‘That was good advice, Nige.’
’But you … you’ve found out, haven’t you, Harry? You’ve f-found … what she was really after.’
‘Yes, I have.’ Truly, the sequence was complete. They had told Heather she was deluded to believe Clare had been pregnant and mad to suggest she had been murdered. But Roy and Charlie’s reaction to the evidence Mossop had turned up had suddenly given her confidence in her own suspicions. At first, she must have thought she was following Dysart’s trail. From Mrs Diamond through Willy Morpurgo and Cyril Ockleton to Rex Cunningham. Then the target had shifted to Jack Cornelius: corruption at Mallender Marine must have seemed a red herring at that point. Next, the Reverend Waghorne – and proof positive that Clare had been carrying Cornelius’s child. But Heather had spoken to Waghorne on 18 September. By 11 October, according to Kingdom, she had been willing to accept that she was mistaken: a rest cure on Rhodes was the order of the day. How could such a change have come about? ‘Tell me, Nige, when did you last see Heather?’
‘Well, she left … left Mallender Marine … early in October. I can’t remember … the exact date, but that … that m-must have been the last time I saw her. The f-first week in October.’
Suddenly, Harry remembered what Marjorie Mallender had said about her daughter’s departure from the family firm. ‘The relapse she suffered in October … It’s why she left Mallender Marine.’ But what relapse? Kingdom had never mentioned one. It was a strange kind of relapse that the patient’s own doctor did not know about. And then again … the next photograph after Flaxford Rectory was of some kind of institution. Signposts. Parked cars. Driveways. Harry should have thought of it before. Hastily, he grabbed the wallet of photographs from his pocket and scrabbled through them to the one he wanted, then snapped on the lamp beside his chair and peered closely. Yes. There they were: the tell-tale signs he should not have missed. It was not just some kind of institution. It had bars at the windows.
Less than an hour later, they were there. The Vauxhall had lapsed into a dream of its super-charged youth and propelled them along the M4 at chassis-splitting speed. Challenbrooke Hospital stood red-bricked and austerely wooded on sloping ground above the Thames just east of Maidenhead. Admittance by appointment only, according to the board at the end of the drive. But Harry did not require admittance. Even at a range of several hundred yards he could see that Challenbrooke Hospital was the subject of the twelfth photograph.
‘Why … why have we come here?’ said Mossop.
‘Because this was how they finally suborned her. This was what they threatened her with. Confinement here for as long as it would take her to accept that what she knew was a delusion. Once mad, always mad, if your family says so. That’s what they must have told her. And she was right to believe them.’
‘I don’t … don’t understand.’
‘Never mind, Nige. Like Heather told you, it’s better if you don’t.’ The greyness of the weather made the prospect more dismal still. It was grey in the photograph as well, the day Heather had come here to confront the consequences of persisting in her pursuit of the truth. ‘I’ll have them for this,’ Harry murmured. ‘I promise.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind, Nige.’
‘But what … what are we g-going to d-do now?’
Harry patted Mossop’s shoulder by way of comfort. ‘We are doing nothing. You are returning home, and if you’ll take my advice, reporting sick tomorrow. That’ll give us a few days to play with. Go fishing. Read a book. See a film. Do anything you like, but don’t go back to Mallender Marine until you hear from me.’
‘Wh- When will that be?’
‘As soon as I’ve heard Dysart’s version of events. I owe him a lot. But this time he owes me something.’
40
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS HAD passed before Harry could be accommodated in Alan Dysart’s hectic round of meetings and speeches. Yet, as he trailed behind a pin-striped myrmidon along the arrow-straight corridors of the Ministry of Defence, he still felt a sense of acceleration growing within him, as if neither delays nor obstacles could slow his progress. Here, where he should have felt least at home, where swishing doors and subtle undertones were symbols of a rarely used but crushing power that could be turned against him, he was aware of nothing but a light-headed certainty of purpose, an intoxicating strength of mind and will. This, discovered so late in life, was what he supposed it must be like to be a man with a mission.
