The Office of the Dead

by Taylor, Andrew

  ‘Madam? Madam?’

  I looked up at the assistant stooping over me.

  ‘Are you all right, madam?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just a little faint.’

  ‘It’s rather hot in here. They find it so hard to get the temperature right.’

  ‘Let’s get a taxi,’ Rosie suggested. ‘Then you won’t have to walk anywhere.’

  I breathed deeply. The baby inside me needed air. Concentrate on the baby. My baby.

  ‘A taxi?’ I said. ‘Good idea. But I’d like to make a phone call first.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘What would you say to another ice-cream?’

  49

  I damned the expense and told the taxi driver to wait. Rosie and I went inside the Blue Dahlia Café. The sad-faced woman was behind the counter polishing an already gleaming urn. When she saw Rosie, she brightened as if inside her a candle had burst into flame.

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Martlesham,’ I said. ‘He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Just a moment, miss. I see if he’s ready.’

  ‘I wonder if you could look after Rosie while I’m talking to him.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The woman smiled down at Rosie, who smiled back, scenting an easy conquest. ‘That’s a pretty dolly. What’s her name?’

  ‘Angel.’

  ‘What a pretty name. Does Angel like ice-cream?’

  Rosie nodded and stared at her feet.

  ‘When Mummy talks to Mr Martlesham, I make you an ice-cream and her an ice-cream. You can help me.’

  Rosie said nothing and nor did I, but Angel squawked, ‘Mama.’ The woman went through the archway and for a moment the multi-coloured strips of nylon ribbon fluttered like a broken rainbow.

  Rosie squeezed my hand as if ringing a bell for service. When I looked down, she said, ‘Will the lady let me eat Angel’s ice-cream?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  A moment later the woman came back. ‘He see you now.’

  ‘You be good, Rosie. I shan’t be long.’

  ‘We make ice-creams,’ the woman said. ‘Lovely ice-creams for little angels.’

  She swept Rosie round the counter, ignoring a customer at the table in the window who was trying to attract her attention.

  I went through the archway and tapped on the door to the left. Martlesham told me to come in.

  At first sight he was unchanged, as dapper as ever. He sat behind the big desk, the chair angled so I saw only the right side of his face, the side undamaged by the stroke. Today he was wearing a blazer and a loosely knotted cravat. Gold gleamed in the folds of the cravat, the tiepin with the horse’s head inlaid with enamel. He extended his hand over the desk to me.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t get up.’ He wrenched the words out of himself. ‘Not too fit at present.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  We shook hands. His skin was dry and cold, like a snake’s.

  ‘Someone in Rosington passed on my message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good of you to come in person, Mrs Appleyard. I thought you might write or phone. Have you come far?’

  ‘Hampshire. My husband and I are living there now.’

  Everything about Simon Martlesham was as immaculate as ever. What had changed was something inside. He wasn’t fighting any more.

  ‘I was ill during the summer.’ He wasn’t asking for sympathy, merely stating a fact. ‘I would have written to you sooner. I was sorry to hear about your friends. What was their name?’

  ‘Byfield.’

  ‘I saw it in the papers.’

  ‘Their daughter’s in the café now. She’s having a lovely time and lots of ice-cream.’

  ‘Claudia likes children. Now Franco’s grown up, what she needs is grandchildren. Do you want anything, Mrs Appleyard? Tea or coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I don’t like loose ends,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t me who hired that private detective. I think I’ve seen him once or twice, watching the café. Claudia noticed him too … They’re very good to me, in their way, her and Franco. But I didn’t hire the man, I promise you that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But I want to know who did. It’s a worry, you see.’

  ‘I got it the wrong way round, Mr Martlesham. It wasn’t you trying to find your sister. It was your sister trying to find you.’

  In his shock he turned to face me. The left-hand side of his face was worse than it had been before. I guessed he’d had another stroke over the summer. He licked his lips and leant across the desk, cupping his ear with his hand.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your sister Nancy.’

  He sat back in his chair. Breathing heavily, he pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, dabbed his forehead and blew his nose. ‘Tell me, please. What happened?’

  So I explained that Francis Youlgreave had kept his promise and that Nancy was indeed a lady, and in more senses than one. I said I’d talked to her, and tried to describe the Old Manor House. He listened, nodding his head slowly.

  ‘Do you want her address?’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  For a moment neither of us spoke. The old man’s mouth worked, as though he was chewing words. I thought of him as old, though he was only sixty-seven.

  ‘He was a good man,’ Martlesham said at last. ‘Canon Youlgreave. I always said he was.’

  ‘I know you did.’

