by Jonathan Coe
Phoebe drew in her breath sharply and advanced towards him. ‘You slimy little piece of shit. Phone for a taxi. Now.’
‘As you wish. I’ll tell him to wait at the bottom of the drive, shall I?’
Those were the last words he spoke to her. He closed the door behind him and left her alone, dumbfounded, dwarfed by the dimensions of the enormous room. But for the next few hours she managed to bottle up her rage and remained steel-eyed and silent. She said nothing to the driver who took her all the way to York station, keeping up an unbroken stream of small talk which to her racing mind was so much meaningless noise, like radio static. She said nothing to the other passengers on the train, or on the bus which took her back to the flat. It wasn’t until she returned to her bedroom and found, not only that it was still cluttered with Darren’s bodybuilding equipment but that there had been an accident with one of his dumb-bells, smashing the glass on her prized Kandinsky print, that she collapsed heavily on to the bed and gave herself over to tears: tears which were brief, cleansing and salty with hate.
Later that week, she phoned Mortimer and told him that she’d reconsidered his offer. He was so pleased that he raised her salary another two thousand on the spot.
∗
Now, more than a year later, standing in a corner of the gallery, her wineglass sticky in her hand, the wine itself warm and no longer palatable, she saw no reason to regret her decision. She was glad to have escaped the increasingly difficult atmosphere in the flat; and although Mortimer had turned out to be a demanding patient (prone to exaggerate his ailments wildly) and a disagreeable companion (incapable of concentrating for long on any subject other than his obsessive, almost murderous hatred for his family), she only had to be with him for a few hours every day. The rest of the time she was free to do her own work, and had been given a large, well-lit room on the second floor to use as a studio. It was a solitary existence, but she was allowed to have friends to stay, and to take the occasional weekend off. She missed the self-respect and the sense of usefulness she had felt as a health visitor, but consoled herself with the thought that it would not be long before she went back to it. Not that she had any intention of deserting Mortimer, who had come to depend on her more and more. But it was obvious, now, that his next serious illness would be his last.
So far as she knew, Roddy himself had no idea that she had taken this job: he hadn’t been up to Winshaw Towers once since their weekend together. When Mortimer’s birthday came round again, Roddy had discharged his filial duty by sending him a card and an invitation to the gallery’s latest private view, in the full knowledge that his wheelchair-bound father would not be able to attend. Mortimer had passed the invitation over to Phoebe with a grim smile, and given her permission to attend if she wanted to. And so here she was.
Now, sick of being ignored by the other guests, she was on the point of going over and reintroducing herself to Michael when she saw that he ind his companion were putting on their coats and preparing to go. Leaving her half-empty glass on a table top, she pushed through the crowd and followed them outside. They were already halfway down the street, deep in conversation; there was no point running after them. She watched as they disappeared round a corner, then shivered and buttoned up her jacket. November was beginning to bite. She looked at her watch and saw that she still had time to catch the last train to York.
November 1990
‘Let us leave this sordid gathering,’ said Findlay, taking me by the arm. He gestured at the pictures. ‘These gewgaws, these baubles, these gaudy trinkets of a decayed society, let us affront our eyes with them no more. The stench of ill-gotten affluence and self-satisfaction overpowers me. I can’t stomach the company of these people a moment longer. Some fresh air, for pity’s sake.’
With this he propelled me towards the door, and out into the fresh, wintry Piccadilly night. As soon as we were outside he leaned heavily against the wall, the back of one hand pressed to his forehead while the other fanned his drawn and pallid face.
‘That family,’ he moaned. ‘I can’t be in their presence for more than a few minutes without feeling physically sickened. Nauseous.’
‘There were only two of them,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s a good thing: otherwise I might have been recognized. Some of the Winshaws have got memories which go back a long way. It’s because they’ve got such dreadful secrets to hide.’
