by Lorna Gray
Duckett was smiling at the sudden strain on my lips. He didn’t quite understand how deep it ran, but it was enough for him. I watched him smirk as he tasted victory and then heard him add, ‘You clearly don’t know what you’re doing, but I do. You can tell your man from me that he can leave that woman alone. I mentioned betrayal and this is it. It’s yours. You’re going to find him for me and when you do, before you tell him anything, you’re going to look into his eyes and remind yourself that any man who has taken human life is never quite the same again.’
I was shaking my head as though that would be enough to fend off his obsession. He didn’t care. His gaze passed beyond me. I saw him give a slight nod of encouragement for me to do the same. I turned my head.
And jerked sharply back against the solid anchorage of the vehicle. The pale line that marked the point where the wharf dropped away into oily water was no more than half a yard from my heel. He’d been steering me to this all along. My fingers clutched at the rim of the windscreen. The heel of my right hand, which was still grasping its silly little parcel, rammed itself against the arch of the front wheel. Beside me, something bobbed on the filthy surface. A piece of rubbish, some jetsam, it didn’t matter what. It wallowed nauseatingly in a rainbow of grease.
Duckett spoke from a clearance of a yard or two, his voice oily like the water and very precisely devoid of any specific threat. He left nothing to chance, this man. ‘Do be careful. I told you the docklands were dangerous. If you fell in now, you’d be under without anyone even hearing the splash.’
I knew he was doing it to frighten me. I knew he hadn’t made so much as a move to touch me. The problem for me lay in the fact that my knowing this didn’t make the blindest bit of difference to my dread of it.
The wheel arch held me secure on solid ground, away from the water’s edge. The fragile handhold on that metal rim gave me strength. With my eyes fixed upon the nasty floating debris, I asked with cold curiosity, ‘What precisely is it that you expect me to do for you?’
He laughed. ‘Nothing.’ He really wasn’t intending to leave me with anything I might repeat as a quotation. ‘You’re the one who walked into my office and since I presume you’ve finished here, you’ll now scurry off to your man. Who knows if I’ll happen to follow along, for your safety, you know? Now off you go.’
He stepped around me in an arc with his arm outstretched as though he were manfully shielding an excitable woman from an unfortunate dip. With an effort, I released my grip on the lorry. Later I would find score lines cut by edged metal on the insides of my fingers.
He said, ‘Go on. I’ve got work to do.’
When I took a few unsteady steps, I faltered, stopping before I lost my bearings and veered either into the lorry or the inky depths all of my own volition. I heard him behind adding a cheerful prompt of, ‘Shoo.’
I turned my head and saw him give a little waggle of his hands as if he were herding a stray pigeon. He was smiling again.
I went.
Chapter 20
As I passed the last warehouse at the other end of the basin I believe a hoist slipped its load barely ten yards away but I didn’t really notice. It was proof that Duckett hadn’t been lying about the dangers of the docks, but the ensuing swearing and rushing hardly registered. I was quite preoccupied enough by the shadow I had gained that followed me step for step from a distance of about half a warehouse away. And the hope of one thing and one thing only. That the lateness of my return wouldn’t cost me the sanctuary of the car.
It wouldn’t. There he was. Richard was much closer than the distant parked car, which was still two streets and a junction away. I thought he must have just emerged from the passage between the employment exchange and the prison because he seemed to be hesitating on the corner there, getting his bearings. I half-lifted my hand but he didn’t see me with a steady line of traffic between us. Now he was walking inland towards the turn onto that shopping street where his car waited. He was going at a leisurely pace, completely at his ease, and there was no sign of a limp or stiffness or anything. I hadn’t noticed before but he had added the staple urban gentleman’s accessory; a stylishly brimmed hat. He wore it tilted low over his eyes and the combination of it and his clothes suited his frame so well they looked like camouflage – a screen of conventional good looks for the real man, with all the restrained physicality I thought he kept in hand. I couldn’t have been more relieved to see him and yet, for a moment, one insanely complicated moment tied up in the rush of needing his help, I almost turned the other way.
