Michael Lanyon was the sole beneficiary under the will Mr. Carnoweth made when he came home from Alaska and found out how things stood with the boy’s mother. I suppose he thought his own family didn’t need any help at the time. Later, as he grew older and you and your sister turned up to make him think about the next generation, he decided to share his fortune more fairly. God knows, there was plenty to go round. If Michael had known just how much, maybe he’d never have …”
Treffry shrugged. “But that’s just speculation, isn’t it?”
“It seems to me this is all speculation. You can’t be sure Uncle Joshua meant to change his will. Or that Michael Lanyon knew what his intentions were. Or even knew he stood to inherit under the old will, come to that.”
“But I can, Mr. Napier. Tully told me so. Now, how could he have come by that information, other than through his old friend? And what reason did he have to murder Mr. Carnoweth, other than to help his old friend out? He couldn’t settle to anything after he came home from the war. There’d been some kind of family feud even before he joined the Army. I forget the details now. But the upshot was that he started leading a nomadic life, drifting from one boarding house to another, drinking too much and spending too much, until he found himself in Truro largely by chance, to hear him tell it and decided to touch his old chum from Oxford for a loan. You were there when they met for the first time in about fifteen years. Colquite and Dew’s yard.
Remember?”
“I do remember, yes. Michael looked anything but pleased to see him.”
“That was before he realized what Tully might be able to do for him.
Tully hung around Truro because he saw Lanyon had done well for himself and thought he might be persuaded to help him get back on his feet.”
“According to Tully.”
“Not just Tully. There was a witness who corroborated his claim to have seen Lanyon at the Daniell Arms slap bang opposite the Lander Monument, mark you two nights before the murder. That’s when the money changed hands. The night after Lanyon withdrew five hundred pounds in cash from his bank account. The witness was a reliable man. What was his name, now? Vigus. That was it. Sam Vigus. Worked for Killigrew’s, the removers.”
Sam Vigus was clear in my memory as an overalled figure of some girth likely to be seen humping and heaving at the scene of just about every house move in Truro during the Forties and Fifties. His wife was even clearer, as one of the slaves to fashion who helped Gran make such a success of credit drapery. I’d forgotten Sam had also played a small but vital part in convicting Michael Lanyon of murder.
“Vigus saw Lanyon give Tully a bulky brown envelope. His description of the envelope matched the one in which the money was found in Tully’s bag. And that envelope had Lanyon’s fingerprints on it. Vigus also heard Lanyon telling Tully to do what he’d been paid to do soon. He saw them look out of the window at the Lander Monument. As if choosing the spot. Tully wrote to Mr. Carnoweth next morning, saying he had some embarrassingly intimate love letters sent by Cordelia Lanyon to Tully’s late father, which he was willing to sell to the highest bidder. Would Mr. Carnoweth meet him at the Lander Monument at midnight the following night to fix terms? That was the set-up.”
“The letter was never found, though, was it?”
“Mr. Carnoweth presumably destroyed it before setting out to keep the appointment. Anyway, that’s not the point. What it shows is that Tully knew things about the Lanyons only a member of the family could have divulged to him.”
“Yes, but Michael might easily have mentioned his mother was Uncle Joshua’s former sweetheart when he and Tully were undergraduates together.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know. Except that it wasn’t quite the open-and-shut case it seemed to be at the time.”
Treffry shook his head pityingly. “No good, Mr. Napier. Lanyon paid Tully five hundred pounds. We know that for a fact. He said it was for old times’ sake, but you’re not about to tell me you believe that.
Tully murdered Mr. Carnoweth. We know that for another fact. And I’m afraid a third inevitably follows.”
“You’re certain Michael Lanyon deserved to hang?”
“I am.”
“And Tully?”
“Him too.”
“The Home Secretary thought otherwise.”
“That’s politicians for you. There was sympathy for Tully because of his war record, and because he eventually owned up. Well, that had a contrived look about it to me. I think Tully knew he was going to be convicted and reckoned a confession, however late in the day, might swing a reprieve. The judge seemed to fall for it and the Home Secretary went along with him. Tully handled the trial a sight better than the murder. I have to hand it to him there. A British prison must have seemed like a holiday camp after three and a half years in Changi Gaol.”
“But Michael Lanyon didn’t confess. Even when Tully’s change of plea left his defence in tatters.”
“There was no point. No mitigation, you see. It was a strange case in that sense. The man who delivered the fatal blow always seemed less guilty than the man who talked him into it. What really hanged Lanyon was the stark ingratitude of commissioning his benefactor’s murder, and the exploitation of his war-ruined friend.”
“There could be another explanation for his refusal to confess.”