  Now I had the opportunity. Now I had a chance to ask the question. Perhaps the last chance. And I didn’t want to do it. Because Martlesham was dying and none of us can face too much undiluted truth, whether about other people or ourselves. I looked around the room with its battered ex-War Department furniture. I wanted to go home, back to Veedon Hall and Henry.

  ‘Do you think he was a good man?’ Martlesham barked, making me jump. ‘Do you, do you?’

  The colour had risen in his face. His right hand, the one unaffected by the stroke, was trembling on the blotter. I thought he might be on the verge of another stroke.

  ‘I think he did some good things,’ I said. ‘And he did some bad things too. Like most of us. But perhaps he went to extremes, and in both directions.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your sister, Lady Youlgreave – she hired Munro to trace you and to find out what people knew about Francis Youlgreave. Why do you think she did that?’

  He shrugged one shoulder. ‘How do I know?’

  ‘I think perhaps you could guess. Why don’t you want to see her now?’

  ‘I told you why.’

  ‘You said that in the past, when you came back to England, you would have been an embarrassment to her, and that she thought you’d sold her. Maybe both those things were true, but there was something else, wasn’t there?’

  His right hand raised itself on its fingers and scuttled slowly across the blotter. He stared at his hand, not me.

  ‘Did you know your aunt was alive until very recently, until June?’

  He raised his eyes. Slowly he nodded.

  ‘And did you know you’ve got a cousin, too – Wilfred Gotobed?’

  ‘You talked to them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aunt Em talked to you?’

  ‘She was careful what she said, of course, she had to be. For the same reason you had to be, and Lady Youlgreave. Lady Youlgreave most of all.’

  His nails scraped the blotter, as though trying to scratch out something. ‘I’m tired. I must ask you to leave.’

  ‘I will.’ I stood up, smoothed down my skirt and picked up my handbag. ‘But before I go, Mr Martlesham, I’ll tell you what I think happened. Mrs Gotobed said that when she wanted to get married, the children were a problem, her sister’s children, because Sammy Gotobed didn’t want them. At the time I thought she meant you and Nancy. But that didn’t make sense, because you were more or less off her hands. You were working at the Bishop’s Palace before your mother died, and living there too. Then Canon Youlgreav
e sent you off to Canada. Either way, you wouldn’t have been much of a burden on your aunt.’

  ‘She was an old woman. She got confused about how old I was.’

  ‘And then you told me, the last time I saw you, that your mother had died in childbirth. Mrs Gotobed said that before she married her verger, she lived in lodgings and your mother’s children came to live with her. The landlady complained about the trouble and the mess they made. “I’m not a nursemaid,” that’s what she said.’

  The hands were completely still now.

  ‘Even if you had been living with them, a thirteen-year-old boy with a job of his own wouldn’t have needed a nursemaid.’

  Martlesham had old man’s eyes surrounded by crumpled skin and swimming with moisture. I watched a tear gathering on the lower lid of the right eye.

  ‘Children,’ I said. ‘More than one.’

  He said nothing. He blinked, and the tear vanished.

  ‘What happened to the baby?’

  He didn’t answer, would never answer. Nor would any of them. Francis Youlgreave had given the three of them a future, Simon, Nancy and Aunt Em, and in return he took the baby. It had been simple. All that remained were a few fragments of the crime.

  ‘I could find out,’ I said. ‘I could go to Somerset House and look for the birth certificate.’

  Martlesham’s head twitched and something like a smile crept across the ruined face.

  I knew then it was no use. The birth hadn’t been registered. This was a slum baby, an orphan, unwanted by the living and expected to die. So even the victim had been legally non-existent, just as Rosie legally could not be a murderer.

  A new-born baby is so small. Not very different in size from a cat or a chicken, and much less able to defend itself. Simon and Mrs Gotobed might not have known what would happen, though perhaps they had guessed. But Nancy?

  Simon Martlesham wouldn’t meet my eyes. I left the room, closing the door quietly behind me. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. On the far side of the ribbons, Rosie was sitting in state at one of the tables surrounded by an audience of admiring women and finishing a bowl of ice-cream daubed with chocolate sauce. It took me a while to drag her away. The sad-faced woman would not let me pay the bill.

  The taxi driver looked up from his Post as we came out of the café. I shook my head and pointed at the telephone box on the corner of Fetter Passage. I took Rosie’s hot, sticky hand and tugged her towards it. I opened the door of the box and a warm waft of urine and vinegar swept out.

  ‘It’s smelly,’ Rosie said. ‘Who are you ringing?’

  ‘Just someone I know. You can wait outside.’

  She stood by the box and talked to Angel while I phoned directory enquiries. I was lucky – I had been afraid the Old Manor House number might be ex-directory, and I knew that if I didn’t try now, I never would. Consume the better part, No more. For therein lies the deepest art … Pregnant women have odd fancies and sudden, overwhelming fears. That’s what Henry would think when I told him about this.

