by L. C. Tyler
I told her that I had also thought of vanishing without trace, and ran through the photograph-album aspects of it. I had expected her to mock me, but she became serious and agreed that this would be difficult. Unless one had an accomplice to sort out that sort of thing, I said. We both looked at each other and I knew that I had just been recruited as an accomplice. And I didn’t mind. It was like being back at school, and finding that you had just been picked for the first eleven. It was like your publisher phoning you up and telling you that you had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was better than both: I had been picked as Geraldine’s friend.
We didn’t sleep together – not that time anyway. But halfway through lunch she suddenly asked me, ‘Are you wondering whether I still wear black underwear?’ I denied it, and may have even blushed. She laughed and said, ‘Well, you’ll have to use your own initiative to find out the answer to that one, won’t you?’
When she left for London she kissed me on the cheek – a simple act but one that seemed to promise an infinite range of future favours. The last trace of her perfume seemed to linger about me for the rest of the day. Any reservations that I might have retained vanished. I was seduced.
And on later visits … well, like Amanda Collins, I’ll just have to leave you to fill in the details for yourself. She does still favour black underwear, by the way.
Most of that spring and summer we worked on the plan, adding elements here, refining details there. A great deal of time was spent on agreeing where Geraldine would flee to. I concurred that Brazil might be suitable. I raised only minor doubts over Bolivia. It was only when we started discussing Belgium, Botswana, Burma and Bhutan, that I realized that Geraldine’s approach remained alarmingly random. At a very early stage it was agreed that, having covered up her disappearance, I would come out and join her and we would sit admiring the Andes (or Himalayas or Ardennes) and I would write my masterpiece. We debated for some time whether she should slip away quietly and unobtrusively (my plan) or whether there should be a more dramatic display with suicide notes and piles of clothes left discarded on a remote beach (Geraldine’s plan). This small detail was unfortunately never entirely resolved – to my satisfaction anyway.
But in the meantime, we set about constructing a new identity for Geraldine. Obtaining a passport in the name of somebody who died as a baby – a real person with a real identity but no further use for a passport themselves – was my little contribution as a novelist. It is a well-known device from detective fiction. Indeed, so well known is it that checks are now carried out by the Passport Office using parish records. As a result a cottage industry has grown up, stealing parish records to prevent such investigations. And of course, as Charlotte told you, the parish records had, quite coincidentally, been stolen from the church in which Pamela Hamilton-Boswell is buried. Pamela’s history was well known to Geraldine. As long as nobody had already used her, we were safe. They hadn’t. The passport came through and ‘Pamela’ vanished off to Switzerland for a couple of days to open a bank account.
Geraldine refused to let me have anything at all to do with the matter of raising capital, other than to promise that she would steal only from people who she was sure could afford it and that I would not like. That she chose Rupert, Smith and her sister Charlotte was, in a funny sort of way, her apology for walking out on me. She was offering me a chance of revenge on those who had mocked, reviled or otherwise incommoded me all those years ago. All very Count of Monte Cristo, eh, Elsie? What she overlooked of course was the fact that, whenever I read that book, I always feel sorry for Baron Danglars and the others long before the Count has completed their ruin. I did try, but I have to admit that I took relatively little pleasure from the discomfort of my erstwhile enemies – except Smith, perhaps, once or twice. But Geraldine did it for me, and I appreciated the kind thought.
We agreed that it was essential that as little suspicion should fall on me as possible, and I therefore arranged to be out of the country on the day she was to vanish. The night before her departure, even though I had agreed not to contact her at all, I phoned her from my hotel. I just needed to hear her voice. It was a mistake. Inevitably we argued. She had decided to go for the dramatic gesture: a suicide to be faked in much enjoyable detail, including a car abandoned on a remote beach. I pointed out the inadvisability of drawing the attention of the police to her disappearance before she had had a chance to ensure that she and the money were completely untraceable. She said that I always spoilt people’s fun, and we inevitably began to rake up much past history, in the way people do when they have a lot of past history to rake up. She hung up on me. I phoned her back. The answering machine had been switched on. She was uncontactable.
I reassured myself that this was only a temporary tiff. She would phone me in England, from Bolivia or Bhutan or Belgium. But no call came, only a policeman to announce her disappearance.
You were right about my reactions. Of course, I showed no surprise at all when he announced that her car had been found abandoned: I never doubted that she would press ahead with some idiotic scheme. But I had assumed that the plan had been to leave behind her own car, not a hire car … and above all it would be left well away from Sussex to avoid any hint of involvement on my part. Clearly she had made an extra few thousand on the sale of the Saab, but at what risk to the credibility of her disappearance? Then there was the ridiculous ‘suicide’ note. Of course I saw, even from the photocopy, that she had used a sheet of my writing paper, and I wondered what on earth she was playing at. Was she getting back at me for the phone call? Was it some sort of joke? Or were these more of her random moves, just to see what might happen? Or was it a straight double-cross?
