Flint smiled. ‘No, it wasn’t anything like that. I was just wondering, since you’ve lived in the village for three years, whether you’d fill me in on a few details.’
‘What kind of details?’
‘Well, let’s start with Edward Conroy’s executive assistant, Paul Taylor. Do you know him?’
‘Not well, but I’ve talked to him a few times.’
‘And what do you make of him?’
‘I’d say he was as well matched to Edward Conroy as that lout Bill Harper was to Tony.’
Flint smiled. ‘What is it you don’t like about Bill Harper?’ he asked.
‘For all his show of loyalty to Tony Conroy, the only person he’s really loyal to is himself. He’s the sort of man who’d step on your fingers as you were climbing up the ladder behind him – just because he could. I don’t like the way he is with his wife, either. Admittedly, she’s not the most spirited woman I’ve ever met, but that’s no reason for treating her like a doormat – and mark my words, one day, that particular worm will turn.’
‘And Paul Taylor?’ Flint asked.
‘He’s very quiet and gentle. I don’t mean to say that he’s effeminate, but there’s a softness about him you don’t see much nowadays. I would imagine many women would find him appealing.’
‘Does he strike you as the irresponsible type?’
Jo Torlopp frowned. ‘No, I wouldn’t say so. He’s got no great spark about him, but I’m sure he’s conscientious enough. Why did you ask that?’
‘Because he still hasn’t returned from his holidays.’
‘Do you know, with all that’s been going on, I hadn’t really thought about that,’ Jo Torlopp confessed, with a frown, ‘but you’re right. You’d have thought he’d have at least interrupted his holiday to attend the funeral, wouldn’t you?’
‘You would indeed,’ Flint agreed.
Jo Trollop’s frown deepened. ‘You don’t think he had anything to do with the murders, do you?’
‘I think,’ Flint said, slowly and carefully, ‘that he needs to offer some explanation as to why he’s stayed away so long.’
The clock on the wall of my hospital room continued to click relentlessly. The hands crawled around the dial, bringing ever closer the moment of my discharge. I felt just as I had on my last day in the mental institution – as if I was about to be ejected from a world filled with certainty into one full of malevolence and hostility, where – just possibly – there might be someone waiting for his opportunity to kill me. And then, as I lay there, tossing and turning, I found my thoughts turning to memories of my brother John.
John, who had started primary school the year before Philip and myself, and who had endured a full twelve months of bullying without support or complaint.
John, who had cried that day we killed the shrew.
I felt so close to him, even in death, and yet I could not say that I’d ever really understood him. Perhaps part of the problem, I rationalized to myself, was that we’d spent so little time together since he turned eight. It had always been part of the plan – part of Grandfather’s plan – that we should go to the same prep school as Father and Uncle Tony had attended, but John failed to reach the required standard in the entrance examination and had to settle for somewhere a little less prestigious. It hadn’t seemed to bother him. Nor had he minded when I took the examination myself and passed with flying colours.
‘I hope Shadwell’s a tremendous place,’ he told me during the summer holidays which followed his first year at his new school. ‘But I’m glad I go to Stoners. The chaps are marvellous, and we have no end of fun.’
Somehow, I always found it hard to imagine John having fun. He was so serious, so responsible, so … so introspective. Only occasionally did he show any sign of expressing emotion – like the time he first told me about Lydia.
It was at the summer board meeting of 1984 that my grandfather announced Conroy Enterprises’ latest acquisition.
‘The company’s called Mid-Cheshire Mechanical,’ he told us. ‘They do contract maintenance for a number of haulage firms in the area. From now on, they’ll be doing ours as well. I’m putting John in as managing director.’
I glanced across the table at my brother, who appeared to be slightly uncomfortable at being the centre of attention. He hadn’t changed much over the years, I thought. At twenty-eight he still looked like the earnest boy who’d tried to make Philip and me like each other, though it must already have been plain to everyone else that we’d never get along. Still, it was undoubtedly true that his appearance would stand him in good stead in a business which was often conducted by cowboys.
‘You won’t get any padded bills from me,’ his serious expression would tell his clients. ‘I won’t charge you for an expensive repair when a cheap one would do just as well. What you’ll get is exactly what you pay for.’
Grandfather took out the heavy brass pocket watch, which was the only thing his father had been in a position to leave him, and squinted at the face. ‘We’ll take a twenty-minute break,’ he said. ‘There’ll be coffee and biscuits on offer in the entertainment suite.’
The entertainment suite was located next to the boardroom, and our gatherings in it were the part of these meetings I most disliked, because the simple fact was that, although I felt obliged to talk to my uncle and cousin, we really had very little to say to each other. On this occasion, however, Philip seemed eager to talk, and steered me away from the rest of the group.
‘How’s the publishing business going?’ he asked.
‘It’s going quite well,’ I told him.
Philip nodded as though, even if he had asked the question, he wasn’t very interested in the answer.
‘Saw that writer – what’s his name? Geoffrey Caldwell – on the box the other night.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘He was talking about his life. He said he’d had his manuscript turned down by half a dozen publishers before he sent it to Cormorant. Were you the one who spotted it?’
