‘See what I mean?’ He looked at Faith, then slowly round at Amy. They saw. And they believed. Him, not me. ‘I’m sorry about this, Amy, honestly I am, but I think your father’s very sick.’
She nodded. ‘You need help, Dad.’
‘And we’ll give you help,’ said Faith. ‘If you’ll let us.’
‘Oh, I’ll let you. If you’ll help me find the truth.’
Nyman smiled softly. ‘I think you just heard the truth, Ian. You didn’t like the sound of it. But it was the truth.’
‘Bullshit. I’m not mad. Even though you’ve done your best to drive me mad. You’re not going to get at me that way.’
‘I’m not trying to get at you in any way.’
‘I’ll find out why you’re doing this. Daphne knows, doesn’t she? Eris let that much slip. And Eris doesn’t seem to realize Quisden-Neve’s dead.’
‘Who?’
‘Weak links, Conrad. Someone else in the know. And a murder you’d better hope I can’t pin on Niall. Because, if I can, I reckon he’ll happily implicate you. He doesn’t strike me as the loyal type.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t the first idea who or what you’re talking about.’
‘I’ll prove you’re behind it all.’
‘You won’t. It doesn’t exist. Except in your mind.’
‘I will prove it. And when I do …’
‘Yes? What then?’
‘I’ll make you pay for what you’ve done.’
‘Conrad would be within his rights to call the police, Ian,’ said Faith. ‘The way you’re behaving, I wouldn’t blame him if he did.’
‘Let him. I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Neither have I, Ian,’ said Nyman, sounding as sincere as ever. ‘But I’ve no wish to see you arrested in front of your daughter. Have you any idea what you’re doing to Amy? You’re not well. She’s doing her best to understand that. Don’t make it any harder for her. Please. For her sake.’
‘Her sake? Practising the role of stepfather already, Nyman? Well, let me tell you—’ I stopped and looked at Amy. She was crying. She was staring straight at me, with tears coursing down her cheeks.
Faith turned towards her, then glanced over her shoulder at me. ‘Get out of here, Ian.’ Her voice was low and husky. ‘Leave us alone.’ She let go of Nyman, walked over to Amy and led her slowly away to the courtside chair.
‘Easy,’ whispered Nyman. ‘You’re making it too easy.’
‘What?’ I rounded on him. He gazed blithely back at me. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing. I never said a word.’
‘You bastard. I’ll get you for this.’
‘You need help. You really do.’
I looked across at Faith and Amy. They’d turned away from me, hugging and consoling each other as best they could. Nyman was their friend now, while I was … some kind of shared tragedy in the making. And there wasn’t a single thing I could do that wouldn’t make it worse.
‘Well, Ian?’ Nyman murmured, knowing Faith and Amy were too far away to hear him, let alone detect the sarcastic edge to his words. ‘What are you going to do next?’
‘Go to hell,’ I muttered. Then I turned and walked off the court, heading for the path round to the front of the house. I needed to be alone, to make sense of what had happened and find a way to deal with it. Nyman was right. I was adding self-destruction to his brick-by-brick demolition of my life. For the moment, all I could do was stop.
I went back to London, driving more slowly now, my mind circling sluggishly round the invidiousness of my position. A defeatist weariness had swept over me. I couldn’t seem to think clearly. Nyman had been too clever for me. Why shouldn’t he go on being? Why should the downward spiral ever stop if I couldn’t even reason out why it had begun?
I parked the car somewhere off Ladbroke Grove and walked down to Notting Hill Gate through the mild spring sunshine, aware of the indifference of the city pressing in on me. Nobody cared about me. I hardly cared myself. Perhaps I was mad after all. Or perhaps this was how madness began.
Yet I still had one friend left. I might have forgotten him, but he hadn’t forgotten me. Tim Sadler was waiting on the doorstep when I reached the flat.
‘Faith called me from Sussex,’ he explained with a smile that somehow managed to convey sympathy for both of us. ‘She told me what happened.’
