Adam nodded. ‘That was why I was so disappointed not to have seen him when he came back. Ah well, that’s life, I suppose. Incidentally, Tess, you forgot to put the finishing touch to the scenario. When he went, he took half the family silver with him.’
‘All right, that’s enough!’ said Miss Foster. ‘I let you run on, Tessa, because I could see you were right and Inspector Thanet would have gone on asking until someone had given him the information. But I won’t sit here and listen to you running poor Leo down any longer. I know he was bad in many ways but it wasn’t his fault. Children aren’t born spoiled, you know, it’s adults that make them so. And in your uncle’s case … to be so over-indulged and then suddenly to find himself out in the cold for good … I’m not a bit surprised he went off the rails, even if I couldn’t approve of some of the things he did. No, I felt sorry for him, still do. He missed so much in life, through no fault of his own. And if you’re not careful, Adam, you’ll go the same way, with all this smart-Alec nonsense.’
Adam jumped up and went to lay his cheek against her hair. ‘Not true, Nanny! You know that at heart I’m pure gold, right through.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ But the smile she gave him showed that she agreed, really.
Thanet decided to change the subject. ‘Tell me, Tessa, when you drove home that night, did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary on the way?’
‘Such as a body lying at the side of the road, you mean! Honestly, Inspector, you can’t really believe I wouldn’t have got Dad to stop if I had!’ Tessa was scornful and Thanet felt that her opinion of him had just taken a nose-dive. He didn’t care, it had just been a way of leading into his next question.
‘Of course, your father was with you … The Range Rover had broken down, I believe.’
‘Yes. Infuriating. It was nothing serious, only a loose sparking plug apparently, but I’m not mechanically-minded, I’m afraid. So I rang Dad and asked him to come and fetch me. I knew he’d still be up, he never goes to bed very early. Anyway, he managed to fix it.’
Thanet was certain that she was telling the truth. He had never really believed that Hamilton would stoop so low as to get his daugher to lie for him in case someone had seen him driving the van that night. And Mrs Byfleet had heard both cars return.
‘What time did you get back?’
She shrugged. ‘Soon after twelve, I think. I rather lost track of time, hanging around waiting for Dad.’
‘Was it snowing when you got home?’
‘Yes. It had just started.’
On the way back downstairs Lineham said, ‘We still can’t rule Mr Hamilton out, though, can we? He’d have had plenty of opportunity earlier on.’
Thanet sighed. ‘What did Toby say?’
Lineham waited while a chambermaid went by. ‘He confirms what Mrs Rankle told us. He did borrow his mother’s car that night, to go to Canterbury on business for his father to discuss a haulage job with a chap who was unavailable during the day. His father was supposed to go, apparently, but then they had that phone call to say Mrs Fever’s mother had been taken ill and he asked Toby to go instead. Toby couldn’t use his own car because he was working on it and it was jacked up.’
‘Cars, cars … They seem to crop up everywhere in this case. Should be just up your street, Mike.’
They had reached the head of the staircase and Thanet paused, glancing around to make sure no one was in earshot. Downstairs in the hall the receptionist was at her desk and a group of guests was seated around the fire, a tray of coffee on the table between them.
Thanet lowered his voice. ‘By the way, I wanted to ask you … Did I mention to you that I thought Toby looked familiar, that I had a feeling I might have come across him before somewhere?’
‘No, why? Have you?’
‘No. But just think, Mike. Doesn’t he remind you of someone else in this case? Not all the time, but just in fleeting moments?’
Lineham frowned. ‘I don’t think so. Who?’
‘It didn’t dawn on me till just now. And then … Well, first of all, when we went in, he was lying down, and then he sat up. Both positions were the same, you see, that was what made me realise …’
Lineham was still puzzled. ‘Sorry, I just don’t see what you’re getting at.’
‘The first time we saw Martindale, lying in the snow … And then that photograph we saw in his room, the one of him and his sister, sitting on the steps …’
Lineham’s eyes widened. ‘You mean …?’
Thanet nodded. ‘I think Toby might be his son.’
NINETEEN
Lineham was still looking stunned. ‘But …’
Thanet knew how he felt. The implications were so complicated and far-reaching that it was difficult to take them all in at once. ‘I’d like to discuss this with you before seeing Mrs Hamilton. Also, there’s a check I’d like to run … Let’s go outside.’
Delia Hamilton was back, apparently. Thanet asked the receptionist to tell her that he had an urgent call to make before seeing her, then he and Lineham went out to the car. There he put in a request for two pieces of information – Toby’s date of birth, and the date of his parents’ marriage. ‘As fast as you can, please.’
‘Will do.’
Lineham waited until he had finished before saying, ‘If you’re right, sir, do you think any of them realises?’
‘Ah, now that’s the million-dollar question. I haven’t had time to think about it properly yet, but I doubt that the Hamiltons know. Otherwise they wouldn’t be too keen on Tessa going out with him.’
‘You mean, because they’re first cousins … Sir!’ Lineham’s eyes widened in shock.
‘What?’
‘Do you realise what this could mean? No, perhaps it wouldn’t. I don’t know …’
‘You’re being incoherent, Mike. Start again.’