Only Roddy and Hilary had attended the private view, and neither of them – despite having met me on a number of occasions – had stooped to acknowledge my presence. At any other time I might have made a point of forcing myself on their attention, but tonight I was too busy taking the measure of my new acquaintance. He was a small man, his shoulders stooped and his body tightened in the grip of his ninety-odd years; but the gusto with which he wielded his gold-topped cane, and his spectacular head of white, sculpted hair managed to give the lie to his age. It was also impossible not to notice, at the very first, the overwhelming scent of jasmine in which (as he later explained) he was wont to douse himself before stepping out of doors, so that at least one of the riddles which had been haunting me these last few weeks was now finally laid to rest.
‘Now, Mr Owen –’ he began.
‘Michael, please.’
‘Michael. We must proceed with our business. I can feel myself recovering. The strength seeps back into my feeble bones. I can almost walk. Where’s it to be?’
‘I really don’t mind.’
‘There are a number of pubs round here, of course, where gentlemen of my own persuasion like to congregate. But perhaps this isn’t the right time. We don’t want to be distracted, after all. Privacy is of the utmost importance. I have a car parked a few streets away, provided the boys in blue haven’t removed it by force. I’m no great admirer of the police, we’ve been at loggerheads for many years; it’s one of the things you’ll soon find out about me. My flat is in Islington. Twenty minutes’ drive, or thereabouts. How does that suit you?’
‘Sounds fine.’
‘I hope you’ve brought the necessary documentation,’ he said, as we began walking along Cork Street.
He was referring to the yellowed scrap of paper, the note scribbled nearly fifty years ago by Lawrence Winshaw which his sister Tabitha, in her simplicity, had believed to provide certain proof of his guilt, but I must say that his insistence on this point struck me as rather brazen. Here was a man who had recently stolen my manuscript from the publisher’s office, followed me home twice and almost scared Fiona to death. To be sure, his letter had been apologetic enough, but still it didn’t seem to me that he was in much of a position to dictate terms.
‘I’ve brought it,’ I said. ‘I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to show it to you.’
‘Come, come, Michael,’ said Findlay, patting me reprovingly on the leg with his cane. ‘We’re in this together. We both have the same objective – to arrive at the truth: and we’ll get there quicker if we cooperate. So, my methods are a little irregular. They always have been. You can’t change the habits of a lifetime: and a lifetime is almost how long I’ve been working on this case.’
‘Surely there’ve been others in between?’
‘Oh, a little debt-collecting here, a little divorce work there. Nothing worthy the name of detection. My career, you see, has been a little – how shall I put this – sporadic. My professional activities have frequently had to be suspended for reasons of … well, pleasure.’
‘Pleasure?’
‘Her Majesty’s pleasure, to be precise. The jug. The slammer. I’ve spent a goodly part of my life in prison, Michael: in fact, believe it or not, I had a two-month suspended sentence handed down to me only this year. I am, as the saying goes, on a bender.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘An ironic turn of phrase, when you consider that all this persecution, this hounding that I have been subject to all my life, is what I have to pay for the sake of a few happy moments snatched every now and again in the darkness of a public toilet or the wa
iting room of a suburban railway station. Can you believe this society of ours would be so cruel? To punish a man for the most natural of cravings, for indulging his forlorn, lonely need to find companionship with the occasional passing stranger. It’s not our fault if it can’t always take place behind closed doors; if the arrangements sometimes have to be a little on the ad hoc side. We didn’t choose to be driven into this corner, after all.’ His tone, which had been edging its way towards anger, suddenly quietened. ‘Anyway, this is all by the by. No, this has not been my only case for the last thirty years, to answer your question, but it’s the only one which I haven’t brought to a successful conclusion. Not that I don’t have my suspicions, my own personal theories. But what we are lacking is proof.’
‘I see. And what exactly are these personal theories of yours?’
‘Well, that’s going to take a little while to explain. Let’s wait until we get to the car, at least. Do you work out, Michael? Attend a gym, or anything like that?’
‘No. Why do you ask?’
‘It’s just that you have unusually firm buttocks. For a writer, that is. It was the first thing I noticed about you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said – for want of anything better.
