‘God, are you still up?’ he said in sleepy surprise. ‘Is the party still going on?’
‘The party finished some hours ago,’ Maltravers told him. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news.’
Peter, who had been shuffling instinctively towards the electric kettle, stopped and looked at him sharply.
‘What’s the matter? You’re both all right, aren’t you?’
‘We’re fine,’ Maltravers assured him. ‘But I’m afraid that Simon is dead. He’s been murdered.’
Peter stared at him for several seconds as though waiting for him to say something else then looked suddenly depressed. ‘Jesus, you’re not joking, are you?’
‘I wish I was. Sit down and we’ll tell you about it.’
Peter listened in silence while Tess made more tea and Maltravers quietly recounted the events of the previous few hours.
‘Thank you,’ he said distantly, as Tess placed a mug in front of him.
‘I’ve made one for Susan,’ Tess said gently. ‘I think you’d better go up and tell her.’
Peter shook his head as if to dispel some sort of trance.
‘Pardon? Oh, yes, I’ll…Christ Almighty!’ It had all sunk in, but he appeared unable to comprehend it as he stared into space in disbelief. ‘I’ll be back down in…’
He left the kitchen looking as though he was trying to find some explanation that would make it all go away. After a few moments Tess and Maltravers winced as they heard Susan’s cry from upstairs and a few minutes later she came down, Peter protectively holding her arm. Tears were running down her shock-crinkled features.
‘Come and sit down,’ Tess said firmly and led her like a child to a chair. Susan’s reaction was different from her husband’s; where Peter had been numbed, she appeared gripped by some sort of panic, eyes gazing wildly and trembling violently. After a few seconds she looked round at them all as though seeing them for the first time, half pleading, half desperate.
‘Don’t you think you’d better go back to bed?’ Tess suggested. ‘We’ll take care of the children’s breakfast.’
‘No…no.’ Susan spoke like an automaton. ‘I’ll do that…I’ll have to…I must…’ She started to stand up, one hand pressing against the immense swelling at the front of her nightdress.
‘Darling, the baby…’ Peter began, stepping towards her.
The words had an eruptive effect. Susan gave a scream of anguish, slapping her hand over her mouth to stop it as she backed away from him. Peter moved swiftly to her side and tried to put his arm round her shoulders but she shook him off savagely.
‘Don’t touch me! Go away!’
‘Come on,’ he said soothingly. ‘Let’s get you upstairs and—’
‘Let me go!’
Her reaction was now so violent that for a moment they all froze as she stared at her husband in horror, oblivious of the presence of Maltravers and Tess.
‘Don’t you realise?’ she shouted at him. ‘Don’t you? It’s not yours! It’s Simon’s!’
She stared round at them all, like someone seeing the desolation of their life, then ran out of the room, faster than seemed possible in her condition. Peter suddenly pulled himself together and followed her without a word. As Tess and Maltravers stood like statues there was the sound of small footsteps and Emma appeared from her bedroom in the cellar, sleepily clutching a brown-and-yellow knitted hedgehog.
‘What’s the matter with Mummy?’ she asked. ‘Why is she crying? Is the baby coming?’
6
With the portraits of twelve generations of his ancestors as mute witnesses, Lord Pembury heard without any betrayal of emotion that his only son had been murdered from two policemen in the library of Edenbridge House at two-thirty in the morning. He thanked them for informing him, then told the butler, who had let the officers in, to see if either Hawkhurst or Norman were in their rooms. When they were not, Pembury assured the police that he would inform them immediately if either man returned to the house, and gave their home addresses. When the police had left, Pembury instructed the butler to waken his wife’s personal maid and then go back to bed. The rest of the household staff could be told later in the morning. While waiting for the maid, he telephoned the senior partner of the family’s solicitors at his home and asked him to come to Edenbridge House immediately. When the maid came into the library, he explained what had happened and that her mistress would need her. Then he went upstairs again and for more than an hour was alone with his wife.
