by W. Soliman
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m bored with the subject. Mr. Monk was only trying to help.”
I bit back a sardonic laugh. “Why are you always so willing to forgive? Do you like being manipulated?”
She drew a pattern on the back on my hand with her forefinger. “Depends upon who’s doing the manipulating.”
When I dropped her back at Cathcart Road I was again full of foreboding but knew it was pointless trying to get her to change her mind. I got out of the taxi and walked her to the door, aware of the discreet camera in the porch pointing directly downwards. Someone inside would be watching our every move. I wondered what other security devises there were about the place but didn’t want to make it too obvious that I was looking.
“Smile,” I told her, “you’re on candid camera. No, don’t look up! Pretend you don’t know it’s there. Just act naturally. We don’t want them to capture our faces looking directly at them in case we’re recognised.”
“How does a professional escort act in such circumstances?”
I shrugged. “Search me.”
“So you’ve never paid for company before then?”
“I’ll be back on the boat before midnight. Ring me to let me know you’re all right and do the same thing in the morning. We’ll take things from there.”
“You worry too much, Charlie.”
“Just do it!”
I glared at her and then kissed her on the cheek, mindful of the security cameras recording our fond farewells. Then I got back in the taxi and headed for Victoria. It was only as I got on the train that I realized I hadn’t put my glasses back on before seeing Kara to the door. Whoever was inside watching us couldn’t have failed to notice that their myopic client had suddenly developed twenty-twenty vision.
Chapter Seventeen
I got back to the boat by midnight and received a call from Kara soon after that. She spoke in a whisper but assured me nothing untoward had happened.
“Monika was around and seemed surprised to see me back so early.”
“I told you that you were supposed to seduce me.”
“I’m not that sort of girl, Charlie.”
“No, of course you’re not.” I chuckled. “Anyway, did she cross-question you?”
“She only asked if everything had gone smoothly—”
“But what she really wanted to know was why you hadn’t come back to my hotel.”
She giggled. “I guess. I told her that you were too hung up about your wife to do anything more than hold my hand.”
I could hear the mischief in her voice. “Get some sleep,” I told her. “And make sure you ring me again first thing.”
I turned in and slept better than I had for a while. I interpreted that as a good omen but when by ten the next morning I hadn’t heard from Kara again, I figured my optimism had been premature. There could be any number of innocent reasons for her silence but that didn’t prevent me from worrying. And blaming myself for letting her stay in that bloody house. I should have put my foot down and insisted she come back to the boat with me last night. She was a morning person, full of energy as soon as she opened her eyes, so why the hell hadn’t she called?
I paced the salon, Gil’s eyes following my every move, telling myself there was probably a simple explanation. Yeah, very simple! She’d been rumbled. Explanations didn’t come any simpler than that. Gut instinct told me her crazy plan had gone pear-shaped and she was in danger. I was about to ring Monk and ask him what was going on, fairly sure he’d know, when my phone chirped into life. I breathed a mammoth sigh of relief.
Better late than never.
A quick glance at the display and my relief turned to puzzlement. It wasn’t Kara calling. It was someone I hadn’t heard from for years.
Jarvis Goldsmith. I experienced the familiar sense of loss as keenly as though it was yesterday. My mother’s manager, who’d been with us the night she was killed. Jarvis himself was injured in the attack and had been inconsolable when my mother didn’t survive. That ought to have brought us closer together, uniting us in our grief. But I rebuffed his attempts to befriend me, not always very politely. I was unable to explain that, irrationally, I held him responsible for what had happened. By the time I was old enough to accept that there was nothing he could have done, the rift was too wide to breach and we seldom spoke anymore. Wondering what it was that he wanted now, I answered the call.
“Jarvis, how are you?”
“Charlie, it’s good to hear your voice.”
I frowned. It wasn’t good to hear his. If I hadn’t been aware who I was talking to, I never would have known it was him. He’d been ill recently and I felt a stab of guilt at not having been in touch. Still, it was too late for self-recriminations. Besides, I was anxious not to tie the line up for too long in case Kara called so I cut to the chase.
“This is quite a surprise. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I was rather hoping that you’d be able to spare the time to come and see me. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“What, now?”
“Now would be good, if you can.”
“Well, I’ve got a bit of a panic on at the moment and I’ll probably have to go up to town. Could it wait a day or two?”
“Not really. I’d come to you but I’m not too mobile right now.” His voice trailed off, as though the explanation for his immobility was too painful to articulate. The last thing I needed was the emotional turmoil of making polite, stilted conversation with Jarvis, and I was tempted to put him off. “I’m probably inconveniencing you and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
I was about to make my excuses, but something in his tone made me hesitate. He’d never made any demands of me over the years, not even when Brendan tried to enlist his help to get me to carry on playing the piano. Kara would still be able to reach my mobile, and it might take my mind off her predicament if I had something else to think about.
“All right. Give me an hour.”
