A Fall from Grace

by Robert Barnard

  He was still thinking over the oddity of Felicity’s family and how she had escaped them for several years only to be mentally recaptured, when he stopped in the village to buy a packet of cigarettes in the corner shop and was hailed by the genial figure of Desmond Pinkhurst, still apparently on a high from the success of his performance in rehearsal. They stood in the darkening street talking for a second or third time about this when Desmond changed the subject.

  “I say, your revered father-in-law isn’t getting himself into potential hot water, is he?”

  Charlie’s heart sank, but he retained his native caution.

  “He may be. We certainly hope not.”

  “Word to the wise. Tell him to watch his step.”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “Felicity has already tried to. It’s not easy.”

  “But it is easy to slip into something little by little, and then find yourself up to your neck in it and sinking fast.”

  He spoke with apparent feeling.

  “Are you speaking from bitter experience, Desmond?”

  Desmond smiled sunnily.

  “Oh no, dear boy. I think I told you that when it comes to good old-fashioned rumpy-pumpy, I’m quite happy to be counted out. But she did offer, dear boy. And I hate to think what would have happened to poor old Desmond if he had taken her up on it.”

  “Is it Anne Michaels we are talking about?”

  “Who else, dear boy?”

  “She offered, did she? Just like that.”

  “Well, pretty much so. She was in the Black Heiffer with her parents, drinking orange juice, which I wouldn’t mind betting was spiked from a miniature vodka or some such thing concealed about her burgeoning person. And we were all together, and laughing and joking—though they’re not awfully entertaining, the Michaels—and soon they were getting up to go, and the mother was putting on her coat and the father was taking glasses back to the bar, and this young lady—I use the word as a courtesy title—stood over me, put her mouth close to my ear and said, ‘If you ever want a quick poke with something young and fresh come along to me and we can come to some arrangement.’ ”

  “Good Lord,” said Charlie. “What did you do?”

  “I wasn’t called upon to do anything but splutter because the father came back. I probably would have said that Vi Varley the landlady of the Heiffer was more my idea of young and fresh than she was, and she’s had most of the men in the village over the last twenty years. Luckily I didn’t have to, because you should always deal with the young with kid gloves. But I saw her a week or so later in the supermarket and I put my mouth close to her ear and I whispered, ‘Not on your life.’ And I didn’t use my sibilant whisper that I developed for Kenneth Williams–type roles, but kept it genuinely quiet. She probably thought I would find the offer flattering, but I didn’t.”

  “Frightening rather, I’d have thought.”

  “Absolutely right, old boy! Bang on target! Anyone who took her up on her offer would be absolutely in her power.”

  Charlie told Felicity about Desmond’s revelation when they had a moment together (actually nearly half an hour) while Carola was on her mother’s mobile to a schoolfriend. Charlie had thought it was a wonderful sign of precocity when his daughter mastered a mobile. Now he worried that it would shorten her childhood, but it did keep her amused for long periods. As her mother’s telephone bill testified.

  “So according to Desmond, Anne Michaels was offering herself to an older man, and one with some kind of reputation beyond the village.”

  Felicity was very worried, but thought before she replied.

  “If there was anything sexual between her and Dad, and it came to court, Desmond’s evidence would be important, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would. In the past juries were apt to assume that the older man was the guilty party and the initiator of the affair. Scales have fallen from their eyes in recent years, though there might be a charge of statutory rape, due to her age.”

  “I suppose there’s no proof that the offer was seriously intended, is there?”

  “No. That kind of proof is difficult. The best thing would be if she could be shown to have had or be having a relationship of similar sexual kind with someone else.”

  “Not Desmond, anyway.”

  “No, I believe him absolutely. But there are other candidates. She is Harvey Buckworth’s favorite young actress. And any of her other teachers could have the hots for her.”

  “That’s a horrible expression.”

  “Sorry. It’s these Australian soaps. Anyway, there’s another danger: even if the advance to Desmond was not a serious offer, one could well imagine that a fifteen-year-old, very sexually aware, if she had had a knock-back after making advances to your father—”

  “And I do still think that was the way it would have happened.”

  “—might well invent an affair to get attention, to get revenge, just to create mayhem.”

  “I have wondered about that,” Felicity admitted. “This seems more dangerous than the one in Coombe Barton because this girl is not a sad, lonely creature but a born troublemaker—witness her poisonous little gang.”

  They were interrupted by a ring from the immobile telephone.

  “Carola, put a sock in it, you’ve had long enough,” yelled Charlie.

  “Oh, do I have to?” protested Carola, but she rang off.

  “Three-five-two-zero-seven-six,” said Charlie.

  “Charlie. It’s Ben.”

  “Ben? Ben Costello?”

  It seemed quick to Charlie that they were on Christian name terms.

  “That’s right. Has your father-in-law been round today?”

  “Today? No. I don’t think we’re in his good books.”

  “Have you been round to his?”

