by Hazel Holt
‘Well, if he’s been living in Australia for some time, I suppose he might have an accent. Ivy did say that he sounded like a foreigner.’
‘And he was trying to get money out of Mrs R.?’
‘He’s just the sort of man who would and especially now, if he belongs to one of those odd religious sects. They always seem to be able to get money out of old ladies. And that would explain why he shut Annie up when she was telling Mrs Taylor about him talking to Mrs Rossiter about his mission.’
‘I say! Do you think Annie and Sam Fisher have taken Mrs Rossiter off to Australia with them?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘But think about it, Ma. You said she was pretty miserable in that bin she was in. She may have felt that anywhere would be better than that.’
‘It’s not a bin, it’s a perfectly respectable nursing home. And anyway, she’d never do such a thing.’
‘Why not? She’s used to Annie and she trusts her. And you said yourself how persuasive these people are.’
‘But Australia!’
‘It’s not the other side of the moon – people do go there.’
‘Yes, but...’
‘It all fits in. Why she didn’t say anything to anyone. Well, she’d know they wouldn’t let her go, so she pretended she was just nipping into Taunton to do some shopping and then Annie and Sam were waiting for her...’
‘The man and woman Ed Cooper saw!’ I told Michael about my conversation with Ed.
‘Well, there you are then! I wonder if her passport’s gone. Is there any way you could find out?’
‘No, really, Michael. It simply isn’t possible...’
‘And didn’t you say that she’d been in a funny sort of mood?’
‘According to Mrs Jankiewicz, yes. Oh, I don’t know. The whole thing is so fantastic, so far-fetched.’
‘But possible?’
‘Well, yes. I suppose so. I suppose I’d rather she was in Australia with Annie and her brother and that religious set-up than lying dead in a ditch somewhere in the Quantocks, but still...’
I found it difficult to accept such a bizarre solution to the problem, though I had to admit that no one had come up with a better answer. We argued round in circles for some time until I suddenly realised that it was nearly one o’clock and the chops I’d bought for lunch were still lying uncooked on the work-top.
Chapter Eight
The days slipped imperceptibly away, as they always seem to do in the summer. Michael went off for a week to stay with some friends in Dorset and I decided to seize the opportunity to get some work done. I had several books for review and the deadline was fast approaching. So I shut a protesting Foss in the kitchen with the dogs (he has a habit of trying to play duets with me on the typewriter keys) and began to type a fierce condemnation of yet another study of Charlotte Bronte. The author was one of those earnest, humourless so-called scholars whom my friend Alison compares to snails leaving their slimy tracks all over English literature, who wrench the life and work of the poor author to fit their own idiotic theories. This particular study was written in a turgid pseudo-psychological jargon that seemed to have no connection with the very real woman who had lived, felt, thought and written in nineteenth-century Yorkshire.
For a while my irritation drove me fluently on, but when the momentum slowed down and I was at a loss for a suitably biting phrase I looked up from my typewriter and gazed out at the garden (as I often do) for inspiration. A strange sight met my eyes. An extremely large bird was walking along the garden path, strolling you might almost say, its head on a long, elegant neck, turning from side to side, as if admiring the flowers. I was irresistibly reminded of an Edwardian lady graciously complimenting her hostess on a fine display of delphiniums. It walked along one path, then turned and completed the circuit of the garden. Its size and the graceful way it moved made it seem like some mythical, fabulous creature. I stood up to get a better view and the movement must have startled the bird because it rose in the air and flapped away. Only when I saw the spread of its great wings did I realise that it was a heron, attracted by the stream that runs round the garden, taking time off from its hunting to have a little stroll for pleasure.
I was still feeling slightly bemused, almost unreal, when the telephone rang.
‘Sheila?’
It was Thelma’s voice, peremptory as usual, putting me, as always, slightly on the defensive.
‘Sheila, have you seen or heard anything of Alan?’
‘Alan?’ I repeated stupidly.
‘My brother. Alan.’ She spelled it out as if for a backward child.
