Past Caring

by Robert Goddard

  Later, walking in the garden, I pondered the point. Elizabeth was resting while Dora bustled about – happier now I’d assured her that her mistress was unarmed. I had time, while the last hour ticked away towards noon, to turn over a disturbing thought in my mind.

  Nothing had happened that Sellick hadn’t planned or foreseen except my discovery of the Postscript. Its destruction had been his only concession to the weakness of others.

  Or had it indeed been to the weakness of others? My mind went back to our argument over dinner the week before. He’d been evasive about his movements at the time of Strafford’s death, about his reasons for not tracking down Sir Gerald there and then. Was it embarrassment? Did the fact that Strafford outwitted him 26 years before detract from his omniscient image? Or was there something else?

  I sat by the brook and watched the water flow by. A few fish shimmered past in the brown depths, heading downstream to where, a quarter of a mile further on, a fisherman sat by the bole of a tree and waited patiently to deceive them. Sun trying to break through the cloud. A rodent stirring leaves in the wood opposite. A fisherman waiting as long as necessary to make his catch. That’s when I first guessed how it had really been all those years before, when I realized at last what Sellick was trying to conceal while threatening the Couchmans with exposure. And that’s when I heard the church clock strike twelve and call a halt to all my guessing.

  I walked round to the front of the house. By the time I got there, the clock was silent. But, contiguous with the fading reverberation of its last chime, there came the sound of a car in the lane. I knew it was Sellick’s before I saw the royal blue Daimler nose down the drive, before I saw the grim, spare satisfaction inscribed on his face as he leant forward to speak to the uniformed chauffeur.

  I stopped a short distance from the car and watched, without expression or any hint of greeting, as the chauffeur got out and opened Sellick’s door. He stepped lightly onto the gravel, said one word – “Wait” – to the chauffeur, then strolled jauntily towards me, imbuing his smile with a delight at its own falsehood. I’d been shown the bohemian recluse in Madeira; we’d all been shown the sober South African when he’d come in response to Elizabeth’s invitation. Now, another facet was on view: wealth conspicuous in the flunkey-drive limousine, the elegant clothes, the gold wristwatch and cufflinks, power gouged in an old face, a mask shed by a man of means and menace.

  “Good afternoon, Martin,” he said. “I wish I could say it came as a pleasant surprise to find you here.”

  I struggled to keep my temper and my nerve. “I’m here as a friend of the family.”

  He chuckled icily. “Then have I not achieved a miracle of sorts: to cleave you once more to the family that rejected you?”

  “Perhaps. But let’s not labour the point. You think you’re on top and maybe you are. But I have a few questions that may not leave you there.”

  “They’ll have to wait. I’m here to see Lady Couchman, not debate matters with you. The time for that is over. Is she in?” He turned, without waiting for an answer, and strode towards the door. As he did so, it opened – and Elizabeth stood waiting there for him, slightly hunched, diminished by the reason for their meeting, depressed by the knowledge that she had nothing left to bargain with.

  “Mr Sellick,” she said. “I see that you are prompt – if nothing else. Would you care to come in?”

  “Unless you wish to discuss our business out here.”

  Elizabeth didn’t answer, just turned and led the way into the lounge. She offered Sellick neither a seat nor a drink, merely watched with her deep, reflective eyes his progress to the fireplace. There he stood in all his open arrogance, regarding us with a slight but predatory tilt of his head, amusing himself with our discomfort, assuring himself that he couldn’t lose.

  “You clearly have no taste for pleasantries,” he said. “So I’ll dispense with them. Timothy has put my terms to you?”

  “Yes.” Elizabeth’s reply was a hollow murmur.

  “Do you accept? Will you give Miss Randall your unconditional cooperation in the writing of her book?”

  Elizabeth walked slowly to the window. “I have an answer, Mr Sellick. But first, will you answer three questions of mine?”

  “I’ll hear them. I don’t guarantee to answer them.”