  “No. I was on duty from seven until three, but Felicity said she hadn’t seen him since last night.” A cold feeling was rising inside him, so he asked outright, “What is this?”

  “We’ve just had a report. A walker has found a body in the quarry at Beacon Falls. She says it is Rupert Coggenhoe. That is your father-in-law, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Oh my God. Shall we come out?”

  “No. We’ll come and get you if identification is needed. It could be some big mistake. Stay there. I’ll keep in touch.”

  Charlie, as he put the phone down and turned to Felicity, noted the time on the dining room clock. Four forty-five. It was a policeman’s reaction. But it was quite wasted now. This wasn’t his case at all. If it wasn’t an accident, which he felt in his bones it was not, or a suicide, which he felt it couldn’t be, he was going to be part of this case from a quite unaccustomed side of the fence.

  CHAPTER 8

  Wondering

  The police came to take Felicity to identify the body at five-thirty. Charlie tried to insist on coming with her.

  “No. This is something I have to do on my own.”

  Charlie knew the expression of obstinacy on her face.

  “You sound like John Wayne,” he protested.

  “I just mean that I have to make a last farewell, without apology or regret.”

  So Charlie stayed at home and looked after Carola. Felicity had already told her that Grandad was dead, and she would never be seeing him again. She was definitely interested and definitely pleased. Her reactions were more naked than her parents’, but not essentially different. When Charlie said he thought there would be a church service, she looked as if she was planning to be a tree fairy.

  At a quarter to six there was a knock on the door and Chris Carlson put his head round it.

  “Tell me to go away if you’d rather,” he said.

  “Not at all. Come on in.” Charlie gestured him to a seat. “Carola is having a rare session with her doll.”

  Chris sank into the armchair.

  “I didn’t want you to think I was one of those ghouls who go around seeking out places of sickness or bereavement.”

  “Chris, why
would I think that? You know you’re a friend. How did you find out?”

  “From Nancy Stoppard. But it’s all round the village.”

  “I suppose it was bound to be. Felicity’s gone to identify the body. She wanted to be alone.”

  “People identifying the bodies of near ones often do.”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “I know you’re choosing your words carefully, Chris, but it won’t do. He wasn’t ‘near’ any more than he was ‘loved.’ That’s what I think she wants to come to terms with. Then she’ll put him behind her and get on with her life—our lives. If we’re allowed to.”

  “Why shouldn’t you be?”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “I don’t know. But after the affair at Coombe Barton I just got the idea that it had to be—” He pulled himself up. He was being unpolicemanly. “I can’t believe he’d commit suicide. And why should it be an accident? He was perfectly steady on his pins.”

  “Now you are being melodramatic,” said Chris. “Why shouldn’t it be an accident—maybe a heart attack as he was walking too close to the edge?”

  “I suppose that’s a possibility. But why walk close to the edge? I’ve been around the quarry. The path is a couple of feet from the edge. Come to that, why walk there at all on a cold December afternoon?”

  “Wasn’t your pa-in-law a walker?”

  “I don’t really know. I hardly know him at all, and his habits I know almost nothing about. Perhaps he went for walks when he had trouble with his plots. Felicity will know. Perhaps Felicity will know. Her knowledge is rather out-of-date.”

  Chris leaned back in the chair and looked straight at him.

  “Charlie, I know you’re having doubts about me—about what I do, whether it’s useful, my motives—”

  “Chris, you’re exaggerating! Getting paranoid.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. You know, I do sometimes help, do sometimes give people confidence to do something they deep down want to do. I mean something brave, like Desmond is doing. Or it might be the moral courage to avoid doing something that would bring unhappiness to them or someone near them. Anyone could do it—it’s just a question of listening warmly and sympathetically. But it’s something I like doing, and that people seem to want me to do.”

  Something about that little speech worried Charlie, without his being quite clear in his mind what it was.

  “Chris, are you trying to tell me something?” Charlie saw at once that his question made Chris feel slightly sheepish. “Have you been talking to the late Rupert, giving him advice, perhaps?”

  “Well . . . no, not giving him advice. He didn’t ask for it, and frankly I can’t imagine him ever actually asking for it. I don’t shower people with moral guidance out of the blue.”

  “No, I can’t see him asking for advice either. He was too confident in himself and his own judgment. So what happened?”

  Chris sighed. He was obviously getting the feeling of being in the witness box and suffering cross-examination.

  “It was earlier today in the Black Heiffer, and it was just after opening, twelve o’clock with not many people there because church was not finished, and he and I began talking at the bar.”

  “How often had you talked to him before?”

  “Hardly ever. At most twice. Once was about Carola and the approaching grandchild, and he didn’t have much to say on them.”

  “I bet he didn’t.”

  “Anyway, this time he began talking about himself, and how the planning of his next book was going. It apparently was more realistic than usual, a modern tale full of real people of today was how he described it. Then he began talking about having an ‘inspiration.’ Well, after a time I realized that he wasn’t talking about a wonderful idea, but about a human inspiration.”

  “Oh my God,” groaned Charlie. “Did he give a name?”