Dawn had broken when he dressed and left Edenbridge House to walk out into the park and stand alone by the gate of the field in which he had watched his son ride his first horse. Overlapping images of an inquisitive, chuckling infant, coltish adolescent, hare-brained student, graceful cricketer, and beloved young man flickered in and out of his memory like fragments of a film. Occasionally his mouth gave a bitter twitch as recollection dripped acid on raw, exposed wounds, but when he returned to the house he was completely composed and throughout the rest of that day and all the weeks that followed the grief that had ripped through him never showed itself in his public face. Protected by the same awful control, his wife personally replied to more than four hundred letters of condolence, taking as much care with those clumsily written on cheap notepaper as those postmarked from the House of Lords, several bearing Royal seals and the one signed simply Cantuar; a lifetime of learning how to do the proper thing until it was second nature held father and mother together with steel bands of correct behaviour. Those who said it was abnormal did not understand the deep-rooted English aristocracy; and none of them knew of the many nights, in the darkness and privacy of their separate rooms, when Lord and Lady Pembury wept tears of rage, disbelief and helplessness.
*
The atmosphere in the Penrose household was as fragile as burnt paper. Susan had angrily told Peter to leave her alone and he was sitting in the kitchen looking dazed, as Tess and Maltravers tactfully took over the demands of the children. The little boy was happily showing Maltravers his collection of machines for miniature inter-galactic warfare in plastic and Tess occupied Emma by asking her to help find things for their breakfast.
‘But when is the baby coming?’ the little girl asked eagerly. ‘I’ve made it a present.’
‘Not yet, poppet,’ Tess replied. ‘But it won’t be very long. Now, where does Mummy hide the cornflakes?’
They endured an eternity of the vibrations trembling through the room, smothering them as best they could, until the mother whose turn it was to take a collection of children for their Sunday morning riding lessons arrived. She bounced into the kitchen through the side door, normality in jodhpurs and check shirt, and was mercifully discreet.
‘Come on you two,’ she ordered briskly. ‘Got your riding hats? Crops? Gloves? Heads? Right, into the car. We’re running late again.’
As the children scampered outside, she turned to Peter.
‘I’ve heard,’ she said simply. ‘The kids don’t know? Right, I’ll keep quiet about it. One of mine knows but I’ve warned him that if he breathes a word the pony goes straight to the glue factory. It’s best they hear it from you or Susan; they were very fond of Simon. Bye.’
Her raised voice, boisterously laying down the law to a car full of chattering children, floated in through the window, then a door slammed and the car drove away. Apprehension, drained emotions and weariness settled amid the frozen silence in the room.
‘Would you like me to talk to Susan?’ Tess asked quietly. Peter looked at her gratefully.
‘Would you? She won’t talk to me. She just told me to get out. I don’t—’
‘I’ll take her another cup of tea,’ Tess interrupted. ‘We can’t just leave her up there on her own.’
Susan was back in bed, staring without seeing out of the window, when Tess opened the door. She did not look round as Tess put the teacup on the bedside table and sat down on the duvet.
‘The children have gone riding,’ she explained.
F
or a moment Susan did not react, then turned and smiled thinly out of a face tarnished with tears, shiny without make-up and chestnut hair uncombed.
‘Thank you…I’m so sorry about all this.’
‘Do you want to talk about it? I think you should.’
‘God, I’ve kept it bottled up inside me for so long.’ Susan leaned back against the pillow and sighed. ‘There’s been nobody I could…do you mind?’
Tess shook her head and Susan pulled another Kleenex from the box beside her, blew her nose inelegantly, then crumpled the tissue in her fist. She looked out of the window again as she spoke.
‘It was when Peter was away last year. It was half term and the children were staying with my parents. I was making some new curtains for the bathroom one evening when Simon arrived. He was upset about something and said he’d had a row with Luke Norman…You met him at the party didn’t you? I don’t know what it was about.’
Tess said nothing as she filed away the implications of the remark.
