Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

  “Tell me, Alain,” Jean-Claude said. “This Nelia. Zelda. Are you in love with her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Banks. “I realise that’s an unsatisfactory answer to your question, but I’ve asked it of myself, too, and the answer is the same. I don’t know. Besides, even if I am, it doesn’t matter. There could be no future for us, for many reasons.”

  Their Calvados and tartes arrived. The woman at the next table took out a compact and checked her face in the mirror as she refreshed her lipstick, catching Banks’s eye briefly as she did so. He noticed a wedding ring on her left hand.

  “And that, mon ami, is that,” said Jean-Claude. They clinked their Calvados glasses and drank. It was smooth as silk, but burned all the way down. “And now I have a question for you, Alain.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This Nelia. What is she really like?”

  19

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, CHARLOTTE WESTLAKE DIDN’T seem well rested at all. Her eyes were sunken and had bags beneath them. Her cheeks were sallow and even her hair seemed lacklustre.

  Annie, on the other hand, was awake and raring to go after a restful night’s sleep. Gerry seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, too.

  “Good breakfast?” Annie asked Charlotte. She knew that the cells were comfortable enough and the food passable.

  She got no answer.

  “Service OK?”

  “All right, all right,” said Jessica Bowen. “Enough with the inappropriate humour. Just get on with the interview, if you don’t mind. The clock’s ticking.”

  Annie picked up the threads again. “Remember, yesterday evening we were talking about your relationship with Connor Blaydon?” she said to Charlotte. “Would you care to tell us exactly when and how it began?”

  “I don’t know where you’ve dug up all this rubbish from, but I don’t intend to dignify it with an explanation.”

  “How well do you get along with your mother?” Annie asked.

  “My mother? What’s she got to do with all this?”

  “Quite a bit, as it turns out,” said Annie. “Were you always close?”

  “I suppose so. I mean, she is my mother.”

  “And I understand that your husband’s and father’s deaths occurred rather close together.”

  “What is this? Are you trying to say I had something to do with my father’s death now? My husband’s? What is it with you?”

  “Dear, dear,” said Annie. “A night’s rest doesn’t seem to have made you any more helpful or better tempered, does it?”

  “Rest? That’s a joke.”

  “Where are you going with this, DI Cabbot?” asked Jessica Bowen. “I’m afraid you’re losing me, too.”

  “Just this,” Annie went on. “In DC Masterson’s conversations with Mrs. Lynne Pollard we discovered—”

  “You’ve been talking to my mother!” Charlotte sat bolt upright and glared at Gerry. “You went to see my mother! How dare—”

  “Mrs. Westlake, calm down,” said Gerry. “I talked to your mother. We had a nice chat. She made us a pot of tea. And a number of interesting points came up.” She opened a file folder on the table and took out two picture postcards. “Most interesting of all were these postcards she received from you in June 1999. Your mother has kept all the correspondence she ever had with you. Surely it can’t surprise you that she kept the postcards you sent her from your world travels? After all, you were doing what she never dared, never really had the chance to do. Travel. She was envious. She saw the world vicariously through your eyes.”

  Charlotte regarded her incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s what she said. Your mother. Lynne.”

  “I . . . well, no, I didn’t know that . . . but I can’t believe you just went there and talked to her behind my back. Surely you can’t do that. There must be a law.”

  She looked at Jessica Bowen. “No law, I’m afraid, Charlotte,” Jessica said.

  “Is nobody on my side here?”

  “As your solicitor says,” said Gerry. “I didn’t need your permission. I was doing my job.”

  Charlotte just shook her head slowly.

  “These are postcards from you,” Gerry went on. “I’m sure we could verify the handwriting if we needed to. They’re both posted from the island of Corfu, two days apart in mid-June. In the first, you refer to meeting up with a wealthy landowner from Yorkshire called Connor Clive Blaydon, and in the second, you refer to a big farewell party he threw for you and your friends on his yacht, the Nerea. Is this true?”

  “I did a lot of things I don’t remember clearly back then,” said Charlotte. “At risk of getting arrested for past behaviour, I was either drunk or stoned most of the time.”