‘No. Why on earth should I?’
‘He’s disappeared and I wondered …’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Sheila, stop interrupting and listen!’ Her voice was shriller than usual and what Michael calls its smarmy quality was missing. ‘I’ve just had a telephone call from the Ecology Centre in Harare. He went off to this conference in Bristol six weeks ago and hasn’t been heard of since. He did go to the conference – they checked that – but then he just vanished into thin air.’
‘How extraordinary!’
My feeling of unreality deepened.
‘It certainly is. First Mummy and now Alan!’
‘When did you last hear from him?’
‘Well, that’s it. I had a phone call from him a couple of months ago and he sounded – well – rather strange.’
‘In what way?’
‘Not like himself at all. Very excited, all strung up. He gabbled away – I could hardly get a word in edgeways.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Alan.’
Alan had always been the quiet one, a silent, sulky, sullen little boy. He had been sent away to school when he was seven, glad, even at that age, to be out of his father’s way, out of reach of his temper. Mrs Rossiter grieved for him but even her love didn’t seem able to reach him. He spent the holidays at home keeping out of the way of an irascible father and a sister who noticed him only when she wanted something to tease and torment. Yet I found it difficult to be sorry for him. He was the sort of child who would whine and complain if he thought he could get you into trouble with the grown-ups; there was something curiously unlovable about him. It had always seemed so unfair that Mrs Rossiter, who had so much love to give, should have been surrounded by such an unloving and unlovable family.
‘No, well, it seems that he had met this woman. She’s some sort of journalist, an American – you know the type, hard-bitten, very much a woman of the world. Anyway, it seems that she was getting up an expedition to go to South America, something to do with an ecological scandal. I don’t pretend to understand such things – all a lot of nonsense, if you ask me. And Alan wanted to go with her. Honestly, Sheila, he sounded totally infatuated! So unlike Alan. I don’t believe he’s ever had a girl friend of any kind all his life. Gordon used to wonder if he was gay, but I said no, he simply wasn’t anything …’
Infatuation, indeed, love of any kind, certainly seemed the last thing I would have expected of the Alan I remembered.
‘So you think he’s gone off with her?’
‘Well, he said that they needed to raise quite a lot of money to finance the expedition and then, of course, there’d be all the organising to do. Anyway, he certainly hadn’t told his Ecology Institute that he wasn’t going back to Harare after the Bristol conference – he should have been back there a couple of weeks ago.’
‘It does seem odd that they should both have vanished,’ I said.
‘Yes, I wondered ... Oh, bother. Look Sheila, I’ve got a very important call coming through on the other line. Anyway, it’s difficult to discuss these things on the phone. Can you meet me for lunch in Taunton one day this week? I can’t spare the time to come all the way to Taviscombe. Shall we say the day after tomorrow, one o’clock, at Cobblers? Will you book a table?’
Barely waiting for my reply, she rang off.
I reflected tha
t it was typical of Thelma that she naturally assumed that nobody else’s time was as valuable as hers and that everyone would fit in with her arrangements. For a moment I toyed with the idea of ignoring the whole affair but, as I knew I would, I found myself telephoning to book a table at the rather trendy wine bar Thelma had selected. Oh well, I told myself, it was rather strange and my curiosity was certainly aroused.
A furious and persistent yelling from the kitchen reminded me that Foss was bored with just the dogs for company and wished to be off on his own mysterious business. I let them all out into the garden and did a little brisk weeding to bring myself back to reality.
As I was wrestling with a vicious piece of convolvulus that had wrapped itself round an especially fine sweet william and was trying to choke the life out of it, I was trying to imagine Alan with some hard-bitten female American journalist. I pictured her with short blonde hair, a deeply suntanned face and bright blue eyes, like Hollywood’s idea of a Hemingway heroine. She would be wearing a beautifully cut safari suit, have an expensive camera slung round her neck and drink Scotch on the rocks. What I couldn’t picture was the nebulous figure of Alan at her side.
