The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

by The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (retail) (epub)

  ‘No new name has occurred to you – perhaps someone from the distant past? – who might have been talked into hiding him?’

  ‘No.’ She said. ‘And let me spare you the embarrassment of the other woman theory. It was totally foreign to his nature to conceal anything from me. Obviously, let’s face it, he could have fallen in love with someone else. But he’d never have hidden it from me – if he did feel…’

  Jennings nodded. ‘We do accept that, Mrs Fielding. I actually wasn’t going to bring it up. But thanks anyway.’ He said, ‘No friends – perhaps with a villa or something abroad?’

  ‘Well of course one has friends with places abroad. You must have all their names by now. But I simply refuse to believe that they’d do this to me and the children. It’s unimaginable.’

  ‘Your daughters can’t help in any way?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. They’re here. If you want to ask them anything.’

  ‘Perhaps later?’ He tried to thaw her with a smile. ‘There’s another rather delicate matter. I’m terribly sorry about all this.’

  The lady opened her hands in an acquiescent way – a gracious martyrdom; since one’s duty obliged.

  ‘It’s to do with trying to build up a psychological picture? I’ve already asked your son about this in London. Whether his political views weren’t a great disappointment to his father?’

  ‘What did he answer?’

  ‘I’d be most grateful to have your opinion first.’

  She shrugged, as if the whole matter were faintly absurd, not ‘delicate’ at all.

  ‘If only he’d understand that one would far rather he thought for himself than… you know what I mean.’

  ‘But there was some disappointment?’

  ‘My husband was naturally a little upset at the beginning. We both were. But… one had agreed to disagree? And he knows perfectly well we’re very proud of him in every other way.’

  ‘So a picture of someone having worked very hard to build a very pleasant world, only to find his son and heir doesn’t want it, would be misleading?’

  She puffed.

  ‘But Peter does want it. He adores this house. Our life here. Whatever he says.’ She smiled with a distinct edge of coldness. ‘I do think this is the most terrible red herring, sergeant. What worst there was was long over. And one does have two daughters as well. One mustn’t forget that.’ She said, ‘Apart from Peter’s little flirtation with Karl Marx, we really have been a quite disgustingly happy family.’

  The sergeant began to have something of the same impression he had received from Miss Parsons: that the lady had settled for ignorance rather than revelation. He might be there because she had insisted that investigation went on; but he suspected that that was a good deal more for show than out of any desperate need to have the truth uncovered. He questioned on; and got no help whatever. It was almost as if she actually knew where her husband was, and was protecting him. The sergeant had a sudden freakish intuition, no more founded on anything but frustration than those Mrs Fielding herself had had during that first evening of the disappearance, that he ought really to be searching Tetbury Hall, warrant in hand, instead of chatting politely away in the drawing-room. But to suppose Mrs Fielding capable of such a crime required her to be something other than she so obviously was… a woman welded to her role in life and her social status, eminently poised and eminently unimaginative. The sergeant also smelt a deeply wounded vanity. She had to bear some of the odium; and in some inner place she resented it deeply. He would have liked it much better if she had openly done so.

  He did see the two daughters briefly. They presented the same united front. Daddy had looked tired sometimes, he worked so fantastically hard; but he was a super daddy. The younger of the two, Caroline, who had been sailing in Greece when the event took place, added one tiny new – and conflicting – angle. She felt few people, ‘not even Mummy’, realized how much the country side of his life meant to him – the farm, it drove Tony (the farm manager) mad the way Daddy was always poking round. But it was only because Daddy loved it, it seemed. He didn’t really want to interfere, he ‘just sort of wanted to be Tony, actually’. Then why hadn’t he given up his London life? Caroline didn’t know. She supposed he was more complicated ‘than we all ever realized’. She even provided the wildest possibility yet.