‘Anyway, I’d opened a bottle of wine and offered him a glass. I knew he’d had some before, but Simon never became objectionable.’ Susan swallowed nervously. ‘He stayed and we opened another bottle then he started getting maudlin. He said he needed the love of a good woman. Honestly, Tess, he was as corny as that. I knew I’d drunk too much, but I took hold of his hand and he said something about Peter being very lucky. Then he kissed me and I suddenly realised how much I liked him. Peter was away…and things hadn’t been too good between us. I should have stopped him, but I didn’t.’
Her voice had gone very faint and she looked down at the shreds of the tissue which she had been absently tearing to pieces.
‘I shouldn’t have…’ She began to weep, easily and guiltily. Tess took her hand and squeezed it softly.
‘But you went to bed?’ she coaxed. Susan gave a little bitter laugh.
‘Oh, no. My conscience wouldn’t let me use the bed.’ A trace of hysteria entered her voice. ‘We did it on the settee like a couple of teenagers. Christ, it was uncomfortable. Somehow it sobered us both up and he apologised and left when I told him to.’
‘And that was it?’ Tess asked. Susan nodded. ‘And what happened when Peter came back?’
‘Oh Tess, I made love to him like it was going out of style. I felt so bad and it wasn’t his fault and I wanted him so much and…’ She shivered slightly. ‘Then I found I was pregnant.’
‘But how long was it before Peter returned?’ Tess demanded.
‘A couple of days…and I know, I know. I’ve kept telling myself the baby’s his because I’ve got to believe that it is. But the thought’s always been there and it’s been nearer and nearer the surface as the time’s approached. I just couldn’t handle it when Simon turned up after the concert, then when I heard what had happened this morning something cracked and I became convinced it really is his. I was so shocked I didn’t know what I was doing or saying down there. When Peter said something about the baby, it just came out.’
Tess looked at her with something like a motherly sternness.
‘Now let’s get this straight, lady,’ she said. ‘Gus told me before we came here that you and Peter were among the happiest married couples he knows and I’ve seen enough in a very short time to agree with him. Good marriages can survive worse things than a casual lay that didn’t even amount to a one-night stand.’
‘You’re not married,’ Susan replied. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you were.’
‘All right, I’m not married,’ Tess agreed. ‘But if I was, and if I really loved my husband, it would take more than a drunken tumble that didn’t mean anything to make me let go. You love Peter or you wouldn’t be feeling the way you do. You’ve been carrying this like a hair shirt for all these months. For God’s sake—no, never mind God—for your sake, for Peter’s, for Timmy and Emma’s sake, start getting it sorted out. I know what Simon was like, hundreds of women would have fallen for that boyish charm approach. Did you talk to him about it?’
‘Yes. He was dreadfully upset and said he’d stop seeing me and Peter but I told him not to be silly. We’ve known him ever since we moved to Old Capley and he’s an old friend…was an old friend. I said we should just…’ Susan gestured helplessly. Tess let go of her hand and stood up.
‘I’m going downstairs to tell Peter you want to talk to him,’ she said firmly. ‘Don’t argue, you’re going to tell him. You owe him.’
Susan’s automatic protests stopped in mid-sentence.
‘All right. Thank you. I just needed someone to tell me that, that was all. It will be all right, won’t it?’
Tess pursed her lips. ‘Marriages don’t come with guarantees, you have to make them work yourself. If they get broken, you can throw them away or try to mend them. I think this one is worth mending. Go for it.’
As she was leaving the room, Susan called her back.
‘But what about Simon? I’ve been so…I haven’t been able to think about that. He’s been murdered? Why? Who by?’
‘Nobody knows at the moment,’ said Tess. ‘The police are sorting it out. But that’s not very important to you and Peter just now.’
As Tess re-entered the kitchen, Peter and Maltravers stopped talking and looked at her: Peter anxious, Maltravers inquiring.
‘Susan wants to talk to you,’ she announced. ‘She wants to tell you what she’s just told me.’
As Peter stood up and went to walk past her, Tess took hold of his arm.