I did a lot of shopping in Taunton before I went to Cobblers (perhaps with a vague idea of establishing an independent reason for being in Taunton and not just falling in with Thelma’s plans) so I was loaded down with parcels and glad to find that I was there first. I sank into my chair and disposed the parcels about my feet. The wine bar was quite full and to my surprise I found that the next table was occupied by six Roman Catholic priests, one of whom was in a splendid black soutane piped at the cuffs and hem in red, with touches of purple at the neck. It seemed a jolly party to judge from the bursts of laughter, helped, perhaps, by the fact that they appeared to be drinking five bottles of wine between the six of them. I was reminded of those splendid pictures of feasting Cardinals that used to hang in the dining rooms of country hotels when I was young. I was wondering idly about the priest in the soutane and his position in the hierarchy (the other priests, all more conventionally dressed, seemed very deferential) when Thelma arrived. Strangely enough she too was wearing ecclesiastical purple, a rather nice suit. I thought she was a bit old for such a fashionably short skirt, although I must admit that her legs have always been better than mine. She greeted me in her usual gushing way. We ordered our food and half a bottle of wine (‘quite a robust little white’) chosen by Thelma.
‘You’ll only want one glass, I suppose, if you’re driving,’ she said, ‘and I must keep a clear head because I’ve got masses of work to do on the train going back.’
She told me about some of the deals she was engaged on, dropping names that she knew I would have heard of, and seeming quite composed, unlike her agitated manner on the telephone.
‘Well,’ I said, breaking in on one of her stories, ‘what about Alan, then?’
She took a mouthful of her Coquille St Jacques before replying, as if she wanted a moment to collect her thoughts.
‘He’s really obsessed by this woman,’ she said at last. ‘He couldn’t talk about anything else.’
‘What sort of things did he tell you?’
‘Oh, mostly how marvellous she was – all about the scoops’ – she emphasised the word scornfully – ‘she’s pulled off and how generally high-powered everyone thinks she is.’
‘Is she in love with him?’ I asked.
Thelma gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘How could she be? You know Alan! No, I should think she’s out for what she can get. Someone must have told her about Mummy’s money and she probably thought that Alan was rolling! Well, of course he isn’t. Mummy gives him an allowance that’s far too generous, really, I mean, what on earth can he spend it on in Harare! And she pays for that depressing flat in Earls Court. But he gets practically nothing from that Ecology place, so he hasn’t the sort of money she would be interested in.’
‘So what’s the attraction for her then?’
‘I imagine he’s told her that he can get Mummy interested in financing this expedition, whatever it is.’
‘Did your mother say anything to you about it? I mean, had he written?’
‘No, but I don’t think he would. I think he was planning to come and talk to her about it when he was over here for that conference. You know how silly Mummy was – the thought of seeing her little boy again after such a long time.’ Thelma’s voice was positively corrosive. ‘I expect he thought it would be easy to wangle quite a large sum out of her.’
‘She always liked to help people,’ I said slowly, ‘and she could be very easily influenced, but still, if it was a great deal of money – and such an expedition would cost a lot, I should think – well, she might have hesitated. She would probably have wanted to consult Mr Robertson.’
‘That old fool!’ Thelma interjected almost automatically, but she went on more thoughtfully, ‘Yes, you may be right, she could be stubborn sometimes. I’ve found that.’
Anyone contradicting Thelma, however mildly, was always stigmatised as stubborn.
‘So that might be the explanation. The little bastard!’
Thelma suddenly looked so furious that I was completely taken aback. Her dark eyes were blazing – they seemed to grow in size, dominating her face, as they did when she was a child in a tantrum at not getting her own way.
‘Explanation of what?’ I asked nervously, half-expecting that she would turn on me as she used to do when she was thwarted or frustrated. With an effort she pulled herself together and spoke quite coolly.
‘I’m sure he met Mummy here in Taunton, got her alone – took her for a drive, perhaps – asked her for the money and then, when she refused, he disposed of her somehow.’
‘For God’s sake, Thelma!’
