“That’s right, poppet. You behave yourself, and you can take the bottle of digitalin away with you on Sunday. And by the way, if Charles shows any signs of weakening before then, you might remind him that we’ve got enough on him already to send him to jail for a long time. You saw for yourself how he’s been fiddling money out of his boss.”
I shook my head. She had a fine instinct, had Bianca. She knew that the affair of the cheque had upset me. Luckily I had the sense not to discuss it with her.
“Early morning tea at half past eight,” she ordered. “And for God’s sake don’t make too much noise pulling back the curtains when you bring it in.”
I woke at seven, dressed rapidly, and after listening at all the bedroom doors to see if anyone else was awake, I went downstairs to phone Charles.
He was inclined to curse me for ringing so early. He said he’d been up till two rewriting J.B.’s speech, and that J.B. had got him out of bed again at four, because he’d had an attack of cramp.
“For heaven’s sake — hasn’t he got lots of servants...?”
“He was jittery with nerves and wanted reassurance,” yawned Charles. “He’s not looking forward to Sunday any more than I am.”
“You told him — ”
“Everything. Yes. You should have been privileged to listen in to Julian’s phone call; it made me want to throw up. Hell, I’m still seeing Japanese Yen... you see, he’d made this point in his speech about investments in... Well, you wouldn’t understand it, Sue, but I thought he’d got it wrong, and we had an argument about it. I should have let him carry his point, then I wouldn’t have had to rewrite his speech, and I would have got an unbroken night’s sleep for once...”
“You asked me to ring you,” I said, trying not to laugh. “Now wake up, Charles! What is it you want?”
He cut himself off in the middle of another yawn. “The phone! That’s it! Thanks for reminding me. Now look — do you know anything about phones and how they work?”
“Don’t be daft!”
“Well this is what I want you to do...” He gave me precise instructions and made me repeat them.
“And that’s all you want me to do?” I asked, disappointed. “But I don’t see how that will help...”
“It will. There’s just one other thing you might be able to do, and that’s find out where Bianca keeps her business papers; cheque book, bank statements, bills and so on. I should imagine they’re somewhere in her sitting-room, and knowing her, that they’re kept locked up. Maybe a safe? Could you take a quick look round, if you have a chance...?”
“And then ring you back?”
“No. We’re off in an hour, and won’t be back till after midnight, I dare say. Maybe someone will contact you...”
“But they can’t, if I put the phone out of order.”
“Yes, well...” There was a confusion of noises in the background at his end of the phone, and then he came back to me. “Just my breakfast arriving, and J.B. wanting to know who the hell I’m talking to at this hour of the morning. Look, could you sneak out to meet me early tomorrow morning, before breakfast? There’s something I’ve got to ask you, and... I’ll be at the end of the drive from half six on.”
“I’ll try.”
The phone went dead. I didn’t replace the receiver, but put it down on the table while I sought for a screwdriver. The kitchen drawer was well supplied. I unscrewed the casing of the telephone, depressed a wire with the screwdriver so as to break contact, and replaced the casing. I tested the phone and found it completely dead.
That worried me. I’d been asked to stop the phone ringing, but not told to break the connection entirely. I hesitated, not knowing what to do about it. I argued it was better to have the phone not working at all, than to put it to rights. Besides, I didn’t know what it was I’d done wrong, and I wasn’t sure I could repair the damage, even if I wanted to do so. I went to prepare breakfast.
Julian drifted downstairs at half-past nine, declaring he had a headache and couldn’t possibly go into the office. Anyway, it was a Saturday, and he had never seen the point of working on a Saturday. I mixed him some salts.
Bianca didn’t need salts. She must have acquired quite some tolerance to whisky, for she didn’t even have a hangover when she got up. She went over the menus for the weekend with me, and made out a shopping list of the things I would need. I asked her to fetch my knitting from my flat as well, if she’d time.
“You’ve lost a little weight,” she said, eyeing me. “But you’re still no glamour piece. Charles won’t stick to you, you know.”