The more I thought about it, the more likely the double-cross looked. After all, she was prepared to deceive Rupert, Smith the bank manager, Charlotte and goodness knows who else. Why not me too? Her claim to be exacting some sort of revenge on my behalf looked with hindsight more like a way of salving her own conscience as she defrauded people of their cash. Yet even in my darkest moments, I never quite lost faith in her – soon she would phone me and all would be well.
Then came the news that a body had been found. As I drove to the police station I was quite confident that the police had made a mistake but then, just for a moment, in that white room I really did think that it was her. The short fair hair and the freckled face gave much more than just a superficial resemblance. Had I not seen her for ten years, I might have actually believed that it was Geraldine lying there. So certain were the police that they had found her that I was already relishing the prospect of telling them how wrong they were. But another thought entirely occurred to me. If they wanted to believe that this was Geraldine, why not let them, at least for a while? After all, I could always claim later to have been quite reasonably mistaken. There would be no question of a continuing search and Geraldine would gain valuable days to withdraw the money and get to wherever it was she was going. I didn’t lie. I simply let them believe what they wanted to believe. That’s all I did.
Once the initial elation of my success had faded, a leaden weight slowly began to descend on my shoulders as I realized the many complications that this small act might now lead to. You see, if this wasn’t Geraldine, then it was clearly somebody else, and it was only reasonable to assume that people would be looking for her. There might be friends. There might be anxious relatives. Since this was a murder, there was undoubtedly a murderer. I began to regret my subterfuge, but I could scarcely go back and say that I was no longer sure about the identification of the body and that I wanted a second look. At times I hoped that the police would of their own accord revisit the identity of the victim. But once I knew that the body must be Mary’s – and that there were no grieving friends or relatives – I decided that perhaps I could leave things as they were a little longer.
So why was my deception never uncovered? Simple. When Mary Jones’s body was found, nobody was looking for Mary Jones, only for Geraldine Tressider
. The location and description were almost perfect. Why then should anyone want to doubt my identification? Later, when Mary Jones was finally reported missing, the police were looking for a lady with long mousy-coloured hair in the Bournemouth area. Why should they look again at the identification of a blonde lady found near Worthing and already confirmed as Geraldine Tressider? Of course, dental records would have shown them that they were wrong, but Geraldine’s phobia about dentists meant that there were no dental records available for G. Tressider. Fingerprints and even DNA (I have no doubt) would have also indicated that something was amiss, but Geraldine had no fingerprints on record and I doubt that DNA tests would have been contemplated for a body that could be identified so quickly and easily. Still, it will not surprise you that I wanted to have that body cremated as soon as possible.
But knowing precisely where Mary Jones was did not help me know where Geraldine had vanished to. The days passed and I heard nothing. No messages on my phone – no messages on Geraldine’s phone (which I kept going, just in case). You helped me discover that the money had been removed from the Swiss bank, so I knew that Geraldine had made it safely to Switzerland at least – but where then?
You were also quite right in believing that I was neither searching for Geraldine’s killer (she wasn’t dead) nor for the money (that was with Geraldine), but you couldn’t work out what I was after. What I wanted to know was where Geraldine had gone and with whom. My growing fears were heightened by jealousy. I gave a number of people a tough time, I am sorry to say, as a result. That is why I did revel for a while in Smith’s discomfort. Your well-timed (though wholly inaccurate) suggestion that they had actually been lovers did not help his cause in this respect one little bit. Young Darren Oxtoby was an unexpected possibility. So certain was I that he must know something that I actually demanded openly to know where Geraldine was. When his bafflement at my question confirmed that he was as ignorant as I was, I quickly covered up by pretending that I had been referring to Charlotte. My questioning of Dennis was equally direct, though you and he must have thought that I was crazy. Yet he was a possible accomplice and I had to take some risks to be certain that he was not involved. Rupert was the only one I was certain of and whom I consistently felt sorry for.
No, that’s not true. I also felt extremely sorry for me. As the leads gave out and no call came through I found myself with nothing to do except potter around and tie up the loose ends. I dealt with the estate, such as it was, and told the creditors to expect the worst. The photograph albums and other items that Geraldine had marked with her yellow dots (well done for spotting them, by the way) were boxed up for safekeeping. You have them now yourself, apart from one or two large non-perishable items that are still at my flat.
It was not until December that Geraldine finally contacted me: a postcard from Bradford, as it happened. I was to catch a particular plane on a particular date in January. No other instruction. No promise that she would be there. Just that.
Just that.
I hope I am not boring you, Elsie? You are very quiet. Just drowsy? I’d open a window, but the rain is so heavy at the moment.
Not much more to tell though: just Geraldine’s story, and I don’t really know much more than you do. I can’t tell you why she decided to leave Rupert. I can’t tell you how she got the money out of Smith, except that I am quite, quite certain, that she didn’t sleep with him. I can’t tell you where she is. All I do know is that she is out there somewhere, and that I should be meeting up with her soon, if this isn’t just another red herring. Good old Geraldine, the queen of herring sellers, compared to whom I am a mere apprentice.