‘As I matter of fact, I was,’ I admitted.
‘That was pretty smart of you.’
I smiled, self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s a very good book,’ I said. ‘And it wasn’t so much that I was smart as that the other publishers were stupid.’
‘People on the box are always mentioning you,’ Philip said, with an edge of bitterness creeping into his voice. ‘Always saying how you gave them their start.’
‘I’ve been lucky,’ I said. ‘Most publishers have to show the sort of profit their shareholders demand, but Grandfather made it plain from the start that wasn’t strictly necessary with CP. So I can take chances other publishers daren’t. And sometimes they pay off.’
It was clear from the expression on my cousin’s face that he was no longer listening to me. ‘Four years,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ve had that company four years, haven’t you?’
‘About that.’
‘And here I am, a couple of months older than you, still working for my father.’ He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve got more influence with Grandfather than the rest of us,’ he said.
‘Have I?’
‘Yes. I don’t understand the reason, but you have. That’s why I want you to do me a favour.’
‘What kind of favour?’ I asked cautiously.
‘Talk to him. Persuade him it’s time I had a company of my own, too.’
‘I’ll try,’ I promised, ‘but I’m not sure it will do any good. Grandfather’s always been very much his own man. Besides, it’s a question of waiting for a suitable opportunity to arise. This new company’s ideal for John, and that’s why Grandfather has put him in charge of it. And when he sees one which is right for you, you can be certain he’ll buy it. All you have to do is be a little patient.’
I’d been trying to be diplomatic, but I’d obviously failed. Philip’s face clouded over, and it was clear that he was having great difficulty
containing his rage.
‘Maybe I should have a nervous breakdown,’ he said bitterly. ‘Yes, that’s it. Have a nervous breakdown tomorrow, and Grandfather will give me my own company the day after.’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ I protested, starting to get angry myself. ‘I was in therapy for two long, painful years.’
But I was wasting my breath. Having delivered his barb, Philip turned on his heel and marched back into the boardroom.
After the meeting broke up, John said he felt like a drive, and asked me if I’d go with him. I didn’t really fancy the idea, to be honest, but he seemed so keen on it that I agreed. And so it was that I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of John’s Audi, watching the familiar countryside – which no longer seemed to be a part of me – flash by.
‘Are you pleased with your promotion?’ I asked my brother.
John shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Philip would kill for his own company.’
‘I’m not Philip,’ John said.
‘And thank God for that,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t think I could handle someone like him for a brother.’
‘So how are things in Oxford?’ John asked me.
I started telling him about the business in general, then began to focus in on what was becoming a growing obsession – THE BOOK.
‘A new chunk of it turns up roughly every six months,’ I told him. ‘Always in an exercise book. Always written in pencil. I must have forty thousand words of it by now – he’s reached the point where he’s in prison for burglary – but I still have no more idea who he is then I had when I received the first extract.’
‘Hmm,’ my brother said, changing gear as we approached a bend in the road.
‘Of course, the most exciting part was when he was an amateur vampire in Transylvania,’ I said.
‘Yes, that must be interesting,’ John commented.
‘You’re not really listening to me, are you?’ I asked sharply.
‘What? Of course I am?’
‘Then what was the last thing I said?’
‘You … uh … keep getting exercise books full of brilliant stuff dropped through your letterbox.’
‘That’s what I said about five minutes ago,’ I agreed. ‘But what have I been talking about since then?’
‘I’m sorry, Rob,’ my brother said. ‘You’re right – I wasn’t listening. I’ve got something on my mind.’
‘I rather thought you had. Is it the new job?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘Well, out with it, then.’
‘I’ve met a girl,’ John said in a rush, and looking across at him, I could almost have sworn he was blushing.
‘A girl!’ I repeated, trying to hide my smile – because I really did find it funny.
I assumed, of course, that in the time since I’d left Cheshire, he had been out with women, but now we had come down to actual cases, I found some difficulty in picturing it. The problem was that John, in my mind, was in some ways still a teenager – and I couldn’t help associating him with all the fumbling and sweating which most teenagers go through on their first few dates.
‘Her name’s Lydia,’ John said, sounding slightly aggrieved, as if he could read my thoughts.
‘Oh yes?’ I replied neutrally, not wanting to cut him off, yet not wishing to be intrusive either.
But I needn’t have worried about him falling silent. The floodgates had opened, and everything which had been on his mind came spilling out.
‘She’s twenty-four,’ he told me. ‘I met her at the village fête last summer. We talked for a while. She … I didn’t think she was really interested in me. I mean, I’ve got a pretty ham-fisted approach to girls. But she asked me for my telephone number, and a couple of weeks later she rang me. We’ve been seeing quite a lot of each other since then.’
This time, however much I tried, I could not hold back a grin.
‘And have you taken her home for Sunday tea, so she could meet Mum and Dad?’ I asked.
‘No,’ John confessed. ‘I will, when the time’s right. But I thought you might like to meet her first.’