“Charles isn’t interested in glamour,” I said, and then knew I’d have done better to have maintained a discreet silence. I could feel violence in the room. Her fingers curled and uncurled, touched her throat, the buttons on her dress, a kitchen knife that lay nearby. Her tongue flicked over her lips. Her eyes never left me. I shivered and couldn’t think of anything to say. I could feel that she wanted to hurt me, physically.
The door-bell rang. She didn’t move.
“Shall I go?” I asked, stiff-tongued. “It might be the telegram you were expecting.”
She lowered her eyes and nodded dismissal. It was an effort for me to hold my back straight as I went to the front door.
It was a telegram. I handed it to her. She ripped it open and read it aloud. It confirmed that J.B. and Charles would arrive at noon on Sunday for lunch. It had been sent by Charles.
“What is it?” asked Julian, hand to head. Bianca passed the telegram to him, and told him to go out for a walk to clear his head.
“It doesn’t say he’s actually switched the Wills around,” objected Julian.
“How could he put that in a telegram?” asked Bianca, and for once I sympathised with her.
“The phone must still be out of order,” said Julian, testing it. “Oh, hell.”
“A nice job for you,” said his wife. “Just about up to your weight. You can go to the corner phone box and report it out of order.”
“But Charles said he reported it yesterday, and it must be a good mile...”
“...and don’t take the car. The walk will do you good.”
I thought he’d object, but he didn’t. That little exchange convinced me, as nothing else might have done, that Bianca wore the trousers in the Brenner household. Perhaps J.B. had been right in thinking that if he could only work on Julian, the plot against his life would collapse, but I didn’t think he’d have much chance to separate them. Bianca knew on which side her bread was buttered, and Julian seemed obsessed — no, fascinated — by his wife.
He put on his overcoat, and went out. I returned to the kitchen, hoping that Bianca would not follow me. Then the door-bell rang again. I set the kitchen door ajar, to see who it was.
“...it’s really too bad,” Bianca was saying to someone at the front door. “The fault was reported yesterday and you did nothing whatsoever about it...”
A man’s voice mumbled something.
“I daresay!” said Bianca tartly. “But what’s it to me if your van has broken down and half the telephone engineers are off sick? We pay our rental and expect an efficient service.” She raised her voice. “Sue! Come here!”
I took the grin off my face and went through. A middling-sized man in overalls too big for him stood in the doorway, holding a heavy bag of tools in one limp hand and blowing his nose with the other. His eyes were red, gingery hair stuck out in untidy clumps from under a floppy woollen cap, and he was a most unhealthy shade of greenish-white.
My first reaction was that Bianca might have been less hard on a man who ought to be in bed rather than attending to faulty phones. My second was to wonder how I was to explain to him about the damage I’d done to the phone.
“Sue!” said Bianca. “This man has come about the phones. Don’t let him stay here by himself and see he doesn’t take anything away with him when he leaves.”
The engineer looked understandably depressed. He drifted across to the phone, a
nd set down his bag.
“Very well, Mrs. Brenner,” I said, in best parlour maid fashion, I could feel a giggle start at the back of my throat. The telephone engineer ought to have disguised his hands in mittens; they were too clean by half, square-cut and strong-looking. I watched him take the casing off the phone while Bianca checked she had everything she needed for her shopping trip. I had studied Charles’ hands often. This man was smaller and older than Charles, but he’d been bred in the same stable, and the wig and make-up he wore hardly concealed a scar slashing across one eyebrow. How blind Bianca must be not to see how beautifully controlled was his every movement! This was no pit-pony, but a finely-trained racehorse.
He coughed dismally and managed a sniff as Bianca let herself out of the house. He didn’t seem disturbed by the damage I’d done to the telephone. Bianca’s car snorted off down the drive.
“Coffee, David?” I asked.
Five
“Never take an unnecessary risk, Sue,” said David Ashton. “Suppose Bianca had forgotten something and come back to the house for it? Or Julian had wandered in and heard you call me David? Now where’s her papers?”