For Jarvis home was a bungalow in Saltdean. It had been convenient for his wife, who’d been restricted to a wheelchair ever since I’d known her due to a freak reaction to an over-the-counter headache pill. She’d died a few years previously. Jarvis had contacted me at the time but like the coward I could sometimes be, I sent flowers and condolences but didn’t attend the funeral.
I climbed onto the Harley and headed for Saltdean, trying to focus my thoughts on Kara rather than the confrontation that awaited me. It didn’t work. Images of my mother’s face, her features as clearly defined as if I’d seen her just yesterday, flooded my mind. I shook my head to dispel them. This was ridiculous, I was getting all worked up about seeing an old man, just because he’d occupied a special place in my mother’s life. The villains I’d nicked over the years would laugh themselves sick if they could see the state I was in at the prospect of it. They had me pegged as a hard man, with good reason, and I owed it to their perception of me almost as much as I owed it to myself to get over my ridiculous hang-ups. Jarvis was harmless and my mother had been dead for more than twenty years.
It was finally time to put the past behind me and get on with my life.
I pulled the bike into the driveway of the neat bungalow I remembered. Except it was no longer quite so neat. The garden was overgrown and the house looked shabby and neglected. I took a moment to check my phone, making sure I hadn’t missed any calls. Nope. I rang Kara’s mobile. It was still switched off. Tamping down my growing concerns, I rang Jarvis’s bell.
“It’s open, Charlie,” called the frail voice I recognised from the phone.
I turned the handle and walked in, wishing I could be anywhere other than here. The house smelt dank and was too warm. It was a hot day but Jarvis had the heating turned up full blast. The windows were all closed, and as I approached the living room the aroma of antiseptic I normally associate with hospitals almost knocked me sideways.
“You should keep your door locke
d, Jarvis,” I said, entering the room. “There’s lots of bad people about nowadays. Good heavens…” I caught sight of Jarvis, small and hunched, his skin deathly pale and paper-thin where it stretched across his protruding cheekbones, and was unable to hide my reaction.
“Hello, Charlie. Thanks for coming. Don’t look like that,” he said with a mirthless smile.
“I’m resigned to it.”
“What is it?” I asked, still trying to get over my shock at the deterioration in his health. The robust man I remembered seemed to have shrivelled to half his size. His clothes hung from his skeletal frame, and sunken eyes were magnified behind large glasses, which kept slipping down his nose. Tracks of a comb were visible in the pathetic wisps of thin white hair arranged across his pink scalp.
“The big C. I don’t have long left and they’re moving me to a hospice on Monday. I wanted to talk to you whilst I still can. Whilst I’m in my own place and can enjoy a modicum of privacy.” A spasm of coughing rendered him speechless for a few moments.
I found a carafe of water on the table next to him and poured him a glass.
“Thanks.”
He grasped it between both his hands. The glass shook as he raised it to his lips.
I glanced ’round the room, giving him time to compose himself. I’ve never been good ’round illness and wished I could be somewhere else. I felt great sympathy for him but also wondered what was so important that he’d pressured me into dropping everything and dashing down here.
There were photographs of my mother everywhere. In concert, with me at various stages of my adolescence, with Jarvis, with various conductors. With just about everyone, with one notable exception. My father wasn’t in a single shot.
“She was my life.”
I turned to face Jarvis. I hadn’t realized he’d been watching me. “And mine,” I said quietly, “and mine.”
“You never knew, did you?”
“Knew what?”
“About her and me.”
Alarm bells rang in my head. I had a feeling that whatever he was going to tell me, I’d definitely prefer not to hear it.
“We were—”
“Jarvis, I don’t think—”
“No, Charlie, let me talk. I’ve kept quiet all these years out of respect for her memory, watching you chasing your tail, trying to find answers.” His heavy sigh produced another bout of coughing. “Well,” he said once he’d recovered, “the time has come for you to know the truth. Perhaps then you might finally find closure.”
“All right.” I perched one buttock on the chair opposite his, trying to look relaxed but poised for flight, just in case it all got too much. “I’m listening.”
Jarvis fastened rheumy eyes upon me and after a protracted silence he finally started talking. “You don’t need me to tell you how profoundly your mother affected the lives of all the people she was close to.” He paused, seeming to expect me to say something. I was too choked up to oblige and made do with a curt nod. “She was sensitive, intuitive, lovely and well…just unique. She and your father appeared to be soul mates. One of those rare couples who were completely in tune with one another and didn’t need anyone else to make their lives complete.”
“Yeah, that’s how it seemed to me, as well.”
“And that’s how they were at first. Everyone was touched by their togetherness.”
“But something happened?” I suggested when his words stalled and he seemed to forget I was there.
“Sorry, Charlie.” He pushed himself upright in his chair. “I have trouble concentrating sometimes. The drugs, you understand.”
“Of course. Don’t tire yourself. I can always come back.”
“What does it matter if I tire myself? I’ve got all day to sleep if I want to.”
If he expected me to argue he was in for a disappointment. I just nodded, impatient to hear what he had to say next. Not wanting to know.