‘Can illegitimate children inherit?’ said Lineham.
Thanet could see why the sergeant had looked so thunderstruck. This had not yet occurred to him. If Martindale had been the owner of Longford Hall, and Toby was his son …
‘I believe they can. Wasn’t there an Act, to make it legal?’
‘I remember something about it … In that case, perhaps the Hamiltons do know,’ said Lineham. ‘I should think they’re pretty snobbish and I always did wonder if they approved of Tessa going out with Toby. But now … Perhaps they actually encouraged it, knowing that it was just possible that one day Toby could be heir to the whole estate.’
‘Let’s not speculate on that one until we’re sure of our ground. We might well find that the fact that his mother and Martindale never married would rule him out.’
‘All the same, I find it difficult to believe that Mrs Hamilton wouldn’t have spotted the resemblance between Toby and her brother before now, if you cottoned on to it as quickly as you did.’
‘I don’t know. For one thing you and I are trained to look for connections, to be actively on the alert for them. And the fact that we are strangers means that we look at everyone with a fresh eye. The Hamiltons will have watched Toby grow up as just another village boy, remember, and probably always accepted him on face value as the Fevers’ son. It isn’t as if the resemblance is striking – and let’s face it, I could be wrong.’
But he wasn’t – or at least, it didn’t look as though he was. A few minutes later the information came through: Toby’s date of birth was 9.1.66, that of his parents’ marriage 4.8.65.
After their initial elation that it seemed Thanet’s hunch was correct, Lineham sobered. ‘Doesn’t necessarily mean he’s Martindale’s son, of course. He could still be Fever’s – or anybody else’s, for that matter …’
Thanet shook his head. Logically Lineham could be right, but Thanet knew in his bones that he wasn’t.
Lineham grinned. ‘OK, I give in. I’ve never known you wrong about something like this. So let’s see … Martindale left in 1965. Right? And if Toby was born in January 1966 he would have bee
n conceived in April 1965. I wonder in which month Martindale left.’
‘We’ll ask his sister.’
‘In the summer, probably, if the Fevers were married in August. The sequence of events probably went: in April Yvonne becomes pregnant and in June she tells Martindale. That same month Martindale is thrown out of the ancestral home because of his debts – perhaps he was only too glad to get away, in the circumstances! – but Yvonne thinks he’s gone away because of the baby, so she marries Fever who is waiting in the wings.’
‘She might not have discovered she was pregnant until after Martindale had gone,’ said Thanet. ‘In which case he might never have known about the baby.’
‘The question is, did he?’
‘And if so, when did he find out? Before he left, while he was away, or after he came back?’
‘It’s all so complicated,’ said Lineham with relish.
‘I know. It’s just occurred to me … perhaps you’re right, and he did know about the baby before he left. Let’s just accept, for the moment, that he did. You remember what the receptionist told us, about Martindale asking who Toby was, when Toby was talking to Mrs Byfleet? Perhaps there was something about the boy that reminded him of himself as a young man, and made him wonder …’
‘I don’t know.’ Lineham was doubtful. ‘Isn’t it usually considered rather difficult to recognise a resemblance to yourself?’
‘Possibly. But if Martindale knew he had a child, and was on the lookout for him …’
‘Or her …’
‘All right Mike, or her, but anyway, on the lookout; then when he saw this young man of the right age, he could have thought, I wonder …’
‘It’s possible. And then, of course, when the receptionist told him who Toby was, he’d have known this was his son – no, hang on, sir, he wouldn’t, would he? Not unless he knew Yvonne had married Fever. And even then he couldn’t have been sure – for all he knew, the Fevers could have had several children.’
‘I think, for the purpose of this argument, we will assume that he did know she’d married Fever and that they’d had no other children. After all, Mike, if he knew she was expecting his baby, he might well have made it his business to keep an eye on her from afar, so to speak, find out what happened to her and the child. If he didn’t know, this whole scenario collapses anyway. Still, we might as well follow it through for the moment. So, you were saying …’
‘Well if he did find out who Toby was, by asking the receptionist, I was just thinking it might have whetted his appetite to get to know him. So I was wondering if, when he ran into Mrs Fever in the village next day, he could have told her he’d seen Toby and wanted to meet him, make himself known to him, as his real father. Mrs Victor said it looked as though he was trying to persuade Mrs Fever to do something she didn’t want to do.’
‘The mechanic said that was because she was refusing to go and have tea with Martindale, Mike.’
‘But the mechanic wasn’t present during the whole conversation, was he? He had to go into the office to get change. After all, it’s not the sort of thing Martindale would have been likely to discuss with anyone within earshot, is it? He might just have pretended to have been asking her to go and have tea with him, to fool the mechanic when he came back.’