“Strangely enough, I think you’re right. But it’s not the explanation you seem to have in mind.” The bull terrier ambled up and nuzzled his master’s knee, as if he’d had enough and wanted to go home. But Treffry was in no hurry to leave. He seemed to be relishing the debate. “Lanyon’s family were so sure he was innocent he couldn’t bring himself to disillusion them. Maybe he thought it was kinder to leave them with the memory of a wronged man. From what I saw of his son, though, I reckon he was mistaken. The truth’s always preferable.
In the end, it’s easier to live with.”
“And you’re sure you know what the truth is?”
“In this case, yes.”
“How can you be? Absolutely sure, I mean.”
“Like I told you. Professional instinct.”
“What about me, then? How can I be sure?”
“If what I’ve said hasn’t convinced you, then …” He shrugged. “I can’t help you.”
“Maybe you can. It’s occurred to me, you see, that one man knows the exact truth beyond question.”
Tully.” Treffry nodded. “Your pal Nicky Lanyon seemed to have the same idea, as far as I could tell from his ramblings. No disrespect to the boy, but he was pretty confused when he came here. What I did gather, though, was that he was looking for Tully and thought I could point him in the right direction. I had to disappoint him there, I’m afraid.”
“Why? Is Tully dead?”
“Could be. He never struck me as the sort to make old bones. But I’ve no way of knowing or finding out.”
“Surely the probation service keeps tabs on prisoners released on licence.”
“They do. But there’s a strange thing. Probably just as well the press have never got wind of it. Tully went missing a few months after he was released. They let me know in case he headed this way, looking to settle old scores. But I never saw hide nor hair of him, and neither did anyone else. I had a word with some old contacts after the Lanyon boy’s visit and I can tell you nothing’s changed. Tully hasn’t been seen or heard of for twelve years. Abroad seems a good bet. South Africa. Argentina. Somewhere like that. He’d fit in there, I imagine.”
“You mean he’s on the run?”
“Technically, yes. But since he’d already been released, it’s a manhunt that’ll never get beyond the filing cabinet. Overseas is only my theory. He could be literally anywhere. Or nowhere, of course.”
“And that’s what you told Nicky?”
“It is. Seemed to knock out what wind there was in his sails. I’m sorry for that, in view of what happened, but…” His weary shake of the head and seaward squint seemed
to speak of all the human frailty his working life had acquainted him with. The bull terrier sat down slowly and settled its muzzle on Treffry’s boot. “If Tully isn’t dead, he might as well be for all the difference it makes.”
“What about his family? He might be in touch with them.”
“Doubt it. His parents were dead by the time of the murder and there was no love lost between him and his brother. He was the only relative I tracked down when I went up to Yorkshire to check on Tully’s background. He’d taken charge of the family firm. A linen mill, as far as I can recall. Probably closed down years ago. And I dare say the brother’s pushing up the daisies. He was the older of the two by quite a few years.”
“Where was this mill?”
“Hebden Bridge. Halfway between Leeds and Manchester. Can’t remember much about the place. A dull day in a Yorkshire mill town doesn’t leave many traces in the memory. And Tully’s brother was as tight-lipped as they come. The whole business was an embarrassment to him. He didn’t want to know, and I can’t say I blame him.”
“So where did Tully go when he left prison?”
“Not Yorkshire. The probation officer he was assigned to, the one who contacted me when he went missing, was based in London. He said he’d set up Tully in a small flat somewhere. Described him as a loner.
Well, a lot of ex-cons are. Especially lifers. No mystery in that.
And not much in his doing a bunk. He was a wanderer by nature. So, he wandered off. It’s only what you’d expect.”
“You make it sound so simple. So predictable.”
“Murder often is. I blame these crime writers for making people think it’s complicated.”
“There have been such things as miscarriages of justice.”
“Not on my patch.”
“I wish I could share your confidence.”
Treffry treated me to a benevolent smile. “I’m afraid sentiment is clouding your judgement, Mr. Napier. It does you credit, I suppose.
But it won’t accomplish anything.”
“Nor will closing my eyes to the remote possibility that Michael Lanyon was a wronged man.”
“Remote is right. Remember this. A man is innocent until proven guilty. Once the verdict’s in, it works the other way round. Michael Lanyon is guilty until you prove him innocent. And that you never will.” Treffry stirred the bull terrier gently, levered himself up off the “bench and flexed his knees. “Time I was off home. Buster wants his tea. Come on, boy.” He lumbered off, the dog plodding after him, but he paused at the foot of the steps to touch his hat to me in an oddly courteous farewell. Then he started up to the road and Tangier Terrace and the resting place of a professionally untroubled conscience.
The case against Michael Lanyon and Edmund Tully went before the Truro magistrates on Monday 1 September 1947. It occupied most of that week and a sizeable daily chunk of the front page of the Western Morning News. Since it was virtually a taboo subject in the Napier household, at any rate in my presence, the newspaper, examined over Pam’ sshoulder after she’ dsurreptitiously rescued it from the bin, was really the only insight into the proceedings I had. A distant glimpse of the crowd that gathered at the rear of the court on Back Quay each morning and afternoon to see the coming and going of the defendants was certainly enough to deter me from seeking a closer view. There was something unsettling about the way they moved and looked; something ugly and vengeful in their eyes; something, I suppose, of the mob that people anywhere can so easily become.
