Anna turned sharply. ‘But you don’t know for sure, do you? Tom’s never known his father.’
The consultant glanced at Mariner for clarification.
‘That’s right, I don’t know,’ Mariner obliged, convincing himself that technically he was telling the truth. He couldn’t possibly know that about Ryland.
Having taken family history details Dr Chang then talked a lot about statistics. Research into autism was still relatively new and there were a lot of unknowns. ‘There are however clear genetic links, although at present it’s not clear exactly how they work. It certainly is not inevitable that any child you have will have autistic spectrum difficulties. In real terms the chances are small, around three per cent, and you’re already ahead of the game. The knowledge that your child may have a predisposition is invaluable. There are lots of things you can do with the new baby to minimise the chances of the disorder developing. And of course if you didn’t want to take that risk there are other options open to you, such as adoption.’
‘So is that good news or bad?’ Mariner asked tentatively as they emerged. They were trying to make light of it.
‘It’s what I expected.’ But he could hear Anna’s disappointment. ‘The risk is there all right, isn’t it?’
‘But it’s reduced if we’re vigilant after the baby is born. And I suppose we could always go down the adoption route.’
‘But he didn’t advise against us having a family.’
‘That’s not his job,’ said Mariner, gently. ‘All he is meant to do is present the information to us. The decision is ours.’
‘So we need to decide.’ But even as they spoke, it seemed to be evolving into a different decision.
* * *
In the afternoon Mariner went back to work.
‘We’ve had a breakthrough,’ Charlie Glover said.
Mariner instantly thought of Ryland, but of course Glover was talking about Alecsander Lucca. ‘The CPS have given the go ahead to apply for extradition. They’re starting negotiations with Albanian officials. Your trip down to London must have helped.’
‘That’s great,’ said Mariner, absently, his mind very much elsewhere. He didn’t like to tell Glover that the negotiations could take months. He retreated to his office, but a couple of minutes later Tony Knox put in an appearance.
‘How did it go?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘The appointment.’
‘It was interesting.’
‘So you’re going ahead with it?’
Mariner was feeling sorry for himself. ‘It’s such a big change. I don’t know if I can handle it.’
‘Changes happen to everyone whether they like it or not,’ said Knox irritably. ‘Sometimes you have to just grit your teeth and get on with it.’ And he stomped out again.
* * *
Even though he’d run out of leads, Mariner couldn’t stop thinking about Ryland. Perhaps he’d been wrong about those cash payments and Ryland really had been involved in some kind of gambling racket, but in no respect of the case did that scenario seem to fit. He’d uncovered no related evidence to substantiate it, and Norman Balfour had stated categorically that Ryland wasn’t a gambler. And if he was involved in some kind of dubious business venture, why involve Sandie? No, Mariner was convinced now that those payments were down to blackmail. But with Rupert Foster-Young out of the picture he was short of potential candidates.
Nor had Mariner exposed any other Achilles heel that a potential blackmailer could take advantage of. Ryland had no other weak spots, unless he’d committed some kind of impropriety at the Commission. But according to all those who knew him, the man was overloaded with integrity. He was a brilliant politician but had not fulfilled his potential, turning down government office for what was largely an administration post at the JRC. The job needed a political heavyweight because there were some difficult waters to navigate, but Ryland could do it with his eyes closed. Starting out in politics his ambitions were such that he’d made a very careful and precise choice of partner, and when things had got tough for her he’d abandoned his career plan to support her through her illness.
That illness. Most of what Mariner had learned about Diana Ryland pertained to her frail mental state. It wasn’t public knowledge that she’d suffered in that way and yet everyone he’d spoken to about her had mentioned it. Euphemistically, of course — Diana was ‘fragile’ or ‘delicate’ — but Mariner couldn’t help wondering how that delicacy manifested itself. He’d had taken it to mean that she was easily stressed, highly strung, but what if it were something more? Norman Balfour had cited her poor health as the reason why the Rylands hadn’t had children. And it was a recurrent problem, from the breakdown in her student days up until the time of Rose’s funeral. Diana was unwell again, the past coming back to haunt them in other ways, Eleanor Ryland had said.
