The Once and Future Con

by Peter Guttridge

  "Except with Askwith."

  "That piece of slime! Sorry, Faye, I know he was your husband."

  A burst of light abruptly illuminated us. The fireworks had begun again. I saw an odd tableau. The harlequin and the blood-bedewed masquer clinging onto each other, the punchinello standing before them, his club threatening. I felt we were in one of the paintings we'd passed earlier.

  "I'm inclined to agree with your estimation," Faye said quietly.

  "He tried to blackmail you, that night at the college dinner?" I said.

  "Askwith had been blackmailing me for years. He came to see me the day after Frome's death and agreed to keep it quiet. And he did. But I knew it was only a matter of time until he called in the note. I guessed that once I was ennobled he'd come looking for me. He'd kept in touch over the years, checking on my progress. Wouldn't do him any good to expose me earlier in my career and I wasn't earning enough-he took an annual stipend, index-linked to my salary. You could tell the bastard was an accountant."

  "And that night?"

  "Yes, he approached me and demanded serious money. Money I simply didn't have."

  "He'd lost a lot of our money on the stock market, sunk the last of it in Rex's venture," Faye said.

  "And that excuses him?" Williamson said coldly.

  "I wasn't trying to-"

  "But how could he say what he knew after all these years," I said. "Without being accused of withholding evidence?"

  Williamson tapped the club on the floor impatiently.

  "He just needed to speak to a few people in your profession."

  "Accusing you of murder? You could have argued it was an accident."

  "What difference would that make to my reputation? A government minister, a married man with children, involved in a scandal at university concerning his lover and the gay don-can't you just see it?" His voice was bitter, indignant. "Even without a murder accusation my reputation would have been in tatters."

  "Publishing that wouldn't have been in the public interest."

  Williamson laughed. It echoed harshly in the bare room.

  "When has that ever made a difference?"

  "But that would have meant exposing his own wife's brother."

  "That wouldn't concern my husband in the least," Faye said.

  "And, frankly, I didn't give a sod about that," Williamson said impatiently. "I've worked hard to get where I am and I'll be damned if one little mistake is going to get in my way." He looked my way. "I still feel the same."

  "But it's more than one little mistake now. You killed Askwith."

  "Accidental death, actually. I believe that was the coroner's verdict. Lovely funeral by the way, Faye. So final, a cremation, don't you think? I mean I know we're all going to make our fortune out of digging up Arthur's bones but I'm pleased Askwith's body can never be dug up."

  "You poisoned him?"

  "No, no. Merely helped him drink some port. Quite a lot of port actually. But holding him down was difficult. He struggled. A black tie doesn't make an ideal wrist restraint. I could have done with two but his, of course, was a clip-on. Anyway, there were some marks on him that could be ... reinterpreted."

  I wanted to ask about the significance of the Holman Hunt painting but there was a more pressing question.

  "Weren't you worried that he and Faye were in it together?"

  "I thought it unlikely-I knew the state of their marriagebut I did have a chat with Faye. Just to make sure that she and everyone else still thought Ralph here had killed Frome."

  "When was this?" I said. But I realized I already knew the answer. "In Tintagel?"

  Faye looked toward me. She took her mask off with her free hand.

  "I'm sorry, Nick. I wanted to tell you. He offered to help Ralph if he needed money. I thought he was being kind but now I realize he was just trying to find out if Ralph was still alive and if I suspected anything."

  "This is all fascinating stuff," Ralph said shakily. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to sit down, if that's okay with you, Reggie."

  He let go of Faye and shuffled over to the edge of the stage. He lowered himself onto it, breathing hard. He tore at his mask then sat there, gasping for air.

  Williamson seemed transfixed by Ralph's face.

  "You used to be so beautiful," he said, shaking his head.

  I was remembering the man who followed Faye up onto Tintagel Island. The man who clobbered me and left me to drown in Merlin's Cave. I threw my cloak over Williamson's head.