My exclamation must have been very loud and vehement because the priests at the next table all stopped talking and looked at me curiously. I lowered my voice and repeated, ‘For God’s sake, she’s his mother!’
‘Oh, he probably didn’t mean to hurt her, but he does have that terrible temper.’
‘But even so...’
‘Remember Marigold?’
I was silent. Certainly I remembered Marigold. She was the pony Alan had had when he was about ten years old. One day I had been sent out with Thelma to find Alan and tell him to come in to lunch. He was in the paddock where some jumps had been set up – his father had some idea of entering him for a local gymkhana and Alan was required to practise for several hours every morning.
As we approached, Thelma, who could never resist taunting her brother, made some scathing remark about how feeble his riding was and what a fool he would look at the gymkhana. Alan’s face darkened with anger, since riding was the one thing he did reasonably well. He pulled the reins tight, wheeled the pony round and put her at one of the jumps. He had hauled her round angrily and clumsily and the poor creature knew that she was wrong-footed for the obstacle so she sensibly stopped and refused to jump. In a frenzy now, Alan jerked at her head and kicked her forward, but she wouldn’t budge. Her ears were back and her eyes were rolling. He lashed at her with his whip, again and again, screaming incoherently, almost hysterical by now. Thelma was laughing; she seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. Horrified, I rushed forward and tried to seize the whip, but Alan brought it down on my shoulders. Furious with the pain I snatched at it again and managed to wrench it away from him and somehow pulled him off the pony. He lay where he fell, beating the ground with his fists and screaming. Ignoring him, I tried to soothe the terrified pony and led it away to find the lad they employed as a groom, who bathed the deep weals on the pony’s flank and told me that it wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened.
I was so upset and furious at the hurt to the pony that, forgetting my fear of Colonel Rossiter, I marched straight into his study and told him what had happened. He didn’t say a word but strode past me and sent Alan off to his room. I don’t know what was said, but quite soon afterwards Marigold was sold and Alan didn’t ride ag
ain.
‘But surely – he was only a child – hasn’t he outgrown that terrible temper?’
‘Oh, he keeps it under control, mostly. Well, you know how wet everyone thinks he is, but there have been incidents. There was one in India, that was why he left that UNESCO project there. Oh, it was hushed up of course, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken him on in Africa, but Mummy told me about it. She’d paid a lot of money in compensation and she was very worried, as you can imagine.’
‘But even so, what you are suggesting is just too impossible!’
‘You didn’t hear how utterly obsessed he was with this woman. Honestly, Sheila, this is the only big thing that has ever happened to him in his entire life and if he thinks that Mummy’s money is the only way he can get her, then I don’t think he would let anything – and I do mean anything – stop him.’
I drank the last of my wine. I felt that I needed some sort of restorative after Thelma’s extraordinary suggestion.
‘Is there any way you can find him?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘The world is a big place. He could be anywhere, just waiting for his inheritance.’
‘What will you do?’
She was silent for a while and then she said, ‘There’s not much I can do. I don’t suppose we will ever be able to prove it. I might ask Simon what he thinks.’
‘Simon?’
‘Our lawyer.’
‘Oh yes, you told me about him. A charmer, I think you said.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, he most certainly is that, but very, very bright as well. He’s done so much for the business, I honestly don’t believe we would have got where we are without him. Of course’ – she leaned forward and spoke very confidentially – ‘he is reckoned to be one of the best contract lawyers on either side of the Atlantic.’
‘Goodness,’ I replied, somewhat taken aback by Thelma’s change of tone after the amazing things she had been so recently discussing. ‘He sounds very high-powered. How old is he?’
‘In his thirties – his late thirties,’ she said, ‘and very mature. Quite an amazing range of experience. It will be invaluable to me in New York. I’m going over there soon for a couple of months; we’re taking over the Burkhardt agency. I’m telling you this in confidence, of course.’ She looked at me sharply, but then remembered who she was talking to and gave me her usual condescending smile. ‘It really is the big one and I’m so excited about it.’