But I didn’t. I scurried across the road with barely a pause for a gap in the traffic and, before I knew it, had my hand under his arm at the elbow. It was selfish and weak and, after all my stern words about independence and responsibility, I hated myself for it, but I did it anyway.
His voice showed mild surprise. ‘Why hullo. Were you waiting for me?’ My smile must have faltered and strayed a little because he followed my gaze to look back between us. The brim of his hat was casting a line of shade across his eyes and over the bridge of his nose, but I didn’t think that he saw my tail on the far side of the road as it ducked out of sight behind some other pedestrians. Instead his eyes passed back to mine and onwards to the street ahead with perfect indifference. Then we were walking past a water-bottling plant through still air that was thick with vehicle fumes and I was saying something about seeing the sign to the barracks at the same time that his free hand was closing over my nerveless fingers and he was saying with that tone of his that bordered on a laugh, ‘You truly haven’t grasped the full ugly truth about the family you’ve been fraternising with lately, have you? I wasn’t visiting the barracks and even if I were required to present myself at my old regimental HQ, it wouldn’t be here. My official base was always Bristol. No,’ he added. ‘I was visiting my uncle at the prison.’
He let his good-humoured frankness shock me – because, despite all his earlier determination to keep me at an arm’s length, he had never tried to make a secret of simple things like the wholesale ruination of his family – then he was saying quietly, ‘Your hand is cold.’ And I was thinking that it was more than cold; it was shaking, and I was gently withdrawing my fingers from beneath his because I still needed to practise concealment after all, albeit temporarily, and I was pressing the packet of sandwiches into his hands instead.
While he was distracted by investigating what I had given him, which by his expression he must have been presuming was something deeply strange, I confessed in a tone impressively devoid of melodrama, ‘I haven’t paid my visit to the hospital yet. I’m afraid I’ve just done something very silly, but I’ll tell you the details later if I may.’ And then, belatedly, added doubtfully, ‘Did you really just say prison?’
I didn’t get a response immediately. I had automatically turned to check that I still had a shadow, which indeed I had. Duckett was currently skipping across the road on the heels of a delivery man pushing a handcart. Whereas Richard was entirely absorbed by the surprise of my parcel. His eyebrows rose a fraction as he established the nature of the contents, then he wrapped the whole lot up again, cast a brief glance down at my face that was hard to read and then finally continued in that same relaxed manner to say, ‘I did. I think I told you that my uncle’s estate had been sold well ahead of the recent decision about ours. Well, this is why. He’s presently enjoying a nice tidy prison term for blithely committing fraud and handling stolen goods with the additional offence of trying, with touching optimism, to get himself and his wife out of the country and holed up in a clinic in Switzerland. The hasty sale of his estate was meant to pay for it all, but all it did was alert the police to his plan of escape and give weight to that enchantingly romantic myth that John left behind a hoard of unclaimed spoils. The gossip-mongers think that Uncle William was making off with lost riches and they won’t give up the hunt for them now. You’ll have noticed,’ he confided a shade less lightly, ‘that I didn’t tell my father where I was going today
.’
He waited for me to give a faint nod, then he added soberly, ‘Father last saw his brother four weeks ago when my uncle was finally sent down and, to be honest, I think it’ll be a while before my father’s ready to face it. It was for my uncle’s sake that we’ve been observing a kind of voluntary exile since March anyway. I’m sure you’ve heard the usual slurs about my father shirking his duties in the estate, but in this case it truly was a … necessity that we both should have stayed away from the Manor. It was the only way to ensure a seamless trial.’
I thought he was referring to its proximity to the home of Matthew Croft, who must, I realised now, have been one of the main witnesses for his uncle’s prosecution. No wonder Richard had reacted as he had when one small slip from me had dragged him back, after all that effort to keep clear and all the plans he must have made for his father’s quiet return.
