“I need your help, Chris.” He tried to make the appeal sound genuine, but he couldn’t drain his voice of an inflexion that suggested my help was something he shouldn’t have to ask for. “I can’t do all that needs to be done without your mother smelling a rat.”
“It’s OK. I’ll do most of the running around.” I looked at my watch and opened the door. “I’ll let you know if I turn anything up.”
“Chris ‘
“Yes?” I looked round, challenging him to admit his actions were indefensible but knowing him too well to expect he would.
“You have to see it from my point of view. By the time I realized what your grandmother had done, Michael Lanyon was dead and buried. There was nothing I could do to set the record straight without destroying the family. Surely you can understand that.”
“But you have destroyed it, Dad. That’s exactly what you’ve achieved.
Love. Trust. Loyalty. Whatever happened to them, eh? We’ve lived Gran’s lie and Tully’s for thirty-four years: a lie you’re still trying to sustain. And now, God help me, I’m doing the same.”
“Because you know it’s for the best.”
“No. That’s the worst of it. I’m doing it because there’s nothing else I can do.” I climbed out. “I’ll be in touch,” I added. Then I slammed the door and walked away towards the Stag.
Tully’s landlady wasn’t a witness who’d stuck in my memories of newspaper reports of the trial. She can’t have had much to say and could easily have been overlooked altogether. None of the articles, however thorough, amounted to a transcript. And the papers held at the library in Truro were the Cornish weeklies, which I spent a couple of hours plodding through to no avail that afternoon. The Western Morning News had carried daily and hence more detailed reports, but that meant a trip to Plymouth and by then it was too late to travel there and find the library open.
Pam was glad of my company now that Tabitha had gone home, but clearly puzzled by my curiosity over Trevor’s whereabouts, given my claim to have lost interest in events at the time of Gran’s ninetieth birthday.
She was even more puzzled when I quizzed her about the identity of Tully’ slandlady in August 1947 and quite unable to help.
An early start the following morning had me installed in Plymouth Public Library shortly after it opened with a dusty back-volume of the Western Morning News. Reports of the hearing yielded nothing, but the trial itself received such concentrated coverage that my hopes rose, only to be dashed when I opened the edition for Thursday 23 October 1947 and found a corner of one page missing. The last few paragraphs of the report of the previous day’s proceedings at Bodmin Assizes had been torn out. Considine had learned what he wanted -and tried to stop anyone else learning as much. But he’d reckoned without my access to inside information. The paper was sure to have its own archive, to which Don Prideaux could give me access. I hurried round to their offices, only to learn Don was in court all day following a case.
He looked understandably surprised to see me waiting outside when he emerged at the lunch adjournment, but after a couple of pints at my old local, the Abbey, he was willing to scribble a note to get me past the archivist. On condition that I share with him any startling discoveries I made.
“Wouldn’t happen to be the summer and autumn of 1947 you’re interested in, would it, Chris?”
“How did you guess?”
“Easily. But guessing exactly what you’re looking for is another kettle of fish.”
“Hard to say until I find it.”
“I’ve got to get back soon. Why don’t we meet here later? You can tell me all about it then.”
“All right. See you at opening time.”
But by opening time I was back in Truro, our appointment forgotten.
Tully’s landlady, who’d testified on the third day of the trial about his movements on the night of the murder, was Mabel Berryman. She let an attic room at her home in Kenwyn Road to commercial travellers and the like and was pretty damning about Tully, who’d left surprise, surprise without paying his last week’s rent. No street number was quoted for her house, but that obviously hadn’t stopped Considine.
Nor me. The elderly occupant of the third house I called at in Kenwyn Road could recall Mabel Berryman - “Dead and gone these twenty years or more’ as well as her exact address. “Strange, though,” she added,
‘you’re the second feller in a week to be asking after that party.”
And so the trail ended with her avaricious neighbour, ‘young Warren Dobell’, who was actually a man close to my own age. He was sufficiently obsessed with a model railway that had overtaken most of the ground floor to regard some floorboard-lifting in the unused attic bedroom as a trifling matter, especially when the person who’d carried it out had handsomely compensated him for the inconvenience. “Said as Mabel Berryman, her what used to live here, was his aunt and he was looking for some letters his father had sent her from the trenches. He found them too and took them away with him. Why should I mind? Didn’t know anybody else wanted them, did I? You family too, are you?”
It wouldn’t have made much difference if I had been, of course. Dobell had the price of a substantial track extension and Considine had the letters as I was obliged to inform my father in a somewhat one-sided telephone conversation later that evening.
“The letters exist and are in his possession.”
“Damn.”
“Have you paid the money into his account?”
“Yes.”
“And is there any news of Trevor?” “No.”
