The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  I saw the Devil’s Bridge.

  Caitlin was there, skimming across the slender arch of rock that spanned the abyss between the Middle and the Outer Heads. But she was ahead of Kester. Kester was still in the middle of the Bridge and Kester in my mind’s eye was turning to face me. I rushed on. The ground fell away on either side of the path. I was there. I was on the Bridge. I looked down. The abyss was deep, the rock face sheer, and far below the sea was a mass of roaring foam.

  I stopped, and as I remained motionless I saw my world go black. The impossible had become the possible, the inconceivable had become the conceivable and there was darkness at noon.

  I covered my face with my hands to shut out the horror of that brilliant morning, and then very slowly I sank to my knees, let my hands fall and once more looked over the abyss into the hell which lay churning below.

  V

  She thought I had vertigo. She sped back to me. Her strong sunburned little hand gripped my wrist. “It’s all right, Hal, it’s all right—you can’t fall. No one could possibly fall off here unless someone gave them a terrific shove—”

  No coward soul is mine.

  “Oh my God, my God—”

  “Take my hand, Hal, hold my hand.”

  I held it. I got myself together. I did it by thinking of Emily Brontë, facing death at thirty and writing her courageous poem. Struggling to my feet I walked back off the Bridge, sat down on the nearest rock, glanced at my watch and made a careful note of the time.

  Of course my father had never got back across the Shipway that night. Never. Impossible.

  “Hal, are you all right?”

  “Uh-huh. Sorry. Stupid of me.” My pen was still poised in my hand. I began an elaborate doodle in the margin of my notebook. Nothing much happened for a time. We sat listening to the water beneath the Bridge. The sun was hot, the view idyllic. The beauty bludgeoned me. I had never before realized that beauty could be so cruel.

  “I’m on a very bad trip,” I said suddenly to Caitlin. “Talk to me.”

  “Oh gosh. What shall I talk about?”

  “You.”

  “Me? But I’m so ordinary!”

  “Exactly. I want to hear someone ordinary talking about ordinary things. Tell me the story of your life. Go on. Begin: ‘I was born at the farm—’ ”

  “But I was born in Swansea. Mum had to go into hospital for a Caesar. I was christened Caitlin because Mum liked it, and Dilys after Aunt Dilys in Bettws-y-Coed, who’s my godmother, but I don’t like either of those names; I’d like to be called Tracy …”

  She talked on. It must have been an effort for her as she was shy but she had sensed my distress and was making a heroic effort to help. She talked about growing up at the farm as the little afterthought of the family, ignored by Gwyneth and Trevor but indulged by her parents. I heard about Aunt Dilys in Bettws-y-Coed and Aunt Olwen in Llandaff and Uncle Dai in Cardiff and her Welsh Nationalist cousins in the Rhondda Valley and her cousin Kelly-Jean in California who knew someone who knew someone else who had been in the army in Germany with Elvis Presley, and all the time I was watching the sea and thinking of Emily Brontë and trying to drum up the courage to acknowledge a truth I couldn’t face.

  “… and I’m not going to university, I’m not brilliant like Gwyneth. I’ll do a secretarial course and then perhaps a course in farm administration—I’d like to run a farm with my husband and do all the paperwork for him, like Mum does for Dad. I don’t suppose I’ll find a boy with his own farm, though—that’s just a dream. I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment. I had one last year but he took up with someone else because I wouldn’t sleep with him. I wondered if I was silly not to but I don’t know, supposing I got into trouble, and anyway I didn’t want to, it all seemed too much, I just wanted someone to go to the pictures with or maybe go dancing on Saturday night; how hard life seems sometimes, how difficult it is to know what to do, although I don’t suppose you find that, do you, I expect once one’s as old as you are one knows all the answers and you’re probably thinking I’m very peculiar, not having a boyfriend and not having been to bed with anyone.”