  ‘You know about Mount Athos? In Greece?’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘Actually we sailed past it when I was out there. It’s sort of reserved for monasteries. There are only monks. It’s all male. They don’t even allow hens or cows. I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but sort of somewhere like that. Where he could be alone for a bit, I suppose.’

  But when it came to evidence of this yearning for a solitary retreat, the two girls were as much at a loss as everyone else. What their brother found hypocritical, they had apparently found all rather dutiful and self-sacrificing.

  A few minutes later, Mrs Fielding thanked the sergeant for his labours and, although it was half-past twelve, did not offer him lunch. He went back to London feeling, quite correctly, that he might just as well have stayed there in the first place.

  Indeed he felt near the end of his tether over the whole bloody case. There were still people he had down to see, but he hardly expected them to add anything to the general – and generally blank – picture. He knew he was fast moving from being challenged to feeling defeated; and that it would soon be a matter of avoiding unnecessary work, not seeking it. One such possible lead he had every reason to cross off his list was Isobel Dodgson, Peter’s girlfriend. She had been questioned in detail by someone else during the preliminary inquiry, and had contributed nothing of significance. But he retained one piece of casual gossip about her at the Yard; and a pretty girl makes a change, even if she knows nothing. Caroline and Francesca had turned out much prettier in the name than in the meeting.

  She came back from Paris on August 15th, in the middle of one of the hottest weeks for many years. The sergeant had sent a brief letter asking her to get in touch as soon as she returned, and she telephoned the next morning, an unbearably sultry and humid Thursday. He arranged to go up to Hampstead and see her that afternoon. She sounded precise and indifferent; she knew nothing, she didn’t really see the point. However, he insisted, though he presumed she had already spoken with Peter, and was taking his line.

  He fell for her at once, in the door of the house in Willow Road. She looked a little puzzled, as if he must be for someone else, though he had rung the bell of her flat and was punctual to the minute. Perhaps she had expected someone in uniform, older; as he had expected someone more assured.

  ‘Sergeant Mike Jennings. The fuzz.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  A small girl, a piquant oval face, dark brown eyes, black hair; a simple white dress with a blue stripe in it; down to the ankles, sandals over bare feet… but it wasn’t only that. He had an immediate impression of someone alive, where everyone else had been dead, or playing dead; of someone who lived in the present, not the past; who was, surprisingly, not like Peter at all. She smiled and nodded past him.

  ‘I suppose we couldn’t go on the Heath? This heat’s killing me. My room doesn’t seem to get any air.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll just get my key.’

  He went and waited on the pavement. There was no sun; an opaque heat-mist, a bath of stale air. He took off his dark blue blazer and folded it over his arm. She joined him, carrying a small purse; another exchange of cautious smiles.

  ‘You’re the first cool-looking person I’ve seen all day.’

  ‘Yes? Sheer illusion.’

  They walked over the little climb to East Heath Road; then across that, and over the grass down towards the ponds. She didn’t return to work until the next Monday; she was just a general dogsbody at the publisher’s. He knew more about her than she realized, from the checking that had been done when she was temporarily under suspicion. She was twenty-four years old, a graduate in English, she had even p
ublished a book of stories for children. Her parents were divorced, her mother now lived in Ireland, married to some painter. Her father was a professor at York University.

  ‘I don’t know what on earth I can tell you.’

  ‘Have you seen Peter Fielding since you got back?’

  She shook her head. ‘Just talked over the ’phone. He’s down in the country.’

  ‘It’s only routine. Just a chat, really.’

  ‘You’re still… ?’

  ‘Where we started. More or less.’ He shifted his blazer to the other arm. One couldn’t move without sweating. ‘I’m not quite sure how long you’ve known the Fieldings.’

  They walked very slowly. It was true, though meant as a way of saying he liked her dress, in spite of the heat she seemed cool beneath the white cotton; very small-bodied, delicate, like sixteen; but experienced somewhere, unlike sixteen, certain of herself despite those first moments of apparent timidity. A sexy young woman wearing a dark French scent, who tended to avoid his eyes, answering to the ground or to the Heath ahead.

