A La Carte

by Jeffrey Archer

  ‘You see, Zillah had this sister Kitty. We were cousins, I think I told you. Quite close cousins even though we had been brought up so differently. That’s how Zillah came to look after the children in the first place: she wanted a proper home, she said, after the impersonality of nursing. But that didn’t satisfy Zillah. She was always on at me to do something about this sister and her family – as though their awful lives were my fault!’

  She went on: ‘Kitty had two little girls, almost exactly the same ages as my two. Quite fair then, though not as fair as Zillah and not as fair as my children. But there was a resemblance, everyone said so. People sometimes took them for my children. I suppose our relationship accounted for it. Kitty was a wretched creature but physically we were not unalike. Anyway, Zillah thought the world of these babies and was always having them round. Kitty was unhappily married: I believe the husband ran off before the last baby was born. Suddenly, looking at this pair, I thought: little cuckoos. Zillah has taken her own nieces, and put them into my nest —’

  ‘— Which you had left of your own accord.’ But Jemima did not say the words aloud. Instead she asked with much greater strength:

  ‘But why?’

  ‘The money! That’s why,’ exclaimed Mrs Parr in triumph. "The Parr money in trust for them. Parr Biscuits. Doesn’t that ring a bell? The money only went to the descendants of Ephraim Parr. She wouldn’t have got a penny – except what he left her. Her nieces had no Pan- blood either. But my children, because they were Parrs, would have been, are rich. Maybe my poor little children died, ran away, maybe she put them in an orphanage – I don’t know. Or’ – her voice suddenly changed totally, becoming dreamy, ‘Or perhaps these are my children after all. Perhaps I’m imagining it all, after all I’ve been through. Miss Shore, this is just what I’ve come all the way from Scotland to beg you to find out.’

  It was an extraordinary story. Jemima’s original impulse had been to give Mrs Catharine Parr a cup of coffee and send her gently on her way. Now the overriding curiosity which was definitely her strongest attribute would not let her be. The appeals of the public to Jemima Shore Investigator certainly fell on compassionate ears; but they also fell on very inquisitive ones. In this instance she felt she owed it to the forces of common sense to point out first to Mrs Parr that lawyers could investigate such matters far more efficiently than she. To this Mrs Parr answered quite reasonably that lawyers would take an age, as they always did:

  ‘And in the meantime what would happen to me and the children? We’d be getting to know each other, getting fond of each other. No, Miss Shore, you can settle it. I know you can. Then we can all get on with our lives for better or for worse.’

  Then Jemima caved in and acceded to Mrs Parr’s request.

  It was in this way, for better or for worse as Mrs Parr had put it, that Jemima Shore Investigator found herself the following night taking the sleeper back to Inverness. The sleeping-car attendant recognised Mrs Parr quite merrily:

  Why it’s you again, Mrs Parr. You’ll keep British Rail in business with your travelling.’ Then of course he recognised Jemima Shore with even greater delight. Later, taking her ticket, he was with difficulty restrained from confiding to her his full and rich life story which he was convinced would make an excellent television documentary. Staved off, he contented himself with approving Jemima’s modest order of late-night tea.

  ‘You’re not like your friend, then, Mrs Parr …’ he made a significant drinking gesture. The trouble I had with her going north the first time. Crying, and crying and disturbing all the passengers. However she was better the second time, and mebbe now you’ll have a good influence on her, Miss Shore. I’ll be seeing her now and asking her if this time she’ll have a late-night cup of tea.’ He bustled off, leaving Jemima faintly disquieted. She hoped that Mrs Parr had no drink aboard. The north of Scotland with an alcoholic, probably a fantasist into the bargain …

  Morning found her in a more robust mood. Which was fortunate since Jemima’s first sight of Kildrum Lodge, standing on the edge of a dark, seemingly endless loch, shut in by mountains, was once again disquieting. It was difficult for her to believe that Zillah could have brought the children to such a place out of sheer love for Scottish scenery and country pursuits such as fishing, swimming and walking. The situation of the lodge itself even for Scotland was so extremely isolated. Nor was the glen which led up to the lodge notably beautiful. A general lack of colour except blackness, in the water, reflected from the skies, made it in fact peculiarly depressing. There was a lack of vegetation even on the lower slopes of the mountains, which slid down straight into the loch. The single track road was bumpy and made of stones. It was difficult to imagine that much traffic passed that way. One could imagine a woman with something to hide – two children perhaps? – seeking out such a location, but not a warm comforting body hoping to cheer up her charges after the sudden death of their father.

