Last Post

by Robert Barnard

  “Hmmm.”

  “Yes—what’s the betting she had a pretty good idea? And with this relationship words didn’t need to be spoken. A look of worry or apprehension, that gesture of dismissal when Evelyn Southwell’s name came up, would be enough. Even if words were spoken, they didn’t have to be direct. ‘I just hope she’ll keep quiet’ doesn’t count as encouragement, but it is very close to ‘I just hope she’ll be kept quiet.’ The bond between them was so tight, so perverse—it was like Iago and Othello’s. Othello does Iago’s murder for him, and destroys himself utterly. Dougie does Jean’s for her and goes to jail for years, and Jean speaks kindly of her, says it was an attack of madness.”

  “And goes her way. And what do you think will happen when Dougie comes out of jail?”

  “Jean will be in another relationship, and there will be no room for Dougie.”

  “Mightn’t that mean that Dougie will speak at last?”

  “It could do, I suppose. Not that it will make any difference. You know more about this than I do, but no one, surely, would want to prosecute Jean on the say-so of a convict and former lover once she’s got out of jail and found she’s been thrown over.”

  “No, of course they wouldn’t prosecute.”

  “She’s got away with it, all right.”

  “And it pains you?”

  “It pains like hell.”

  “You’re becoming a sort of policeman already.”

  “Not a policeman,” said Eve firmly. “I couldn’t bear all the frustrations and disappointments when cases didn’t get solved, or nobody got prosecuted for them . . . I keep going over in my mind the connections I had with Jean and Dougie. That time I phoned them, after I’d talked to Evelyn Southwell. They were both in Dougie’s flat, because I phoned the number she gave me. Jean answered, and immediately twigged who I was and realized I needed to be handed on to Dougie, the ‘Jean’ I was used to. When she took the phone she thanked the fake ‘Dougie.’ It was all so smooth, so confident, so fraudulent.”

  “So rehearsed?” suggested Rani.

  “You would have thought so. We were told Jean was angry with Dougie for pretending to be her, but she effortlessly fit in with the falsehoods.”

  “Jean had taken over Dougie, and she knew how to manipulate her. I bet your mother saw the danger because she was much more intelligent than Dougie.”

  “Oh, my mother! I think I begin to understand her. What a thing to say after all those years of being close to her! But there was so much I didn’t know. She married very young—eighteen. I didn’t realize that until I saw the marriage certificate. She never told me, and I bet that had to be concealed from the teachers’ college. Then twelve years later I came along, probably meant to cement a failing marriage but for some reason not doing so. I suppose the likeliest reason was Jean. Though my mother was so much brighter than Dougie, she must have found Jean and her way of life a real temptation. Unless there’s something I’m missing.”

  Later that evening, in the bed where May McNabb had slept partnerless for all those years, Eve, happier than she had ever been in her life, said to Rani:

  “Where do you want to get married?”

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “Where? Not when, by what rite, not in what building—the Crossley church, Windsor Castle, under the water in Lake Windermere, wherever?”

  “Be serious, Omkar. You do want to get married, don’t you?”

  “More than you can imagine.”

  “Well then: England, India, Australia—where? Maybe somewhere where we have no friends and no baggage.”

  “India and Australia almost fit that bill. But why should we want a wedding with no friends? You’ve got practically no family, and mine will quite likely stay away. Looks like we may need friends.”

  “England, then. Britain, I should say. I have Scottish connections, though all the family ones are dead. You must manage to talk my father around to coming: assure him there is not the slightest danger of prosecution.”

  “I’ll try. So it’s Britain, probably Yorkshire, and either at a registry office or a church.”

  “Perhaps we could find a registry office with spiritual overtones. Or have a service of blessing, like Prince Charles. Or maybe the new laws mean we could make up our own marriage service and vows. I’m only the vaguest sort of Christian, and you’re a pretty funny sort of Hindu.”

  They both giggled. But the next evening, when Rani was kept in Leeds working on the Southwell case and had phoned to say he would, with a bit of luck, be home by midnight, Eve decided she wanted to talk to her father.

  “Dad?” she said, as soon as she could hear his voice. “It’s early morning there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I’m well up and my old machinery is oiled by two cups of tea and a couple of eggs, scrambled. It makes my day to hear from you.”

  “What’s your news?”

  “Not much. Oh well—something odd has happened, though it isn’t going to shake the art world. Something has told me that my landscapes are never going to be much good, and I’ve switched to painting portraits.”

  “Not passersby in chalk on the pavement?”

  “Cheeky child. Not at all. Australia is marvelous for faces, and Maconochie Harbour is full of sun-dried people with lizardlike faces and bodies, dried out but full of character and past exploits. I don’t think I’m going to make a fortune, because people prefer to be flattered. This is a combination of my old cartoon skills and a switch to oils. I live in hope someone will commission me to paint the prime minister.”

  “They never will.”

  “No, they won’t. Too scared of a demolition job, which I would be happy to provide. Whereas Kev the barman at the Ocean View thinks just getting a likeness is miraculously clever, is convinced that anything made by man knocks a mere photograph out of contention, and has absolutely no vanity. After a life of political cartooning it’s a sort of liberation. So what’s your news?”

