“I’ll go and put some coffee on,” said Alison, making for the kitchen. A glance passed between Charlie and Felicity, though it didn’t need to. The purpose of their visit had been well canvassed before they set out. Chris was impervious to the glances, and was crouched over his computer. Eventually he stretched his arms up to the ceiling and got up.
“ ‘Why is a dog’s life assumed to be miserable and overworked?’ ” he said. “The best I can do on a busy day.”
“We were a bit surprised to see you here,” said Charlie. “How is the campaign going?”
“Not bad, not bad.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, rather well, I think. There’s lots of time yet. I don’t imagine the election will be till early February. Desmond has promised to come and speak as soon as he’s free . . . I got the impression last week that Sunday electioneering was a waste of time—people have other things on their minds. That’s the only reason I’m home now.”
He had registered a whiff of disapproval from Westowram people at Sunday being used for electioneering, thought Charlie. His reputation for selflessness and purity of motive was taking a bit of a knock.
“Are you getting lots of helpers?” he asked. Chris brightened at once and grinned in self-satisfaction.
“Oh yes, we are! A real little volunteer army. People who say I’ve helped them, in some cases. Rather gratifying, really. And the indication is that the Labour Party is going to put up yet another party hack. That will be a big plus if they do.”
“You are becoming quite a Machiavellian political animal,” said Charlie.
“Hark at those big words!” said Chris defensively.
“I married big words,” said Charlie, not bothering to mention his three advanced levels.
“Well, Little Fetus is going to have an inheritance of multisyllabic words from his mother and a thoroughly cynical view of the world from his father,” said Chris.
“I hold with the view that a child’s genetic inheritance comes mainly from grandparents,” said Charlie. Then an awful thought struck him. “Good God. Is that why Carola is like she is?”
* * *
“I wanted to talk to you, away from the men,” said Felicity in the kitchen. “It’s about something rather personal.”
“Oh?” was all Alison said, but her body seemed to stiffen.
“It’s about my father’s death.”
“How could your father’s death be personal to me?”
“It’s . . . just a theory. Charlie thinks there is a connection with Anne Michaels, the girl who organized the children’s gang we told you about. It concerns the house in Forsythia Avenue, number fifteen, that was empty for a long time.”
“This is getting curiouser and curiouser,” said Alison, hiding her face by fetching down a sugar bowl from a shelf.
“This house was used by a man and a woman, arriving separately, presumably for sex. It’s possible, no more, that there will be an investigation into those two people.”
“I see.”
“I think I know the motive of one of those people in having these assignations. I thought it might be advisable to be prepared, and perhaps to make a clean breast of the whole thing before being forced to.”
“Did you? . . . Oh, I think this coffee’s done. Shall we go through? I don’t think I want to hear any more.”
She seemed to be trying to bustle cheerily into the living room, but the tension in her body didn’t allow her to do it convincingly. She poured, offered cream and sugar round, then sat down while her husband went on talking. The subject was by chance apt.
“The only thing I regret about the mayoral bid is that the last months of pregnancy will be a little bit side-lined—from my point of view, but not from Alison’s, of course. I have my image of Son and Heir, and he isn’t the sort who will take kindly to being pushed into second place.”
“Have you decided on a name yet?” asked Charlie politely.
“Oh—nearly decided, but we don’t spell it out, because it seems like tempting fate. It’s a sort of tribute to my father—a bit Scandinavian. It’s Kristian.”
“Oh, but you’ll have two Chrises!” said Felicity.
“His name will be with a K. And probably I will start asking people to call me Christopher. It will give me greater gravitas.”
“Just so long as you don’t start wearing a bowler and carrying an umbrella to work,” said Charlie.
“That’s not gravitas, that’s a uniform. And a bloody boring one at that . . . You know, I think—no, hope—that young Kristian is like his grandfather, my father, and is very responsible and cares for others, helps them, and realizes he’s not alone in the world but is part of it.”
“You want him to be like you,” said Charlie. “All fathers do.”
“No, not like me. Not painting on a small canvas but on a big one. Doing good to the whole world. That’s what I think a good Christian wants to do, so that’s what we’re naming him for.”
“You want him to be a super-you, though,” persisted Charlie. “A very sensible hope. Let’s pray that’s how he turns out.”
“The best thing to hope is that he has a lot of Alison,” said Chris. “She’s the really practical dreamer.”
He wasn’t looking at her, but was crouched over his coffee cup, gesturing in her direction. It was Felicity, sitting beside her, who saw the tear force itself out of her eye and run slowly down her cheek to her chin.
* * *
“What do you think will happen?” Felicity asked Charlie when they had said their good-byes, torn Carola from her jigsaw and were strapping themselves into their seats in the car.
“Depends on Trench, and whether my eloquence has persuaded him to do anything. If it hasn’t, I suppose Chris and Alison can go along just as they have been doing, and Chris will be happy in a fool’s paradise. If Trench has done something . . .”
He paused.
“Do you think it will destroy the marriage?” Felicity asked.
“I’d be willing to put a small bet on its doing nothing of the sort. I think that after a few days—maybe only a few hours—Chris will accept what she did, accept her motivation and eventually see the baby, feel the baby, as entirely his. He has the sort of sunny nature that can do this, and he’ll have what he wants—a child of his own. Who can say the baby won’t be that?”
They had come to the bottom end of Luddenden Avenue. On an impulse Charlie turned, not down the hill toward home, but up the road, and then into Forsythia Avenue. Felicity understood that it was to be a valedictory sight of number twenty-three, from which her father had walked three weeks and more before toward the quarry. It was also a first good sight of the house where Alison had made love to Ben in order to make a child for Chris. As they drove up the tree-lined street Charlie’s antennae twitched and his body stiffened.
“Look,” he said.
On either side of the road a woman and a man were obviously going from house to house. Respectably, neutrally dressed, they were doing it methodically but briskly.
“Plainclothes coppers,” said Charlie. “I know the breed, from the haircuts to the sensible shoes. Trench has taken the bait. They’ll be asking if anyone saw the couple who used number fifteen. Maybe they even have photographs of them.”
They drove past, looking neither to left or right, and then past Rupert Coggenhoe’s bungalow, already discreetly on the market. At the top of the road, where the tarmac ran out and the path to the quarry began, Charlie turned the car round. Felicity sat silent, remembering the tear that had meandered down Alison’s cheek. She felt glad she didn’t have Charlie’s job.
About the Author
ROBERT BARNARD’s most recent novel is Dying Flames. Among his many other books are The Graveyard Position, A Cry from the Dark, The Mistress of Alderly, The Bones in the Attic, A Murder in Mayfair, No Place for Safety, The Bad Samaritan and A Scandal in Belgravia. Scribner released a classic edition of his Death of a Mystery Writer in 2002. He is the winner of the Malice Domestic Life
time Achievement Award, the prestigious Nero Wolfe Award, as well as the Anthony, Agatha and Macavity awards. 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, and their pets, Jingle and Durdles, in Leeds, England.
Also from Robert Barnard
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
We hope you enjoyed reading this Scribner eBook.
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SCRIBNER
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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 © 2007 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 2007
Originally published in Great Britain in 2007 by Allison & Busby Limited
SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.
Text set in Fairfield
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnard, Robert
A fall from grace / Robert Barnard.—1st Scribner ed.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PR6052.A665F29 2007
823'.914—dc22
2006051427
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7220-9
ISBN-10: 0-7432-7220-X
ISBN: 978-1-4165-3933-9 (eBook)
A Fall from Grace Page 21