A waiting room and an archly mannered secretary, then another room and a coolly reticent official, finally ‘Mr Dysart’s inner office’: panelled in dark wood, carpeted in sombre hues, papers piled on plateaux of teak, books towering to the ceiling behind leaded glass, the heavy note of antique clockwork, and beyond the three tall windows, dusk settling over London, distant clusters of light moving behind a deepening veil of drizzle.
‘Hello, Harry.’ The handshake was as firm as usual, the smile as warm. Only perhaps the smudges of grey beneath his eyes revealed Dysart’s fatigue, only the faint irresolution of his gaze suggested he knew what Harry had to say. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday. I was tied up in an emergency debate all afternoon.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘But I gathered it was very urgent.’ An upward twitch of Dysart’s eyebrows invited Harry to prove the point. ‘Take a seat. A drink, perhaps?’
‘No thanks.’ Harry wanted to remain completely sober for a little longer yet. He subsided into an armchair and felt the richness of its buttoned leather enfold him. ‘You asked me to contact you at once if I found out anything,’ he began uncertainly.
‘About the good Dr Kingdom?’
‘No. Not about Kingdom. Not yet, anyway, I’ve come across … something else.’
‘If it concerns Jack Cornelius—’
‘It doesn’t. It concerns …’ Harry switched his gaze to the end of the room, where most of the wall was filled by an ornately framed oil painting so huge and dark it could have been the mouth of a cave. ‘It concerns you, Alan.’
Dysart said nothing. He had been standing by a wooden filing cabinet near the window and now he leaned back slowly against it, raising his head slightly and folding his arms. There was to be neither encouragement nor intervention, it seemed. Harry was to be left to proceed at his own pace and on his own initiative.
He recited as dispassionately as he could the factual record of his discoveries: the testimony of the Reverend Waghorne that proved Clare Mallender had been pregnant by Jack Cornelius and the testimony of Nigel Mossop that proved Dysart had passed commercial secrets to Mallender Marine. He exaggerated nothing. He omitted nothing. And when he had finished, and looked up to judge Dysart’s reaction, he found that his host was smiling at one corner of his mouth, as if in appreciation of a private joke. What Harry had said constituted potential ruin for this tall, handsome, elegantly clad man of wealth and probity, and all he could do in response was essay a weary grin.
‘You realize what I’m saying?’
‘Naturally.’ Dysart turned towards the window and beckoned for Harry to join him. ‘Sample the view for a moment, won’t you?’
Dusk was fusing imperceptibly with night over the neon and amber of London. The Thames had become no more than a gulf of blackness beyond the mobile lights of Embankment traffic, while to the south Big Ben loomed familiar and floodlit above the Mother of Parliaments.
‘You don’t need me to tell you, Harry,’ Dysart said softly, ‘that corruption has always held a seat in that gemmed palace of democracy. Peculation, malversation: it goes by many names. And more are guilty of it than are ever exposed.’
‘I understand that. I’m not a fool. I’m not suggesting you took a bribe. Nor was Heather suggesting it, was she?’
‘No. She wasn’t.’ Dysart took a deep breath. ‘Do have that drink, Harry. We both need one.’
‘All right.’
The drinks poured, Harry returned to his armchair, while Dysart, glass cradled to his ch
est, walked back and forth in front of him, talking quietly and unhurriedly. ‘Heather came to me much as you’ve come now and asked me to explain what seemed to her so inexplicable. I’d thought I could avoid telling her the truth about her sister and I suppose I thought I could keep it from you as well. In both cases, I was wrong. Perhaps I should have told you sooner. If so, I apologise.’
‘Clare was pregnant?’
‘Yes. By Jack Cornelius, it would appear. I had no idea they were on such intimate terms. Ironically, I introduced them, at a conference about four years ago. Until Heather discovered the truth of the matter, however, I’d have said they were nothing more than acquaintances. Certainly Jack’s name never occurred to my mind when Clare told me of her condition.’
‘When did she tell you?’