  The notion of Zillah’s sinister purpose, far-fetched in London, suddenly seemed horribly plausible. And this was the loch, the very loch, in which Zillah herself had drowned. No, Kildrum to Jemima Shore did not have the air of a happy uncomplicated place. She looked across at Mrs Parr, in the passenger seat of the hired car. Mrs Parr looked pale. Whether she had passed the night consuming further bottles of wine or was merely dreading the next confrontation with the Parr children, the hands with which she was trying to light a cigarette were shaking. Jemima felt once more extremely sorry for her and glad that she had come to Kildrum.

  They approached the lodge. It was surrounded by banks of dark green rhododendrons, growing unrestrained, which did nothing to cheer the surroundings. There was no other garden, only rough grass going down to the loch. The large windows of the lodge looked blank and unwelcoming. As Jemima drove slowly up the stony road, the front door opened and something white was glimpsed within. It was eerily quiet once the car’s engine had stopped. Then the door opened further and the flash of white proved to be a girl wearing jeans and a blue jersey. She had extremely fair, almost lint-white hair, plaited. For a girl of eight she was quite well-built, even stocky.

  ‘Tamsin,’ said Mrs Parr. She pronounced the name as though for Jemima’s benefit; but it was once again disquieting that she made no move towards the child. The interior of the house, like the glen itself and the mountains, was dark. Most of the paintwork was brown and the chintz curtains were patterned in a depressing brown and green. Nevertheless, some energy had obviously been spent recently in making it cosy. There were cheerful traces of childish occupation, books, a bright red anorak, shiny blue gumboots. Pot plants and an arrangement of leaves bore witness to the presence of a domestic spirit in the house – once upon a time.

  In the large kitchen at the back of the house where Jemima insisted on repairing for coffee there was also an unmistakable trace of modem civilisation in the shape of a television set. There was a telephone too – but that was black and ancient-looking. Tamsin went with them, still silent. In the kitchen they were immediately joined by Tara, equally silent, equally blonde.

  The two sisters stared warily at the women before them as if they were intruders. Which in a sense, thought Jemima, we are. Her eyes caught and held by the two striking flaxen heads, she recalled Mrs Parr’s words concerning Zillah’s nephew and niece: ‘Quite fair too then, but not as fair as Zillah and not as fair as my children …’ Could children actually become fairer as the years went by? Impossible. No one became fairer with time except out of a bottle. Even these children’s hair was darkening slightly at the roots. Jemima felt that she had a first very positive clue that the Parr children were exactly what they purported to be. She was so relieved that a feeling of bonhomie seized her. She smiled warmly at the children and extended her hand.

  Tm Jemima Shore —’

  ‘Investigator!’ completed Tamsin triumphantly. And from her back she produced a large placard on which the cheering words: ‘Welcome Jemima Shaw Investogater’ were carefully inscribed in a variety o
f lurid pentel colours.

  ‘I did it,’ exclaimed Tara.

  ‘I did the spelling,’ said Tamsin proudly.

  Jemima decided it would be tactful to congratulate her on it. At least fame on the box granted you a kind of passport to instant friendship, whatever the circumstances. In the kitchen too was another figure prepared to be an instant friend: Mrs Elspeth Maxwell, caretaker of the lodge and since the death of Zillah, in loco parentis to the Parr children. Elspeth Maxwell, as Jemima quickly appreciated, was a woman of uncertain age but certain garrulity. Instinctively she summed people up as they would make good or bad subjects for an interview. Mrs Parr, madness and melodrama and all, would not in the end make good television. She was perhaps too obsessional at centre. But Elspeth Maxwell, under her flow of anecdote, might give you just that line or vital piece of information you needed to illuminate a whole topic. Jemima decided to cultivate her; whatever the cost in listening to a load of irrelevant gossip.