“Anyway, where was I?”
“You were explaining why my parents drifted apart.”
“Yes, right, well, your father was no businessman, and that’s what caused the first cracks to appear in their relationship. Then you came along and your arrival was the excuse Julia needed to find a new manager. Any number of people would have jumped at the chance of taking responsibility for her career, and so I felt extremely privileged when she asked me to look after her interests.” He was afflicted by another spasm of coughing and I got up to refill his glass of water. “Thanks.” He grimaced and took an unnecessary amount of time sipping the water.
I glanced at my watch and somehow managed not to tap my foot.
“God,” he said, shaking his head, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth, “this is proving harder than I thought it would. For all sorts of reasons.”
“You were telling me about becoming Mum’s manager.” I was uncomfortable having a dying man bare his soul to me. That and my growing concern at Kara’s continuing silence made me sound more acerbic than perhaps I should have.
“Ah yes, that.” He sighed deeply. “Your father had always felt threatened by your mother’s talent. She showed him up to be the third-rate musician that he was, you see. Not intentionally, of course. She’d never be that spiteful, and it didn’t matter to her that as her reputation grew, she became the main breadwinner. But your father had been sacked by the orchestra he played in and then failed as Julia’s manager. He felt like a failure and took his resentment out on her.”
“I didn’t know that.” I stared at him, wondering at first if he might be lying. But I was unable to come up with any logical reason why he would.
“How could you? You were just a baby at the time. I took over your mother’s career and helped it to flourish. That necessitated spending a lot of time with her, in out-of-the-way towns, in hotels—”
“I think I know where you’re going with this and I’m equally sure that I don’t want to hear it. Make your peace with your Maker, or go to confession if you feel you must, but don’t burden me with your guilty conscience.” I turned to leave.
“No, don’t go!”
Reluctantly I halted in the doorway, my back still to him.
“If I’d just had a sordid affair with your mother, of course I wouldn’t feel the need to tell you. But it was a lot more than that.” He paused and I could hear the breath rattling in his throat.
“We were in love, Charlie, and had been for years.”
I did turn towards him now. “But your wife, she was—”
“A cripple. Yes, I know that all too well and, trust me, she knew how to use her immobility as a weapon against me. I suspect she knew about Julia and me from the first but she didn’t think it would ever be more than an affair. She understood that I still had physical needs, you see. She was unable to satisfy them so what did it matter to her where I turned to for relief? She felt perfectly secure. After all, what sort of a bastard walks out on a crippled wife?”
He paused, whether because he was short of breath or for effect I was unable to tell. “Well, you’re looking at him. I finally persuaded your mother that we were entitled to a little bit of happiness. What sort of life would it be if we had to carry on looking over our shoulders all the time, making sure no one even suspected? But your mother’s first concern was for you, and she was adamant that we shouldn’t do anything about it until you were old enough to understand. Your father had all but taken you over, supervising your piano and making you his son in an effort to overcome his disappointments. Julia wanted to explain to you herself what had happened, how much she loved you…” His voice broke and he paused to noisily blow his nose. “She’d finally agreed that after the concert in Croydon that fateful evening we’d talk to you together.”
“So that’s what was different about her that night,” I said slowly. “I sensed something but I couldn’t think—”
“Yes, I’d told Marianne a few weeks before that I was leaving her. There was ample money from her compensation claim for round-the-clock carers, and it w
as time for me to have a life of my own.”
“How did she take it?”
“Hysterically. She used every form of emotional blackmail you can imagine and recruited her family to support her cause. Every member of it berated me for being such a bastard.” He half smiled. “Call me a cynic but I always thought it was because they might actually have to do something to look after Marianne themselves if I actually left her.”
“Did my father know?” I asked, only now realising why he was telling me all this.
“Yes, she’d told him at the same time I told Marianne.”
“I see.” I walked to the window and looked out at the weed-strewn garden without actually seeing it. “But you didn’t tell the police any of this after the shooting?”
“No, I didn’t want to hurt you any more than you already were.”
“Because you thought my father might have been behind the shooting? Might have hired someone to do the deed?”
“Or Marianne and your father in cahoots. Both of them were incandescent with rage at the thought of what Julia and I were about to do.” He spread his hands over his bony knees.
“Who knows what that might have led them to do?”
“So why didn’t you tell the police?”
He sighed. “Because I was half out of my mind with grief. And guilt. And anyway, I knew that if a professional had been hired to do the killing, it would be next to impossible to prove it.”
“It wouldn’t have been, not at the time,” I said, back in policeman mode. “The payment would have had to come from somewhere.”
Jarvis merely grunted, probably because I wasn’t telling him something he didn’t already know.
“There’s always a trail if you know where to start looking,” I said, anger making me unnecessarily cruel to a dying man. “Hired hit men cost money. Financial records can be scoured, questions asked, alibis triple-checked.” It was all too late now, of course, and next to impossible to do any of those things after all this time.