Then he was adding with unnecessary carelessness, ‘Anyway, I suppose I’m just grateful that my father could come back and they dropped the charges for my uncle that would have carried a more brutal penalty. There were others that were harder to digest, believe me, to do with the loss of life from that time.’
For all his plain manner of telling me this, it was impossible to ignore how close this ran to the concerns I’d levied earlier about his proximity as a brother to the madness of John’s choices and the shadows this return home might be leaving upon him now. And he’d only come back at all because of that one selfish impulse of mine to reach out for the familiar comfort of that ringing telephone.
I had to say, ‘I’m sorry, Richard. I had no idea your uncle was involved too. I suppose it must become a bitter kind of legacy – like a stain on your genetic heritage – to learn that your blood has done things that don’t bear scrutiny in the light of day. But you know it isn’t true. You share their name but this isn’t a debt you have to shoulder. I don’t believe a person can inherit a relative’s wrong-doings any more than you could inherit their greatness of mind. You’d still be you even if the infamy ran the other way and your uncle were a great inventor or something.’
In the midst of saying that, I turned my head to check behind and, seeing nothing, turned back to catch another of those startlingly intense glances that he couldn’t quite smother quickly enough. I faltered, choked back some fresh nonsense and instead said in a sheepish rush, ‘I’m so sorry. That sounded like I was labelling you an idiot, didn’t it? I do seem to be very good at saying the wrong thing. I’m just glad that for once I stopped before I managed to run on into saying something truly unforgiveable such as somehow making you personally liable for every act of violence ever conceived by anyone – Langton or otherwise – purely because of your profession. That’s the sort of thing you’re coming to expect from me, isn’t it?’
He was suppressing a smile. ‘I should say,’ he confided gently, ‘that you’re actually very good at saying exactly the right thing. More than you know.’
We were at the junction with the shopping street but we weren’t turning left to reclaim the car. Richard was resuming my aborted attempt to visit my cousin. He stopped at the tip of the pavement and scanned left and right and behind for traffic. I felt sure he must see Duckett dodging just out of sight into a doorway but he didn’t. Richard was stepping out with me across the road and telling me, ‘But speaking of my profession, you should know that, actually, there is something of a debt to pay, albeit of a lighter kind. My father told you, I think, that my regiment was disbanded in North Africa and that other officers got sent to new commands while I was recalled to undertake work of a different nature. The simple truth is that my father’s name carries its own weight at Whitehall, and did so long before my brother’s activities became known. It seems to amuse the powers that be to have someone on the books who isn’t tied to any particular regiment, and at the moment that man is me. It’s my purgatory and my escape. You might say I’m surplus to requirements; an odd-job man, if you like. And, notwithstanding the brief hiatus of my injury, you might slightly less jokingly call me a free agent. Which admittedly has its advantages at times like this when I’ve had to drop everything and hightail it to the country.’
I abandoned my effort to find Duckett again and looked up at him. ‘You’re a spy?’
‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that kind of agent.’
‘An assassin?’
‘For all your brave words, you’re not entirely convinced that I’m not a shadow of my kin, are you?’ He was mocking me. ‘But in this instance, I promise, it’s really not the case. Admittedly the work is hands-on enough to warrant the term ‘grisly’ every once in a while, but in the main it is only nice and safely – and utterly tediously – administrative. My last job involved chasing down stores that had been looted during the decommissioning of the old pier at Weston-super-Mare. They turned out to be crates of boots. You get the idea.’
I did get the idea. I had the idea that purgatory was the word. I thought his idea of responsibility must go a very long way and it made my clumsy mutterings about the sort of man who would choose such a life all the more cruel, suspecting as I did now that soldiering was for him the single balance through which he could restore the burden of his brother’s guilt and his uncle’s, and perhaps even his father’s. I thought he underestimated the simple power of his own nature as the point from which everything about him was measured. And I doubted very much that the reality of his work matched the easy way he’d described it. I suspected that in truth this man must be deeply respected by his superiors since they’d chosen to retain him when they might have easily forced him into retirement after his hospital stay. And it was testament to his tenacity that he hadn’t simply asked for it.
