Melrose liked the way she made Cornwall sound like the Outer Hebrides. But then, Cornwall did rather think of itself as separate from the rest of England. And “fancy” London was trickling to Cornwall more and more for their second homes, buying up decrepit fishermen’s cottages or great piles of stone set atop craggy cliffs, like Seabourne.
“This Mr. Slatterly, could you speak to him on my behalf?” My God, that was kingly enough.
She would be only too happy to do so.
He rose. “Well, thank you so much, Mrs. Hayter. And I’ll be seeing you then in two weeks?”
“Yes, you will.”
“Fine.” Melrose let his gaze rest on the J.M.W. Turner, the original of which was in the Tate; had he looked at the painting in the Tate five minutes longer, it would have burnt a hole in his retina, the light was so glorious.
28
Morris Bletchley really interested Melrose.
Anyone who could buy up a stately home (small, but still stately enough), home for generations to viscounts, barons, and baronets, and turn it around into a combination hospice and nursing home was worthy of interest. Especially when the someone was an American who’d made his fortune in fast-food eateries.
On this particular golden September afternoon, Melrose stood gaping at the land beyond the high windows of the old Sheepshanks-now Bletchley-Hall. Formerly the ancestral home of the Viscount Sheepshanks (or so the brochure told him), the grounds were simply magnificent, a blaze of marigolds and purple orchids blanketing much of the ground, but also arranged in knot gardens and parterres. The brochure had been given him by an overbearing, stout woman in a gray bombazine dress who had taken his request to see Mr. Morris Bletchley, as she no doubt took all requests. Her face did not change its expression of being put-upon, as this seemed to be her lot in life. She had gone off to fetch Mr. Bletchley, after directing Melrose to wait in this beautiful room in which he was standing, looking at an ornate fountain in which dolphins frolicked with bronze fish and cherubs; beyond this lay a gentle downward slope of lawn to the dip of a stream that bisected the land. Shallow steps led down to it, drifts of late-season grasses, and clumps of spotted orchids grew along its banks. Dahlias, cyclamen, and purple clematis grew on the downward-sloping lawn. About the grounds were situated white benches on which now sat one youngish woman, no doubt one of the inhabitants of Bletchley Hall, all diagnosed as terminal, a diagnosis Melrose sincerely hoped was not acting itself out as he watched.
Sharing this room with him was an old woman who had probably got here under her own steam, given the silver-headed cane her hand was still closed around, but who was now peacefully sleeping.
The idea behind the hospice movement was that one could die at home, in familiar surroundings. So in this regard it wasn’t a hospice; yet it was a happy combination of both hospice and nursing home-if “happy” was the word. Melrose thought that if one had to die away from one’s own home and kith and kin, one couldn’t do better than Bletchley Hall. Or even given the choice between home and Hall, one might choose Bletchley. This was one of the times when he thanked God he had money. To be old and infirm was bad enough; to be old and infirm and poor was unthinkable. Deathbed scenes (he’d always thought) were grossly exaggerated in their display of filial devotion, the melodrama of relations gathered round the bed, weeping copiously, a battalion of black figures. More likely it was several hundred quid to the mortician and take her away. Or the family would all be out watching a cricket match or tucking into a set tea while Gran or Mum was expiring in an upstairs bedroom. No, the actuality of the moment of death leaned more toward the absence of loved ones than toward their presence.
But at Bletchley Hall, one could be certain of one’s death being well-attended, the sheets white, the pillows plumped. Melrose could hardly wait for Sergeant Wiggins to see it. There was a man who could appreciate upscale care!
The room in which Melrose waited was not especially large, but the ceiling vaulting above his head was resplendent with elaborately carved moldings; the room drank up sunlight as if pitchers of it were spilling across the huge oriental rug that shimmered like silk, and angels could have danced on the sun-beams. The old lady sitting in a big Jacobean chair that dwarfed her was so lit up she might have been called to a higher glory. Melrose hoped she slept. In a place like this, it did not pay to investigate.