  "You tried to kill me, you bastard!" I said, grabbing him in a bear hug and trying to kick his legs out from under him. He writhed and tried to raise the club but I held on and we fell to the floor together. He tried to roll back on top of me but I resisted strenuously. As we struggled he managed to free the arm with the club in it. He was raising it to hit me when Faye darted in and, with surprising strength, dragged it from his grasp.

  He subsided then and I moved away and got to my feet. Faye handed me the club as he started to rise.

  "Stay down or I'll use this bloody thing," I gasped. "I owe

  Williamson poked his head through the cloak.

  "Look, I couldn't be seen down in Tintagel," he said, his voice wheedling. "I had no reason to be there and I was supposed to be elsewhere on government business. I didn't know if you'd overheard our conversation or what else you knew. I knew you'd gone into the library when Askwith was there. How did I know you weren't in this thing with him? The unfortunate incident in the cave ... it was nothing personal, I assure

  "Sure. But why Lucy? Why kill her? What had she stumbled on?"

  "Lucy?" he said, surprised. "I didn't kill Lucy. I liked the poor lamb."

  I frowned.

  "No that one is a mystery to me, Madrid. I expect we'll probably find out one day. I-"

  With a groan, Ralph slid sideways and fell off the stage to the floor. Faye clutched her throat, pinching the skin between her fingers. She moaned then rushed toward him.

  "Ralph!" she cried.

  My attention was distracted for only a moment but the next thing I knew my cloak was spreading before me then falling around my head. I was punched hard in the stomach. I heard the clatter of feet running the length of the apartment.

  I wrestled the cloak from around my head. Faye was cradling Ralph in her arms. I looked round for Williamson. Skidding on the polished floor, he had almost reached a door I hadn't noticed before at the far end of the apartment. The flashing lights from the fireworks sent his looming, distorted shadow up the wall and along the ceiling. I looked back at Faye. She saw my indecision.

  "We're alright alone. Go after him." Her voice was tender. "We're alright."

  I took off down the room. The waders weren't exactly ideal for sprinting but at least the rubber soles held the shiny floor. The door opened onto a narrow flight of stairs. Down all its twists and turns it was lit only by dim electric lights set at intervals on the rough walls.

  As I descended, hearing Williamson descending pell-mell ahead of me, I was aware of the increasing smell of damp and mildew. I heard the screech of wood on stone and when I turned the next corner saw an open door and, beyond it, the Grand Canal. I reached the door just as a motor boat, moored some yards to my left, roared into life.

  I lunged for it as it started to move. I got the top half of me into the boat. My legs were dangling over the side in the water. Williamson was standing at the wheel, his back to me. As the boat dipped with my weight, he looked back over his shoulder. He snarled and pressed a button. The boat shot forward with a thrust of acceleration, obviously intended to dislodge me.

  I threw myself onto the deck of the boat. After a moment I got unsteadily to my feet. Now I could hear as well as see the cascade of fireworks bursting over the city. The Grand Canal was brightly lit and choked with flotillas of all shapes and sizes. Boats, I saw with alarm, that we were heading towards at alarming speed.

  The thrust of the boat had taken Williamson by surprise too and I saw him stagger back
from the controls. Directly ahead of us was a long, slender boat, pulled by a dozen oarsmen in ruffs and caps. At one end two men were sitting, at the other two women. All were looking at the motorboat that seemed to be about to plough into them.

  One of the men was Rex. I recognized Bridget and Genevra. Rex started to rise.

  Williamson grabbed the wheel and spun it frantically. The motor boat seemed to stop dead in its tracks before veering sharply to the left, its rear slewing round and sending up a huge fan of water that crashed down on the occupants of the other boat.

  Our boat continued to slew and a moment later the back end collided with the rear of the long boat. I saw an oar fly up and catch Williamson on the side of his head, pitching him over the side of the motor boat. A moment later I saw Ralph topple over the far side of the long boat. Then something hit me across the side of the head and I too toppled into the water.

