by Mark McCrum
Scarlett said nothing; but her face, tense and pale, spoke volumes.
‘Then what happened? Within two years you’d agreed to an open marriage. Was that really as consensual a decision as you made it out to be? In the frankly unlikely little sketch you gave me earlier …’
‘Of course it was consensual,’ said Scarlett angrily.
‘You were initially jealous,’ Francis continued, ‘when you realised things had got far too serious with Anna Copeland. But you didn’t chuck Bryce out, did you? You couldn’t. Not being married, you had no leverage. The new house was in his name and so was this place. It was best just to let things roll along. The Anna thing would end one day, because he was never going to leave his beloved girls, was he? At least while he thought they were his. You knew him well enough to know that he was never going to give Anna the baby she wanted either, that that was just another of his famous promises.
‘And then, suddenly, three months ago, along came Priya. To blow the whole thing apart. What had happened to your feckless philanderer? He seemed reformed, smitten, serious. About an obviously very determined young woman who could easily give him another family.
‘Now you really had to fight. To cling on to what you could. Hampstead, this cottage, the money. You suddenly realised how few rights you had. Could you bear the thought of Priya, next year not just at the White Hart but out here too, in this place you loved so much? Sitting in this chair, with this window, this view. Pregnant perhaps with another little creature for Bryce to fall for. This time truly his. I don’t think you could.’
Scarlett looked defeated. On the beautiful old clock on the mantelpiece Francis could hear the seconds ticking by. ‘How do you know all this?’ she asked.
‘Looking at those albums helped me a lot,’ he said. ‘But don’t forget also, in this tight little world you exist in, your business is rarely your own. There are others out there who’ve been keeping a close eye on what’s going on.’
‘Who precisely are you talking about?’
‘I think I should keep my sources to myself.’
‘Virginia – blinking – Westcott?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’ For a would-be detective, Francis had a hopeless poker face.
‘That interfering bitch! Of course it’s her. Who else round here knows that my father was a rural dean. That Bryce always wanted to be an enfant terrible. God! She’s just unable to leave him alone, isn’t she? I suppose if you’ve heard it all from her there’s no point denying it. I’m amazed, though, that she knew about the twins. I thought that was one thing Dan and I had managed to keep to ourselves …’
Francis looked down at the table. For a moment his eye fixed on the empty cafetière, with its dark sludge of coffee grounds below the curving spring of the plunger. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I did get quite a lot of this story from Virginia. But she didn’t tell me about the twins.’
‘Who then?’ Scarlett paused. ‘Not Dan?’
‘I worked that bit out for myself,’ Francis said. ‘Perhaps it was because when I drove out here the other afternoon I’d come straight from Dan, and there they were again, those same intense, questioning, alive brown eyes …’
‘I see,’ said Scarlett. Then: ‘So you don’t think Virginia knows?’
‘She didn’t say anything to me about it. And she was in a very confiding mood.’
‘Come on, it can’t just have been some vague resemblance of eyes. What else put you onto this?’
Francis explained about Fleur’s video, about his interview with Terry – They’re not yours. ‘Suddenly it all clicked into place. I knew Dan was pretty furious about Bryce’s attack, but maybe he’d been goaded more than any of us realised.’
‘I still don’t see why he would have told him about the girls though.’
‘He’d been kicked, publicly, where it hurt and he had to get him back. He was drunk, and very, very angry. He went nuclear.’
There was silence in the room. As the clock ticked on, Scarlett seemed to be thinking it all through. ‘Funnily enough,’ she said, eventually, ‘Dan used to look up to Bryce. Then, as you surmised, he had his success and all that changed. I found it sad. Two clever men, with a great friendship, spoilt by a silly competitiveness. We’ve only got one life, haven’t we?’
Or no life at all, thought Francis. ‘You don’t think Dan could have taken it further?’ he asked.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘That night.’
‘What? Followed Bryce back to the White Hart and done him in? I really don’t.’
‘I agree with you. I think what we have there is the explanation of the bruise on Bryce’s cheek, but nothing more. So who was it? Who really did have the motivation to kill him? Not you, I hope.’
‘I thought you might be coming to this. As you’ve worked out so cleverly, I did have every reason. I was scared of what Priya might do; she’d got her claws so heavily into him. I’ve been a fool, letting us drift on as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” all these years. If it had come to a fight, I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold onto this place. And now he’s dead – unless he’s changed his will, which I’m ninety-five per cent sure he hasn’t – this is mine, as is Hampstead and the Bloomsbury flat. So I appreciate it doesn’t look good for me. But you have to believe me, it’s not really my style to go round murdering people.’
‘Why do I have to believe you?’
‘What about that poor journalist girl? How did I get to her? When I was speaking to you. Have you got an answer to that?’
‘I didn’t get out here till five thirty. She was alone at Wyveridge from just after four o’clock. It’s a fifteen-minute drive from here to there.’
‘But Nurjan had the car. It’s a bit more than a fifteen-minute walk, I think.’