The stout woman in gray returned to tell Melrose that Mr. Bletchley was on his way and then crossed the room to raise her voice to the old lady: “Mrs. Fry! Mrs. Fry! Time to wake up!”
Why? wondered Melrose. Surely, Mrs. Fry’s caravan had reached a stage in its slow journey when it wasn’t “time” to do any bloody thing at all. Time for her had gone completely out the window with the withdrawing light. Time was of no consequence.
And why was it necessary to yell at old people as if they were all deaf? A few more Mrs. Fry’s and Melrose was rising to assist when the old lady twitched awake. How could she help but wake with that voice barking in her ear? Now it told her it was “Time for your tea, dear.”
As the stout woman (labeled MATRON, she obviously functioned in some sort of managerial position) helped Mrs. Fry up and out, an elderly man in a wheelchair buzzed in and up to Melrose and held out his hand.
“Morris Bletchley. People call me Moe. You wanted to see me? You wouldn’t happen to have a fag, would you? As long as it’s not that mentholated crap.”
He gave Melrose a once-over, as if evaluating him for good-times possibilities. Melrose wished he’d stuck a flask in his back pocket.
“I do, yes.”
Moe Bletchley turned the chair and started toward the door with a “follow me” wave. As Melrose followed, Bletchley said over his shoulder, “Smoking room’s this way. Got to be careful here. Emphysema, emphysema. Wouldn’t want anyone with lung cancer watching me enjoying myself while I’m on the way to it.” Bletchley laughed, mostly through his nose. “You too.”
Melrose thanked him for that emphysemiac blessing as the two made their way down a long gallery, Melrose walking as fast as he could to keep pace with the wheelchair, which might have run down more of the Bletchley Hall patients than emphysema ever would. The walls of this gallery once were hung with Sheepshank family portraits no doubt carted off by the viscount; Melrose deduced this because the paintings now hanging there, romantic ones of cottages and shepherds, drovers with sheep and sheep-dogs, still lifes of pears and apples, did not fill up the vacated spaces and showed borders of fresher paint. Moe Bletchley whizzed through a shadowed dining room full of tapestry and velvet and a Waterford chandelier glowing as softly as stars on a summer’s night. He snatched a menu from one of the tables. Menus, even! The food here must be as good as the colored brochure pictured it.
On the farther end of the dining room was a set of French doors curtained on the other side with something filmy, which Melrose’s guide flung open, and they entered a room with glass on three sides, which had probably been added to the original structure. It appeared to be an orangery or sunroom. South-facing, the room was still lapping up remnants of the fractured light of the sun.
Morris Bletchley stopped his wheelchair, got out of it, stretched, and took one of the green wicker chairs. Motioning Melrose to sit down in another, he said, “I don’t need that thing”-he nodded toward the wheelchair-“I just think it must be pretty discouraging if you’re chained to a bed to have some old geezer waltz into your room on a pair of good working legs.”
From the sly glance Bletchley slid in his direction, Melrose decided this was only one reason for wheel-chairing it around Bletchley Hall, and that the chair was also there for fun. Melrose smiled. This was not to say that Morris Bletchley was short on compassion or charitable thoughts; after all, he’d started this place, hadn’t he?
And Bletchley was indeed a healthy-looking specimen, remarkably so if he was in his eighties. He was trim, with arms and legs that had not suffered too much bone and muscle loss; the only thing that hinted at old age were the cheeks, which
turned cadaverous when he sucked in on the cigarette Melrose had given him and was now lighting. It was damned certain Morris Bletchley’s mind hadn’t suffered any ill effects of aging.
Orangery, solarium, sunroom, whichever it was called, the long glass-enclosed room was filled with green plants-ivy, aspidistra, potted palms-and as the sunlight touched the leaves and vines with a high gloss, waves of green seemed to shimmer on the tiled floor and turn the green-painted wicker furniture greener. At one end of the room sat two old men playing chess. At the other end, Melrose was surprised to see a bank of slot machines.
“So! What can I do for you?”
“I’ve taken Seabourne for a few months. I wanted to meet you.”