  I don't recommend having your stomach pumped. I mean, it's one thing ingesting a piece of milky gauze to sop up bile for fifteen minutes, but having a tube stuck down inside you for half an hour, turning your innards inside out, definitely ain't pleasant. However, if you've swallowed half a gallon of the Grand Canal and want to live, you've really got little choice.

  I woke in the hospital feeling as if my throat had been flayed. I was in a private room. Next door on the left was Rex, on the right Bridget, and next to her Genevra. Williamson hadn't made it. A tragic accident, the British newspapers were calling it. I saw no point in raising other matters.

  It was a day or so before I found out what had happened. Bridget came in-with her usual exquisite timing, I was having an injection in my backside at the time-and flopped down in the chair.

  "If I'd known what having my stomach pumped was going to be like," she croaked when the nurse had gone, "I'd have let you drown."

  I recalled hitting the water, woozy and pretty much a dead weight. Then, as I was gulping in water and sinking-the wide thighs of the waders were filling up with water-I felt somebody grab me under the arms. A palm cupped me under my chin.

  I was lifted up to the surface but I could feel the weight of the water in the waders dragging me back down. Then I heard a familiar voice close to my ear.

  "This dress cost me an arm and a fucking leg to hire. It's ruined so I'm already really pissed off. If you don't start making an effort to stay afloat I'm just going to let you sink." I felt the smack of lips against my cheek. "Alright, poppet?"

  "You saved me." I whispered. "But what about Rex? I would have thought you'd have gone to the aid of your future husband."

  "Yeah, well ... anyway Genevra went in after him. Not that she needed to-he could swim."

  "I can swim! Something hit me on the head-"

  "I know, dear. Even so, can I suggest that next time you're drowning you're a bit more proactive."

  "Righty-ho," I said.

  I smiled at her.

  "Save the gloopy look," she said. "It doesn't mean anything."

  We flew home the next day. All except Faye. She stayed on in Venice to care for Ralph. She intended to stay until the end. Their son would join them during the Easter holidays.

  I stared blankly out of the window on the flight home. If Williamson was telling the truth about Lucy, then there was still an unsolved murder. I wanted to question Buckhalter about any meeting he might have had with Lucy on the day of her death, but when we landed in Britain he went straight up to London to find a replacement investor.

  Genevra and I had been awkward with each other in recent hours. However, back at Wynn House that evening, she whispered to me to come to her room that evening. We talked and we made love but I sensed that my accusations had broken something that couldn't be repaired.

  Later that night I was lying in bed preening-I seemed finally to have got the hang of this sex lark-when Genevra picked up the remote and put on the TV. There was a local news report about how archaeologists were in hog heaven because the now receding floods had brought so much new material up from the depths of the earth to the surface.

  "How far have you got with the research about our tomb?" she said.

  "Far enough to know the whole discovery back in the twelfth century was a fake." I told her what I'd told Bridget about the greed of the Glastonbury monks. I listed the relics.

  "So why did they need one more?" she said.

  "I couldn't figure that out at first. Then I discovered that in 1184 their ancient wattle and daub church burned down. They'd been claiming it was the first church in Britain and it had been a popular attraction for pilgrims. King Henry II agreed to pay for a replacement and, because of his lead, lots of other lords and ladies chipped in. The monks planned the rebuilding of the whole Abbey on a vast scale."

  I glanced over at the television. It was showing pictures of skeletons and pieces of pottery.

  "Do you remember when the monk's found Arthur's grave?" I asked.

  "1191."

  "Henry died in 1189. Know who succeeded him?"

  "History wasn't my thing, I'm afraid."

  "Richard the Lionheart. He's another one who got all the glory for being a shit while King John, who stayed home and held it all together, became a byword for badness. Anyway, Richard wasn't going to cough up any money. He was spending all he had on preparations for the Third Crusade-it wouldn't be long before he instigated the massacre of the Jews in York to pay for his adventures.

  "So suddenly the money for Glastonbury dried up. If the monks were going to build their big abbey they needed another money-spinning attraction."

