Loose Ends

by Susan Moody

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, anxious to get away from his oppressive presence but trying not to make it obvious, ‘I’ll be off to Paris myself, very shortly.’

  ‘A holiday?’ It was the elder brother, this time.

  ‘That’s right. I can’t wait.’

  ‘Where in Paris will you be staying?’ asked Stefan.

  If he thought she was about to tell him, he was even more arrogant than she had suspected. ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she said lightly. ‘In fact, I may not even go to Paris. I’m just taking off, following the wind.’

  ‘The wind?’ asked the elder brother.

  Kate looked over her shoulder at the bar. ‘If there’s nothing else you folks want, I’d better get back to work.’ She whisked away before Stefan’s detaining hand could grab her short black skirt.

  Back at the counter, Fredo looked at her quizzically. A short-haired grey cat sat on his shoes and he bent to stroke it. ‘Whassa goin’ on?’

  ‘That guy seems to think he owns me,’ said Kate. ‘That we have some kind of relationship. Which we most definitely don’t. Can you imagine me getting up close and personal with him? I’d rather eat a box of hair.’

  ‘He had the hots for one of the girls who was here before you,’ Rachel said. She busily polished the copper counter with a clean tea towel. ‘She gave him the brush-off, too. Poor kid.’

  ‘Why “poor kid”?’

  ‘She was killed in a hit-and-run accident.’

  ‘How dreadful. What happened?’

  ‘Hell of a thing. She’d gone down to visit her mother in some village in the country – can’t remember the name, Besford, I think it was called, Hampshire . . .?’ She paused interrogatively and Kate said she’d never heard of it. ‘Anyway, she was walking home along one of those narrow country lanes, and as far as the police could make out, this car came too fast round the corner and knocked her down.’ As she spoke, she dried glasses on a cloth then handed them to Kate for a final polish, adding that the awful thing was, she didn’t die for several hours. ‘If the bastard had picked her up and got her to a hospital, she’d probably have been OK.’

  Kate shivered. ‘What a horrible story.’

  ‘Isn’t it? She and I were good friends, actually. We were going to find a place together, only she . . . died.’ Rachel’s eyes watered.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Kate tried not to think of the girl lying by the side of the road in the darkness, broken limbs, internal injuries, bleeding, feeling her life seeping away, unable to move, desperately hoping that someone would find her, save her.

  ‘Lindsay, she was called, Lindsay Bennett. She was such a pretty girl, blonde like you . . .’

  ‘And of course they never got anyone for it.’

  ‘They so often don’t, not with these hit-and-runs. I had a friend whose brother was killed the same way, years and years ago, in some remote Scottish village. Ninety per cent certain it was someone local, but they never found out who. The brother had three young children, too.’

  ‘Let’s hope whoever it was rots in hell.’

  ‘Trouble is, some people genuinely don’t know that they’ve hit someone. And if it was dark . . . no street lamps on those country lanes.’ Rachel shrugged. ‘What can I say?’

  ‘Just as a matter of interest, has Thingy over there . . .’ Kate slightly lifted her chin in the direction of Stefan and his family ‘. . . ever asked you about me? My boyfriends, for example, or where I live?’ She suddenly realized why the father looked so familiar: like so many handsome older men with greying hair and a tan, he was a dead ringer for George Clooney.

  ‘No. And if he did, I wouldn’t tell him. You can’t be too careful. After all, you never know who’s a nutter, these days.’

  ‘Well, he’s pretty close, in my book. Don’t take this the wrong way, Fredo,’ she smiled at the manager, ‘but I can’t wait to get away from here, from people like him.’ She didn’t add that something about Stefan set her teeth on edge, though she’d have been hard pressed to say why.

  ‘Yeah, I agree wizz you.’ Fredo bent, his hand undulating along the back of the grey cat. ‘Look out, heeza comin’ over here.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Fredo. Send me back into the kitchens – I really don’t want another encounter with him.’

  ‘Ok-igh, shweetheart.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t call us, shweetheart, we’ll call you.’