I wondered if my suffering, and my modest success, had automatically promoted me – in his mind – to the role of older brother. But it wasn’t that. Even when we were kids, he’d looked to me for guidance, rather than the other way around.
‘I’d be honoured to meet her,’ I told him. ‘When can we arrange it?’
John released an involuntary sigh of relief.
‘I’ve booked a table at a country pub in Lower Peover for tonight,’ he said. ‘Just the three of us unless … unless there’s somebody you’d like to take.’
‘No,’ I said, trying not to sound too sad, ‘there’s nobody who I’d like to take. But won’t it be a little awkward if …’
‘Not at all, Rob. Not at all,’ John said, as much to reassure himself as to answer me.
The pub-restaurant John had selected was just off the main road, and since my brother had to go into Warrington to pick Lydia up, it was agreed that we should travel separately. Though he left home before me, I arrived first, and after parking my Ford Granada on the asphalt behind the pub, I went into the bar and ordered a pint.
It was a pleasant place in which to have a drink, full of old oak beams made black with age, and copper bedpans which could almost be mistaken for the genuine article.
As I sipped my pint, I found myself thinking about my encounter with my cousin Philip. He wanted his own company badly enough to kill for it, I’d said, and though that had clearly been an exaggeration, I didn’t think I had ever seen a man with as much frustrated ambition as Philip seemed to have. I tried to feel sorry for him, but found that I couldn’t. Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but the enmity which had existed between us as children had not been lessened one jot by our separation.
Turning my mind to more pleasant subjects, I began to think about my brother John. It was comical the way he had gone about this courtship business, I told myself. He’d been seeing the woman for nearly a year, yet he’d kept it a secret from our parents.
Even tonight, he had told them some cock and bull story about how he and I were going out for a drink together, to talk over old times. What was he afraid of? That our mother and father would disapprove? He was twenty-eight years old and managing director of his own company, for God’s sake!
The main door of the pub swung open, John entered, and I got my first look at the woman he had been meeting clandestinely since the summer fête. She was not what I’d expected. For openers, she looked considerably younger than the twenty-four John had told me she was. And whereas I’d been half expecting some busty blonde, she was quite the opposite – a slim brunette.
John saw me and waved like a man who needed someone to throw him a life belt. Then he pointed me out to the woman, took her by the arm, and led her towards me.
As she got closer, I was able to get a better look at Lydia. She had short hair, which was styled in what might have been called a pixie cut. Her eyes were green, her nose slim, and her mouth – I thought – perhaps a little tight. She was wearing a tailored suit which clung to her boyish figure.
I don’t want to make her sound unattractive – I noticed that several men in the room were following her with their eyes – but she was certainly not a woman who would ever have attracted me.
They reached the bar, and John slapped me warmly on the shoulder.
‘Rob, this is Lydia,’ he said, in a voice which sounded over-jovial. ‘Lydia, this is Robbie.’
We shook hands. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.
‘The feeling’s mutual,’ Lydia replied.
There was something unnatural about the whole situation and, from experience, I knew where that feeling came from. We were sizing each other up, accepting that we could be either allies or enemies, and not sure yet which it was going to be. I’d got exactly the same feeling when I’d first met
Jill’s father.
‘Have you checked that they’ve reserved us a table?’ John asked, with just a hint of panic in his voice.
‘It was the first thing I did when I came in,’ I assured him.
‘Good.’ My brother wiped his hand across his forehead. ‘Then let’s go and eat, shall we?’
We walked through to the dining room, and the waiter showed us to our table. By contrivance or accident – I’m not sure which – I found myself sitting directly opposite Lydia.
‘John’s told me so much about you,’ she said.
So much of what about me? I wondered.
Had he told her that I’d lost the only woman I was ever going to love? Had he mentioned the fact I’d had a mental collapse, and been institutionalized for over two years?
‘John talks too much,’ I said.
Lydia giggled. ‘I know he does. I’m always telling him that. But he’s so proud of having a famous brother that sometimes he just can’t help himself.’
I was still not quite confident enough about my present situation to feel secure about my past, and I breathed a secret sigh of relief that John seemed to have given his girlfriend an edited version of my life story.
‘So you met at our village fête,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ Lydia agreed.
‘And what happy chance took you from the metropolis of Warrington to a rustic little village like ours?’ I asked, thinking even as I spoke the words how patronising I sounded.
But if Lydia noticed my tone, she gave no indication of it.
‘I suppose it was a feeling of nostalgia that took me there,’ she said. ‘I was brought up in a small village in Lancashire, and the fête always used to be one of the high spots of our year.’
‘Do your parents still live in Lancashire?’ I asked.
‘What is this?’ my brother asked, in a mock-light, semi-concerned tone. ‘An interrogation?’
‘If I’ve said something wrong—’ I began.
‘No,’ Lydia interrupted. ‘No, you haven’t.’ She reached across the table and touched my brother’s hand. ‘John’s just trying to protect me, that’s all. He’s got this idea of me as a delicate flower, but I’m tough as old boots really.’
The Company Page 9