I don’t expect you to approve. Fairfax has certainly made his views clear. You see, I’ve committed a crime – several, in all likelihood. Of course, I can argue that, technically, I didn’t mislead the police: they chose to mislead themselves. I can also argue, from a practical point of view, that what I did was harmless. Peters is dead and one bit of evidence more or less makes no difference now to the case. But I didn’t know that at the time. I have withheld a vital piece of evidence from the police. What if Peters had killed again? I have also knowingly aided and abetted Geraldine in goodness knows how many frauds. These are not things that Fairfax is likely to overlook or forgive. I’ll never write another Fairfax story.
But you at least should know not to judge me by Fairfax’s standards, though I have to point out that here was your other mistake. You thought that this was a detective story. In fact, it was a love story all along. What I did, I did for her. The rules are different for love stories. Romeo can kill Tybalt and still be a good guy. At least I’ve never knowingly stabbed anyone’s cousin in a drunken brawl.
Asleep yet? Almost? Yes, Elsie, that’s right: I did put something in the hot chocolate. Not poison, obviously – I want somebody to drive the car back to Findon. One thing we crime writers know about is what constitutes a lethal dose. So it’s just enough to put you out for a few hours. After all, I don’t want you following me to the check-in to see where I am going, do I? Once I knew that you were onto me I also knew that I had to be absolutely sure where you were when I was catching the plane. You’ll be safe enough in the car until you wake up – in time for a good breakfast, hopefully. They do chocolate croissants at the airport cafeteria, I believe. I’ll leave you the spare set of car keys and the money for the car park. There’s enough petrol in the tank to get you home. And by that time, I’ll be … where, I wonder?
Don’t try to fight it. What I’ve given you is harmless but pretty strong. We’re almost onto the motorway now. And look, do you see that? The rain’s almost stopped now. There are stars up there, Elsie. Plenty of clouds, but here and there a bright star.
Of course, I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get to Gatwick. Geraldine in person? Another instruction? Then another? Or will I find nothing at all?
I don’t know, and for the moment I don’t care. All I know is that I feel marvellously alive, as I haven’t for years. Whatever I find at the check-in desk, nothing can take away from me the thrill that I have felt since I got that card from Geraldine. Perhaps she’ll be there. Perhaps I’ll have to pursue her halfway round the world.
But whichever it is, Elsie, I’ve made up my mind. I’ve always wanted one. Plenty of other people seem to have them and I really don’t see why I shouldn’t have one too. I’m going to get a life, Elsie. It’s a happy ending.
I’m going to get a life.
Twenty-nine
Or, then again, not.
That’s the problem with two narrators. (Crap idea, as I may have observed before.) Two narratives, two truths, two endings.
Of course Ethelred may have said all that stuff to me as he drove to his doom, but how would I know? I remember getting into his car and feeling a bit woozy.Then there was this dream about penguins. My next clear recollection is waking up in the short-stay car park with a couple of kids outside yelling, ‘The dead witch moved! The dead witch moved!’I rolled down the passenger window and taught them a few witch-words, which would result in a slap round the face if they repeated them within striking distance of a responsible parent or guardian. Then I worked out how to extract myself from the car and went off and had a healthy chocolate-rich breakfast.
I was aware from the moment I got into the terminal that all was not quite as it should be – with hindsight it was a sort of shocked hush, but at the time it didn’t mean much and I was looking for a coffee shop rather than a television screen. It was only as I was on my way back to the car park that I stopped to catch the latest news and just caught a blurred image of a plane tumbling from the sky in a mess of smoke.‘Amateur photograph,’ it read, which didn’t give much of a clue as to who was on it. Even then I worked out the percentage chances of it being Ethelred (low) and passed on with a shrug. It was only when they published a passenger list that I was certain – but that was days later.
I drove back to Sussex listening to the radio. The early reports were of an engine
failure on a plane taking off from Gatwick. The later reports said it was a bomb. Then some smug bastard popped up to say that we should not jump to conclusions, but he could have saved his breath because we all had. I listened for a bit, then switched it off. Back at Ethelred’s I did a quick search for clues, chocolate etc. and found his latest work, which (with a few amendments and improvements by yours truly) you have just read.The final chapter had clearly been written in advance of his actual journey to the airport, while he waited for me to drive down from London. Good old Ethelred – a writer to the very end.
In a strange way modern life caught up with Ethelred only with his death. He scarcely belonged to the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first. Take his books – the historical ones were historical (obviously) but even the Fairfax ones contained nothing that Agatha Christie could not have written. His criminals were white working-class villains or toffs who had gone to the bad. Nobody used a mobile. Nobody seemed to have heard of the Internet. He wore clothes his father might have discarded in the fifties. He holidayed at old-fashioned hotels in the Loire. Ironic then that he should have died in such an up-to-the-minute way – blown up by a terrorist’s bomb in mid-air. They never found his body, of course.