‘If you find that my hand strays in that direction at any point during the evening, feel free to say something about it. I’m an incorrigible groper these days, I’m afraid. The older I get, the less control I seem to have over this wretched libido of mine. You mustn’t hold an old man’s weaknesses against him.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I knew you’d understand. Here we are: it’s the blue Citroen 2CV.’
It took us a while to get settled in the car. Findlay’s ancient joints groaned loudly as he lowered himself into the driver’s seat, and then, while struggling to find a suitable resting place for his cane, he dropped the car keys which I had to retrieve, contorting myself and almost pulling a muscle in my effort to reach down behind the gear lever. Once the engine had started, on the fourth attempt, Findlay tried to get the car moving with the handbrake on and the gears still in neutral. I sat back and resigned myself to a bumpy ride.
‘The news that you were writing this book came as a great surprise to me,’ said Findlay, as we headed for Oxford Street. ‘It delights me to say that I’d hardly given that appalling family any thought for about ten years. May I ask what could possibly have induced such a charming and – if you don’t mind me saying so – handsome young man as yourself to get involved with that shabby crew?’
I told him the story of Tabitha and how I came to be offered her peculiar commission.
‘Curious,’ he said. ‘Very curious. There must be some new scheme behind all this. I wonder what she’s up to. Have you been in communication with her solicitor?’
‘Solicitor?’
‘Think about it, dear boy. A woman confined to an insane asylum is scarcely in a position to go around setting up trust funds all of her own accord. She’d need a responsible agent to act on her behalf – just as she did thirty years ago, when she decided to engage the services of a private detective. I suspect that she continues to deal through the same fellow – if he’s still alive, that is. His name was Proudfoot: a local man, unscrupulous enough to be swayed by the thought of all that money lying around in high-interest accounts.’
‘And he was the one who first approached you: that was how you came to be involved with the Winshaws?’
‘Well, where shall I begin?’ We were waiting at a red traffic light, and Findlay showed every sign of sinking into a deep reverie. Fortunately the angry horn of a car behind us startled him out of it. ‘It all seems such a long time ago, now. I imagine myself almost as a young man. Ridiculous. I was already in my late fifties. Thinking about retirement. Planning long days of sunlit debauchery in Turkey or Morocco or somewhere. Well, look what happened to that idea … London was about as far south as I ever got.
‘Anyway, there I was, my business pretty well established in Scarborough, ticking over nicely, money coming in – the only cloud on the horizon, as usual, being the tendency of the local police to pounce on me whenever I got involved in a little bit of harmless naughtiness. Things were getting worse on that front, now I come to think of it, because for some years I’d had the benefit of a mutually satisfying arrangement with a certain detective sergeant, who sadly had just been transferred to the North West. He was a beauty: Herbert, I think his name was … Six foot five of solid muscle and a bottom like a ripened peach …’ He sighed and fell momentarily silent. ‘I’m sorry, I seem to have lost my drift.’
‘Business was ticking over nicely.’
‘Precisely. And then one afternoon … early in 1961, it would have been … this solicitor fellow, Proudfoot, turned up. As soon as he mentioned the name of Tabitha Winshaw, I knew that something special had arrived on my doorstep. Everybody knew about the Winshaws and their mad old sister, you see. It was the stuff of local legend. And now here was this slovenly, rather repulsive character – with whom, I’m pleased to say, my further dealings were kept to a minimum – bearing a message from the woman herself. Word of my reputation had reached her, it seemed, and she had a job for me. Quite a simple, innocuous little job it sounded at first. I’m sorry, are you ticklish?’
‘A little,’ I said. ‘Besides, you should really keep both hands on the wheel while you’re driving.’
‘You’re quite right, of course. Now, you’re aware, I think, that when Godfrey’s plane was shot down, he wasn’t the only person in it? There was a co-pilot. And apparently Tabitha had been brooding about this, and had decided that she wanted to trace this unfortunate man’s family and to make them some sort of financial reparation, by way of atonement, as she saw it, for the treachery carried out by her brother. So my job was to find them.’