The evidence as set out in the newspaper sounded damning enough, although I couldn’t understand why it took so long to present.
According to Pam, that was because I had no appreciation of how a court of law worked. I was fooled at the time into believing she did have, but in those pre-television days, with no weekly fix of Perry Mason to shape our imaginations, the legal world was as remote to us as Ancient Rome. We could read what the county pathologist had to say. We could study the versions of events given by witnesses. We could pick our way through Inspector Treffry’s painstaking account of how and why his inquiries had led him first to Edmund Tully, then to Michael Lanyon. We could analyse every detail. But how those details sounded in court, what impression they created and whether they allowed any margin for doubt, were matters beyond our grasp.
I often thought of Nicky reading the same newspaper articles in his bedroom at Tredower House, secretly perhaps, by torchlight beneath the sheets while his mother and grandmother talked anxiously downstairs late into the night. It wouldn’t be any clearer to him, I knew. It wouldn’t be any simpler. And the fact that the case went unanswered at this stage would only make his mental wrestlings with the evidence more futile.
Neither defendant testified. They both reserved their defence.
According to the Western Morning News crime correspondent, the magistrates retired for less than fifteen minutes before committing them for trial to the assizes. It seemed like torture by deferral.
Three days had been devoted to deciding there should be a trial, something every inhabitant of Truro had known there was going to be for several weeks past. A lot of them thought they knew the outcome as well, and I was beginning to feel I did too.
“Looks bad for young Michael, dun nit I heard Mrs. Boundy say to my mother one morning at the shop, where I was ostensibly helping out, Pam’s school term having commenced a week earlier than mine. “Fearful what people can do for money, don’t you think?”
“It’s dreadfully upsetting,” Mum said, accurately enough, though I could detect in her voice the desire to make several other less guarded remarks.
“I saw his mother leaving the court yesterday, drab and drawn as a win nard She’s aged something awful these past weeks.”
“It must be a terrible strain for her.”
“And only like to get worse. My Reg reckons he’ll hang for sure.”
“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Mrs. Boundy.”
“Should we not, though?” Mrs. Boundy’s head swivelled like that of a pigeon eyeing a grain of corn as she looked meaningfully at Mum across the counter. “Well, I can see as how it’s awkward for you, Mrs.
Napier, of course, considering where old Mr. Carnoweth’s money is going to end up when this is all over. Like my Reg says, one man’s albatross is another man’s golden goose.”
I reached Tredower House late that afternoon, my mind filled with long-ago events that had left George Treffry, more than thirty years on, undimmed in his certainty that justice had been done to Michael Lanyon. It was a certainty I’d never shared, however often I’d let others as well as myself believe I did. But still I couldn’t say why.
And the one man who could resolve every doubt and answer every question was missing. Despondency was creeping in. Resignation was preparing to open its retreat for me.
But a dead end isn’t always what it seems. A concealed turning only reveals itself just before you hit the wall. What I’d forgotten was what I’d just begun to understand. This wasn’t only about the past.
The receptionist said Pam was waiting for me in the flat the converted stable block she and Trevor had turned into a comfortable home. It sounded curiously like a summons, so I went straight round to see her.
She didn’t have to say a word for me to know something was badly wrong.
She looked tired and unkempt and hugged me tighter and longer than usual. We’ dnever been the most demonstrative of siblings and the way she clung to me sounded even more alarm bells than the dark smudges beneath her eyes.
“I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry when I heard you were coming, Chris. I’ve not been sure whether I could go on keeping this quiet. But right now I’m grateful for a shoulder to cry on.”
“What’s happened? Where’s Trevor?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve thrown him out.”
“Good God. I’d no idea. Tabs phoned me last night. She seemed worried about you both. But
… I thought it was nothing. What the hell’s been going on? What’s he done?”
“What hasn’t he done over the years? I’ve been wondering that. Asking myself just how much I haven’t known, and for how long.”
“You’re going to have to explain.”
“All right. You may as well know the full sordid details. On Saturday morning, I had an anonymous letter. Well, an envelope anyway. There wasn’t actually a letter inside. Just a photograph. Showing my husband having sex with a prostitute.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. I wish I were. I opened the post over breakfast, with Trevor sitting opposite me, and found myself looking at a photograph of him in some hotel room with this … this
“I can hardly believe it.”
“Nor could I. But there was the proof in front of me. A one-off, Trevor said. An unprecedented and never to be repeated lapse that weekend when he went to London for the hotel catering fair. The photo was almost as nasty a surprise to him as it was to me. He obviously thought I was never going to know anything about it. Which makes it equally obvious it wasn’t the first time it had happened.”
Beyond Recall Page 16