  “Rubbish. Girls like you may be an endangered species but you needn’t think there aren’t plenty of men still around who want to practice conversation.” I stood up. I could hardly go on sitting in a stupor by the Devil’s Bridge. It occurred to me then what an idiotic name that was. Was it traditional or had it been invented by some coy guidebook? I didn’t know. “Well,” I said, turning my back on the Outer Head, “that’s one place I’ll never revisit. Let’s go.”

  Halfway along the southern flank of the Inner Head, she said, “Is there anything I can do to, help you?”

  “No. Yes. Stick up for what you believe in and don’t go to bed with anyone just to follow the crowd. My cousin Kester used to say …”

  Silence.

  “Yes?” said Caitlin.

  “He used to say: ‘Hold fast, stand firm. Don’t just do the done thing, do the right thing.’ ”

  “That’s great,” said Caitlin. “That’s cool. I wish I’d known him.”

  I was walking ahead of her so she couldn’t see my face. I was remembering my lost hero in the golden myth which reality had blackened beyond recall, but although grief nearly overwhelmed me I beat it back. I told myself that maintaining my self-control merely required the right attitude of mind, and the right attitude of mind now consisted in refusing to grieve for Kester and refusing to remember my father.

  I managed to sustain that defense until we reached the mainland. Then although I was still too afraid to think of my father a voice in my head began to repeat fiercely: Not true, not true, not true.

  On the bank below the cliff we sank down on the grass to rest and I immediately pulled out my notebook. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, Caitlin—”

  “Oh, of course.”

  I uncapped my pen and began to write.

  VI

  NOTES ON MY RECONSTRUCTION AT THE WORM’S HEAD: All that I’ve really done this morning is explode Declan’s theory. What I haven’t done is disprove a single word of my father’s testimony, and the episode at the Devil’s Bridge shows the danger of letting one’s imagination run riot at the expense of one’s reason and intelligence. All I actually proved at this point was that the Devil’s Bridge would be the ideal spot to kill someone by administering a hefty shove. What I didn’t prove was that my father had done the shoving—in fact I haven’t even proved he got as far as the Devil’s Bridge. The only way I can prove that is to prove he missed the tide, and the only way I can prove he missed the tide is to bust that unbustable alibi of his.

  VERDICT: I can’t convict him of murder unless I turn up some piece of evidence that proves he never returned to the cottage that night.

  VII

  I snapped shut my notebook. I felt much better. The darkness had faded. The sea of Rhossili Bay was a limpid Pacific blue.

  “I’m all right now,” I said to Caitlin. “Thanks for the helping hand.”

  “That’s okay.” She smiled, suddenly shy again, and then added impulsively: “I don’t remember your cousin Kester, but I remember going to the cottage just after his death when my father decided to try and buy the place. Dafydd Morgan lent him the key. He thought your dad might be willing to sell.”

  “Holiday homes must be a gold mine these days—my father shouldn’t have sold. … What were you doing inspecting cottages with your father?”

  “I was very little and hadn’t started school, so when Mum went with Dad to see the cottage she had to take me along. Looking back I suppose it was a bit spooky. Everything must have been just as your cousin left it, because the police had only unsealed the place the day before. I remember—”

  “Caitlin—”

  “Yes?”

  “No, I’m sorry; there’s no reason why I should want to stop you. Go on.”

  “I was only going to say I remember the typewriter standing on the table by the window. I’d never seen one before
and I wanted to know what it was.”

  “Ah yes. The typewriter.” We went on watching the sea and the beauty no longer seemed cruel. Everything was so peaceful, so perfect, but it was beyond low-water now and I knew that all the time the tide was thudding closer, every wave building up to that terrifying moment when the first channel in the rocks would disappear beneath the surf and the Shipway would begin to sink in a roar of flying foam.

  “Tell me, Caitlin,” I said as we sat idly in the hot sunlight, “what else do you remember about that living room at the cottage? Describe it to me.”

  “Oh gosh, I couldn’t, I was so little and it was such a long time ago! In fact, there are only two things I really remember—one was the typewriter and the other—”

  “Yes? The other?”