‘At the Skein of Geese, the last time we went there. It was a surprise, but nothing more: her private life was no concern of mine. Or so I thought. But it rapidly transpired she had more in mind than booking maternity leave. Much more. I ought to explain that there was a time a few years back when our relationship as employer and employee might have developed into something more. Virginia and I were going through a difficult patch. Pressure of work meant Clare was seeing more of me than Virginia was. And Clare, well, Clare was one of the most ambitious people of either sex I’ve ever met. Becoming my mistress would have suited her purposes rather well. But it didn’t happen, then or later. We never … We never even once made love. I emphasize the point because it will help you appreciate how astonished I was when Clare told me, not only that she was pregnant, but that unless I cooperated she would tell the world the child she was carrying was mine. It was, to do her justice, a very cleverly thought-out ultimatum. The general election was less than a month away. Through Minter she could ensure her claim was given front page treatment in the Sunday press immediately beforehand. I could deny it, of course, and blood tests might subsequently cast doubt on her story, but not before I’d paid the electoral penalty, not before my chances of a Cabinet post had been well and truly blasted. As to the alternative, she wanted a negotiable but substantial sum of money and, following a discreet abortion, my energetic assistance in obtaining a candidature for a winnable seat in Parliament. And there you have it: I did say she was ambitious, didn’t I?’
‘What did you do?’
‘The Duke of Wellington would have been proud of me, Harry. I told her to publish and be damned. In some ways, I felt sorry for her. I was sure Minter had put her up to it and almost sure Minter was the father of her child. I could have afforded the money, God knows, and I wouldn’t have had any qualms about putting her forward for a vacant seat, but I wasn’t going to submit to blackmail under any circumstances. Where would it have ended? No, I told her to do her worst. An anxious couple of weeks followed, I don’t mind admitting, while I waited for her to make a move. I tried several times to make her see reason. Even that last morning at Tyler’s Hard. Strangely enough, she did seem to be having second thoughts then. Within a matter of minutes, of course, it was all supremely irrelevant. The bomb went off, she was dead – along with the child she was carrying – and I had far more to occupy my mind than how to resist attempted blackmail.’
‘Where does Mallender Marine come into all this?’
‘There’s the rub, Harry. Once Clare was dead, she became public property: a martyr, a heroine, even something of a saint. The dedicated secretary who laid down her life to save her employer: above criticism and beyond reproach. I went along with it: what else could I do? I was genuinely appalled by what had happened. I certainly hadn’t wanted it to happen. I tried to put our recent dispute out of my mind. I attended her funeral in Weymouth, I even addressed the congregation. I did what was expected of me. I paid her the homage she was due. Then, straight after the funeral, Roy took me to one side and applied his own brand of pressure. It seems Clare had written to her mother only a few days before her death confessing she was pregnant, naming me as the father and saying I was urging her to have an abortion. She must have been preparing the way for her grand exposé. Well, you know Roy: as ruthless as his sister was ambitious. He’s always resented me because I’ve done most of the things Charlie would have wanted him to do – if he’d been capable of them. It was his chance to even the score. He would hand the letter to the press unless I handed Mallender Marine the Phormio contract on a plate. This was much more serious than what Clare had been threatening. Now she was dead, any suggestion that I’d refused to stand by her would seem doubly bad. Nothing could be proved or disproved. Any denials from me would sound like treachery in view of the sacrifice she’d inadvertently made for me. And the election was less than a week away. I’d been prepared to defy Clare when she was alive, but I knew I stood no chance in a contest with her memory.’
‘So you agreed to Roy’s demands?’