  “Very well.” She turned to look straight at him. “Firstly, Timothy claims to be assisting you because the financial plight of Couchman Enterprises leaves him no choice. Is that true?”

  Sellick smiled. I watched his expression hint that he enjoyed giving the answer more than witholding it. “Yes and no. I have undertaken to resume my investment in the company. But you should know that Timothy’s so-called mercantile consultancy is in a bad way and so he needs capital for a variety of reasons. I am paying him well for his services.”

  “Enough to make him forget any loyalty to his family?” asked Elizabeth quietly.

  “Yes. Of course, you may feel it is a poor kind of loyalty that can be bought and – and I would agree with you. All I have done is make your grandson’s true character apparent to you.”

  “Thank you.” She seemed to intend no irony. “Secondly, did you set out, when you visited Henry in London, to hound him into suicide? After all, we know now that you lied the first time you came here, by pretending you had never met him.”

  Sellick’s smile broadened horribly. “I didn’t lie, Lady Couchman. I simply witheld certain facts, which is surely the right of us all.” He glanced across at me, as if to say that the only difference between him and me was that he’d known all along what I’d kept from him, whereas I’d never realized till now what he’d kept from me. “As for Henry, well, since you ask, you may as well know what passed between us.” He paused for effect. “He agreed to meet me at his club – the Carlton, bastion of the Conservative Party – that Sunday night.

  “At first, he sought to bluff it out. When I informed him that I meant to deprive him of his good name as surely as his father had deprived me of any name at all, he actually had the temerity to threaten me. He boasted that he wielded influence enough to have me silenced – or worse. He cited as an example Strafford’s death in 1951. Did I want to suffer a similar fate?

  “I laughed in his face. He had grossly overestimated his own importance: a common flaw in those who inherit wealth and position. He seriously believed, you see, that his political friends had made away with Strafford in order to protect him. Once I had convinced him that such was not the case, his defence was broken. He knew then that he had no way of preventing me from dragging his name through the mire where it belonged, knew that, when he confronted me here, I would show him no mercy. He faced, at best, public disgrace as his father’s accessory in bigamy and fraud. At worst – I later learned – he faced exposure as Ambrose Strafford’s murderer. So even my threats were more potent than I knew. Where Ambrose’s murder could be proved – in the circumstances, nobody would believe it was an accident – Edwin’s murder could be surmised. It was bound to turn out that way in the end.

  “So you see, I did not set out to drive Henry to suicide. Indeed, I had planned a more lingering and public fate for him. Some part of that could still be arranged if you refuse to co-operate. I think he was simply a weaker and vainer man than even I had supposed. Unable to face what he knew lay ahead, he took the coward’s way out.”

  Elizabeth moved unsteadily to an armchair. I watched her hand clasp the arm as she sank into it, surrendering the stage, as it were, to Sellick, while I remained motionless and silent, a helpless spectator. At last, she spoke. “All you say about my son may be true, Mr Sellick, but you must understand: he was the only son I had.”

  “Oh I do understand,” Sellick rasped, for the first time admitting vehemence to his voice. “It is you who do not. You still don’t comprehend your family’s guilt, which you must share: this fine English family with one, favoured son. But not one, Lady Couchman, not in truth. What of … the other son? Sir Gerald’s forgotten, firstb
orn foundling? You gave me nothing. What shall I take to pay that debt?”

  Elizabeth looked up at him. “You propose to take everything, don’t you? My son, my grandson, my good name: everything.”

  “I shall take a son’s due.”

  “Then my third question … why did you let us burn the Postscript?”

  “To show you that I didn’t need it. I can destroy you without Strafford’s help.”

  It was time I intervened. “That’s a lie.” Sellick looked towards me as I walked forward. “That’s not why you let it happen.”

  For a long, spaced moment, Sellick’s blue eyes fixed me with a cold stare. “You have something to say, Martin?”