  “—the other was this really fabulous radio—in fact it was the radio, not the typewriter, that was the first thing I saw as I ran into the room. …”

  I had caught my father out in his one fatal lie.

  The alibi exploded in my hands, the case cracked wide apart and my last hope sank like the Shipway beneath the roaring waters of the truth.

  VIII

  I didn’t give up. I didn’t dare. Kester and my father had drawn me deep into their dark tunnel and now they were behind me, blocking the way back to the light. My only hope of survival was to go on.

  I was now sure that my father had killed Kester, so my next task was to exonerate him. This proved well within my capabilities. After I had returned Caitlin to the farm I drove on to Llangennith, parked the car among the sand burrows and went for a long walk on Rhossili beach. There were people around but the beach was so vast that it still seemed empty. I walked on and on and all the time the tide was coming in, the surf hissing over the hot sand and driving me back to the foot of the Downs.

  When I reached the burrows again I sat down out of the wind and wrote the note acquitting my father of murder. I had by this time worked out how I could both acquit him and forgive him. Problem solved. Ordeal conquered. Happy ending.

  On my way back to the car I felt dizzy, and diagnosing the trouble as lack of sustenance I stopped in Llangennith to buy a bar of chocolate and a couple of bottles of Coke. Back in the car I refueled myself and drove on.

  But halfway to Penhale I realized I hadn’t the nerve to go on to Oxmoon. I needed more time. I had to make quite sure I had myself in control so I drove around Gower, in and out of the winding country lanes which were all radiant with wild flowers, and as the day drifted into evening I wound up on the summit of Cefn Bryn and watched the sun sink in a brilliant sky shot with red and gold. I went on watching the sky until I could see the stars. Then with my nerve strengthened, my courage repaired and my will at maximum strength I finally returned to Oxmoon.

  IX

  My nerve shattered on arrival. As I drove into the yard the front door of the mews house opened and I saw my father silhouetted against the light. My courage dissolved, my will snapped in two and I knew I couldn’t face him. I got out of the car. “Hi!” I called cheerfully, slamming the door. Then I blundered into the scullery before he could reply. Once the door was closed it was pitch-dark. I stood there leaning back against the panels and listening to my heart beating. The room was silent as the grave.

  I struck a match. It went out. I struck another, and as I struggled with my shaking fingers I knew I’d made a bad psychological mistake by not even pausing for the briefest of conversations. I got the candle alight and tried yet again to get a grip on myself but my will was tiring. I had a fleeting image of a strong swimmer who finds to his horror that he has underestimated the strength of the sea.

  There was a tap on the door.

  I opened my mouth to say: “Come in!” but nothing happened. I tried to think: No coward soul is mine. But I was in terror. I just stood there by the table in the candlelight and as I watched the door it began to open.

  He looked in. There was a long silence. Of course he had only to glance at me to realize that I knew.

  Eventually he crossed the threshold, closed the door and said, “You look very ill. Let me take you over to the house,” but all I said was “You shouldn’t have lied to me about the radio.”

  A few more seconds slipped away. He joined me at the table.

  Pulling out a chair for himself he suggested that we should sit down.

  We sat down.

  “Exactly what’s been happening?” said my father.

  “I’ve been reconstructing your crime.”

  We faced each other across the table with the candle burning steadily between us. We must have looked like figures in a painting of a Dutch interior, an exquisitely balanced composition gilded by a glowing light.

  “I was with Caitlin Llewellyn,” I said. “She remembers the cottage as it was shortly after Kester died. She remembers that radio in the living room. If you’d been waiting at the cottage that evening, you’d have turned on the radio—you admitted as much yourself. In fact you knew it would have been so out of character for you to wait for hours in a room without trying to find a musical broadcast that you knew you had to lie and say the radio wasn’t there; you couldn’t lie and invent some concert because of course all broadcasts can be checked. No, you weren’t at the cottage that night, were you? You spent the night cut off on the Worm and when you finally staggered back at dawn there would have been no music to hear on the radio—the BBC would have closed down hours before, and besides it was hardly the time, was it, to listen to music. You probably had some whisky, just as you said you did, but then you went out to your car—”

  “You should have a drink yourself,” said my father. “You should have brandy.”