‘But not why, I’ll bet. Want to hear that part of the story?’
‘It’s why I came.’
‘Is it? Or did Faith ask you to assess my condition?’
‘Well, that too, since you mention it.’
‘And how would you describe my condition, Tim – in a word?’
He hesitated, pondering the point, then said, ‘Not good.’
‘That’s two words.’
‘Great.’ He summoned a cautious grin. ‘At least you can still count.’
Tim took a brief look inside the flat before insisting he drive me to his house for a rustled-together meal, over which I recounted the events that had engulfed me since our last meeting. I couldn’t tell whether he believed me, but he seemed to want to. And that was a start.
‘It’s a pity you destroyed Eris’s last tape,’ he mildly observed when I’d finished.
‘I was angry.’
‘No wonder. But the other tapes – where would they be?’
‘At Daphne’s practice. But she’s probably already wiped them.’
‘Which is why she’s gone to ground. Yes, I see. Give me her phone numbers and I’ll try them again now.’
‘It won’t do you any good.’
It didn’t. He could only raise an answering machine, at Daphne’s home and her office. ‘You don’t know where she lives?’
‘I’ve only ever had the phone number. The first time I met her was in Hampstead and the area code certainly puts her out that way. But she’s ex-directory, of course. As you’d expect.’
‘You think the Harley Street practice is a sham?’
‘No. I checked up on her. That side of things is kosher.’
‘So it is.’ He nodded. ‘I checked up on her myself.’
I blinked at him in surprise. ‘You checked?’
‘To make sure you were going to be in good hands. Faith wanted to be … reassured.’
Suspicion didn’t need much to take hold of me. ‘You’re not still reassuring her, are you, Tim? Will you be reporting back to her about what you’ve been able to learn by pretending to take my claims seriously?’
‘I’m not pretending. Faith thinks you’re mentally ill. There’s no point fudging it. That’s what she believes. But I don’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because your psychotherapist should be more actively concerned about you than she seems to be if you really are so very far gone. Because I don’t think you’re capable of murder, yet Quisden-Neve was murdered, presumably for some compelling reason. And, oh yes, because I don’t trust Conrad Nyman.’
‘You talk as if you know him.’
‘No. But I have met him. I took Amy to the cinema on Easter Monday. Least I could do considering how her father had let her down. Nyman was at the house when we got back, oozing charm from every pore. I wasn’t impressed. Of course, it wasn’t me he was trying to impress, but even so …’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s something about him. He’s too smooth, too good to be true. And Faith isn’t his type. So the question is, why’s he trying to convince her she is?’
‘To get at me.’
‘Maybe so. But why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There has to be a reason, Ian.’
‘Of course. But I’d never even heard of him until Nicole mentioned his name.’
‘Is that the connection, then – Nicole?’
‘Why should it be? It was all over between us years ago. And we were the only people it hurt.’
‘Not quite.’
‘Well, Faith, of course, but—’
‘I didn’t mean
Faith.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Who suffered the most in all that?’
‘The most? Well, I suppose it has to be—’ I broke off and stared at him, confused but already half-convinced. ‘You don’t mean …?’
‘The woman you killed.’
‘Yes, but for Christ’s sake—’
‘You killed her. That’s undeniable. Whether accidentally or not might make little difference to someone who loved her.’
‘Nyman?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘I saw her friends and relatives at the inquest. I don’t remember anyone like him. But then …’
‘What?’
‘I was doing my best to avoid eye contact with them.’
‘So Nyman could have been there.’
‘I suppose so. But … why wait five years? And why give me some long-dead proto-photographer to chase after? Why not just … run me down in his car … if revenge is what he wants?’
‘Who can say? But there’s a real similarity between what’s happened to you and what happened to Marian Esguard. As Byfield was to her, so Eris has been to you: a treacherous lover. And Marian was a photographer, remember. Just like you.’
‘Was she? I can’t help wondering if Nyman didn’t just make her up to torment me.’
‘No doubt you can’t help wondering. But you don’t believe it.’