  ‘Don’t letta da bastards grin’ you down.’

  Two days later, Fredo put his thick arm round her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her cheek. ‘We gonna miss you.’

  ‘Me too. But you have to move on, don’t you?’

  ‘Have a wonderful time on holiday,’ Rachel said. ‘It won’t be the same here without you.’

  The kitchen staff chimed in their agreement. ‘You always like a laugh,’ someone said. ‘It makes such a difference.’

  ‘Brave of you,’ said Tina, the other waitress. ‘Taking off without an idea where you’re going next.’

  ‘I thought it was time for a complete break,’ lied Kate, ‘before I tied myself down to another job.’ She wasn’t going anywhere, as it happened, but had a gut feeling that it would be better not to let anyone at the wine bar know where she would shortly be working; that way, no-one could pass the details on to someone like Stefan, were he minded to enquire.

  ‘More champers, anyone?’ Fredo tilted the bottle over the half-dozen glasses in front of him. He cleared his throat. ‘On behalf uffus all, I lika say dat we wishin’ you well, Kate. Watch your back and doan forgetta come in and see us.’ He held his cat close to his chest. ‘And tell alla your friendsa come too.’

  ‘I already did. Why else do you think you have so many customers? In fact, now I think about it, I ought to get a bonus.’

  Fredo winked at her. ‘Get outta here.’ He patted her on the bum. ‘Enjoy your new life.’

  ‘I fully intend to.’

  When Kate got home, Magnus was out. She had a long shower, washed the wine bar smells out of her hair for the last time, and curled up on the sofa in her cuddly blue dressing gown. With Andrei and Olga snuggled in close to her side and a glass of wine on the table beside her, she felt loosened, liberated. Free at last! She ought to have been out on the town, celebrating with her friends, but this was as good as she could imagine. Warmth, companionship, clean hair, wine. What more could she want? Well, a great deal more, when she thought about it. Like money, a career, a husband and children, her own place. A mother . . .

  Magnus’s drawing room was a double cube, with high ceilings and elaborate cornices which he’d spent a lot of time and money refurbishing, removing layer after layer of whitewash, restoring rotten wood, cleaning marble until the potential magnificence of the place had been restored. Firelight sent gleams of gold and blue sparking from his collection of Russian icons, with their sad solemn faces of virgins and saints. In pride of place, above the mantel, hung a rare painting of Grand Duchess Maria which he’d picked up in an antique shop in Scarborough. The mantel itself was covered with photographs of their parents and of Annie. More photographs hung on either side of the fireplace, modern ones of their Uncle Blair and his family, older faded ones of grandparents, rotund in belly-filled waistcoats and watch-chains, or wearing the wasp-waisted dresses and big hats of their time. Amazing, Kate often thought, that hips and bosom should have been so flaunted, when the prevailing moral attitudes were supposedly concerned with maintaining and extolling the virtue of the weaker sex. When lovely woman stoops to folly . . . She herself had stooped to folly, all right, by marrying Brad, and here she was, living on her brother’s charity to prove it, since she had no home of her own any more . . . She shook away thoughts of the big flat in Battersea, overlooking the Gardens, which they had shopped for and decorated together, a partially successful effort – on her part at least – to block out memories of The Accident, sold now, of course, to pay off the debts Brad had left her with.

  All round the room were reminders of their parents: masks, bright-pai
nted trays, a deeply carved side table, primitive paintings. She remembered vivid holidays with them, out in Ecuador, shadows shifting on brown skin, brilliant birds screeching in unfamiliar creeper-laden trees, waterfalls tumbling from crags, green lizards skittering about the walls of her bedroom, the stately turtles. And Annie, her dark hair pushed back from her face with a black velvet band; Annie reading Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, trying to see if she too could climb through the mirror into an alternative world of talking rabbits and grand duchesses; Annie eating a mango with the juice running down her chin; Annie running in and out of rainbows from the sprinkler on the lawn. She’d been so full of life and now she was gone.