  “—and finally you drove back to Oxmoon. You were frantic. You knew you had to cook an alibi but then you had your lucky break, the break all lucky criminals get, because it turned out that Dafydd was in a position to give you a grade-A alibi. No problem there. The big problem was to work out what the hell to tell the police but you did that brilliantly, mixing fact and fiction with such skill that it was impossible to know where the truth ended and the lies began. But let me tell you now what I think happened—no, don’t interrupt. I’ve spent the whole, afternoon working on this story, and I think I’ve finally got it right and at long last I can see the way things really were.”

  I got up. I retrieved a Coke from the larder, uncapped the bottle and drank. Then I sat down again and said, “This was a conjuring trick, a grand illusion, a master plot dreamed up by a master magician. You admitted as much to me earlier when you were handing me yet another brilliant embroidery on the true facts. But Kester had no intention of committing suicide, did he? Not Kester. Kester wasn’t a suicide, he was a murderer. I think he planned to kill you and get away with it.”

  I paused but my father just said simply, “Go on.”

  I drank some more Coke. “The point about this case,” I said, “is that everyone got hung up on the survivor. Everyone focused on whether you had had the motive for murder and whether you had engineered a crime. But that was all wrong, wasn’t it? It was Kester who had the motive and Kester who engineered the crime, and once I’d cast Kester in the role of the villain who was crazy everything started to make sense.

  “If you’d disappeared that night at the Worm, what could have been pinned on Kester? Damn all. He wouldn’t have reported you missing, of course. His line would have been that he’d never seen you that night, and besides it might well have been hard to pinpoint the exact time of your disappearance—it might even have been hard to prove you had been in Rhossili at all that evening, and even if the police turned up witnesses who had seen you there, no one could say they’d seen you with Kester—quite the reverse. Kester had kept himself a quarter of an hour ahead of you and the tides were unfavorable. He had the excuse of his eccentricity to explain why he had chosen to be marooned on the Worm that night, but there was no reason why you should have wanted to be cut off—again, quite the reverse. The inference would have been that you’d some
how drowned on the Shipway—if indeed anyone had seen you in the area at all—but why should Kester have known anything about that? He’d be on the Outer Head by that time, communing with nature and thinking about this brilliant new novel of his which was actually, as we now know, just the plot for your murder. His line would have been complete innocence and it would have been a line very difficult, if not downright impossible, to disprove.

  “In fact it seems to me Kester had only two serious problems with this master plot. One was your car. Ideally no one was going to know exactly when you went missing, but if you had driven over from Oxmoon and left the car in his garage to avoid blocking the lane, the police were bound to ask him later why he didn’t wonder where you were. But in fact it was his car, wasn’t it? He could always have said he’d reclaimed it from you, just as he’d reclaimed his radio from Evan—he could always have said he found the car had been returned while he was out and he assumed you hadn’t bothered to wait for him. But the second problem was more serious and that was the note he wrote to lure you to Rhossili.

  “He didn’t make a specific appointment to see you, did he? He didn’t dare. He couldn’t bank on you destroying that note before you went off to be killed, and that meant he had to write it on the assumption that it might wind up in the hands of the police. So he could write nothing that might tie him to the mystery of your disappearance. He had to keep that note dead-casual yet at the same time he had to write something that would guarantee you’d immediately drop everything and rush to Rhossili.

  “He mentioned Oxmoon, didn’t he? He knew the way your paranoia worked, but I’ll bet he kept the tone so benign and facetious that any outsider reading the note would think he was offering you infinite room for negotiation. That way you’d know he was on the warpath but the police would think he was pacifism personified.