I looked long and hard at him. ‘No. I don’t.’
‘It all means something.’ Tim stood up and walked to the window. ‘Of course, we should really be worried about what he may have planned for Faith and Amy.’
‘I already am. But all I’ve done so far is drive them into his waiting arms.’
‘If you could prove he knew the woman you killed …’
‘Her name was Isobel Courtney. She was thirty-six years old. Blond hair, cut short. I remember noticing, when they lifted her up on the stretcher to take her away, how very blond her hair was, once most of the blood had been washed out of it by the rain. The rain was one of the reasons I hit her. The windscreen was smeary. I should have stopped and cleaned it properly. I was thinking about Nicole and how good it had been with her. I was so bloody pleased with myself, accelerating down the road towards the railway bridge, not concentrating, not caring. And then …’ I shrugged. ‘Bang.’
‘I’ve never heard you say so much about it before.’ Tim was gazing at me from the window. ‘I suppose … Isobel Courtney … got overlooked amidst all the strife between you and Faith.’
‘Well, Faith was more interested in why I’d been to Barnet in the first place than whether I could have avoided the accident if I’d been quicker to react, that’s for sure.’
‘And could you have avoided it?’
‘Maybe. If I’d been just a bit more careful. Who knows?’
‘But it was still an accident.’
‘I certainly didn’t mean to kill her. I was under the limit, the drink limit anyway. As for speed, there were no witnesses to contradict what I said.’
‘Was it true?’
‘No. I deliberately underestimated my speed. Who wouldn’t in the circumstances? The police couldn’t make out a case against me. You could hardly expect me to make it out for them.’
‘But Isobel Courtney’s nearest and dearest?’
‘I don’t know. None of them spoke to me at the inquest. I didn’t go to the funeral. I’ve no idea what they thought. At the time, I was grateful they didn’t get in touch. I had a lot on my mind.’
‘So did they.’
‘Yes. But five years on? They must be over it by now.’
‘One of them may not be.’
‘You mean Nyman?’
‘If you can link him to Isobel Courtney, I don’t think Faith will be able to go on believing he met her by chance.’
‘But how can I do that?’
‘I think you’re going to have to do what you couldn’t face doing five years ago. Contact Isobel Courtney’s friends and relatives. Get to know the person whose life you unintentionally ended. And somewhere in her past …’
‘I’ll find him.’ I took Eris’s photograph from my pocket and looked at it. ‘And maybe I’ll find somebody else, too.’
Isobel Courtney. I thought about her that night almost for the first time. Five years before, she’d merely been the name-tag on a problem that imploded the lies and evasions I’d used to keep marriage to Faith and my affair with Nicole running together on parallel tracks. They might never have overlapped but for two simultaneous lapses of concentration: Isobel Courtney’s and mine. I knew only too well what had been on my mind. But I’d never so much as wondered what had been on hers. I hadn’t wanted to find out the kind of person I’d killed. So long as she remained just a name-tag, I could cope with what I’d done. I’d photographed dead people before. I’d looked through a camera lens at incinerated Iraqi troops outside Kuwait and learned how to disregard the memories and the hopes that had ended for every one of them. It hadn’t been so very difficult to apply the same technique to Isobel Courtney. It had been an accident, after all. It hadn’t been my fault. There was nothing I could have done.
But there was. I knew that. Maybe Conrad Nyman did, too. And maybe he’d decided to remind me. In his own particular way.
The inquest hadn’t excited much press interest. But there’d been at least one reporter in attendance. I’d noticed him jotting away in his notebook during the proceedings. I’d never seen his report. I’d never wanted to – till now.
A local weekly seemed the best bet. I drove out to Barnet next morning and tried the public library. And there it was. Not difficult to find, since I knew the date I was looking for only too well. BARNET ROAD DEATH A TRAGIC ACCIDENT. It hadn’t even made the front page.
