Beyond Recall

by Robert Goddard

  “Ever thought of leaving London?”

  “Where would I go? And what would I go there with? Most weeks I can barely pay the rent.”

  “If it’s as bad as that, maybe I could ‘

  “Don’t say it.” She shook her head vigorously. “I’m not looking for handouts.”

  “It wouldn’t exactly be that.”

  “It would be to me.”

  “But if things had gone just a little differently back in forty-seven, your family would have been

  “Rich? Don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind.”

  “What’s the first thing you’d do if you suddenly came into money?”

  She looked up at the sky, as if in search of inspiration. “Oh, I don’t know. Fly to Paris for the weekend, I suppose.”

  “Ever been there?”

  “Paris? Never.” Her head drooped. “You need a birth certificate before you can apply for a passport, and Emma Moresco’s never been born.”

  Even fantasies, it seemed, were forfeit in the shadowy world Nicky’s sister had been compelled to inhabit. As we walked on in the silence of her punctured dreams, I thought of how different our lives might have been, hers and mine, if Edmund Tully and Michael Lanyon had never met; if Tully hadn’t gone to Truro in the summer of 1947; if Uncle Joshua had died in bed a few years later of manifestly natural causes.

  Then the past would unravel like a rope twisted against its coil, and Michael Lanyon would never have stood in the dock at Bodmin Assizes to answer a charge of murder.

  According to the newspaper reports which were all I had to go on, the first few days of the trial, during which the prosecution presented its case, were simply a grander and lengthier rerun of the hearing. And a compelling case it seemed to be. Only now, as I review what went on in that courtroom in Bodmin while I puzzled over algebra or floundered on the rugger pitch at Truro School, does the invidiousness of Michael Lanyon’s plight reveal itself to my mind. Edmund Tully’s guilt was undeniable, even though, at least at the outset, he did deny it. The problem Michael Lanyon’s counsel faced was that the joint prosecution implied a joint defence, even though there was nothing of the kind.

  Lanyon and Tully, the newspapers called them. And so they were in the public mind, as well, perhaps, as the jurors’: a partnership in crime.

  The evidence against Michael Lanyon himself came down to the money he paid Tully and the conversation they had when the money changed hands.

  By the time he entered the witness box to explain the first and deny the second, the limelight had been seized by Tully’s change of plea. It was dramatic stuff, of course. One of the defendants was throwing in his hand, confessing to a capital crime. And since everybody believed his confession, it seemed to follow, given that his co-defendant had a motive for the murder and he didn’t, that the Crown’s contention was proved. The two men had conspired together to murder Joshua Carnoweth.

  Both were guilty, and one of them even had the decency to admit it.

  It looked all the blacker, therefore, for the one who didn’t: the prime mover, as the prosecuting counsel called him the true villain of the piece.

  Justice was a summary business back in 1947. Nowadays the case would wait in the legal queue for a year or more before coming to court and would drag on for a couple of months when it eventually did. But it was a different world then, in more ways than one. Tully’s change of plea came on the sixth day of the trial. By the eighth, it was done and dusted.

  It was Mr. Cloke’s clerk, I later learned, Mr. Rowe, who called with word of the verdict. We were gathered at the dining-room table for high tea when the telephone rang in the hall. Dad went out to answer it, said little more that I could hear than Yes’, “I see’ and “Thank you’, then returned to the table, announced impassively that Michael Lanyon had been found guilty and commenced serving the cold cuts with a louring brow that served notice of a ban on all discussion.

  He didn’t mention the sentence, and I remained in some slight doubt on the point, wondering however illogically if the mandatory death penalty for murder really meant the judge had no discretion. I would have asked Dad if his expression had been less forbidding. As it was, I had to rely on Pam’s confirmation of my understanding of the law when we conferred in her bedroom afterwards. And even then I didn’t quite believe it. Until the headline in the following day’s Western Morning News bestowed its printed authority on the outcome. TRURO MURDER

  PAIR TO HANG. There really was, it seemed, no room for doubt.

  The Zenith Club in or more accurately under Piccadilly was close to its nadir in terms of seductive ambience when I paid my extortionate temporary membership fee and descended to the bar early that evening.

  The stage was empty, the music barely audible, the atmosphere lethargic. All of which was as I’d hoped, since it meant that Frankie, the barman, didn’t mind talking to me. Although his enthusiasm faltered slightly when I slipped the photograph out of its envelope and asked him if he recognized the woman on the bed.

  “Maybe,” he said warily, after amused and prolonged scrutiny.

  “Is she a member?”

  “Could be.”

  “Come here often, does she?”

  “Not sure.”

  “I need a name and address.”

  “More than my job’s worth.”

  “But is it more than fifty quid’s worth?”

  “Maybe… not.” He shrugged. “I could ask around. See what I could find out, you know?”

  “Here’s my number.” I scribbled it on a paper coaster and handed it to him. “And a down payment.” I laid a ten-pound note on the bar.