Dave Flynn had talked about the quantity of Valium they’d found at the Rylands’ house. And Valium could be addictive. Was this the skeleton in the Ryland cupboard, that Diana Ryland had a drug dependency problem? Ryland was his wife’s guardian, but what lengths would he go to in order to protect her from publicity about her illness. Would he go as far as submitting to blackmail?
Mariner needed to find out more about Diana. Norman Balfour would, he felt, be of little help. He was, by his own admission, a friend and would be more likely to shield her memory from unfavourable publicity. The person who might be more honest was the frank-talking Fliss, and Mariner regretted not finding out where she was staying. Fortunately for him the animal rescue centre had her contact details and directed him to a country hotel not far from Eleanor’s house. Ringing reception, Mariner was put through to her room. ‘Ms Fitzgibbon this is Tom Mariner. We met at the animal rescue centre.’
‘You’ve decided to take Nelson!’ She was delighted.
‘No. I’m sorry.’ Mariner took a breath. ‘Ms Fitzgibbon, there’s something I should explain. I didn’t just happen on you that day. I wanted to speak to you.’
‘Oh?’ She was intrigued, not surprised.
‘You’re not in any danger. It’s just. I’m Sir Geoffrey Ryland’s illegitimate son.’
Silence at the other end of the phone. Mariner was beginning to get used to these many and varied reactions. ‘I know it must be a shock. But believe me, it’s true. I’ve DNA proof.’
‘Well, well.’ She was calm, amused even. ‘I knew you existed.’
‘You did?’
‘You were one of my family’s best kept secrets.’
‘I’m also a police officer,’ Mariner pressed on. ‘And I’ve been unofficially looking into his death and your sister’s. I’m sure that something has been overlooked.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I’m just trying to re-examine everything. I wanted to ask you about your sister’s health. Is there somewhere we could meet?’
‘Why don’t you come here for dinner?’
* * *
When they met early that evening, Mariner could see that she was looking at him differently. ‘My nephew,’ she said, ‘by marriage, anyway. How strange to meet you after all this time. When did you learn that Geoff was your father?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
‘Do you hate him?’
Mariner replied carefully. ‘I’ve gone through a whole range of emotions, I can’t deny it. But now I just think he was a victim of his time, manipulated by people he thought were older and wiser.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ she said. ‘Shall we eat?’
It was the kind of country hotel specialising in the accommodation of wealthy tourists, where the food was tasty and artistically presented but left Mariner still hungry. The restaurant was doing a brisk business.
‘I’m not sure that there’s much I can tell you,’ said Fliss Fitzgibbon, when they had ordered. ‘At least, nothing that would be relevant to how Geoff and Diana were killed.’
‘I’m just trying to piece things t
ogether,’ said Mariner. ‘And Diana’s illness intrigues me. It’s something that everyone mentions, but no one talks about.’
She gave a light laugh. ‘You’ve got that exactly right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t see how—’
‘I think Sir Geoffrey was being blackmailed,’ Mariner said.
He’d shocked her. ‘Blackmail? That’s quite an assertion to make.’
‘Over the last months of his life Sir Geoffrey was making regular cash payments to an unknown person or persons — or rather his assistant was making them on his behalf. It was done under the guise of a betting scam.’
‘Geoff wasn’t a gambling man.’
‘So I’ve been told— which is just one of the things that makes me believe it was blackmail. The arrangement was causing him some distress, and he tried unsuccessfully to end it just the week before he was killed. It’s possible that it was related to Diana’s illness, though I’m not yet sure how.’
‘Mental illness is the last taboo, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘Diana would have been so ashamed for the whole world to know about her problems. Geoff would have done anything to protect her from that.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Mariner. ‘I know this may be painful, but what can you tell me about it?’