  As a matter of fact Elspeth Maxwell needed about as much cultivation as the rhododendrons growing wild outside the house. During the next few days, Jemima found that her great problem consisted in getting away from Elspeth Maxwell, occupying the kitchen, and into the children’s playroom. Mrs Parr spent most of the time in her bedroom. Her public excuse was that she wanted to let Jemima get on with her task, which had been described to Tamsin and Tara as investigation for a programme about children living in the Highlands. Privately she told Jemima that she wanted to keep clear of emotional involvement with the children ‘until I’m sure. One way or the other.’ Jemima thought there might be a third reason: that Mrs Parr wanted to consume at leisure her daily ration of cheap red wine. The pile of empty bottles on the rubbish dump behind the rhododendrons continued to grow and there was a smell of drink upstairs emanating from Mrs Parr’s bedroom. Whenever Mrs Parr chose to empty an ash-tray it was overflowing. On one occasion Jemima tried the door. It was locked. After a moment Mrs Parr called out in a muffled voice:

  ‘Go away. I’m resting.’

  It was conclusive evidence of Mrs Parr’s addiction that no drink was visible in the rest of the house. Jemima was never offered anything alcoholic, nor was any reference made to the subject. In her experience of alcoholics, that was far more damning than the sight of a rapidly diminishing sherry bottle in the sitting-room.

  Elspeth on the subject of the children was interminable: ‘Ach, the poor wee things! Terrible for them, now, wasn’t it? Their mother drowned before their very eyes. What a tragedy. Here in Kildrum.’

  ‘Step-mother,’ corrected Jemima. Elspeth swept on. But the tale was indeed a tragic one, whichever way you looked at it.

  ‘A fearful accident indeed. Though there’s other people been drowned in the loch, you know, it’s the weeds, those weeds pull you down, right to the bottom. And it’s one of the deepest lochs in the Highlands, deeper than Loch Ness, nearly as deep as Loch Morar, did you know that, Miss Shore? Then their father not so long dead, I believe, and this lady coming, their real mother, all on top of it. Then you, so famous, from television …’

  The trouble was that, for all her verbiage, Elspeth Maxwell could not really tell Jemima anything much about Zillah herself, still less about her relationship with Tamsin and Tara. It was Elspeth who had had the task of sorting out Zillah’s effects and putting them into suitcases, still lying upstairs while some sort of decision was reached as to what to do with them. These Jemima made a mental note to examine as soon as possible. Otherwise Elspeth had seen absolutely nothing of Zillah during her sojourn at Kildrum Lodge.

  ‘She wanted no help, she told the Estate Office. She could perfectly well take care of the lodge, she said, and the children. She was used to it. And the cooking. She wanted peace and quiet, she said, and to fish and walk and swim and go out in the boat – ’ Elspeth stopped. ‘Ah well, poor lady. But she certainly kept herself very close, herself and the children. No one knew her in Kildrum. Polite, mind you, a very polite lady, they said at the Estate Office, wrote very polite letters and notes. But very close.’

  And the children? The verdict was more or less the same. Yes, they had certainly seemed very fond of Zillah whenever glimpsed in Kildrum. But generally shy, reserved. And once again polite. Elspeth could only recall one conversation of any moment before Zillah’s death out of a series of little interchanges and that was when Tamsin, in Kildrum Post Office, referred to the impending arrival of Mrs Parr. Elspeth, out of motherly sympathy for their apparent loneliness, had invited Tamsin and Tara to tea with her in the village. Tamsin had refused:

  ‘A lady’s coming from London to see us. She says she’s our Mummy. But Tara and me think Zillah is our Mummy.’ It was, remarked Elspeth, an unusual burst of confidence from Tamsin, She had put it down to Tamsin’s distaste at the thought of the arrival of ‘the lady from London’ – while of course becoming madly curious about Tamsin’s family history. As a result of a ‘wee discussion’ of the subject in her own home, she had actually put two and two together and realised that these were the once famous Parr children. Elspeth, even in Kildrum, had naturally had strong views on that subject. How she would now have adored some contact with the household at Kildrum Lodge! But that was politely but steadfastly denied her. Until Zillah’s death, ironically enough, brought to Elspeth exactly that involvement she had so long desired.