‘Ultimately, yes. But first I appealed to Charlie. I beseeched him to call Roy off, for Clare’s sake as well as my own. But he couldn’t help blaming me for Clare’s death, whatever he said to the contrary in public, and, besides, Mallender Marine was in deep water financially. Winning the Phormio contract was about the only way to keep their creditors at bay. So, even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t afford to be merciful. That left me no choice as I saw it. I could abandon public life and all the things I hoped to achieve in it, or I could do Mallender Marine this one favour. It was a small enough favour, God knows, in view of all the pocket-lining that goes on in Defence contracting. Roy and Charlie both knew Phormio was in my gift. They both knew how easily I could make sure they won the business. So I agreed. A few weeks later, they were awarded the contract and I received Clare’s letter to her mother in return. I destroyed it and tried to erase the whole ghastly episode from my mind. I genuinely believed then that I would hear no more of it.’
‘But you reckoned without Heather?’
‘Yes. As did her family. Only after her breakdown did it emerge that Clare had told her she was pregnant. By then, of course, the pretence that she had not been had to be maintained at all costs, otherwise the question would arise: why had it been hushed up? Not that I knew anything about the conspiracy of silence they indulged in. I knew Heather was ill, but that’s all I knew. The first I heard of her enquiries was when she confronted me with their result. She’d evidently followed the trail you’ve since retraced, though at the time she was prepared to say nothing about how she’d arrived at her conclusions. She’d established Clare’s pregnancy as a fact, she’d learned of the part I’d played in Mallender Marine winning the Phormio contract and she’d identified Jack Cornelius as Clare’s lover. What she hadn’t found was what I suspect she most wanted to find: evidence that Clare had been murdered. But her discoveries were bad enough from her family’s point of view without that. Accordingly, they threatened to have her re-committed unless she forgot everything she knew. She came to me with rather more than an accusation, you see. She came to me for help.’
‘And did you help her?’
‘As far as it lay within my power. I told her the truth about her sister. I told her why I’d helped Mallender Marine. I took her to Tyler’s Hard so she could meet Willy Morpurgo and satisfy herself he wouldn’t hurt a fly. I even arranged for her to speak to the police officer who’d led the investigations into Clare’s death so she could weigh the evidence of IRA responsibility for herself. I invited her to spend a weekend with Virginia and me in Devon so she could appreciate that ours was a happy marriage I wouldn’t have put at risk for the sake of a fling with Clare. I undertook to intervene if her family tried to have her re-committed. I suggested that, in her own interests as well as everybody else’s, she should drop the matter. And I offered her the use of the Villa ton Navarkhon to think it over. I last saw her a few days before she left for Rhodes, at which time she seemed disposed to take my advice.’
‘And then?’
‘Then? Why then, Harry, the wheel comes full circle. She travelled to Rhodes. She met you. On the eleventh of November, she vanishe
d. And we are still none the wiser so far as I can see, still a thousand miles from the truth of what took place that day.’
41
HARRY WALKED SLOWLY north along Victoria Embankment, the chill of deepening night seeping into his bones along with the thickening drizzle. To his left the traffic surged on mindlessly. To his right the Thames lapped in vast and unseen motion. Behind him, had he cared to turn and look, a light could still be seen at a lofty window in the Ministry of Defence. And ahead? Ahead lay an uncharted realm of darkness and indecision.
Alan Dysart was not a bad man. That was clear. But neither was he as virtuous and far-sighted as Harry had previously supposed. In one sense, Harry was relieved to discover that Dysart, like everyone else, could be frightened into doing things of which he was later ashamed. In another sense, however, he was disappointed: disappointed to learn that the one man he had thought infallible was nothing of the kind.
Not that Harry blamed Dysart for succumbing to Roy Mallender’s demands. In the circumstances, he would probably have done the same himself. The lapse was a modest one. It did not even involve a loss to the taxpayer. Nobody’s life was on the line, nobody’s future at stake. And Dysart had done his best to make amends: by the help he had given Heather, by the offers he had made to Harry in the wake of his admission, by demonstrating that his reputation for generosity was not ill-founded.
‘I’ll have a word with my opposite number at the Home Office, Harry. That will ensure you receive no more unwelcome attention from the police. As for young Mossop, I can put his name forward for recruitment to the Civil Service. A change of career is just what he needs. Meanwhile, I’ll make sure Roy understands that leaning on him – or you – is strictly out of order.’
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