Louis lying there.
How she had loved him! Because of the circumstances of his birth it had sometimes seemed to her that he was hers alone. She had wanted so badly to make it up to him; at times it had seemed to her that the whole purpose of her existence was to try to bring him up properly and make him happy. But she had allowed herself to become obsessed – she could see that now. She had defended Louis too enthusiastically against what was probably no more than normal everyday disciplining on Bernard’s part, and created divisions that might not otherwise have been there. She had refused to accept Louis’s faults, failed to see what she was doing to her family. In so doing she had discriminated against the others, particularly Robin.
There had been times when she had hurt him, she knew, by what he saw as her favouritism of Louis. No wonder he had been unable to bear to see Louis winning the other woman in his life, Molly, his adored wife and the mother of his child. No wonder he had been driven to … God alone knew what. Well, if she had failed him before she was not going to fail him now. It was too late to do anything for Louis. Her first priority must be Robin – and her little granddaughter who could so easily be branded the daughter of a murderer.
A crime of passion, the French called it. Would it stand up here in Jersey? she wondered – and decided she dared not take the chance.
With a determined movement she lifted the receiver again and asked for the police.
‘Could you come to La Grange, please? This is Sophia Langlois. I have just shot my son.’
Now, twenty years on, Sophia sighed, shaking her head as she remembered. It had all turned out so very differently to the way she had imagined it would and now, perhaps at last, the truth was about to come out.
If I could see my time over again would I do the same again? Sophia wondered.
And knew, without question, that she would.
Juliet was getting ready for dinner w
ith the family when Deborah looked into her room.
‘Telephone – for you.’
‘For me? Oh!’ Juliet’s reactions seemed to have slowed down to half their normal rate. She could think of nothing but her terrible discovery so that everything else was overshadowed. Simply washing, changing and freshening up her lipstick and eyeshadow seemed to have become weighty chores. As for deciding who might be wanting her on the end of a telephone line, that was certainly quite beyond her mental powers at the present moment.
‘Take it in the hall,’ Deborah suggested. ‘But I should step on it. It sounds as if it might be international.’
Juliet pulled on her towelling robe and ran down the stairs, trying to force her brain to do a mental time zone calculation. Early evening here – it must be the middle of the night in Australia!
‘Hello?’
‘Juliet – it’s me, Sean.’
‘Sean!’ He might have belonged to another world. ‘ What time is it there?’
‘Late – but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to talk to you. Your mother said you are coming home next week.’
She froze. Home. To her mother and father who had kept it hidden from her for the whole of her life that her father was a murderer. Only a few hours ago Australia had seemed like a haven where she could escape from the underhand way Dan had treated her, recharge her batteries with people who loved her. Now, suddenly, she was not at all sure she wanted to go.
‘Juliet – are you there? I miss you like hell, you know. Your mother said they were going to meet you at the airport but I told her I’d do it. Do you know your flight times yet?’
‘No.’ Claustrophobia, closing in. Dan deceiving her here. Her parents deceiving her in Australia. Sean trying to tie her down. Her grandmother sick. Aunt Catherine pretending to be her friend and lying to her. ‘Sean, I’ve changed my mind. I might not come home. At least, I might make a detour via the USA.’