  Kate brushed at her eyes. It was years ago. You couldn’t go on mourning the loss of something that was irretrievable. You had to move on. Had to.

  Outside the window, something in the small frost-bound front garden creaked and rattled. Probably nothing more sinister than the overgrown holly bush in one corner, a magnet for the local birds; even at this time of night, some canny thrush or sparrow was probably raiding the larder, picking at the berries without any competition. Getting up, she stared out of the window and saw mad old Mr Radsowicz over the way leaning from the top window of his house, banging on the gutter directly above his head with a broom handle. She looked at her watch: Magnus had left a note on the kitchen table saying he would be back around midnight and it was now eleven-thirty. Yawning, stretching, she noticed an airmail envelope lying on the rosewood drop-leaf table behind the sofa. The stamps were Ecuadorean and a letter lay half inside, half out, obviously removed, read and carelessly thrust back.

  Intrigued, Kate reached for it. The letter was typewritten, on a flimsy sheet of airmail-thickness A4, with the name of a law firm in Quito printed across the top. Why was Magnus receiving letters from Ecuador? It must have something to do with the death of her parents, but that had been years ago.

  Frowning, she started to read further. It was written in Spanish, but her grasp of the language was more than sufficient for her to understand the information contained. The writer said that though their enquiries continued, they were still no further forward in their search. In the light of this, did he still want them to carry on or did he think that perhaps after so much time had elapsed, the quest was no longer relevant? The firm would quite understand if Dottore Lennox felt this to be the case, but before he made a final decision, he might find the following of interest.

  It had come to their attention that one or more interested parties were aware of the investigations being carried out on Dr Lennox’s behalf and, or so it appeared, were actively seeking to discourage further enquiries by any means at their disposal (the writer had twice underlined the last six words), as Dr Lennox had suspected. The writer would await further instruction from him, and hoped that meanwhile he would rest assured of their holding him in the highest esteem, etc, etc.

  Kate refolded the sheet and pushed it back into its envelope. What the hell was all that about? She examined the postmark. Sent ten days earlier . . . the letter had probably only arrived in the last couple of days. She took it out again and reread it, then replaced it, still none the wiser. And she could hardly ask for further details from Magnus, without revealing that she’d shamelessly read his personal correspondence.

  She heard his ancient car pull up outside on the street, the protesting shriek of his brakes, the double slam of the door on the driver’s side which never caught the first time, then his footsteps on the tiled path to the front door.

  ‘Hi,’ she shouted as he came into the house. ‘I’m in here.’

  ‘Hello, Miss Footloose and Fancy Free.’ He dropped another log on the fire. ‘Gawd, it’s cold out there.’ He turned to the drinks cabinet. ‘Armagnac? Or would you rather have a nice cup of Ovaltine?’

  ‘Do I look that bad? I’ve already put the brandy out on a tray with some glasses. And some crisps.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Kate could still see the red, white and blue of the airmail envelope.

  ‘Oh . . .’ She pretended to catch sight of it, picked it up, examined the stamps. ‘Who’s this from? It can’t be Romanov research, surely?’

  He reached over and took the letter from her. ‘Funnily enough, that’s exactly what it is. Some granddaughter of a former nursemaid to the Imperial family with a not-very-interesting story to tell; nothing which really illuminates my book. You’d be surprised how many connections to the Romanovs there are all over Latin America.’

  ‘I’m sure I would.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘You’ve told me countless times that the vast majority of the white Russians fled to Paris or London, or even the US, because they preferred not to be too far from the Russian world they knew. Not to mention the Orthodox Church.’

  ‘That was the aristocracy, not the common people.’ The look on Magnus’s face managed to combine astonishment and hurt, as though he could barely comprehend that she might doubt him.