  “No, he didn’t. But you’d told me about the problems back in Coombe Barton, and I’d seen him with the Michaels girl at the carol service, so I thought about Dickens and Ibsen and writers like that and the part younger women—girls, almost—played in their later lives and writings. And that made me a bit uneasy. It’s a relationship fraught with difficulties and potential for nasty comment and prejudice in a small place like Slepton Edge. And as often as not it’s quite innocent—just a sentimental attachment, a piece of nostalgia about youth, its enthusiasm and purity—that kind of thing.”

  “Felicity is convinced that’s what it is—was—in her father’s case.”

  Chris nodded.

  “She’s probably right. But the danger is when that’s not how it’s seen by the people around. And that can have consequences both for the older person and the younger one.”

  “And so you warned him?”

  Chris looked uneasy again.

  “Not to say warned. Just tried to make him aware of the downside.”

  Charlie was not inclined to give up on the inquisition.

  “What exactly did you say?”

  Chris sighed, and thought.

  “I said, ‘That’s wonderful for you, and for her too. But be careful people here don’t get talking about it. It’s always bad for children when they get talked about.’ ”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Not her. She loves being talked about. And she’s not a child.’ ”

  They looked at each other.

  “Did he mean by that,” asked Charlie slowly, feeling his way, “that he was talking about a grown woman, not Anne Michaels? Or that Anne was very mature for her age?”

  “I don’t know. He walked off at that point—or stalked, I should say. But I took it to mean that Anne was in all important ways a grown-up woman. And that he didn’t at all care for my interference.”

  Charlie groaned.

  * * *

  Ben Costello grasped Felicity’s arm and let her into the mortuary. They turned toward the far wall, and to a stone slab with a body on it. Felicity’s heart thumped when she recognized the old green sports jacket. It had been bought long ago in an outfitter’s in Exeter that catered to the gentry. It had been old-fashioned then, and now looked antiquated. She had still been spending university vacations at home when he bought it. Recently she’d seen him wearing it to do some desultory gardening—clearing up twigs and dead leaves. He’d hate being exposed on a mortuary slab in shabby old gardening clothes. Unless he’d caught on that the gentry rather specialized in dressing shabby.

  They came closer to the body inside the clothes.

  “Yes, that’s him,” Felicity said.

  She tried to take in the detail, the tear on the shoulder of the jacket, the dirt on the gray flannel trousers and the shoes, the sandy-colored smear across the left cheek. She must have a picture of him in her mind, to tell Charlie about later. She shuffled off Ben Costello’s hand and went closer. The half of her mind that believed in God was trying to frame a prayer. It came out as one that all his sins should be forgiven him. The skeptical side of her mind suggested this was a tall order.

  She turned and walked back to the door, Costello following behind her. Outside she looked at him questioningly.

  “Would you like me to get someone to drive you home?” he asked. “Or would you be willing to answer a few questions now?”

  Felicity thought. She felt exhausted and yet excited. She felt ashamed of the latter emotion, but she could not deny it. She was now free, she was entirely her own person. Her own—and Charlie’s, Carola’s and Little Fetus’s. She was her own world, unshadowed by the past. She need feel no guilt, no resentment. Charlie was at home looking after Carola. He wasn’t going anywhere. She wanted to get it over.

  “Questions, please,” she said.

  “Good girl,” said Costello, approvingly if unfashionably. Felicity let herself be led to a room on the second floor. It was all very informal, with no suggestion that she was under suspicion. She thought with surprise that there had been no suggestion that there was anything to be susp
icious about.

  “Now,” said Ben Costello, “let’s be clear from the outset—or maybe I should say unclear. Because we have no idea at the moment whether what we are talking about is an accident, suicide, manslaughter or murder. So all I am doing now is trying to make the situation and background clearer.” Felicity nodded. “Now, did you see or talk to your father earlier today?”

  “No. Neither.”

  “When did you last see or talk to him?”

  “Last night at the carol service.” She added, still embarrassed by the memories, “The encounter you saw.”

  “When you interrupted your father and Anne Michaels?”

  Felicity grimaced.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I meant to join.” She heard the bitterness in her tone and said, “Sorry. I know you all saw, and drew your own conclusions. It would have been much better if I’d left them alone. You all probably thought there was something going on between my poor old father and this young chick. In point of fact I don’t believe that for a moment. But I made sure everyone else did. Just what we didn’t want.”

  “Surely what you didn’t want was for your father to get entangled in that way in the first place?”

  “True. But just as bad is not to be entangled, but to be gossiped about as if you were.”

  “And that had happened in the past to your father?”

  Felicity took a deep breath, and decided to come clean. Why not? He was dead, and about to become part of her past.

  “I think so. I mean I know there was gossip, but I think it was untrue. But that’s why he suddenly plonked himself on us here in Yorkshire. It happened where he was living before, in Coombe Barton, in Devon. Pretty little cottage, hollyhocks in the garden, roses climbing round the door.”