I couldn’t see Duckett and we were crossing Parliament Street to where the imposing frontage of the hospital waited on the other side. I couldn’t see the lady with the broom any more either but her revelations about Danny and that house hung unhealthily in the air. So did John Langton’s name once again.
Richard must have noticed my hesitation. ‘What is it?’
I shook my head. Then I saw that his eyes had found the name sign for the street and saw that it meant something to him too. I saw his mouth tighten. We were already walking in through the hospital gates towards the open-sided porch that ensured ambulances could unload straight into the hospital in the dry. It was quite pretty in a utilitarian sort of way, with rounded arches above brick pillars and hard shadows cast by the fierce afternoon light. A nurse was smoking in the far corner on a rest between rounds on her ward. The hunger with which she was drawing on her stubby cigarette did not inspire confidence.
‘Stay a minute, would you?’ His voice brought me to a halt beneath the pillars. I turned back to find that Richard had propped his shoulder against the second in the line and was in the process of opening his sandwiches. I allowed him the peace in which to enjoy his first bite. I turned away as the nurse stamped on her cigarette butt and went back inside, braced and ready for the next round. A small herd of people ambled across the car park and past us. A cab disgorged its passengers and departed again. Another member of the hospital staff was lighting a cigarette at the far end of the porch. The scent was sharp and the first faint plume drifted past me into the sunlight. The match went spinning to the ground.
It was then that I heard Richard say gently behind, ‘Tell me, has that very silly thing you’ve done happened to run to the discovery that Abbey is out?’
It drew me round to face him as he had intended. He read the answer in my parted lips. Amusement touched the corners of his. ‘Don’t look so guilty. My uncle told me. Apparently the man is an excellent chess player and helped Uncle William while away the hours between sessions in court.’
I was wondering if this was the moment I was supposed to tell him about Duckett. Only I didn’t quite dare to because although that man was nowhere to be seen, I couldn’t quite believe that we’d lost him and I didn’t remotely want to put Richard in the position of thinking he was requ
ired to do something about it. I was afraid he’d think I wanted find out what that something might be and I really didn’t want to learn I was the sort of woman who would spend long hours telling a man just how much she detested violence, only to enjoy the first opportunity that came along to incite it. And I didn’t expect it from him anyway. I expected it from Duckett. It was all very tangled and still I couldn’t find Duckett; not on the road behind, not in the line of parked cars before the hospital and certainly not in the gloom within the double doors inside.
Richard’s voice brought my attention sharply back again. He had finished his sandwiches and remarked, ‘You know, I’ve noticed something else about you just now that I’ve been suspecting for some little time.’
He had apparently been observing me with the same intensity that I’d been reserving for my hunt for Duckett. In my head was the painful impulse to wonder what my face had betrayed now, but I managed a creditably nonchalant, ‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes.’ Then Richard was standing up from his lean against the wall and patting his pockets. ‘Have you a pen to hand, by the way?’
I showed him empty hands. ‘No handbag.’
He ignored that. He produced a small stub of a pencil from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Then he propped himself against his pillar again, smoothed the brown paper wrapping from his lunch against the palm of his hand and finally wrote a few lines. Then he paused and lifted his head a little so that the brim of his hat wasn’t screening his eyes. He continued what he’d begun to say before. ‘For example,’ he said, ‘you’ve told me how you came to be sent here, but you haven’t told me what you were intending to do before your father changed your plans.’
I hid my gaze by turning my head to the small area of shrubbery beyond the last pillar, where the nurses took the air between rounds. The greenery was presently occupied by a quantity of sparrows who seemed to have plenty to chat about. I told them, ‘That’s because I’ll feel foolish.’
