Past Caring - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  “You get your wish – for the moment.”

  I went upstairs and packed hurriedly. I could hear Henry talking loudly to Dora in the kitchen, but, through the window, I could see Elizabeth calmly pruning a rose bush in the garden, determined, it seemed, to be undisturbed by her son’s boorish display. I went down with my bag and walked out through the conservatory to join her.

  “I’m going now,” I said. “It’ll only cause unnecessary trouble if I stay any longer.”

  Elizabeth put down her secateurs. “If you say so, my dear. But you’re welcome to remain.”

  “I really don’t think I can.”

  “Well, come again any time. I’ve enjoyed your visit.” She leant forward and kissed me on the cheek. “My best wishes – for everything – go with you.”

  Elizabeth’s serenity had endured. Strafford had spoken of her “gift of calmness before adversity that was part of her beauty”, and there it was, intact, sixty-seven years later, a long cream dress with petticoats and parasol swapped for a gardening coat over a plaid skirt, but the spirit unchanged, the beauty still evident to the discerning. Amidst all the imponderables, I knew that her wishes for me and everyone else would always be the best.

  I went back to London – for want of anywhere better to go. I couldn’t decide what I should do next. Henry was worried – no question about it. But I couldn’t prove anything and he knew I couldn’t. I’d seen all the witnesses, scoured all the records, followed all the leads. And at the end of them – nothing but suspicion, nothing you could call a case against anyone.

  I closed the front door behind me, dumped my bag on the hall floor and felt the familiar, vaguely reproachful atmosphere of the house envelop me: back with nothing to show for my absence.

  Then came word from another planet. On the kitchen table Jerry had left a scrawled note saying he was away, and a few letters – the usual circularized dross. But one looked different: a large envelope, addressed by hand in black ink, the writing rough and ready, postmarked Newton Abbot, May 16th – the previous Monday. I tore it open. It was from Ambrose.

  Martin,

  An old fellow like me shouldn’t have to go to such bother to trace a young whippersnapper like you. Your friends in Exeter didn’t know where you’d gone, but they gave me this address, so I hope you get this soon.

  What’s the flap? Well, hold onto your hat. That book my uncle wrote in when he stayed with me in 1951 – we thought it was lost or sent back to Madeira – never left here. After you cleared off, I found it: a complete account of what he did when he came back here that spring and why he did it. It doesn’t tell us how he died, but, hell, it tells us every other bloody thing we wanted to know – and then some. There are people around who’d be scared rigid if they knew what was in it.

  No names, no packdrill – yet. Come and read it yourself first. Then tell me there’s nothing in my suspicions about his death. I’m certain now that he was murdered – and so will you be when you see what I’ve got.

  Yours aye,

  Ambrose Strafford.

  P.S. The old bugger chose a cunning hiding place and it’s only thanks to you I looked there, so you deserve a share of the booty. And what booty! Martin, I’ve been waiting 26 years to strike this seam and believe me, the Couchmans have got it coming. Get in touch as soon as you can – we’ll hold a council of war.

  A.S.

  I walked slowly into the lounge with the letter, sat down and read it again. It didn’t alter. For once, Ambrose’s extravagant prose didn’t exaggerate the significance of his discovery. “The book Strafford wrote in.” We’d pondered it, but never really thought it could be a full-blown Postscript to the Memoir. Yet now, out of the blue, here was Ambrose saying it was. He’d found it, read it and been vindicated by it. How he didn’t say, beyond a dagger thrust at the Couchmans. Ambrose was old and cautious and not about to entrust his new secret to the mail. Yet he was prepared to share it with me, though how I’d given him the clue to its whereabouts I couldn’t guess.

  I wanted at once to read the Postscript, possess it and devour it until Strafford had told us everything. I felt like setting off straightaway for Dewford. Maybe I could get there in time to catch Ambrose at The Greengage, whisk him off back to Lodge Cottage and sit in his lumber room of a lounge, drinking cider and congratulating each other on our achievement. The marriage of Memoir and Postscript – Henry’s bluff called and Strafford’s secret told at last – was an exciting prospect.