  “Make it twenty.” He grinned. “Well, it’s not a local call, is it?” I added a fiver to the tenner and he settled for that. “Can’t guarantee nothing, mind,” he said as he folded the notes into his waistcoat pocket. “Could have registered under a false name, couldn’t she?

  There’s a lot of it about.”

  How true that was. The odds, I admitted to myself as I drove back to Pangbourne, were that the Zenith Club was a dead end. Pauline Lucas, aka Laura Banks, Marilyn Buckley and a possible clutch of other pseudonyms, wasn’t going to leave any clues behind her unless it suited her purposes to do so. When I next encountered her, as I didn’t doubt I would, it would almost certainly be at her instigation, not mine.

  That was what was so worrying.

  As it turned out, however, I didn’t have to worry for long. I’d not been at home more than five minutes when the telephone rang.

  “Where have you been?” a voice I could hardly believe I recognized chidingly enquired. “This is the fourth time I’ve rung.”

  “Miss Lucas.”

  “Yes, Mr. Napier. Surprised to hear from me?”

  “Not exactly. What do you want?”

  “I thought you might want a chat.”

  “And if I do?”

  “Then I’m available. Now. This very evening.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At your workshop.”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  Without further ado, she put down the telephone. Impatiently, I dialled the workshop number. She answered at the first ring.

  “You ought to improve your security, Mr. Napier, you know that? I mean, you don’t even have a burglar alarm. I’m surprised your insurance company doesn’t insist you install one. Assuming you are insured, of course. But you must be, I suppose, with all these valuable old cars about the place. It’s not as if most of them actually belong to you, is it, so the consequences of a fire could be

  ‘

  I dropped the telephone and raced from the house. I should have seen this coming, I really should. She’d found my weakness just as she had Trevor’s. But how far did she mean to go?

  The absence of a clue, however slim, clogged my thoughts like static as I pitched the Stag through the potholes to the road, sped along Pangbourne High Street at approximately twice the speed limit and roared o
ff up the lanes towards Bowershaw Farm. It was a hoax, I told myself, nothing but an evil-minded trick. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t.

  But she had. I saw the glow of the fire beyond the bank as I rounded the last bend before the entrance to the yard. I pulled up in the gateway and jumped out, petrol fumes and the stench of burning rubber wafting through the heat towards me. I stopped, my eyes smarting from the smoke as I stared at the roaring inferno visible through the half-open workshop door. Eight years, six classic cars, two livelihoods and one carefully cultivated business were going up in flames in front of me. And all I could do was watch.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I hadn’t realized it was this bad,” said Pam, climbing from the car to take a closer look. “There’s nothing left, is there?” I’d met her off the train at Reading and driven her out to Bowershaw Farm to see the damage. To view the ruins might be a more accurate description, given the destructive power of spray-paint, petrol, oil, rubber and assorted solvents when ignited under the right conditions. Three days had passed since the fire and all that was now left of Napier Classic Convertibles was piled in two large skips, ready for disposal. The workshop itself had been reduced to its blackened brick walls and concrete base.

  “I still have the Bentley Continental down at the showroom,” I said, joining her in the middle of the yard. “Dominic’s father might yet offer me a good price for it.”

  “You’re not thinking of winding the business up, are you?” Pam turned and stared at me. The hint of resignation in my voice seemed to have worried her. “I mean, this is a big blow, obviously, but it’s hardly terminal.”

  “That remains to be seen.” I grinned ruefully. “Clients aren’t going to be keen to entrust their cars to me after this, are they? We’re supposed to restore them, not cremate them. And then there’s the question of how much I’m going to have to pay out by way of compensation.”

  “Isn’t that covered by insurance?”

  “Not necessarily. Insurance companies get twitchy where arson’s concerned. Who’s to say I didn’t do it myself?”

  “They surely don’t suspect that.”

  “The assessor who came to see me seemed the type who makes a point of suspecting that. And I can’t say I blame him. An anonymous and motiveless arsonist doesn’t score highly on the plausibility scale.”

  “But you said on the phone you knew who it was.”

  “Oh, I do. That’s why it was so urgent we meet. I’m sorry to have dragged you up here, but with so many clients to grovel to, not to mention their insurance companies

  “You don’t need to apologize.” Pam let me know by the tilt of her eyes that she knew I was procrastinating. “Just explain, Chris.”

  “All right. Come over to the car. There’s something I ought to show you.”

  She followed me back to the Stag and we sat inside. I reached across her to the glove compartment, took out the envelope and saw her frown in puzzled recognition. “Surely that’s ‘

  “The photograph that should be in your bureau. Yes.”

  “But.. .”

  “Had you missed it?”

  “Yes. I assumed Trevor had taken it. I sent Tabs to demand it back from him, but he denied all knowledge. That didn’t surprise me. I thought he’d have destroyed it by then anyway. More fool me, I reckoned, for not having the locks changed. But now it looks as if it wouldn’t have made much difference.” She glared at me. “Well?”