  And I’d be even more surprised if such a descendent of an Imperial nanny exists, Kate thought drily. He was so convincing that though she had read the letter for herself, she almost believed him. Magnus had always been good at lying, or, as he called it when caught out in a blatant untruth, fabricating.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Interesting.’ The common people, as he put it, were too poor to do anything much except hope to be able to feed their families for one more day. She wondered why he felt the need to lie about it – but then maybe he was telling the truth: maybe a firm of lawyers was in fact investigating the Russian nursemaid’s granddaughter’s bona fides for him. As an eminent historian, presumably every fact had to be checked and authenticated before it could be used. Particularly in the case of the Romanovs, still a subject of intense interest, even after so many years – and so many books on the subject. But in that case, why should some third party be prepared to stop at nothing to prevent any information getting out? Perhaps the nursemaid had managed to escape with some of the fabled Romanov jewels and her heirs didn’t want to have to give them back. Even so, it seemed a little extreme . . .

  Jefferson

  Seven

  ‘Your father’s papers,’ Romilly said.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘I think you should come down here for the weekend; we could go through them together. I don’t want to throw anything out without your say-so: some things relate to your mother, and even you.’

  ‘This weekend suit you?’

  ‘Perfect. The children will be home and they’d love to see you.’

  ‘Right, it’s a date.’

  The following Friday, Jefferson drove down to the little village where his father and Romilly had lived since his parents split up. Dad’s death, a few weeks ago, had left him temporarily bereft, until Romilly had made it clear that he was still part of the family, and that he was always welcome in their warm and inviting home. His two young half-siblings felt more like his nephew and niece, and that was how they treated him, as a benign uncle. On Saturday morning, he took them for a walk through the fields which lay behind the little half-timbered cottage where they lived, mud accumulating on their wellingtons until they could hardly lift their feet, and listened while they raged their grief about the loss of their father. He told them that though he wasn’t and could never be any kind of a substitute, he would always be there if they needed him, whether for money (within reason, he’d added hastily), or advice, or just an adult male to talk to. Later, in the afternoon, while they were out either playing football (Monroe) or mooching round the town eyeing up the boys and giggling a lot (Madison), he sat at the kitchen table with Romilly, both of them nursing a mug of coffee, and listened while she wept a little at her newly widowed state, reminisced about his father and the good life they’d had together.

  ‘Truman was such a terrific dad,’ she said. ‘So good with the children, so full of energy and ideas – I mean, still refereeing at the local rugby club at his age! They’re young to lose a parent, but I think they’re going to be ver
y special people because of his influence.’

  ‘You’re pretty special yourself, Rom,’ Jefferson said.

  Tears tumbled slowly down her face. ‘We always knew we might not have as long together as we’d like, him being quite a bit older than me, so we always made a real effort to relish every moment that we possibly could.’

  ‘Everyone who knew you could see that.’

  ‘He wasn’t just a great dad, but a great person.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a wet ball of Kleenex. ‘So many people here will miss him. He always had a kind word, always ready to help someone in trouble, he’d go and sit with old ladies in hospital if they didn’t have families nearby and take flowers from the garden, let people in trouble cry on his shoulder for hours on end; he was so patient, so kind.’

  Jefferson reached for her hand. ‘The best thing for me was the fact that you made him so happy, after . . . well, after everything.’

  She didn’t say much, just squeezed his fingers. They both knew what ‘everything’ meant; both of them wondered how a man like Truman Andrewes had ever found himself married to a woman like Jefferson’s mother; it was the most bizarre of partnerships, like a Pekinese hitching up with an aardvark, an oyster getting involved with an avocado, though no more weird, Jefferson considered, than his mother’s second marriage, an even more unlikely coupling.

  ‘Anyway,’ Romilly said, after a pause which possibly she spent considering the same thing, ‘your father’s papers . . . They were sent to me by one of his colleagues at the Research Institute, a Dr Jens Bork, I haven’t gone through the ones I’m passing on to you, but I think you should; your father always had his doubts about your mother’s death—’

  ‘Doubts?’

  ‘At the time, he felt that he hadn’t been given all the facts, there were some anomalies, omissions. He’d liked to have talked to her husband – Gordon, isn’t it? – about it, but he wasn’t very interested, said it was bad enough that she was gone but to have to imagine that foul play was involved was really too much to cope with.’