‘Mm. Could be, I suppose. All right, let’s accept that Martindale was saying that he intended to tell Toby he was his father.… Let’s think. According to the mechanic, it was after he teased Fever about Martindale’s encounter with Mrs Fever that Fever went rushing off – as we know, up to the Hall, to tell Martindale to keep away from her in future. Say Fever then went home and had a row with his wife about it …’
‘Fever must have known Toby wasn’t his son, if his wife was four months pregnant when he married her, mustn’t he, sir? If he’s as jealous as people say, I expect he would have gone on and on at her until she told him who the real father was, and she may well have thought it was safe to tell him as Martindale had gone away, apparently for good. And if Fever did know Martindale was Toby’s father, it would explain why he reacted so strongly when he heard Martindale was back and had been chatting Mrs Fever up. And then, when Fever went home afterwards and started going on at his wife about her talking to Martindale, in order to distract him she could have told him that Martindale had suggested making himself known to Toby …’
‘Yes. I always think it must be pretty devastating when someone turns up on the doorstep claiming to be a long-lost son or daughter, father or mother. It must put all the family relationships in a turmoil, especially if the one who is being claimed had been kept in ignorance.’
‘Of course, in all this we’re assuming Toby has no idea who his real father was.’
Thanet frowned, thinking. ‘I don’t think he does. After all, if he had known Martindale was his father you’d have expected him to try to make contact with him when he came home, or at least to be affected to some extent by his death, but he seems completely unconcerned by it all. Anyway, assuming Martindale did suggest telling him the truth and Mrs Fever then told her husband, Fever could have been fuming about it all evening. And then, on his way back from Ashford in the van, if he saw Martindale ahead of him on the road …’
They looked at each other in silence.
‘It’s convincing,’ said Thanet at last. ‘But let’s remember that at the moment it is still pure speculation and far from the only possibility. But it will be interesting to see what Mrs Hamilton has to say about it.’
They were shown into her office again. Her desk was littered with papers and she wasn’t too pleased at the prospect of having to spend more time answering questions. ‘I hope this isn’t going to take long, Inspector. I really have a great deal to do today.’
It looked as though she had just been to the hairdresser’s. Her hair was loose for once, framing her face and falling to her shoulders in carefully casual waves. It made her look younger and more vulnerable. She was wearing a finely pleated skirt in red wool and a long matching cashmere cardigan over a silky cream blouse with a finely scribbled abstract pattern in red and black.
‘No longer than I can help,’ said Thanet politely. ‘May we sit down?’
She gestured impatiently. If you must.
No point in beating about the bush. ‘It must have been a shock to you, to learn that your brother intended staying on and taking over his inheritance.’
A flash of anger, quickly suppressed. ‘You’ve been listening to gossip again, Inspector. Do you enjoy scrabbling around in the refuse of people’s lives?’
This accusation had been levelled at Thanet too often for him to be moved by it. ‘Not at all, Mrs Hamilton. I’m only too well aware of the fact that after a sudden death, and especially a violent death, people close to the victim are often in a state of shock. To be honest, there are times when I find my work very distasteful.’
Recognising his sincerity Delia Hamilton had the grace to look discomforted, but she quickly recovered. ‘It wasn’t that much of a shock, to learn he intended staying on. My husband and I always knew that it could happen. We would have worked something out.’
‘My information is that Mr Martindale suggested that you should continue to run the hotel and your husband the estate as his employees, and that you quarrelled about it.’
Again that flash of anger before she said coolly, ‘Then your information is wrong, Inspector, or at least misleading.’
‘You deny that there was an argument?’
‘No. There was an argument, yes, I admit it. But arguments need not end in disharmony. On this occasion I think we managed to get my brother to see that in view of all the hard work Giles and I have put in, it would be a little unfair for us not to benefit by it, at least to some extent.’
‘You’re saying that you reached an agreement?’
‘Let’s say we were well on the way to it.’
‘Despite the limitations imposed by the Trust?’
‘Despite the limitations imposed by the Trust,’ she
echoed firmly.
No doubt Hamilton would back her up, but Thanet was certain that she was lying.
‘Would you mind telling us the terms of that agreement?’ He didn’t think for a moment that she would, but there was no harm in asking.
‘That’s out of the question! It was an entirely private matter, and I …’
The phone rang and, with a muttered ‘Excuse me’, she picked it up and held a brief conversation about proposed repairs to the roof. After a moment she began shifting papers about on her desk and peering underneath. Then suddenly she tutted as if she had just remembered something, and stopped looking. A minute or two later she put down the receiver and said, ‘While I think about it, Inspector, I’ve been meaning to ring up and ask … Did your men find a pocket calculator in the van? It’s about so big,’ and she made a window about three inches by two and a half with her fingers. ‘My name and address are tucked into the inside flap.’
‘I don’t think so, no.’ Thanet raised his eyebrows at Lineham, who shook his head. ‘We’ll ask, if you like, when we get back.’
‘I’d be grateful. I really must buy another, it’s just a question of remembering, when I’m in town …’
‘You think you dropped it in the van when you went to fetch Adam?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s several days now and it hasn’t turned up anywhere else. I’m lost without it, it’s just the right size to carry in my pocket. I’ve thought and thought and I know I had it just before dinner on Tuesday and that it was missing later on that evening.’
‘Before your early dinner, you mean?’
‘Yes. Anyway, if you’d just check …’
Dead by Morning Page 18