‘Your au pair turned up right at the end of our interview. You told me she’d been shopping in town. I didn’t notice her carrying any bags when she got out.’
‘Oh come on! They were in the car.’ Scarlett chuckled dismissively. ‘If you really want to think I’ve got something to do with this, what can I say? You have absolutely no evidence. So if you’re done, I shall wish you goodbye. I have my packing to finish.’
‘Are you off to London tonight?’
‘As it happens, we’re not. I always like to go first thing, when the roads are empty and the girls are half-asleep.’
‘The police don’t mind you going?’
‘PC Patricia told me I was free to leave whenever.’
Francis shifted from foot to foot. ‘May I quickly use your loo before I head off?’
‘If you must. There’s one on this floor at the far end. Or just up the stairs here. Second door on the left.’
Francis had been hoping she would say that. Once upstairs, he paced on down the corridor and into what was clearly the master bedroom. There was a king-sized bed, covered in a white waffle pattern eiderdown; beyond was the en suite bathroom. Francis hadn’t dared to even imagine such a result, but there they were, on the top shelf of the mirrored cupboard, right above the sink: two packets of Zimovane, one half used.
Francis pulled out his mobile and took a quick photo; then a second, wider shot to establish where the cupboard was. Hadn’t PC Patricia seen them? If she had, why were they not already in a plastic police evidence bag? Or had she not been briefed at that point on the Zimovane element? TIE, pah.
By the bed was a white phone. Francis picked it up quickly and dialled his own mobile, waited for the first buzz, then put it down. Heading back, he nipped into the other upstairs toilet and pulled the flush.
‘One last question,’ he asked, as Scarlett showed him out of the front door. ‘When he was with you, did Bryce ever need to use sleeping pills?’
She gave him a very measured look. ‘Funnily enough,’ she said, ‘PC Patricia asked me that too. No, for your information Bryce always slept like a log. I’ve had a few problems with insomnia myself, especially recently. But Bryce was infuriating in that
way. Head on the pillow and he’d be gone.’
THIRTY-THREE
Francis was in luck. As befitted an author who regularly expressed contempt for the parochialism of the literary world, Dan Dickson was still in the Green Room an hour after his event, reading The Bookseller as he picked at a piece of carrot cake and sipped a mug of tea. The place was otherwise deserted.
Francis walked over. ‘Hi Dan.’
The great sculpted head turned. ‘Hi mate. You still around? I’ve just done my last gig. I was sitting here wondering whether to head to Dewkesbury station for the train back to the Smoke or have one last exotic night in the sticks.’
‘You didn’t drive down?’
‘Never learnt, mate. Scares me, all those people racing around in metal boxes, separated only by a painted white line. I feel safer on the rails.’
‘D’you mind if I join you for a moment?’
‘Help yourself.’ Dan gestured to the chair opposite and gave Francis the benefit of his toothy smile. ‘Terrifying magazine, this. But good for us authors to read every now and then. Just so we understand our true status. Which is, these days, somewhere between a bar of soap and a factory-farmed chicken. You still on the sleuth?’
‘A few more bits of the jigsaw to get into place. With which in mind, I wanted to ask you about your taxi ride into Mold on Saturday night.’
‘My taxi ride into Mold?’ Dan looked as if he were struggling to remember something entirely forgettable. His acting wasn’t that good.
‘With Bryce …’
Dan laughed. ‘What on earth made you think I was with Bryce?’
‘You were filmed getting into a taxi together outside Wyveridge Hall.’
‘Filmed?’
‘By one of the young people in Ranjit’s house party.’
Dan’s laugh was throaty in its scorn. ‘You can’t do anything these days, can you? It’s not just CCTV, is it? Even way out in the country, at a private function, Big Brother is watching.’
‘Little Sister in this case.’
Dan’s face shifted a register. ‘Not that poor girl?’
‘Her friend.’
Dan was shaking his head. ‘As I recall, I was already in the taxi, about to leave, when Bryce crashed in demanding a free lift.’
‘That’s not how the driver remembered it.’
‘You’ve spoken to him too?’
‘Terry Jenkins of Ace Taxis of Mold. Told me that by the time you got into town you were pretty much at each other’s throats. He had to put you out on the bridge.’
For all of five seconds Dan said nothing, his mouth hanging open. Then the smile returned. ‘You have done your homework.’
‘Might I ask what you were arguing about?’
‘This and that. I should never have let him in. Bryce always had this terrible problem with me. Ever since I became even vaguely successful he was like a dog with a bone. Once he started slagging me off he couldn’t stop. Which was slightly galling on Saturday, considering that it was me who should have had an apology from him.’
‘For his review?’
‘Of course.’
‘And that provoked you enough to want to fight him?’
‘Were we actually fighting? I think your taxi driver mate might have been exaggerating.’
‘Apparently you got so angry you told Bryce you were the father of his children.’