  It was a curse not even being able to phone Ambrose because of the old man’s distrust of such implements. I settled on a telegram – the best I could do in the circumstances: GOT YOUR LETTER STOP MARVELLOUS NEWS STOP BE WITH YOU TOMORROW STOP HOLD TILL THEN STOP. The delay was irritating but no worse than that. Why should it have been? In a way, it just gave me an opportunity to savour the prospect. As it turned out, even one day was more than I could afford.

  Returning from a brief shopping foray for essentials on which Jerry had as usual run dry, I didn’t think anything of the red Porsche in front of the house until the driver stepped out.

  It was Timothy Couchman, Helen’s elder brother, immaculately dressed in black blazer and cream slacks, shirt casually open at the neck. He tossed back a lock of hair and blew smoke lazily into the air. “Hello Martin,” he said with silken mockery, moving towards me with a smooth, composite sound of expensive clothes, gold cuff-links and leather-heeled shoes.

  Of all the Couchmans, Timothy was the one I instinctively loathed, now more than ever. Once he’d had spare, high-boned good looks to go with natural charm. Even then I’d disliked his habit of command, his panache bordering on one-upmanship, his quality of upper-class spivvery. He’d been a third generation parasite who thought himself a predator. Well, maybe he’d grown into that. There was less refinement, more dissipation, about him now, the clear skin turned sallow, the hollow cheeks puffy. God knows what other dubious enterprises had followed those I knew about, but evidently enough to keep him in his accustomed style. His flashing smile, once supposed to be engaging, was now sabre-toothed.

  “What do you want?” I was past being even initially polite, I felt sure his appearance was connected with my stay in Miston. I had him marked as his father’s errand boy.

  “Martin, it’s good to see you after all this time.” Timothy was never one to be taken aback by mere unpleasantness.

  “Well, it isn’t good to see you. What do you want?”

  “Could we perhaps step inside to discuss it, old man?”

  “Why?”

  “I have a proposition for you. I believe it merits your consideration.”

  Maybe, I thought for a moment, Henry had sent his son to propose some compromise he couldn’t stomach offering me himself. If so, I ought to hear it. “It had better not take long. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Aren’t we all, old man?” For all his affected weariness, I could believe he was. He followed me to the door. I opened it and showed him into the lounge. He cast a superior eye over the room, then sat down without being asked. “Pleasant place – for the suburbs. I didn’t know you ran to this.”

  “I don’t.” I let him make what he liked of that. He flicked ash into the grate of the converted electric fire. I fetched an ashtray from a cabinet and placed it ostentatiously by his chair, then sat opposite him.

  “How about coming to the point? There’s no welcome here for you to outstay.”

  “No call for that sort of talk, Martin.” He drew lengthily on his cigarette. “Gather you’ve been upsetting my grandmother.”

  “Far from it. I get on with her better than with the rest of your family. Your father was the one who seemed upset.”

  He slowly ground his cigarette into the ashtray I’d provided. “Papa is certainly concerned about your … activities. I expect you know that” – he was suddenly serious – “if you continue to pry where you’re not wanted, the whole question of contact with your daughter will have to be … reviewed.”

  “I know that
your father tried to threaten me with denial of access to Laura.”

  “Hardly a threat. How can we reasonably allow you to continue seeing her when your conduct is becoming so … unstable?”

  “You can try anything, via Helen’s solicitor. But it won’t work. How much do you know about this business?”

  “All there is to know, old man. No secrets in my family.” He smiled, with just a hint of irony, and lit another cigarette.

  “In that case, what are you worried about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He spread his hands. “Cards on the table, Martin. We’re worried that your irrational inquisitiveness may arise from personal problems. Papa thought I might have a word with you – as members of the same generation – and offer what help I can.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Don’t be hasty. The help I had in mind was financial.”