  “Yes. I want to finish something I was trying to say when news came of Henry’s death. It took me a long time to connect it with your part in the destruction of the Postscript, but now I have. You claimed that, by the time you’d deduced from the Memoir who your father really was, Sir Gerald had already died. But there was a three-year gap you couldn’t explain away, which is why I didn’t believe you. Now you’ve just confirmed what I think really happened. So let me ask you a fourth question. How did you convince Henry that his political friends hadn’t had Strafford killed?”

  Sellick’s stare began to move towards an unaccountable amusement. “It was a preposterous idea from the first.”

  “Maybe, but Henry believed it. There’s only one way you could have persuaded him otherwise: that’s by telling him the truth. By telling him that you killed Strafford.”

  I’d hoped for a hostile response, but Sellick only smiled. He turned to Elizabeth. “Martin is quite right, Lady Couchman. I killed Edwin Strafford.”

  Elizabeth looked from one to the other of us and finally up at Sellick. “You murdered Edwin?”

  “Yes.” He raised his head slightly, as if taking pride in the declaration. “I am free to tell you so now that the Postscript is gone. Without it, there is no evidence to link me with Strafford at the time of his death. Some years ago, I arranged – with a little judicious bribery – for the record of my birth in Pietermaritzburg to be lost. Thus you will appreciate that, so far as anyone can prove, I am merely a disinterested observer of the Couchman family’s death agony. I left Henry in no doubt that I would force his political masters to disown him and deny any part in Strafford’s death. Logically, that would have left him as the prime suspect.

  “He would have consented as readily as the rest of you in the destruction of the Postscript, in order to clear himself of the charges he knew I would bring against him. Thus he would have played into my hands as you have done. Perhaps, to give him his meagre due, he foresaw that and took the only way out left to him.

  “He recognized my account of Strafford’s death as the truth as soon as he heard it, and must have realized how easily the public could be led to believe that it was he who played my part.”

  “And what was your part?”

  “You may as well know now. Indeed, I would not wish to spare you it. After all, Lady Couchman” – he bowed faintly in her direction – “my mistake and therefore Strafford’s death were all really Sir Gerald’s work. Strafford outwitted me in Madeira only because I had no way of guessing what he realized at once from my confrontation of him: that it was Sir Gerald, not he, who was the guilty man.

  “Strafford had me shut up for a month in a police cell in Funchal. Like all English gentlemen, he had tame officials to do him favours. Later, I made the Police Chief regret doing him that favour. But, at the time, my thoughts were reserved for Strafford: my father, as I supposed, who’d had me flung into gaol whilst he scurried back to England.

  “I followed him. It took me two weeks from my release to track him to Barrowteign, but I found him there, hiding, as I believed, from justice. I proposed to show him no mercy. Yet my arrest in Funchal had made me expect a wily prey. Instead, it was all too easy.

  “I reached Dewford on the afternoon of June 4th and learned from the publican in the village that Strafford was staying at Lodge Cottage. He’d made no secret of his return, which puzzled me. But I didn’t stop to brood on the point.

  “I went straight to Barrowteign. There were workmen everywhere, so nobody paid me much heed as I walked up the drive. When I was about halfway, I saw Strafford come out of the main door of the house and make his way openly towards the cottage. I was surprised. I’d expected him to be lying low, not strolling around the estate as if he owned it. I know now that he had more on his mind than the possibility of being pursued by me.

  “I made sure he did not catch sight of me and kept watch on the cottage, waiting for nightfall. Having seen his nephew leave, I felt certain that Strafford would be alone.

  “As it happened, Strafford saved me the trouble of a stealthy approach. He came out, lit his pipe and leant against the level crossing gates, looking up and down the railway line. I was becoming anxious that his nephew might return. There was no time to lose.

  “I emerged from hiding and challenged him. He treated me with scorn, denying that he owed me anything, openly admitting that he had used his influence to have me confined in Funchal. His calmness – his apparent determination to enrage me – was baffling. But I was a younger and less calculating man then than I am now. His arrogant defiance inspired in me only violence.