  If I told him.

  The voice of a woman I didn’t recognize crackled in my ear. I pressed the button, gave my name and asked for Lady Youlgreave.

  ‘Tell her it’s about Uncle Francis,’ I said.

  I waited, my left hand resting on my stomach, my baby.

  A moment later, Lady Youlgreave came on the line. ‘Mrs Appleyard. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve just seen Simon.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your brother.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t give him my address.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to see you.’

  ‘Why have you been pestering him now?’

  I was bobbing on a great tide of emotion, anger and fear, revulsion and pity, rising higher and higher. ‘I know what happened. I know about the baby.’

  ‘Do you indeed. Which baby might that be?’

  ‘Your little brother or sister. The one that Francis Youlgreave bought. What sex was it? Did you even give it a name?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Did you help him kill it?’

  ‘What a vivid imagination you have,’ Lady Youlgreave said, and put down the phone.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ Rosie said as we walked down Fetter Passage towards our taxi.

  I couldn’t be bothered to pretend. ‘Because people are such a terrible mixture of good and bad.’

  Rosie tossed her head as though I’d said something so childish it was beneath contempt.

  ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ she said. ‘Except Angel.’

  About the Author

  Andrew Taylor

  Andrew Taylor is the award-winning author of a number of crime novels, including the Dougal series, the Lydmouth books and The Barred Window. His critically acclaimed, award-winning historical thriller, The American Boy, is a Richard and Judy Book Club Selection. He and his wife live with their children in the Forest of Dean.

  The Office of the Dead is the third volume of Andrew Taylor’s Roth Trilogy.

  Author’s Note

  The Office of the Dead is the third novel in the Roth Trilogy, which deals layer by layer with the linked histories of the Appleyards and the Byfields. Each book may be read on its own as a self-contained story. The three novels are also designed to work together, though they may be read in any order.

  The first novel, The Four Last Things, is set in London during the middle of the 1990s. The second, The Judgement of Strangers, is set in Roth, a remote suburb of London, in 1970.

  Praise

  Praise for Andrew Taylor

  ‘Andrew Taylor is a master of the corrosive passions that fester beneath conventional façades’

  VAL MCDERMID

  ‘Taylor is a writer blessed with great compassion as well as an unerring eye for historical detail. His flawed heroes and heroines and narrators are people you have met before in the street’

  FRANCIS FYFIELD, Sunday Express

  ‘Like Hitchcock, Taylor pitches extreme and gothic events within a hair’s breadth of normality’

  Times Literary Supplement

  ‘Taylor is a major thriller writer’

  Time Out

  ‘One of Britain’s best writers of psychological suspense’

  The Times

  ‘Taylor, who is a successful and subtle crime novelist, works a delicate and difficult game successfully’

  Spectator

  Praise for The Roth Trilogy

  ‘Skilful, elegant, powerfully atmospheric, in which ancient evil shimmers like images trapped in a corridor of mirrors’

  PHILIP OAKLEY, Literary Review

  ‘An intelligent, exciting psychological drama … A powerful feeling of something nasty just around the corner prevails’

  Daily Mail

  ‘The writing is consistently good’

  DONNA LEON, Sunday Times

  ‘It deals in the quietest, most civilized way with abominable suffering … a highly sinister piece of work’

  NATASHA COOPER, Times Literary Supplement

  ‘Complex, with lots of sinister implications … moves the traditional crime novel on to some deeper level of exploration’

  JANE JAKEMAN, Independent

  ‘A trilogy which spans both history and geography … masterly’

  GERALD KAUFMAN, Scotsman

  Also by the Author

  Caroline Minuscule

  Waiting for the End of the World

  Our Fathers’ Lies

  An Old School Tie

  Freelance Death

  The Second Midnight

  Blacklist

  Blood Relation

  Toyshop

  The Raven on the Water

  The Sleeping Policeman

  The Four Last Things

  The Barred Window

  Odd Man Out

  The Air that Kills

  The Mortal Sickness

  The Lover of the Grave

  The Judgement of Strangers

  The Suffoc
ating Night

  Where Roses Fade

  Death’s Own Door

  Requiem for an Angel

  The American Boy

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters

  and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s

  imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living

  or dead, events orlocalities is entirely coincidental.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  This edition 2000

  First published in Great Britain by

  HarperCollinsPublishers 1999

  Copyright © Andrew Taylor 1999.

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013

  Cover photography © Mark Pennington

  Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Source ISBN: 9780006496557

  Ebook Edition © APRIL 2013 ISBN: 9780007502035

  Version 2

  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.