  So that was it: a bribe. I wondered what price the Couchmans put on my silence. “Do go on.”

  “My thoughts are pretty vague at present, but if we could help to establish you in some more … satisfactory … occupation, there’d be no need for you to make yourself look ridiculous with this charade of historical research.”

  “Are you talking about putting up capital?”

  “Something like that.” He nodded meaningfully.

  “How much?” It was time to draw him out.

  “How much would you need?”

  “The man I’m working for is paying me £10,000.”

  “I see.” Another cigarette was stubbed out. “Well, naturally, we’d have to ensure initially that you weren’t … out of pocket.”

  “Naturally.” I got up and walked to the window. It was dark outside now. “Henry’s a bigger fool than I thought to send you here with a crude bribe. I’m not interested.”

  Timothy turned to look at me. “Not interested, old man? It’s unlike you to strike a high moral tone – and so unconvincing.”

  “I realize it’s difficult for you to understand anybody not being for sale.”

  “Only when they’re so obviously … shop-soiled. I gather you weren’t so … pernickety … where Miss Randall’s offer was concerned.”

  I made the mistake of getting angry. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that, with our interests at heart, Miss Randall could have bought your tatty little memoir for a knockdown price.”

  “Then why didn’t she?” My mind flicked to a scene in that Memoir, when Strafford visited Couchman at his factory, was also offered a bribe, was also goaded over a woman.

  “Because, I presume, she judged any price too high to pay where you were concerned. Besides, who could know then that you would make such a nuisance of yourself?”

  “Are you sure Miss Randall wasn’t as interested as I am in learning the truth?”

  “Quite sure. Eve knows her interests are better served by tenure of the Couchman Fellowship than a hare-brained literary partnership with you.” He was letting me know he was on first name terms with Eve, letting me know she’d told him of our plans. The telephone forestalled my reply.

  I hurried into the hall and answered it. Nick Bennett was on the other end.

  “Martin! Thank God! I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.”

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “It’s that weird old friend of yours – Ambrose Strafford.”

  “Yes?”

  “He visited us a week ago, anxious to contact you. We gave him your address.”

  “I know. I got a letter from him.”

  “Well, he was here again today, much more wound up than before. He said he was desperate to speak to you.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t exactly say. He’d been drinking, if you ask me, rambling about threats, strangers, dark forces – whatever they might be. He claimed he was in danger and had to see you: a matter of life and death.”

  This sounded like Ambrose – but why so alarmed? “Was he specific?”

  “No. He didn’t seem to want to say much to me. And Hester found him a bit disturbing, so I didn’t encourage him.”

  “Do you know if he’d had my telegram?”

  “Yes. He had it screwed up in his pocket. He pulled it out and said that, if I spoke to you before he did, I was to tell you he would ‘try to hold on’, but that ‘it won’t be easy’. I tried phoning you while he was here, but you weren’t in. He said he had to ‘keep watch at Barrowteign’. Then he left.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “One thing, as he was getting into his car: a message for you. ‘Tell Martin to remember,’ he said, ‘that we Straffords have lofty memories.’ What does that mean?”

  What indeed? “I don’t know, Nick. I don’t know what any of it means. But I’m worried. Ambrose is a bit of an oddball, but he’s not soft in the head. If he feels in danger, it’s because he is. I should have reacted more urgently to his letter.” Or not lingered in Miston, I thought.

  “What will you do?”

  “Get down there double quick.”

  “Do you want to come to us tonight?”

  “I’ll never get a train this late. I’ll travel on the first service tomorrow morning and go straight to Dewford. Could I come and see you after that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’ll phone from Dewford. Speak to you tomorrow. Oh – thanks for letting me know, Nick. It may turn out to be just what Ambrose said: a matter of life and death.” Strafford’s life and death were what I meant, but the phrase was to echo beyond anything I or Ambrose could have intended.