“So, I tell Considine on Monday that he’ll have the balance by next Friday?”
“Yes. Do that.”
Dad hadn’t given up hope of wriggling free, even now. Behind his terse response a stubborn refusal to knuckle under was beating a persistent rhythm. But I for one was inclined to abandon the unequal struggle.
Considine had us exactly where he wanted us, and nothing seemed likely to change that.
It was a relief, therefore, to leave my father to his own devices and spend the greater part of the weekend with Emma, who travelled down from London on Saturday and booked into a small hotel I’d found for her in Penzance. I’d paid for the accommodation in advance, but she wouldn’t find that out until she came to leave. Meanwhile, I hoped for some carefree days of cliff-top walking and sightseeing to help us both relax. I’d not told her about Considine’s bombshell because it didn’t seem fair to burden her with yet another difficulty she wasn’t responsible for and also because I was worried how she might react. The architect of her childhood miseries was poised to walk off with what should rightfully have been hers.
Sunday was, as if by special dispensation, a brilliantly clear day.
Emma gazed out at the limitless blue of the Atlantic from Land’s End and confessed to a form of colour-shock after the man-made drabness of London. I knew what she meant. Cornwall never loses its capacity to pummel the senses into heightened alertness. I saw the effect on her as we drove back across Penwith in the childlike wonder with which she stared at the scenery and the bubbling exuberance of her conversation.
“God, Chris, I think I’d forgotten just what a beautiful world it is.
Now I’m here, I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave.”
We lunched on fresh crab sandwiches by the harbour at Mousehole, then carried on round the bay to Marazion and walked the causeway out to St.
Michael’s Mount.
“Did you ever come here with Nicky?” she asked tentatively.
“Yes. On a class outing during our last term at prep school.”
“Before I was even born. Hey, who’d have thought that one day …” She smiled. “Why don’t I feel sadder, Chris?” “I don’t know, but I know he wouldn’t want you to.” That last was undoubtedly true. Nicky would have wanted nothing to hurt his sister and I owed it to him to make sure nothing did least of all me. I knew the path we were treading was treacherous as well as beguiling. That’s why
I was so determined to tread it carefully.
Later, as we made our way back across the causeway to Marazion, the deep blue of full afternoon fading towards the hazy gold of early evening, she said to me, “I’m glad you haven’t mentioned the inquest, Chris. Let’s pretend it isn’t happening. I’ll stroll around Penzance tomorrow thinking how lucky I am, that’s all. Then, on Tuesday…
where will you take me?”
“The Lizard. It’s a place like no other. You’ll love it.” “I feel I already do.” She stopped and looked back towards the Mount, its castle walls glowing in the sun, the sea beyond sparkling benignly. Then she turned and stared at me solemnly for a moment. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” She smiled, leaned up and kissed me, then walked on along the causeway as if nothing had happened. I stood where I was for a few seconds, watching her go. Until I noticed the water lapping at the cobbles around my feet. The tide was rising, as it always does, come sorrow or gladness.
“Don’t worry, Nicky,” I murmured. Then I called to Emma and started after her.
When I got back to Tredower House that night, the receptionist said Pam was anxious to see me, so I went straight up to the flat.
“Dad’s been here,” she announced. “He came up to visit Margaret Faull.
She’s not been well, apparently.” Margaret Faull had been Dad’s longest-serving secretary at Napier’s Department Stores. Yet something in Pam’s tone suggested she’d not found the explanation convincing. “He was hoping to speak to you. It seemed pretty urgent. He hung around for hours waiting for you to come back.”
“Well, here I am.”
“You’d better phone him straight away.”
“OK.” I tried to sound casual as I added, “I’ll call him from my room.” But Pam still looked puzzled when I left.
Though no more so than my mother sounded over the telephone.
“He’ll speak to you from the study, dear,” she explained, then hastily went on in a quieter voice, “Is something the matter between the two of you? He’s been fearfully distracted these past few days.”
“Depressed over the break-in, I expect. I’ll try and jolly him out of it.”
“I’d be grateful if you could.” There was a click on the line. “Here he is now,” she said more brightly. “Goodbye, dear.” Then another click as she hung up.
“Hello, Dad. News?”
“Where the hell have you been?” If there was news, it clearly wasn’t good. “I waited all afternoon for you.”
“I was out. Enjoying the fine weather.”
“The weather! Good God, boy, do you realize how desperate our situation is?”
“I realize how desperate yours is, yes. Now, what’s happened?”
“I’ve traced Trevor.”
“Where is he?”
“Tenerife. Margaret Faull led me to him. She always knew what was going on between the staff better than me. Trevor had an affair with Eileen Bishop, our clothes buyer, back in the late Sixties. Fairly common knowledge, apparently. It may have gone on after we sold the business as well. She was always a flighty one, I do remember. Runs a swim wear boutique now.”