  “I’ve thought of it often since and come to admire Strafford for what he did that night: high praise I assure you. He walked out onto the track as if to put the gate between us, but more, I suspect, to lure me to that point. He sensed it was all or nothing, him or me, make or break. He stood little chance, in all conscience, and must have known it. That’s what I admire about him. A loser, yes, but a better man than the cheap fraudster who turned out to be my father.

  “At that moment, I hated him and wasn’t about to let him escape a second time. I pursued him across the track. He seized me, attempted to force me down onto the rails. I heard the train whistle and understood what was in his mind. I remember the shock I felt that the miserable schemer I knew my father to be should be capable – even in dire need – of physical courage. Not that it was ever likely to be enough. I had more than enough strength to overpower him – though not without difficulty, for he fought well. But, once I’d broken free of his grasp, I was able to fell him with one good blow and leap clear of the track with the train nearly upon us, sounding its whistle and braking far too late. Strafford’s age was against him. He never had a chance.

  “I fled the scene. Strafford was done for – that much was certain. I’d planned a different fate for him, but he’d forced the issue and engineered an honourable death. He’d gone down fighting.”

  “Fighting to save me,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “Maybe. At all events, he’d made of me a murderer. There was nothing for it but to return to Madeira at once and hope that nobody would connect me with his death. Nobody did. And parricide didn’t seem an unjust way of avenging my mother. I was content.”

  “Until you found the Memoir?”

  “Quite so. The irony of acquiring the Quinta when it came onto the market appealed to me. But I had no idea what was waiting for me there. When I read the Memoir, I understood what Strafford had really been trying to achieve. The Memoir told me enough to identify Sir Gerald as my father, but the circumstances of Strafford’s death meant that I could not come here to confront him without the risk of being branded a murderer. Thus, Lady Couchman, your peace of mind was safe.

  “But only for a time. Last year, I reflected that Strafford had won you a quarter of a century of unearned complacency. Sir Gerald had – as is the way with such men – died full of cheated years and specious honour. Henry I read of as a rising force in Tory politics. I was wealthy, yes, wealthier than ever, in fact, but not content. I was unknown and forgotten, for all my material success, baulked by Strafford’s sacrifice from making the Couchmans pay for their crime.

  “I conceived an elegant solution to the problem. I realized that I was wealthy enough to achieve your downfall thr
ough mere proxies. For life had taught me – you might say my father had taught me – that all men can be bought and most come pretty cheap at that. Hired hands could protect my anonymity and do my bidding. That was Martin’s role – to dig out enough evidence in the cause of historical research to bury you all, without my having to lift a finger. And you did a good job, Martin – no question of it. Until … you discovered the Postscript. That was an unexpected difficulty: Strafford’s damnable addiction to posterity. Naturally, news of its discovery was disturbing. I had no way of knowing what it might contain to link me with his death, so your references to it were more tantalizing than you knew. There seemed nothing for it but to come at once and brazen it out.

  “I tackled Henry first as the weakest link. In his breaking, it became obvious that he had not seen the document, worried though he was about it. There was no harm in telling him the truth when he had even more reason than I to suppress the evidence of it. Once he was dead, the Postscript had only to be destroyed for me to enjoy complete freedom of action. Everybody was very co-operative in bringing that about.”

  “You’ve been very clever, Mr Sellick,” said Elizabeth falteringly.

  “Thank you.” He smiled broadly.

  “We thought you generous in allowing us to burn it.”

  “That’s what I wanted you to think. Timothy encouraged the idea, as I’d instructed him to.”

  “And I persuaded Martin not to object.”

  “Yes. Of course, you should know, Lady Couchman, that, in not objecting, Martin too was only following instructions.”

  Elizabeth looked at me. “Martin?”

  “I … I don’t know what he means,” I stammered.

  Sellick beamed. “Yes he does. He’s still my employee, you see.”

  “It’s a lie,” I shouted. “Just another lie.”