  After such news, all I wanted Timothy to do was get out. I found him leaning against the mantelpiece, with his feet on the fender, blowing cigarette smoke towards the ceiling, looking so casual I felt certain he’d been eavesdropping.

  “Some trouble, old man?” he said.

  “My only trouble is getting rid of you.”

  “Easily done.” He elbowed himself away from the mantelpiece and walked past me to the door. “If you see sense, Martin, just get in touch. If not, don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  “You won’t hear from me.”

  “A pity. If you should change your mind, just call me. I’ve left my card.”

  A last gesture typical of the smooth-talking salesman. Timothy made his way out and I slammed the front door behind him. I walked back into the lounge and found his card propped against the clock on the mantelpiece: Timothy H. Couchman, Mercantile Consultant, 4 Padua Court, Berkeley Street, London W1. As I heard his Porsche throb into life and accelerate away, I tore the card into four and dropped the pieces into the wastepaper basket.

  Then my eye trailed along the mantelpiece to where I’d tucked Ambrose’s letter under a Toby jug. I pulled it out and read it through again – the abrasive, confident tones, the hints of long-awaited vengeance for his uncle’s death, the eager anticipation of disgrace for the Couchmans. But nothing firm or definite on paper, all in his head, everything on a promise. I had to get to him quickly, had to find out what he meant. He’d told Nick of threats and strangers. Did he mean the old ones which had assailed Strafford, or something new? I had to know.

  Six

  I didn’t sleep at all that night, which was probably just as well. At dawn, I went up to Paddington and caught the first train to Exeter. I arrived just after nine o’clock and took a taxi out to Dewford.

  The Teign valley road was empty so early on a cool, damp morning and the taxi made good time. I looked out at the fields I’d passed on foot a month before, followed with my eye the scar of the old railway line across the water meadows. At the crossroads, I told the driver to turn left and we bowled down over the old stone bridge across the river. Along the right-hand rampart, there was a strip of fluorescent red tape from one end of the bridge to the other and, on the far side, a dark van drawn up. I could see more red tape, strung between stakes, along the bank of the river and a stocky figure in gumboots and a whit
e coat walking away from the waterside, up through the saplings which grew down to the river. I wondered, idly, if there’d been a road accident, but the bridge seemed undamaged, with nothing out of place.

  I paid off the taxi at the entrance to Barrowteign, walked past the familiar, owl-topped pillars and followed the track through the gate and under the lime trees to Lodge Cottage. It was a reassuringly ordinary, placid morning in the countryside. Already, I could imagine Ambrose sniffing the air through his kitchen door, lighting his pipe and cracking some eggs into the frying pan, whistling tunelessly at Jess and wondering when the hell that young bugger Radford was going to show up. Well, here he was.

  The first thing I noticed, as I approached the old crossing, was a police car drawn up by the garage. I thought Ambrose might be entertaining the local constable to breakfast, but no windows in the cottage were open and there was no whiff of bacon in the air. I eased open the garden gate, expecting to hear Jess bark, but she didn’t. The front door stood open, so I stepped inside.

  “Hello! Ambrose?” I shouted.

  There was a sound from the front room, some heavy footsteps and then a burly, uniformed policeman stood in the doorway. He had a rumpled, rural look but a broad, implacable bearing. “Who might you be?” he said, with guarded civility.

  I was taken aback, literally. This man’s large frame seemed to fill the house, never mind the hall. “I’m a friend of Ambrose Strafford. Is he here?”

  “No sir.”

  “Can I ask … why you’re here?”

  “When did you last see Mr Strafford?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “I see … you don’t come from these parts, I’m thinking.”

  “No.”

  “When did you arrive?”

  “Just this minute.”

  “I didn’t ’ear a car.”

  “No. I came by taxi. It dropped me off at the gates. Now …”