“In Tenerife, presumably.”
“Yes. Which is where Trevor’s holed up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ve spoken to him. Margaret put me on to Eileen Bishop’s mother, who lives in Redruth. She gave me the number.”
“What did he say?”
“That he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.”
“Really?” Trevor obviously had more gall than I thought. “Well, I suppose he would say that.”
“Only because he thinks he can get away with it on a long-distance telephone line. It’ll be a different matter face to face.”
“You mean you’re going to Tenerife?”
“Of course not. You are.”
“Me?”
“I want you to fly out there as soon as possible after the inquest and explain to Trevor very clearly that unless ‘
“I can’t go.”
“What?”
“I have to be in Cornwall all this week.”
“Rubbish. I’ll cover your expenses, Chris. All you have to do is ‘
“I’m not going.” I thought of Emma and the wide-eyed wonderment with which she’d confronted the sights and scenes I’d shown her so far.
There was no way in the world I could be induced to deny her -or me the pleasure of more in the week ahead. “I’m definitely not going.”
“You have to.”
“It’s out of the question.”
“But.. .” He was beginning to splutter. “But for God’s sake, boy, don’t you understand… how important this is?”
“You go, Dad. You talk him round.”
“How the bloody hell do you expect me to explain a jaunt like that to your mother?”
“Tell her you’re still trying to engineer a reconciliation with Pam.”
“She’ll never swallow that.”
“Why not? It won’t be the first lie you’ve told her, will it?”
“Listen to me. You have to ‘
“I don’t have to do anything, Dad. I’ll put on a good show for the coroner tomorrow, and I’ll tell Considine you’re going to co-operate.
For the rest… you’re on your own. Good night.” I put down the telephone and made a point of not answering when it rang a minute or so later. I felt sure the caller would get the message, though. It was time for him to do some of his own dirty work.
The inquest into the death of Nicholas James Lanyon was held in the same courtroom where the Truro magistrates had once considered a murder charge against his father. The coroner’s proceedings were a brief and less sensational affair altogether. The friends and relatives of the deceased in the second inquest due that day boosted what would otherwise have been an audience of four: Neville Considine, Ethel Jago, Don Prideaux and me. Considine, moreover, was probably only there because he’d been called as a witness.
I arrived as late as I reasonably could, limiting Don to a muttered,
“Nice of you to turn up,” as I took my seat. Considine caught my eye but said nothing, though his tight little smile spoke volumes. Ethel Jago gave me the meekest of nods, as if uncertain whether I’d even admit to knowing her.
Then the jury was brought in, followed shortly by the coroner, and we were under way at a businesslike pace. The pathologist was the first witness called. He gave a matter-of-fact account of the mechanics of hanging and sounded almost complimentary in describing how successfully and probably swiftly Nicky had ended his life. Detective Sergeant Collins then summarized his inquiries, such as they’d been, and managed to make the connection with the conviction and execution for murder of Michael Lanyon sound both inevitable and unremarkable. Nobody, it was already clear, saw any merit in making a meal of this sombre coda to a largely forgotten crime.
I was called next and was encouraged by the coroner’s bland style of questioning to follow the same line. I mentioned that I’d known Nicky when we were children without revealing that we’d actually been the closest of friends. As far as it went, my description of his state of mind that last afternoon of his life was accurate. All I’d subsequently discovered along with the injustice of what had taken place in the same dusty chamber thirty-four years before went un referred to and un hinted at.
The only person present who knew just how reticent I was being followed me into the witness box. Neville Considine, resplendent in the same cheap suit he’d worn for Nicky’s funeral, portrayed himself as the most considerate of stepfathers, as distressed by Nicky’s suicide as he was regrettably unsurprised. He saw it as the climax to several years of depression and reclusiveness in which Nicky’s obsession with his father’s execution and the shock of his mother’s death were exacerbating factors. Listening to Considine, I could almost believe he sincerely missed his stepson. He was cleverer than he seemed, a disarmingly self-aware brain scheming away behind his fray-cuffed hu
mility. I was only just beginning to realize how formidable an enemy he could be and how right Emma was to fear him.
Considine was the last witness called, although the coroner did read out a letter from Nicky’s doctor in Clacton, sketching in a history of depression, before he invited the jury to consider their verdict.
Suicide was their rapid conclusion, ‘while the balance of his mind was disturbed.” And though the evidence they’d heard was at best selective and at worst distorted, it was the right verdict. The balance of his mind had been disturbed.
“Give my regards to your father,” Considine whispered to me as we filed out of the court. “I’m glad he’s been able to accommodate my request.
May I look forward to hearing from him again by the end of this week?”
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