  “Like Marnie Sedgwick at Blaydon’s party,” said Annie. “Only that wasn’t her choice.”

  Charlotte ignored Annie, but Jessica Bowen gave her a warning glance.

  “But is it true, Charlotte?” Gerry repeated. “Your mother thought it all sounded quite glamorous. Like so much of your life. She’s very proud of you and your achievements, you know.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me that. And if I wrote it on a postcard I suppose it must be true.”

  “So you don’t deny it?”

  Charlotte folded her arms. “What would be the point?”

  “May I see these postcards?” Jessica Bowen asked.

  Gerry passed over the cards. The solicitor picked them up, glanced briefly at the photograph of Kavos on one and a view of the Albanian coastline on the other, then turned them over one at a time and read. She passed them to Charlotte, who glanced at them in passing and dropped them on the table. Her body seemed to have tensed up now, Annie noticed. The skin stretched taut over her forehead and cheeks, lips a straight narrow line. She was playing with her ring again.

  “Do you admit to writing and sending these?” Gerry asked.

  “Yes,” Charlotte hissed. “So what?”

  “These postcards are evidence of your presence on Connor Blaydon’s yacht, the Nerea, at Kavos, Corfu, on the week of 15 June 1999. What happened during that week, Charlotte?”

  “What do you think happened? We partied. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.”

  Gerry checked her files. “You gave birth to Marjorie—or Marnie—on 13 March 2000. If you do the calculations, you’ll see that’s very close to nine months after 15 June.”

  “So?”

  “So,” said Gerry. “Was Connor Blaydon Marnie Sedgwick’s father?”

  Even Jessica Bowen’s jaw dropped at that question.

  “How could you even think—?”

  “Do the math,” said Annie, “as the Americans say.”

  “It’s just a coincidence.”

  “There seem to be an awful lot of coincidences in your life,” Annie said. “But maybe this is stretching it a bit too far. Is it a coincidence if a woman sleeps with a man and nine months later has a baby?”

  “You’re reading too much into it.”

  “Tell me how. Or let me tell you what I think happened. What if you met Connor Blaydon aboard the Nerea that June and slept with him? Why not? You’ve already said you were running wild and fancy-free, sleeping around, and Blaydon already owned the yacht before he bought his first villa on Corfu in 2002. You were twenty-one and he was around forty. Attractive older man, rich and handsome. So you slept with him and you became pregnant. Happens all the time. As you’ve already explained, an abortion wasn’t an option for you, so you returned to England, hid away in the countryside during your pregnancy, gave birth, and arranged to have the baby adopted. Marnie Sedgwick. You remained there for a brief period of recovery, then you returned to the normal flow of life with new energy, throwing yourself into building a career. Am I on the right track?”

  “Apart from the business about Connor, yes. More or less.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.”

  “So who was the baby’s father?”

  “I .
. . I don’t know.”

  “Are you suggesting it could have been one of many?”

  “I wasn’t exactly celibate, if that’s what you mean.”

  “But it could have been Blaydon’s.”

  “You’re putting words into my mouth.”

  “Yes,” said Jessica Bowen. “Do stop that, DI Cabbot.”

  “A DNA test could prove it one way or the other. Are you willing to risk that, Charlotte?”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “What does that mean?” Annie asked. “Did you sleep with Connor Blaydon on his yacht in June 1999, and did you have a baby in March 2000?”

  “Maybe. Yes. Maybe. No. I don’t know.” Charlotte put her hands over her ears. “Can we stop again now, please?” She looked towards Jessica Bowen with a desperate expression.

  “Because if you did,” Annie went on, “and if Blaydon was the father of your child, then it means he raped his own daughter, doesn’t it? She didn’t know who her father was, and he didn’t know she was his daughter, but you did. And that, Charlotte, I think, gives you a pretty good motive for murder. Is that what you meant when you said things had come full circle?”

  “Murder? What do you mean, murder?”