‘Which you did?’
‘In those days, Michael, I was at the peak of my powers. Mental and physical. Such a task really presented no challenge to a man of my experience and abilities: it was the work of only a few days. But then I went one better, and managed to present Tabitha with rather more than she’d bargained for. I found the man himself.’
I stared at him in surprise. ‘You mean the co-pilot?’
‘Oh, yes. I found him alive and well and living in Birkenhead, and with a most fascinating story to tell. His name was Farringdon. John Farringdon. And this was the man that Lawrence Winshaw bludgeoned to death in the manner so vividly described in your manuscript.’
It took me a few seconds to take this in. ‘But how did he survive the crash?’
‘Parachuted to safety at the last moment.’
‘Does this mean … did it mean that Godfrey was still alive?’
‘Sadly, no. I did entertain some hopes, for a while. It would have been a tremendous coup on my part. But Mr Farringdon was quite adamant on that point. He himself had seen Godfrey consumed by the flames.’
‘So how on earth did you find this man?’
‘Well, it seems that he’d been picked up by the Germans and was imprisoned for the rest of the war. Then, when it was over, he returned home – anxious to be reunited with his family – but discovered that he had been reported dead, and that his mother had never survived the news. She’d died within a week of hearing it, and his father had remarried little more than a year later. And so he couldn’t bring himself to do it. To render all that grief … senseless. He kept the truth to himself, moved to a new town, took Farringdon as his new name, and began a long, lonely and restless existence, trying to build up some sort of life on these ruined foundations. There was one member of his family, a distant cousin, whom he had to take into his confidence when he needed to retrieve some personal documents; and that was the person who started me off on my search. He never came right out with it, but he wanted me to know, I’m sure. There were one or two carefully dropped hints – enough to send me off to Germany, to pick up the beginnings of the trail.’ He sighed again. ‘Ah, that was a happy time. Tabitha was paying my expens
es. It was spring in the Rhine Valley. I struck up an all-too-brief friendship with a cowherd called Fritz: a vision of bronzed loveliness, fresh from the sunkissed slopes of the German Alps. I’ve been a pushover for anything in lederhosen ever since.’ We had reached Islington by now, and he turned off into a side street. ‘You must indulge an old man in his foolish reminiscences, Michael. The best years of my life are behind me, now. Only memories remain.’ He pulled over to the side of the road, about two feet from the kerb, the back end of the car sticking out alarmingly into the flow of traffic. ‘Well, here we are.’
We had arrived outside a small terraced house in one of Islington’s less fashionable byways. Findlay led me inside, up several flights of uncarpeted stairs until we reached the attic floor, where he threw open the door on to a room which caused me to gasp in sudden astonishment: for it was a perfect replica, as far as I could see, of the apartment described by Conan Doyle in The Sign of Four, when Sherlock Holmes first encounters the mysterious Thaddeus Sholto. The richest and glossiest of curtains and tapestries did indeed drape the walls, looped back here and there to expose some richly mounted painting or Oriental vase. The carpet, too, was of amber and black, so soft and so thick that the foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. There were even two great tiger-skins thrown athwart it, increasing the suggestion of Eastern luxury, and a huge hookah standing upon a mat in the corner. To complete the hommage, a lamp in the fashion of a silver dove was hung from an almost invisible golden wire in the centre of the room: as it burned it filled the air with a subtle and aromatic odour.
‘Welcome to my little nest, Michael,’ said Findlay, shrugging off the raincoat which he had slung across his shoulders. ‘You’ll excuse all this kitsch, this ersatz Orientalism. I was brought up by uncouth parents, in surroundings of meanness and austerity. My life ever since has been an attempt to cast all that aside. But I have never been a wealthy man. What you see here is an expression of my personality. Voluptuousness on a low budget. Spread yourself out on the Ottoman while I go and make us some tea. Does Lapsang suit?’