“Talk of unnecessary risks!” I said indignantly. “What about you? What happens if Julian does walk in and find you burgling Bianca’s desk?”
“In her desk, are they?” He took his bag and went off into Bianca’s sitting-room. I hadn’t had much time to look around between my spells in the kitchen, but it hadn’t taken me long to find that one of the deep drawers of Bianca’s desk had been lined with a metal container. The top opened upwards, in two halves, but was secured by a lock for which there was no trace of the key.
“Watch the door for me,” said David, fishing some probes from his bag. “I need about half an hour clear in this room, without interruption.”
“Suppose Julian comes back? He’s only gone for a short walk.”
“Then you’ll tell him that the telephone engineer is tracing a wiring fault on the extension phone in here.”
“But if he recognises you...”
“Not got up like this, he won’t. We’ve not met for years, and anyway the Brenners of this world don’t study the faces of their social inferiors. Now get out and make me that coffee you were talking about, will you?”
I made the coffee. When I took him in a mug, he had the box open and was replacing the bulb in the desk lamp with one of a stronger calibre. I opened my mouth to protest and closed it again. David Ashton knew exactly what he was doing. While I hovered in the doorway, he took photographs of certain papers which he’d selected from the drawer. Only when he’d finished and was locking them away again did I notice that he was now wearing cotton gloves.
“Tell me,” I said, “Will you be present at the festive lunch tomorrow?”
“Of course not. I’m at present in bed with flu in Belfast, and likely to stay there for at least another day, or so Inge tells me. I think she’ll probably have to call the doctor in tomorrow to check that I’m not going to die on her. I shall drop these negatives into Whitestones, change at Green Gables, and be on the next plane back to Belfast.” He replaced the ordinary bulb in the lamp and tidied the desk, checking that he’d left everything as he’d found it. “It’s worth a little risk. Oh, by the way, Sue — Charles is looking very fine drawn. He can take a lot of pressure, but dealing with J.B. on top of everything else seems to me to be asking for it. Take him away for a holiday when this is finished, will you?”
“Everyone seems to have elected me Charles’ keeper — except Charles himself. If he does want to marry me, then he might make an effort and put it into words!”
The front door clicked open, and Julian strode in, calling for his wife. David’s carriage reduced to a slouch as he bent for his bag and I hastened to distract the master of the house.
“Telephone engineer,” I explained. “Checking on that fault. Can I get you anything — some coffee?”
“Oh — perhaps.” He made as if to follow me to the kitchen, but stopped to pick up a newspaper. He unfolded it, intent on something.
“Aspirins for your headache?” I asked brightly. “Did you take some?”
David crept out of Bianca’s room and made his way behind Julian’s back to the disembowelled telephone by the door. Julian gave him half a glance and returned to his paper.
“I don’t think so,” he said absently. “Just bring the coffee here, there’s a good girl.”
“I don’t like to think of you not taking aspirins if you’ve still got a headache,” I said, closing in on him, and trying to look worried. I expect I succeeded, for I really was worried. David screwed the casing back on to the telephone and tested it. Judging by the rigid set of his shoulders and the way he set to dismantling it once more, the phone was still dead. I cursed myself yet again for my ham-handedness.
“You’re an odd girl, aren’t you?” said Julian, a little amused. “I couldn’t think what Charles saw in you at first, but I suppose some men like to be waited on hand and foot. Then again, if you’re as sensible as you look, you’ll pretend to be short-sighted if you spot lipstick on his handkerchief, or suspect he’s been working late rather more than is necessary.”
“I don’t think he’s like that.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Your devotion may soothe his pride for the moment, but I daresay he’ll be sniffing at Bianca’s heels again within a month.”
“Do you really believe that?” I had almost forgotten David, working away in the background. I held Julian’s eye with mine until his eyelids flickered and he looked away. No, he didn’t really believe it.