  “Let’s call a halt to this right now,” said Jessica Bowen. “My client is clearly distraught, and things are taking a turn none of us could have reasonably expected. We’ll need some preparation time before we continue.”

  Annie sat back in her chair. “Fine,” she said, dropping her pencil. “Take as long as you need. I could do with a cuppa myself.”

  THAT MORNING, Ray woke up from a vivid dream convinced that Zelda would be coming home before dark. He couldn’t remember the details, but the feeling of hope and anticipation remained strong in him even through breakfast and a quick perusal of the bills the postman had delivered. Money wasn’t a problem. His paintings were selling well and his reputation was gaining in stature day by day. He might not be at Hockney’s level, but then few living artists were. Those kinds of millions were beyond him and always would be. Still, he was doing all right; he could pay the bills, and he could support Zelda.

  But it had been just a dream. In reality, Alan was coming over tonight when he got back from Paris, Ray hoped with more news about Zelda. He would go out later and buy food, maybe the ingredients for a chickpea curry, along with some beer and wine, and he had already put aside a few LPs for their listening pleasure: Soft Machine’s Third, Kevin Ayers’s Shooting at the Moon, and Gong’s Camembert Electrique. They should keep the blues at bay for a while. Anything to chase the demons out, even if only for an hour or two. Perhaps some Edgar Broughton Band? No. The three choices would be enough, then they would move on to something a bit more mellow. Pity Banks didn’t enjoy the occasional spliff, though. Ray always felt like a naughty boy smoking dope in front of him. Maybe he would smoke up before Banks arrived this evening, avoid any awkwardness.

  After the second coffee, still not inspired to start work, he decided he needed to tidy the place up. First, he dealt with the sink full of dirty dishes, putting as many as he could in the dishwasher and washing the rest by hand. After that, he swept the hardwood floors and vacuumed the carpeted areas. He stripped the bed and put on clean sheets and pillowcases, stuffing the others in the washing machine. He had lived alone down in St. Ives long enough to know how to do all these things, as well as cook for himself and anywhere up to ten guests. Hungry at lunchtime, he whipped up a cheese omelette and toast, then drove to the Tesco on the edge of Eastvale and bought what he needed for dinner.

  By early afternoon he felt ready for the studio. He was working on a new painting. It started as a portrait of Zelda, but had soon become a sort of composite of all the elements he saw in her. Faces within a face, a collage of possibilities. In some lights, she was a classic Eastern European beauty, from another angle perhaps half Thai or Vietnamese, and from yet another Middle Eastern. Ray was trying to capture all these facets in one small portrait and together, viewed from a distance, they should ideally resolve themselves into a realistic head and shoulders portrait of Zelda against a slightly psychedelic background. He would be the first to admit that there was more than a hint of Love’s Forever Changes album cover in the work. In fact, he had it propped up on another easel while he worked and had played it many times over the past few days.

  After an hour or so, Ray felt tired, so he took a break and rolled a cigarette. His neck and chest ached from the stooped position in which he painted. A quick shot of Macallan and a few stretches soon had him back at the easel again, but now he needed music. He searched through his collection of old vinyl looking for something he hadn’t played in a long time and came across The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack, by The Nice. That had some pretty good Keith Emerson organ work on it, he remembered, so he put it on. He remembered seeing The Nice at the Marquee in their brief heyday, Emerson sticking knives between the organ keys to hold the notes down, shaking the thing and all but jumping up and down on it like Jerry Lee Lewis. He smiled at the memory.

  There was still a lot of work to do, Ray thought, as he stood back and viewed the painting critically. It lacked a certain clarity in places, and several minor touches stood out just a little too much when viewed from afar, unbalancing the whole effect. He began to wonder whether he could even carry it off. It wouldn’t be the first attempt to immortalise Zelda to be abandoned. He moved in closer, chewed on his lower lip, and got to work.

  Time passed. As usual, Ray paid no attention to it. But he noticed the light dimming, clouds obscuring the sun, and as he hated working in artificial light, knew it was almost time to stop. He also had to get the curry started. Alan wasn’t sure exactly when he’d be back, but that was OK; dinner could simmer on low for a long while if necessary, and he could leave out the chickpeas until the last twenty minutes or so.