Floss sighed. ‘Even I don’t know all the details, we’re going back a long way.’ She sat back in her seat. ‘I suppose things first came to a head when I was about eight, it would have been the summer of 1963, although Diana hadn’t been herself for some time before that. It was university that seemed to do it. Diana did well at school. She wasn’t a brilliant scholar but she pushed herself hard and got into Oxford to study law.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Not many people do.’ A weak smile acknowledged it. ‘My parents, especially my father, were incredibly proud of her. But she didn’t stay the course. She came home again before the end of her first term. I don’t know if she couldn’t keep up academically or if she simply couldn’t cope with the rough and tumble of student life. Whatever it was, it had destroyed her confidence. After that she seemed to get very depressed, crying at the slightest thing. I think she felt she had let everyone down.
‘I was away at boarding school by then, and whereas on previous holidays I’d had a good time with my big sister, suddenly we were all treading on eggshells around her. Selfish little brat that I was, I merely felt resentful that Dizzy was no fun anymore. I remember those particular Christmas and Easter holidays vividly. Easter was especially bad. Then shortly after that she had a complete breakdown. Not that I witnessed it. I was back at school.’ A single tear broke loose and ran down her cheek.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mariner said. ‘If this is too upsetting—’
She took a deep breath. ‘No, it’s fine. When I got home for the summer Dizz wasn’t there. She’d been sent away to the country to recuperate. It was never talked about at the time, but later I learned that she’d tried to take her own life. It was hushed up of course. Any kind of mental illness wasn’t something families, especially our kind of family, admitted to. A few months after that my father died of a heart attack. Family lore has it that it was brought on by the stress of what had happened to Dizzy, but either way it was a horrible time for us and even if it wasn’t true, I know she blamed herself. The next time I saw her was at Daddy’s funeral and I hardly recognised her. She was wasting away before our eyes, like those anorexic girls you see in the papers. Then in a matter of months she had met Geoffrey and they were planning to get married. It was a complete turnaround. Geoff quite literally saved her life.’
‘And did Diana have any further episodes?’
‘Yes. She went through a bad patch just before Geoff resigned as an MP. Dizzy was always prone to depression, and she always wore long sleeves.’
That significance was lost on Mariner and his face must have betrayed him.
‘When she couldn’t cope she used to cut herself,’ Fliss said. ‘Poor Diana, she was so sweet and gentle. Too good for this world really.’
‘Do you remember any recent recurrences?’ Mariner asked, thinking that the wine they were drinking seemed exceptionally strong. His head felt slightly detached from the rest of him. It was very warm in here, too. He loosened his tie.
‘I think something might have happened last summer, about eighteen months ago. I was planning to come over for a visit, but quite suddenly Geoff called and asked me to postpone.’
‘Have you any idea what it was?’
‘It sounded serious. Geoff said that Dizzy wasn’t up to receiving visitors. It crossed my mind that she may have attempted suicide again, though I don’t know why. Not something that Geoffrey would have wanted broadcast, especially in the position he was in by then. It would have made him politically vulnerable. By the law of statistics there must be hundreds of people in public life who are affected by mental illness in some form or another, but it’s rarely talked about is it? I sometimes wonder if Diana would have been helped if they’d started a family. I’m sure it would have taken her mind off things, and she loved children.’ It was a different story from the one Balfour had told. Mariner wondered who was right.
‘I understand Diana took medication for her illness,’ he said. ‘Is it possible that she could have developed a dependence on prescription drugs?’
‘She was on meds for a long time, never went anywhere without her little green bag.’