  The woman on the bed and the arsonist are one and the same. I’d already met her, you see, posing as … But that doesn’t matter. What does is that I needed the picture because it’s the only available likeness of her. I’ve had it copied since. I’d always intended to return the original to you.”

  Her glare was becoming one of anger as well as disbelief. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “She’s out to hurt us. In any way she can.”

  “Us?”

  “You. Me. Trevor. Maybe Mum and Dad too. You must warn them to be on their guard. Tabs and Dominic as well. Setting up Trevor was one thing. This I gestured towards the charred skeleton of the workshop.

  “Means I can’t say what she mightn’t do next.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea.”

  “No, Pam. I don’t. I literally haven’t a clue. Except that it’s something to do with Nicky.”

  “Mdty?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “That’s mad.”

  “Well, isn’t this? And what she did to Trevor? Extreme, verging on mad. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Because I had no idea she’d go this far.”

  “And how far do you think she will go?”

  There’s no way to judge.”

  “My God, the hotel. You don’t think she might try the same trick twice?”

  “Strangely enough, no. That doesn’t seem to be her style. The unexpected’s more her stock-in-trade.”

  “Just a minute.” Pam’s gaze narrowed. “This isn’t some story you’ve cooked up with Trevor, is it, to make me feel sorry for him? Because, if it is, it won’t work. You can She broke off and glanced around, looking suddenly crestfallen. “Sorry. I’m being rather silly, aren’t I? I’m forgetting this really happened.”

  “Yes. It really did.”

  “Where do you go from here?”

  “Commercially, I haven’t even begun to think. Maybe I should start again at my beginnings and never breathe a word about my loss.”

  “Kipling.”

  “That’s right. If was printed on a tea towel I kept in the office to dry the coffee mugs. Fine words, but no doubt one of the first things to go up in smoke.”

  “Talk to Dad. I know you don’t like asking him for help, but you’ll be a rich man one day thanks to him, so why not ‘

  “Thanks to Uncle Joshua, actually.” I gave her a tight little smile.

  “Let’s not forget whose money it really is.”

  “All right, Uncle Joshua. But the point is ‘

  “The point is I intend to find out what this is all about before I start trying to build the business back up. I don’t want the rug pulled from under me a second time.”

  “Shouldn’t you leave that to the police?”

  “They’ve nothing to go on.”

  “They have a picture of the arsonist.”

  I grimaced. “As a matter of fact, they don’t. I haven’t shown them the photograph.”

  “Why not? This is no time to be squeamish. Trevor will just have to

  ‘

  “It’s nothing to do with Trevor.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Because it doesn’t prove a thing. And, besides, I have this…” I gazed through the windscreen towards the green horizon beyond the burned-out shell of my hard-won business reputation. “I have this feeling the answer’s close to home and no outsider stands a chance of finding it. What’s more, if and when we do find it, that we’ll be grateful we kept it to ourselves.”

  Life went on. Looking back at the autumn of 1947, it’s the normality of the daily routine, the absence of emotional response to the grinding tragedy of Michael Lanyon’s fate, that seems the most bemusing feature.

  I went to school from Monday to Friday and on some Saturdays as well; the shop traded as usual; the family functioned as it always had. Or so it seemed. What went on while I was out of the way what secretive anticipation there was of the material consequences for us of unfolding events1 simply don’t know. But then I didn’t appreciate just how significant those consequences would be. And nobody was inclined to tell me, because merely to speak of it would have seemed to wish it so, and hence to wish Michael Lanyon dead.

  Not that wishing was likely either to condemn him or to save him. The law had its methods and was in the process of applying them. A few weeks after the trial, an appeal was heard and dismissed. Then a couple of days later came the announcement
of Tully’s reprieve. Gran took this as a personal insult. “How dare a Labour politician come to the rescue of my brother’s killer?” she complained, Mr. Chuter Ede’s party hue serving somehow to exaggerate the offence. “What on Earth does he know about it?” The question went unanswered, but the judge had recommended mercy in Tully’s case, so it shouldn’t really have come as such a big surprise to her.

  Belatedly, public opinion got in on the act. People suddenly realized that only one of the Truro Murder Pair’ was to hang and that struck many of them as fundamentally unfair. Both or neither was the gist of letters that appeared in the press, and of more than one editorial, even in the Cornish papers. Only now did people realize what was actually about to happen. The staff of Colquite & Dew got up a petition. Evelyn King, the local MP, raised the matter in the House of Commons. The Western Morning News carried an interview with Rose and Cordelia Lanyon, who were still lodging in Exeter. They’d written to the King and Queen pleading with them to intervene. They expressed the hope that hearts would soften in the run-up to Princess Elizabeth’s wedding and mentioned the distraught state of Michael Lanyon’s son.