  This time the discomfort in his chest was greater, and when he turned to put down his brush, he suddenly felt as if someone hit him with a piledriver. He sat down. His brow felt clammy with sweat and his stomach was churning. What was wrong with him? Something he’d eaten? The omelette had been fine. He knew the eggs were fresh because he had bought them from the farm down the road just two days ago.

  Another blow from the piledriver struck him, this time hard enough to send a pain all down his left arm. He tried to get up, knowing somewhere deep inside that it was time to call an ambulance, but his legs felt too wobbly. His phone was downstairs, where he usually left it when he was painting. He thrust himself to his feet, gripping the chair arm, and stumbled forward. He was having trouble breathing now, and the slightest move made him out of breath. His chest felt as if it were being crushed.

  He made it as far as the top of the stairs, where he dropped to his knees. The world was closing down, the pain gripping him tighter. He was aware of The Nice singing “The Cry of Eugene” as he fell forward on to his face. He grasped at the banister to lift himself up, but he had no strength left. Oh, God, he thought. Oh, God, please don’t let it end like this.

  AFTER THE short break, both Charlotte Westlake and Jessica Bowen looked as if they had been put through the ringer.

  “Are you going to charge my client?” the solicitor asked.

  “We’re still in the process of gathering evidence,” said Annie. “She’s still under caution. You’ve been here throughout the interview so far, surely you must realise we have a fair distance to go yet? If necessary, we’ll apply for an extension of detention from the Chief Superintendent.” Annie knew that AC Gervaise would authorise such a request.

  “I’m not so much interested in the journey as the destination,” said Jessica Bowen. “My job’s a little different from yours, and right now I’m here to safeguard my client’s rights and well-being.”

  “Well, let’s get on with it, then.” Annie opened her file folder. Gerry set the recorders going again.

  Charlotte Westlake seemed puzzled and frightened, Annie thought, as well she might, now all her lies were being held
up to the light. Annie still wasn’t convinced that Charlotte was a murderer, but she was intending to pick and pull at the scab of her tissue of lies until the truth was revealed one way or another.

  Annie couldn’t see Charlotte Westlake creeping into Blaydon’s pool area, shooting him and Roberts, then gutting the naked Blaydon and dumping him in the pool. But she could have done it. The CSIs and pathologist told her that the killer hadn’t needed to be especially strong. There was the matter of acquiring the gun, of course, but Baikals are easy enough to pick up, and there were plenty of guests at Blaydon’s parties who might have had access and procured one for her—Gashi and Tadić, for starters. But Annie still couldn’t quite see Charlotte as a murderer. Surely, she must soon come to understand that if she hadn’t killed Blaydon but she knew who did, then she had better give it up before she was charged with murder herself.

  There was, however, another ace left in the deck: Leka Gashi.

  “OK, Charlotte,” Annie began. “Do you remember where we’d got to? You had Blaydon’s baby—Marnie—he raped her, she told you and you killed him for it. Is any of that wrong?”

  “It’s all wrong,” said Charlotte. “You’ve twisted it all up.”

  “Put me right then. Untwist it. Are you saying that Blaydon wasn’t Marnie’s father?”

  “Yes. All right, I slept with him. Once. And I slept with most of his friends. Sometimes more than one in the same day. I was a slut. OK? Let’s get that out of the way. But I’m not a killer.”

  “Why should I believe you now after all the lies you’ve told?”

  Charlotte banged so hard on the table that it rattled. “Because it’s true. All right, I lied. I tried to keep things from you. Do you blame me, the way it’s turning out, the way you’ve been treating me?”

  “That’s entirely your own fault, Charlotte. Lying to the police isn’t an advisable route to take.”

  They let the silence stretch for a few moments, then Gerry said, “Did those men you slept with on Blaydon’s yacht in Corfu include Leka Gashi? Someone you described as ‘a crude pig of a man’ the first time we talked. Is that accurate?”