  ‘Only this summer. Four months. Peter, that is.’

  ‘And his father?’

  ‘We’ve been down two or three times to the grand baronial home. There was a party in London at the flat. Occasional meals out. Like that last one. I was really just his son’s bit of bird. I honestly didn’t know him very well.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  She smiled, and for a brief moment said nothing.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Tories. Not the way I was brought up.’

  ‘Fair enough Nothing else?’

  She looked at the grass, amused. ‘I didn’t realize you were going to ask questions like this.’

  ‘Nor did I. I’m playing it by ear.’ She flashed him a surprised look, as if she hadn’t expected such frankness; then smiled away again. He said, ‘We’ve got all the facts. We’re down to how people felt about him.’

  ‘It wasn’t him in particular. Just the way they live.’

  ‘What your friend described as the life of pretence?’

  ‘Except they’re not pretending. They just are, aren’t they?’

  ‘Do you mind if I take my tie off?’

  ‘Please. Of course.’

  ‘I’ve spent all day dreaming of water.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘At least you’ve got it here.’ They were passing the ladies’ pond, with its wall of trees and shrubbery. He gave her a dry little grin, rolling his tie up. ‘At a price.’

  ‘The lezzies? How do you know about them?’

  ‘I did some of my uniformed time up the road. Haverstock Hill?’

  She nodded; and he thought, how simple it is, or can be… when they don’t beat about the bush, say what they actually think and know, actually live today instead of fifty years ago; and actually state things he had felt but somehow not managed to say to himself. He had grown not to like Fielding much, either; or that way of life. Just that one became brainwashed, lazy, one swallowed the Sunday colour-supplement view of values, the assumptions of one’s seniors, one’s profession, one forgot there are people with fresh minds and independence who see through all that and are not afraid…

  Suddenly she spoke.

  ‘Is it true they beat up the dirty old men there?’

  He was brought sharply to earth; and was shocked more than he showed, like someone angling for a pawn who finds himself placed in check by one simple move.

  ‘Probably.’ She had her eyes on the grass. After a second or two he said, ‘I used to give them a cup of tea. Personally.’ But the pause had registered.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.’ She gave him an oblique glance. ‘You’re not very police-y.’

  ‘We’re used to it.’

  ‘Something I heard once. I’m sorry, I…’ She shook her head.

  ‘It’s okay. We live with it. Over-react.’

  ‘And I interrupted.’

  He hitched his coat over his back, and unbuttoned his shirt. ‘What we’re trying to discover is whether he could have got disillusioned with that way of life. Your friend told me his father hadn’t the courage – either the courage or the imagination to walk out on it. Would you go with that?’

  ‘Peter said that?’

  ‘His words.’

  She didn’t answer for a moment.

  ‘He was one of those men who sometimes seem to be somewhere else. You know? As if they’re just going through the motions.’

  ‘And what else?’

  Again that pause. ‘Dangerous isn’t the word – but someone – very self-controlled. A tiny bit obsessional? I mean someone who wouldn’t be easily stopped if he’d argued himself into something.’ She hit her head gently in self-remonstrance. ‘I’m not putting this very well. I’m just surprised that Peter –’

  ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘There was something sort of fixed, rigid underneath. I think that could have produced courage. And this abstracted thing he showed sometimes. As if he were somewhere else. And that suggests a kind of imagination?’ She grimaced. ‘The detective’s dream.’

  ‘No, this is helpful. How about that last evening? Did you get that somewhere-else feeling then?’

  She shook her head. ‘Oddly enough he was much jollier than usual. Well… I say jolly. He wasn’t that kind of person, but…’

  ‘Enjoying himself?’

  ‘It didn’t seem only politeness.’

  ‘Someone who’s made up his mind? Feels good about it?’