“That’d make a change. Ordinarily the last person a tenant wants to meet is his landlord. Although I’m not really running the place anymore. So, is there something wrong? Not enough heat or the pipes clanging? Get in touch with that real estate person if you’ve got problems.”
“No, no. Nothing. The house is wonderful.”
“Good. So what’s the real reason?”
“You mean-”
“That you came here.” Through pursed lips, Moe Bletchley exhaled a thread of smoke.
Melrose smiled. “I met your daughter-in-law. She came to the house.”
A guttural sound, an uh, escaped Moe Bletchley’s throat. “What did she want? Karen?” His expression didn’t change.
“I don’t know, really, unless to revisit her old home.”
Moe uttered another noncommittal sound. “She came without Danny.” It wasn’t a question but a conclusion.
Melrose nodded. “Your son? Yes. She was alone. She told me about the children.” He wanted to add some appropriate word of empathy but couldn’t for the life of him think of one.
Here, Moe looked away and was silent for some moments. It was the stillness of his face in the green silence of the room that suggested to Melrose emotional upheaval.
Finally, the old man-who seemed to have grown visibly older in that silence-asked, “So what did she tell you?”
Melrose gave him as exacting an account as he could. Here was a case where the smallest of details could be important.
But Moe Bletchley looked at him as if Melrose were a news anchor, reporting yet another fatality. “That’s what she told you?”
Melrose frowned. “Yes.”
Again, that guttural uh.
Somehow, the sound was more disturbing-dismissive, perhaps-than words. Melrose took out his cigarette case once again and passed it to Bletchley, whose own cigarette had burnt down to ash in his fingers. Moe looked finally from the length of ash into Melrose’s eyes as if Melrose had worked some trick. Absently, he took another cigarette from the case but didn’t put it in his mouth. He said, “That detective fellow?”
“Commander Macalvie. He would have been a DCI then, probably.”
“Uh-huh. Sharp guy. He didn’t believe her, you know. About the strangers in the wood and the pond. Neither did I.”
Neither, thought Melrose, do I.
Moe Bletchley put the cigarette in his mouth then and took the lighter Melrose still had in hand. The lighter clicked open and snapped shut. “Why are we talking about this? Oh, yes. It apparently is the reason you came. Still, I ask why? Why are you so confounded interested?”
Sitting forward, Melrose said, “Who in God’s name wouldn’t be, Mr. Bletchley? It’s one hell of a story. It’s dreadful. But there’s another reason: there’s been a murder-”
“Over in Lamorna Cove. I know. News gets to me quick, son.” He kept clicking the Zippo’s case. “I know just about everything goes on in this place.”
“Then-”
Moe looked back through narrowed eyes. “No, I don’t know the victim. A woman with a title, they said. So I can’t help out. What I meant was, I know the people in Bletchley pretty well. Been living here for fifteen years. I’m an American, you know. I made a fortune over there with Chick’nKing; then I came over here and made another fortune. People love fast food. With good fast food-well, I figure you’re doing everybody a favor.”
“That’s very interesting, but I don’t see the relevance.”
“I’m just making a point to you: I’m not stupid.”
Raising his eyebrows, Melrose said, “I don’t doubt it for a minute. Did I give you the impression I thought you were?”
Moe looked off toward the elderly pensioners still bent over their chess pieces. “No. But it’s generally the way the world views us.” He nodded toward the old men. “Dithery, forgetful, besides not being good for anything in the world.”
“Mr. Bletchley, I doubt very much anyone in his right mind could look at you that way.”
Moe answered, “Oh, not here, maybe.”
“Not anywhere.” Melrose felt the old man had strong opinions about what had happened that he wasn’t sharing. “You don’t get on with your daughter-in-law, do you?”
Moe raised his arm, hand clasped on the arm of the wicker chair as if he meant to lever himself out of it. But he didn’t. After a moment, he asked, “You married? No, I don’t suppose so, or you’d be down here with the wife and kid. Not many men have the balls to go off on junkets by themselves.”
“No, I’m not married.”
“You’re probably fortunate, then.”
“I take it you don’t think your son is.”
He lowered his hand and picked up his cigarette, another gone to ash. “No, he isn’t.”