For a moment, Dan looked as if he’d been punched in the face. Then he burst out laughing. ‘This cabbie told you that? Fascinating though the idea is, I’m afraid he misheard.’
‘There’s no point denying it. I’ve already spoken to Scarlett and she’s confessed all. What I need to know now is exactly what you told Bryce on Saturday night.’
As Dan stared down at his heavy black boots, there was a distant rumble of thunder, away across the valley. He looked slowly up and met Francis’s eye. ‘Scarlett told you … what … exactly?’ he asked.
‘Your affair, Tilly Bardwell, the works.’
‘OK, OK.’ Dan held up his hands. ‘Maybe I did say something to Bryce along those lines. I was a little tipsy. And yes, still furious with him about that frigging write-up. Otherworld is my best book yet. By far. How dare he slag me off like that. And then come barging in, quite deliberately, on my talk. Perhaps I did lose it a bit. I should never have told him about the twins. That was stupid. Nobody else knows, except Scarlett. I’m amazed she said anything.’
‘I kind of forced it out of her.’
‘But how did you know?’
‘I guessed. It fitted everything else. And I’m afraid they’ve inherited your eyes.’
Dan looked simultaneously proud and sad. ‘They have, haven’t they?’
‘May I ask. Why didn’t you take them on? Become their father openly?’
‘None of your fucking business.’ They sat in silence for what seemed to Francis like five minutes, but was probably only one. ‘I did consider it,’ Dickson said eventually. ‘But it wouldn’t have worked. Scarlett and I had already split up when I got her pregnant.’
‘How did you manage that then?’
Dickson laughed. ‘Cheeky bastard, aren’t you. You know the kind of thing. We’d parted, then we met up for one last shag and Sod’s law she got up the duff.’
‘So how did you know they were yours? If she was seeing Bryce too?’
‘He was away that month. In Australia. Opining about international fiction at the Adelaide Festival. That’s why we got together again. While the cat was away. To be honest, it wasn’t just the once. No, I was never in any doubt the girls were mine.’
‘And why wouldn’t your relationship have worked?’
‘How long have you got? We turned each other on mightily but,’ he yawned, as if exhausted by the very memory, ‘she’s very controlling, is Scarlett. Didn’t want me doing this, didn’t want me doing that. Even though she herself was cheating on Bryce, she used to get insanely jealous about any other birds I hung out with. So I knew, long term, it wasn’t a runner. I actually, for my sins, wanted an abortion. Thought it would be cleaner. But she wouldn’t countenance that, bless her. And when we discovered it was twins I was glad she’d persuaded me out of it. Ridiculous. Why should two dead foetuses be worse than one? Anyway, we came to an agreement. We’d stop seeing each other. She’d tell Bryce they were his. The whole thing would remain our secret and I’d give up all rights as a father.’
‘And how did that work out in practice?’
‘Not very well. You got kids?’
‘No.’
‘Put it this way, it’s not been an easy secret to keep. I’ve thought about telling Bryce many times before. So we could at least work out some sort of arrangement. Whereby it was at least acknowledged. And I could see them properly from time to time. But whenever I talked to Scarlett about it, I came up against the same brick wall. My sacred promise. And our pact.’
‘But on Saturday you cracked?’
‘I guess I did. Perhaps because he’d been such an arsehole, earlier, and I wanted to get him where it hurt. Perhaps I just didn’t want him swanning around thinking he was their dad any more. I saw them, you see, on Friday. Scarlett brought them in for that Michael Rosen event. They’re so sweet and sophisticated now.’
‘Do they know who you are?’
‘I’m a friend of Mummy’s. Uncle Dan. Who often seems to be at the zoo when they’re visiting. They asked me once if I worked at the zoo.’
‘What happened when you told Bryce?’
‘He didn’t believe me at first. Then I gave him dates and details. Spelt it out for him. So he got it.’
‘And he had you by the throat?’
‘When we got out of the cab, yes. But then, once we’d traded a couple of blows, the whole thing seemed ridiculous. We’re writers, not fighters. There we were, on the bridge, the river rushing by below, the full moon coming up over the trees. Suddenly he burst into tears. I ended up consoling him.’
‘Then he went back to the White Hart?’
‘Covered in bruises?’
‘Nothing too serious. I clipped him on the cheek, I think.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Just after ten. I remember, because I offered to take the poor bastard for a drink. I thought the pubs might be closed, then I looked at my watch and was surprised how early it was.’
‘He wasn’t interested?’
‘He said he wanted to be alone. He was tired.’
‘When did you hear he was dead?’
‘When I came down to breakfast. You were there, I think.’
‘I was. You were in the company of a tall blonde.’
‘My editor, Rachel Lightfoot. I’m not shagging her, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘You didn’t hear the commotion in the small hours?’
‘I’m a heavy sleeper. Apparently the fire alarm went off and all sorts.’
‘So when you found out … about Bryce … what did you think?’
‘I had to hope it had nothing to do with what had happened between us.’