  She thought about that, staring down. They walked very slowly, as if at any moment they would turn back. She shook her head.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. There certainly wasn’t any buried emotion. Nothing of the farewell about it.’

  ‘Not even when he said goodbye?’

  ‘He kissed me on the cheek. I think he touched Peter on the shoulder. I couldn’t swear about the actual movements. But I’d have noticed if there’d been anything unusual. I mean, his mood was slightly unusual. I remember Peter saying something about his getting mellow in his old age. There was that feeling. That he’d put himself out to be nice to us.’

  ‘He wasn’t always?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. Just… not simply going through the motions. Perhaps it was London. He always seemed more somewhere-else down in the country. To me, anyway.’

  ‘That’s where everyone else seems to think he was happier.’

  Again she thought, and chose her words. ‘Yes, he did enjoy showing it all off. Perhaps it was the family situation. Being en famille.’

  He said, ‘I’ve got to ask you something very crude now.’

  ‘No. He didn’t.’

  The answer came back so fast that he laughed.

  ‘You’re my star witness.’

  ‘I was waiting for it.’

  ‘Not even a look, a… ?’

  ‘I divide the looks men give me into two kinds. Natural and unnatural. He never gave me the second sort. That I saw.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to suggest he’d have made a pass at you, but whether you felt any kind of general…’

  ‘Nothing I could describe.’

  Then there was something?

  ‘No. Honestly not. I think it was just me. Psychic nonsense. It’s not evidence.’

  ‘Do I get on my knees?’

  Her mouth curved, but she said nothing. They moved up, on a side-path towards Kenwood.

  He said, ‘Bad vibes?’

  She hesitated still, then shook her head. The black hair curled a little, negligently and deliciously, at its ends, where it touched the skin of her bare neck.

  ‘I didn’t like being alone with him. It only happened once or twice. It may have just been the political thing. Sympathetic magic. The way he always used to produce a kind of chemical change in Peter.’

  ‘Like how?’

  ‘Oh, a kind of nervousness. A defensiveness. It’s not that they used to argue the way they once ap
parently did. All very civilized, really. You please mustn’t say anything about this. It’s mostly me. Not facts.’

  ‘The marriage seemed okay to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You hesitated.’

  She was watching the ground again as they mounted the grassy hill. ‘My own parents’ marriage broke up when I was fifteen. I sort of felt something… just the tiniest whiff. When the couple know and the children don’t. I think in real relationships people are rude to each other. They know it’s safe, they’re not walking on ice. But Peter said they’d always been like that. He told me once, he’d never once heard them have a row. Always that façade. Front. Perhaps I just came in late on something that had always been there.’

  ‘You never had chat with Mrs Fielding?’

  ‘Nothing else.’ She pulled a little face. ‘Inch-deep.’

  ‘This not wanting to be alone with him –’

  ‘It was such a tiny thing.’

  ‘You’ve already proved you’re telepathic.’ She smiled again, her lips pressed tight. ‘Were these bad vibes sexual ones?’

  ‘Just that something was suppressed. Something…’

  ‘Let it come out. However wild.’

  ‘Something he might suddenly tell me. That he might break down. Not that he ever would. I can’t explain.’

  ‘But an unhappiness in him?’

  ‘Not even that. Just someone else, behind it all. It’s nothing, but I’m not quite making it up after the facts.’ She shrugged. ‘When it all happened, something seemed to fit. It wasn’t quite the shock it ought to have been.’

  ‘You think the someone else was very different from the man everyone knew?’ She gave her slow, reluctant nod. ‘Nicer or nastier?’

  ‘More honest?’

  ‘You never heard him say anything that suggested he was changing his politics? Moving leftward?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Did he seem to approve of you as a future daughter-in-law?’

  She seemed faintly embarrassed at that.

  ‘I’m not interested in getting married yet. It’s not been that sort of relationship.’

  ‘Which they understood?’