Melrose said nothing; he would certainly not tell Moe Bletchley that he found Karen Bletchley charming. But had he, completely? There was that one instance when he felt the silence no longer companionable but hadn’t known why the atmosphere had changed.
“You liked her, I’m sure.”
Melrose nodded.
“People do.”
Melrose considered. Speaking more to himself than his companion, he said, “Why is she here?”
“Good question.” Moe shrugged, turned evasive. “Oh, well, only Chick’nKing gets my unqualified endorsement.”
Melrose smiled. “I’ll have to try it.”
“None around here, I mean close by. Wanted to put one in Mousehole, but the city fathers said no. It’s a cute little place; I can see why they wouldn’t want a fast-food emporium in it. Thing is, people forget the huge revenues the chain generates and also the people it employs. They only think how it’s an eyesore. I think it’s pretty sporty myself. Chicken’s sure friendly-looking enough. Anyway. There’s one just outside of Truro, that’s the closest. I have them make a delivery once a week. People here really look forward to it.”
“I can imagine.” Melrose thought for a moment. “If you know the villagers, you know Chris Wells.”
He nodded. “I do. Johnny-that’s her nephew-has to make the pastry deliveries because Chris has disappeared. So what’s happened? Why all these shenanigans? Why all this misery suddenly?” As he inhaled on his cigarette, he gave Melrose a suspicious look, as if this new arrival might be responsible.
Melrose got up to leave. But then he sat back down. “Mr. Bletchley-”
“Call me Moe, sonny.”
Melrose smiled. He loved that “sonny.” “You’ll think me rude, and you don’t have to answer the question, but-who gets this vast fortune of yours?”
Moe’s expression changed, back to that particular look of misery he’d worn earlier. “That’s okay, I don’t mind answering. Who gets it now is Danny, my son. And of course a lot of bequests to charities and so forth.”
“You said now.”
“That’s right. I had to rewrite my will, of course. Who got it before was the kids.”
“The kids?”
“The kids.”
29
It was Marshall Trueblood hello!-ing him awake before it was Diane. Having reached blindly for the telephone, Melrose quickly convinced himself that this whole episode was part of his dream and the receiver was being pressed against his ear by invisible hands. He continued to lie
in bed, eyes closed, feeling no responsibility at all for his end of this telephone conversation.
“-me that! You’re doing it all wrong, Diane! Give-”
The dream figures appeared to be Diane Demorney and Marshall Trueblood, having some argument over-what? He rolled over and the receiver rolled with him, still held by faerie hands.
“-my hat! Come back with-”
Diane was clear as could be in his dream, wearing those black Raybans and that hat with its floppy brim so big you could see nothing but her mouth and chin.
“When you give me the phone! Then you-”
Screech!
Melrose turned back again. Good lord, that nearly woke him up.
“Melrose! Melrose!” yelled Diane. “We know you’re there, you said hello.”
“Hello,” he said. He heard himself snore, little ladders of breath sucked in, breathed out, snuffles like a pig rooting.
“Listen old sweat, you’ve really got to get back here! Vivian’s-what? Stop it! Stop!”
Here was the smooth-as-glass voice of Diane, as if she hadn’t just let out a screech a moment ago. “Melrose. He’s here! He’s-give that back!” Tussle, rustle.
“Me, again, old bean. Look we don’t want to-”
“Lord Ardry!”
Melrose jolted in his bed. What voice from the past was this? What damned fool dream person? Scroggs, that was who!
“No, she don’t look too good, sir, that’s my-”
Who don’t? Again the pig snuffle-snuffle breath catching at the back of his mouth.
“Good? Would you look good if someone were drinking your blood?”
Trueblood’s voice. Melrose’s dream self frowned mightily. He didn’t like the sound of that, no. His dream self walked away.
A clatter, raised voices in the distance, the telephone receiver audibly wrenched from someone’s grasp, Trueblood’s voice gaining eminence. “It’s Giopinno, old sweat. Count Dracula. He’s here. He’s finally come. We’re all wearing our wooden crosses and garlic!”
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