  ‘I did think: mebbe she has something to hide, and my brother-in-law, Johnnie Maxwell, the ghillie, he thought mebbe the same. Keeping herself so much to herself. But all along, I dare say it was just the fear of the other mother, that one,’ Elspeth rolled her eyes to the ceiling where Mrs Parr might be supposed to lie ‘resting’ in her bedroom. ‘Fear of her finding the children. Ah well, it’s difficult to judge her altogether wrong. If you know what I mean. The dreadful case. All that publicity.’

  But Elspeth looked as if she would readily re-hash every detail of the case of the Parr children, despite the publicity, for Jemima’s benefit.

  None of this was particularly helpful. Nor did inspection of Zillah’s personal belongings, neatly sorted by Elspeth, bring any reward. It was not that Jemima expected to find a signed confession: ‘Tamsin and Tara are imposters. They are the children of my sister …’ Indeed, she was coming more and more to the conclusion that Mrs Parr’s mad suspicions were the product of a mind disordered by alcohol. But Jemima did hope to provide herself with some kind of additional picture of the dead woman, other than the malevolent reports of the first Mrs Parr, and the secondhand gossip of Elspeth Maxwell. All she discovered was that Zillah, like Jemima herself, had an inordinate fondness for the colour beige, presumably for the same reason, to complement her fair colouring; and like a good many other English women, but unlike Jemima, bought her underclothes at Marks & Spencer’s (Jemima patronised Janet Reger). Jemima did not like to speculate where and when Mrs Parr might have last bought her underclothes.

  There were various photographs of Tamsin and Tara but none pre-dating Scotland. There were also some photographs of Zillah’s sister Kitty; she did look vaguely like Mrs Parr, Jemima noticed, but no more than that; their features were different; it was a question of physical type rather than strict resemblance. There were no photographs of Kitty’s children. Was that sinister? Conceivably. Or maybe she had merely lost touch with them. Was it also sinister that Zillah had not preserved photographs of Tamsin and Tara in Sussex? Once again: conceivably. On the other hand Zillah might have packed away all her Sussex mementoes (there were no photographs of Mr Parr either). Perhaps she came into that category of grief- stricken person who prefers not to be reminded of the past.

  From the Estate Office Jemima drew another blank. Major Maclachlan, who had had the unenviable task of identifying Zillah’s body, was polite enough, particularly at the thought of a television programme popularising his corner of the Highlands. But he added very little to the public portrait of a woman whose chief characteristic was her reserve and determination to guard her privacy – her own and that of the children. He
r love of country sports, especially fishing, had however impressed him: Major Maclachlan clearly found it unjust that someone with such admirable tastes should have perished as a result of them.

  Only Johnnie Maxwell, Elspeth’s brother-in-law who was in charge of fishing on the loch, contributed anything at all to her enquiries. For it was Johnnie Maxwell who had been the principal witness at the inquest, having watched the whole drowning from the bank of the loch. To the newspaper account of the tragedy, which Jemima had read, he added some ghoulish details of the pathetic cries of the ‘wee girl’, unable to save Zillah. The children had believed themselves alone on the loch. In vain Johnnie had called to them to throw in the oar. Tamsin had merely screamed and screamed, oar in hand, Tara had sat quite still and silent, as though dumbstruck in horror. In their distress they did not seem to understand, or perhaps they could not hear him.

  Altogether it was a most unfortunate, if not unparalleled accident. One moment Zillah was casting confidently (‘Aye, she was a grand fisherwoman, the poor lady, more’s the pity’). The next moment she had overbalanced and fallen in the water. There was no one else in the boat except the two children, and no one else to be seen on the shores of the loch except Johnnie. By the time he got his own boat to the children, Zillah had completely vanished and Tamsin was in hysterics, Tara quite mute. Helpers came up from the Estate. They did not find the body till the next morning, when it surfaced in the thick reeds at the shore. There were some bruises on it, but nothing that could not be explained by a fall from the boat and prolonged immersion.

  That left the children. Jemima felt she owed it to Mrs Parr to cross-examine them a little on their background. Confident that she would turn up nothing to their disadvantage, she could at least reassure Mrs Parr thoroughly as a result. After that she trusted that her eccentric new contact would settle into normal family life or the nearest approximation to it she could manage. Yes, the gentle, efficient cross-examination of Tamsin and Tara would be her final task and then Jemima Shore, Investigator, would depart for London, having closed the case of the Parr children once and for all.