I scanned the meagre paragraphs, recognizing my own name and a more or less accurate snatch of the measured words I’d used to describe what had happened. ‘I was driving south down Barnet Hill at about thirty miles an hour when a figure dressed in dark clothes ran straight out into the road in front of me. I braked, but she was too close for me to avoid a collision.’ The coroner had gone along with that and the police had been obliged to. The jury hadn’t quibbled either. ‘Miss Courtney was probably hurrying because of the heavy rain falling at the time,’ the coroner was quoted as saying in his summing-up. ‘Tragically, her haste cost her her life. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr Jarrett was driving recklessly or carelessly. No blame can be attached to him.’ No blame. No blame at all. Officially.
And the victim? My gaze tracked back to the opening paragraph. ‘A verdict of accidental death was recorded at an inquest held this week into the death, following a road accident on Barnet Hill on 23 March, of Isobel Courtney (36), a Sotheby’s valuations expert, of Smollett Avenue, Clapham.’ That was all there was by way of an obituary for the woman I’d killed. Now that I saw it in print, I vaguely recalled the police officer who’d interviewed me saying that she’d had ‘a promising career in the arts world’. He’d said it reproachfully. It was as close as he’d allowed himself to get to accusing me of responsibility for her death. The absence of witnesses had prevented him getting any closer. And I’d stonewalled him at every turn.
I walked from the library through the shopping centre as far as the Underground station, and looked down Barnet Hill towards the railway bridge. The morning was still and bright, unhaunted and unechoing. But, if I closed my eyes, I could still remember the sound of the impact and, what was worse, the pitch of the car and the thud beneath it as I drove over her.
Why was she in Barnet? Who did she know there? Where was she born? Who were her friends? The questions milled in my head, questions I’d been determined five years before not even to ask, let alone answer. Then one question focused the rest. What kind of material had she valued for Sotheby’s? What could it have been?
It was a guess, but somehow not a wild one. I went back to the car, rang Sotheby’s and asked to speak to their photographic expert. I was put through to his assi
stant, a courteous but reticent woman who identified herself as Mary Whiting.
‘I’m afraid Duncan Noakes is in New York this week,’ she informed me. ‘Can I help you in any way?’
‘Perhaps. It’s a long shot, and you’ll think it an odd question. But was Mr Noakes’s predecessor a Miss Isobel Courtney?’
‘Yes. She was. But …’
‘Miss Courtney’s dead. I know. Did you … work with her?’
‘Well, yes.’ She hesitated. ‘I did.’
‘Closely?’
‘As her assistant.’
‘So you knew her reasonably well?’
‘Yes. Very well. I had an extremely high regard for her.’
‘Would you be willing to meet and tell me a little about Isobel, Ms Whiting? I’d be enormously grateful for any information you can give me.’
‘Why should you want information about somebody who’s been dead for, what must it be, five years now? You’ll forgive me, but the request seems positively macabre, Mr …’
‘Jarrett. Remember the name?’
‘I can’t say I do.’
‘I was the driver of the car that hit her.’
‘You were … I beg your pardon?’
‘The driver. The man responsible. I … feel I’ve never properly … faced up to what I did. It might help me to do so if I could … find out what sort of person Isobel was.’
‘A very fine person, Mr Jarrett. That I can tell you.’
‘Would a brief meeting be asking too much, Ms Whiting?’
‘Well, I … I suppose not.’
‘Today?’
‘I’m afraid I’m extremely busy.’
‘Too busy for lunch?’
‘I’m really not sure I can—’
‘Please, Ms Whiting. You have to have lunch. Why not have it with me?’
She was a middle-aged woman who combined stylish dress sense with a seemingly deliberate plainness of hair and face. My first impression, when I met her outside Sotheby’s Bond Street entrance, was of somebody set complacently in dullish ways, but I soon realized that was merely a pose. She had quick wits and a sharp mind. As well as a disquieting gift for implying she knew she was being told less than the truth.
‘Were you really the driver of the car that hit Isobel?’ she asked over a modest risotto and a glass of house red in the nearby trattoria she’d chosen for our lunch.
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