  "Cue Arthur and Guinevere's grave," Genevra said, gazing blankly at the television screen.

  "The grave was found, by the way, in a spot that had been mysteriously curtained off a few days prior to the discovery. The bones went first to a chapel in the south aisle of the new church, then later into the black marble tomb. Funds poured in and the monks rebuilt the abbey bigger and better than ever before. At the Dissolution, Glastonbury was the richest abbey in the country."

  "Didn't you say the tomb got moved again?"

  "Edward I and his wife Queen Eleanor visited Glastonbury in 1278. Edward, aside from being quite taken with Arthur, had been fighting the Welsh and he needed to impress upon them that Arthur was really dead. They opened the tomb. The contemporary witness said that Arthur's left ear had been cut off `with the marks of the blow that slew him visible.'

  "Edward insisted they move the tomb into the choir of the church, immediately in front of the high altar. They kept out the `heads and cheeks'-I have no idea what the cheeks were-as relics."

  The news report was saying that the most recent find had been in a peat bed just outside Glastonbury. The head of a woman had surfaced, perfectly preserved for God knows how many centuries.

  "What do you mean," Genevra said, stifling a yawn, "Edward was taken with Arthur?"

  "He used to hold chivalric tournaments. More practically, later on in his reign he based his claims to Scotland on the rights of King Arthur to the whole of Britain, as recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth."

  A photo of the woman's head appeared on screen. Genevra stiffened.

  "Good God," she said. "That's my stepmother."

  "I don't understand," Genevra said.

  "I do. You've got a matching set of bones for that head in your crypt."

  Genevra blanched.

  "Oh my God. What could have happened?"

  I sat up and slid out of bed.

  "Let's find out. We'll go and ask Rex."

  "Why Rex?"

  I pulled on my trousers. My brain seemed to be working very quickly but very clearly. And everything, all the disparate elements of the past few weeks' events, were clicking into place.

  "Didn't Rex pay your stepmother off by borrowing against his trust fund? Seems to have wasted his money, don't you think. Unless-"

  "You think my brother killed her?" She jumped out of bed and stormed across to me. "What is it with you and my family, Nick? Have you got that much of a chip on your s
houlder?"

  I shook my head. I was still figuring permutations.

  "Nick, what does it matter to you anyway? You're not involved."

  "There have been attempts on my life at least twice and you say I'm not involved?"

  "But that was Williamson. That's all finished."

  "Not all Williamson." I looked around for my shoes. "Look, I'm sure Rex has got a perfectly simple explanation."

  "She was a dreadful woman," Genevra said.

  "I'll be back shortly," I said, moving to the door.

  "Don't be," she replied.

  I hammered on Rex's door. I hoped he and Bridget weren't mid-sex. This kind of coitus interruptus Bridget could do without. I glimpsed Genevra coming down the corridor.

  "Jesus, come in!" Rex shouted, "No need to knock the frigging door down."

  When he saw me, with Genevra standing at my shoulder, he shrugged.

  "You want me to referee a fight, I'm not sure I'm the best

  "What happened to your stepmother?" I said.

  Rex was sitting up in bed, bare-chested, his hair hanging loose down to his shoulders. The bed was rumpled but he was alone.

  "What? You burst into my bedroom at this time of night what the fuck has it to do with you, Nick, what happened to our stepmother?"

  "Nothing. Except that her head turned up on the eleven o'clock news and we seem to have the rest of her stacked in the crypt."

  He looked at me for a moment.

  "Come in," he said. "Sit down."

  It was a huge bedroom. He was lying in a big four-poster bed. There was a sofa and a couple of chairs in a big bay window. A lavatory flushed behind a door to the right of the bed.

  Genevra sat down in one of the chairs. I sat on the sofa.

  "Look, you have my sympathy," I said. "Really. I'm one of those people who believe that bad taste should be punished and Camilla sounds ghastly. But even so, to kill her-"

  The bathroom door opened. Bridget was standing there in a pair of men's pajamas.

  "Nick. A word."

  "This is not the time-"