‘She’s very pregnant, very confused and very unhappy. Just listen.’ She watched him go, trying to assess his mood. ‘How is he?’
Maltravers lit his twelfth cigarette since they had returned to the house. ‘Disorientated is the word, I think. So what happened between Susan and Simon?’
‘Not a great deal when you get down to it,’ said Tess. ‘We’d better get some sleep while they talk it out. I’ll tell you upstairs. We’ll leave a note and set the alarm for lunchtime.’
*
With murder and marital mischance spinning through their minds, Maltravers and Tess fell asleep just as Oliver Hawkhurst was waking up. For a few moments he looked at the unfamiliar bedroom ceiling, grimacing through a relentless timpani drummer who had taken a lease on the inside of his head, his mouth feeling as though he had consumed vast quantities of very old blotting paper. It had been a night of over-frantic coupling, ungracious, ungainly and finally unsatisfactory; when he had flopped on to his back and started snoring within minutes of its grunting, deficient culmination, his companion had regarded him with acute distaste and decided that a repeat performance was not worth the effort involved. The anticipated pleasures of illicit passion had now left nothing more than a smell of stale sweat and a mutual realisation of the inanity of meaningless fornication, which had earlier seemed such an alluring prospect.
She remained asleep as Hawkhurst quietly slipped out of the bed and gathered up his clothes, scattered across the floor when the excitement of new flesh had been at its height; the broken threads from two lost shirt buttons were all that remained of the eager lust of the small hours of the night. He dressed hastily, feeling sticky and uncomfortable in the crumpled clothing, then showed a meaningless touch of consideration before he left. He had to think for a moment until he remembered her name, then half roused her with his hand on her naked shoulder.
‘Harriet, I’ve got to go,’ he whispered. Groggy with residual alcohol and exhausted by frustrated physical effort, she made a low, irritated, growling noise at the back of her throat; the stuff of which the poets sing ended on that faint animal sound.
Hawkhurst sluiced away the worst of the roasted salt permeating his mouth with a glass of water from the sink in the back kitchen, noticing there was a door leading out into the small, paved, courtyard garden behind the house, which offered a more discreet exit than skulking out of the front. The garden, like the Darbys’ higher up the street, also had a door in the end wall, but this time leading on to a narrow, stony alleyway running behin
d several houses. He followed it up the hill and found his way into a corner of the churchyard and through there to another way out by the Bellringer Street lodge. A few people arriving for morning service took no notice as he passed near them and walked on into Edenbridge Park. He had decided that his appearance, crumpled, unwashed and unshaven, would only lead to difficult questions at the house and he made his way round to the private car park, intending simply to drive home and telephone with some sort of explanation later.
As he crunched across the gravel he stiffened as he saw two uniformed policemen standing next to his car. He thought about turning away, but they had already seen him approaching, keys visible in his hand. All he could do was pretend to ignore them as if their presence could have nothing to do with him; it required a considerable effort.
‘Mr Oliver Hawkhurst?’ one of them asked as he reached the car.
‘Yes. What do you want?’ He made his voice sound brusque and impatient, a gentleman not accustomed to being accosted by the police.
‘We are officers with Capley police, Sir, and would like you to accompany us to the station.’
Hawkhurst looked the constable up and down coldly, the mask of his face covering panic-riddled thoughts; there was more than one matter in his life in which he would rather the police did not take too close an interest.
‘What the devil for?’ he demanded, with as much cocksure arrogance as he could gather together.
‘Your cousin, Lord Dunford, has been found murdered, sir, and we have reason to believe that you may be able to assist with police inquiries into this matter.’
Both policemen later reported that Oliver Hawkhurst went very white at that moment.
*
Maltravers and Tess entered the kitchen again cautiously to find their friends going through the motions of living their lives.
‘Oh, why didn’t you stay in bed?’ Susan was sorting out the contents of the kitchen rubbish drawer as though the tedious occupation was very important to her. ‘You must be worn out.’
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