  “First—the murder of Evelyn Southwell. Jean Mannering’s current lover and personal slave has been arrested. Jean is busy distancing herself, and the current betting is that the slave did it knowing full well this was what Jean wanted, but without any urging or conspiring. Hey presto—Jean is in the clear.”

  “What was the motive?”

  “Evelyn was torturing them with the possibility of revelations about what happened thirty-odd years ago, when you were forced, persuaded, whatever, to leave the country and your wife and child.”

  “But what could she reveal?”

  “Evelyn was at Heathrow, monitoring your departure.”

  There was a pause as he considered this.

  “Well, that was an alliance made in hell. I hope my departure won’t be something that is brought up at the trial.”

  “If she pleads guilty—as seems pretty certain she will—very little will come out at the trial.”

  “Good. And I presume the other news is your approaching marriage to Omkar?”

  “It is. No great kudos in guessing that. We’re planning it now.”

  “Did you consider having it in Australia?”

  “We did. And having it in India. Both of them had the same drawback: we don’t have any friends there.”

  “So you’re staying in the old country,” said her father, in a disconsolate voice. “I guessed you would in the end.”

  “Dad, there is no reason on earth why you shouldn’t come back to the old country, as you call it. The police will probably be delighted that what Jean did back in the seventies fills in part of the picture of this present murder. There must be some part of you that wants to see the places that you knew again.”

  “It’s a very, very small part.”

  “Only because you’ve got this idea you could be hauled in by the police or regarded as some kind of leper by old friends. As far as they’re concerned, your marriage was breaking up, your health too, and you took off for Australia on a doctor’s advice.”

  “And May told everyo
ne I was dead.”

  “Okay—that was silly of her. I don’t understand that. In fact, that’s one of a thousand things I’d like to talk over with you—not on the phone, but with you here, beside me, chewing things over. I’ve got so many questions. Why did Mum not want you and me to have even a normal absentee parent and child relationship? Why was she happy in the relationship with Jean Mannering, when she had no history of lesbian interests? Why was your marriage falling apart when you’d at last had a child? Why had you married so early, I mean when May was so young? Why did you just give in when you were faced with Jean’s demands? That’s the oddest one to me. I don’t see you as a quitter. You must have known your fingerprints couldn’t have been on that pedophile pornography. Why did you go along with her demands so readily? Was it just because you and May were finished?”

  There was silence at the other end. Then John McNabb, a crack in his voice, said:

  “I think if I answer the last question, you’ll be able to answer the others yourself. I may have held out hopes for our marriage, May’s and mine, but at heart I knew it was over, and why. I didn’t stand any chance of victory over Jean. You see, I knew that if the police were led to the porn in the Crossley house they’d want to look further, go to my other place of residence in Scotland. And when they went to my Glasgow flat, they’d have found more of the same. And it would have had my fingerprints on it.”

  Eve’s heart sank and her eyes clouded with tears. She tried to say something, but nothing came. As she cleared her throat to try again, she heard the sound of the handset being replaced at the other end.

  ROBERT BARNARD is the winner of the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Nero Wolfe Award, as well as the Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity awards. His most recent novel is A Fall from Grace. Among his many other books are The Graveyard Position, A Cry from the Dark, The Mistress of Alderley, The Bones in the Attic, A Murder in Mayfair, No Place of Safety, The Bad Samaritan and A Scandal in Belgravia. Scribner released a classic edition of his Death of a Mystery Writer in 2002. An eight-time Edgar nominee, he is a member of Britain’s distinguished Detection Club, and in May 2003, he received the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement in mystery writing. He lives with his wife, Louise, in Leeds, England.

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  Jacket illustration by Robert Goldstrum

  Author photograph by Noelle Barnard

  Copyright © 2008 Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Also from Robert Barnard

  A Fall from Grace

  Dying Flames

  The Graveyard Position

  A Cry from the Dark

  The Mistress of Alderley

  The Bones in the Attic

  Unholy Dying

  A Murder in Mayfair

  The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori

  No Place of Safety

  The Habit of Widowhood

  The Bad Samaritan

  The Masters of the House

  A Hovering of Vultures

  A Fatal Attachment

  A Scandal in Belgravia

  A City of Strangers

  Death of a Salesperson

  Death and the Chaste Apprentice

  At Death’s Door

  The Skeleton in the Grass

  The Cherry Blossom Corpse

  Bodies

  Political Suicide

  Fête Fatale

  Out of the Blackout

  Corpse in a Gilded Cage

  School for Murder

  The Case of the Missing Brontë

  A Little Local Murder

  Death and the Princess

  Death by Sheer Torture

  Death in a Cold Climate

  Death of a Perfect Mother

  Death of a Literary Widow

  Death of a Mystery Writer

  Blood Brotherhood

  Death on the High C’s

  Death of an Old Goat

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Robert Barnard

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Scribner hardcover edition May 2008

  SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.

  Text set in Fairfield

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barnard, Robert.

  Last post / by Robert Barnard.—1st Scribner hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Mothers—Death—Fiction. 2. Letters—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6052.A665L37 2008

  823’.914—dc22

  2007037885

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5940-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-5940-X

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6047-0 (eBook)