“Coffee!” he said, to change the subject. He picked up his paper, sat down, and held it as a barrier between us. David tested the phone, and found it in working order. He gave me a thumbs-up sign, and made for the door.
“I’ll just let the telephone engineer out,” I said to Julian’s paper. He rustled it, but didn’t reply. I wanted to ask David if his hair was really that bright ginger, but didn’t dare. He mounted an old bicycle and wobbled off down the drive. Bianca didn’t get back for another hour, but I was happy to see that she’d brought my knitting. With luck, I might be able to finish the back of Charles’ sweater that day.
*
I stole down the drive at six the next morning. It was still dark and sticky underfoot from rain which had fallen in the night. I clutched a Thermos of hot coffee and a packet of bacon sandwiches, and amused myself with romantic dreams of the way in which Charles would propose to me. I ought to have known better.
He’d parked under some trees near the road. He was huddled down in the driving seat, fast asleep, his driving glasses slightly askew on his nose and his hair ruffled. He woke as I relieved him of his glasses and the flask.
“A fine thing!” I scolded. “How many more times am I going to come across you at the side of the road, dead to the world?”
“You’re all right?” He smiled at me with some difficulty. I was shocked at his appearance, for he looked quite gaunt. He folded me in his arms, Thermos and all, and hid his face in my hair. His fingers quartered my face, to make sure everything was still in its right place.
“You’re not to go back. I’ll take you to Green Gables, and Mother will look after you.”
“Nonsense. Have a sandwich and some coffee and you’ll feel better. You know perfectly well that I’ve got to go back, or they’ll get suspicious.”
He engulfed one sandwich and reached for another, showing signs of revival.
“Cupboard love!” I accused him.
He nodded. He hadn’t shaved, and was wearing a dinner jacket under his overcoat. It didn’t look to me as if he’d been to bed at all.
“Now what I wanted to ask you,” he said, obviously finding it difficult to concentrate, “is whether you want to move into Green Gables today, just for the time being. Mother says it would be best; she wants us both under her eye. I’m not in favour of it myself, but I promised I’d ask you.”
I might have know
n I wasn’t going to get a proper proposal of marriage.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea,” I said, trying to get it across that his mother and I were not likely to live together in harmony.
“Neither do I. Then that’s settled. I’ll tell Mrs. Green — that’s J.B.’s housekeeper, and she can stock up the larder for you. My flat at Whitestones is more than big enough for two. Now wait a minute! There was something... oh yes! The cooker is electric, and yours was gas, wasn’t it? But you can cope with it for a couple of days, can’t you — till I can get you fixed up with a gas cooker?”
He appeared to think that that disposed of all our problems. I opened my mouth to protest. I didn’t know where to begin. I hadn’t met J.B. yet, but I didn’t like what I’d heard about him, and I was sure I didn’t want to live in his pocket. Then again, I was damned if I was going to start married life in a furnished flat in someone else’s house! By the time I’d sorted out a mild objection, Charles had fallen asleep against me, a half-eaten sandwich clutched in his hand. I guessed he was running a temperature, for his forehead burned against my cheek. David had said Charles was looking fine-drawn, but I thought that was an understatement; to my mind, he looked ill. I cradled him in my arms and let him sleep. It was early yet, and there would be time enough to sort out plans for the future after lunch. I had intended to ask Charles a lot of questions, but I decided those must wait, too. I knocked my knee against his car radio, and silently cursed it. I wondered at Charles for having kept a gift from the Brenners, after what they’d done to him. A surprising choice for a gift, too.
He woke slowly, just before eight. My arm had gone to sleep, and I had cramp in one leg.
“Two hours sleep is not enough,” I suggested. “What’s J.B. been up to?”
“Nothing. We got back late, but neither of us felt like sleep. We played chess for a while, and there were one or two jobs I had to do... He started raking up the past, wondering if he’d acted differently in the past... whether it would have made any difference... he doesn’t want to believe his only son is capable of... But he wants to go through with it. He has to be sure one way or the other.”
Sue for Mercy Page 9