It would have been so easy to exploit Diana’s illness for financial gain, thought Mariner. Not everyone was thrilled about what Ryland was doing at the Commission. Perhaps someone was hoping to use Diana’s illness as a way of getting him out, too. But who else knew about the illness? Even Diana’s own sister’s knowledge was sketchy. There would be medical records of any treatment she had received in the past, and Diana would have been treated by a team of medical professionals while she was ill. Had one of them seen an opportunity for extortion, or been got at by someone who did?
‘Do you know where Diana went to recuperate when she was first ill?’ Mariner asked.
‘I don’t think I was ever told. All I remember was that it was in the country where the clean air would be beneficial to her health. I think it was somehow church related too, like some religious retreat. Our Lady of something-or-other – Lourdes I think - is what comes back to me but I might be off beam with that. Norman might know, of course.’ Their main course arrived, but the fleshy slices of duck, swimming in crimson plum sauce made Mariner feel slightly queasy.
‘So there you have it,’ said Fliss, arranging her napkin on her lap. ‘The dirty linen in our closet. Has it helped?’
‘I’m not sure, but thank you,’ said Mariner. ‘Sometimes having the background helps to clarify other things.’
‘You’ve discussed this with your colleagues?’
‘I’ve only just arrived at it myself,’ Mariner said. ‘My colleagues also believe that I’m not functioning well at the moment. I should also tell you that, as the last person to see her alive, I’m on the list of suspects for Eleanor’s murder, but I hope you can believe that I didn’t do it. You’re the only person who can help me.’ Mariner found himself clutching her wrist as a wave of nausea struck.
Smiling uncertainly, Fliss gently removed his hand. ‘What would you like me to do?’
‘It would help to find out as much as possible about the treatment Diana had — this retreat that she stayed at when she was first ill and anything that’s happened since. Could you see if there’s anything in her personal papers that makes reference to it?’ Mariner squinted at her. Her face seemed to be blurring at the edges and wouldn’t keep still.
‘It’s going back a long time, but I’ll try. I’m rather intrigued myself. Where can I contact you?’
Mariner gave her his business card. This wine was potent stuff. The room was moving around him as if he’d stepped onto a merry-go-round. ‘I think I need some air,’ he said, getting to his feet. But when he tried to walk out of the restaurant his legs seem
ed to have liquefied.
Chapter Thirty
Mariner’s mobile phone ringing close by roused him, but he seemed not to be wearing his jacket any more. In the semi-darkness he scrambled over the floor trying to locate the sound. He had a further moment of disorientation as he put the phone to his ear. It was Anna.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
Good question. He was still wearing his shirt but could see his trousers and tie hanging over the back of a chair. He scanned the room and in the half-light something on the bed moved lazily in her sleep and then he remembered. Fliss Fitzgibbon. Afraid to consider what might have happened here, Mariner got up and padded into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind him. His head hurt like hell. ‘I called in at a pub and had a few drinks,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘It didn’t seem a good idea to drive back so I’ve stopped overnight at a . . . place. I’ll be back soon.’
‘Well, the case conference starts at eleven, if you’re still planning to come?’
‘Of course, I’ll be back well before then.’ Even though it was already nine thirty and up until now he’d completely forgotten about it.
When he went back into the bedroom Fliss Fitzgibbon, wrapped in a beige silk robe, was pulling back the curtains. ‘Feeling better?’ she asked, with a smile. ‘Don’t look so worried, you only spent the night on the couch. After practically passing out on your way outside, I could hardly let you drive home.’
* * *
But this morning there was no avoiding it. Convincing Fliss that he was fit to do so, Mariner drove back slowly, his head aching and his vision blurring intermittently. It was one of the worst hangovers he’d had in a long time, probably not helped by the fact that he’d declined the offer of breakfast. He couldn’t imagine his stomach holding onto anything for long anyway.
At Anna’s empty house he showered and put on a clean suit, which though a marginal improvement, also made him late. As he dressed he put a call through to Mike Baxter. It was early, so the office was closed, but he left a message on the answering machine, asking Baxter to find out what he could about a retreat called Our Lady of Lourdes.
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