Hitherto Toby and Lucasta had contrived to keep the situation under wraps, which was perfectly understandable – no one in their right mind went about broadcasting their dark personal secrets! It was the kind of embarrassing private drama that at any moment might explode into an even more embarrassing public one. Toby wouldn’t be left alone if the tabloids were ever to get a whiff of any of it.
Her brother had already been in the news. He had made certain public statements – ‘pronouncements’, the liberal press had called them – concerning some of his bugbears: single mothers, immigrants, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his beard, queers in the army, state schools. Not surprisingly, the liberal press had taken against him. The liberal press would have a field day – oh, how they would gloat – if only they were to learn of Toby’s predicament!
It occurred to Iris that she wouldn’t be immune either. If she were to be identified as Toby’s sister – as the ‘aunt’ – they would think her worthy of their attention. News reporters and suchlike would besiege their house and they’d keep ringing the bell. They’d bang on her front door and shout impertinent questions through the flap and demand interviews. They’d flash their cameras. It would drive the dogs potty! (Columba and Tailwagger became frantic each time someone rang the front door bell.) Henry might actually get it into his head to go out and talk to them. Henry would probably think the whole thing a hoot. How are the mighty fallen. Henry was bound to say something like that. He and Toby didn’t get on. Toby liked to refer to his brother-in-law as ‘that buffoon’.
She asked where exactly her niece was at the moment.
‘Well, she was in Dubai to start with, that’s in the United Emirates, then in Bahrain, but since last month she’s been in Goa.’
‘Go-ah? Where exactly is Go-ah?’
‘South India. On the Arabian Sea coast. She is at a place called Kilhar.’
‘Killer?’
‘Kil-har. Ghastly place, by the sound of it. Toby looked it up on the map. He’s got two maps on the wall in his study – one of the world, which he’s covered with stars and dates for the places she’s been to – the other of Goa, Doesn’t allow me to go anywhere near them. He’s like a general conducting some military campaign!’ Lucasta gave a mirthless laugh. ‘He’s marked Goa with a red flag.’
Red for danger. ‘Killer’.’Kill her’. Either association was extremely unpleasant. Iris thought: Toby is obsessed with his daughter and Lucasta is obsessed with Toby. Nothing good can come of it.
‘He’s got someone spying on her.’
Iris sat forward alertly in her chair. ‘Not a – policeman?’
‘A policeman, yes. A retired one. A man called Bishop – no, Knight – some such name. He’s English. He’s lived in Goa for years, apparently. Knight tails her, writes everything down, then reports his findings to Toby. Toby spends hours on the phone, talking to him. You should see our phone bill. Oh, Iris, that’s not how I imagined our lives would be! This is complete madness. Toby doesn’t deserve any of it!’
‘Of course he doesn’t. Oh, my dear, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Such a pretty girl too. Who’d have thought it? Well, Toby didn’t like her doing modelling. Isn’t that when the whole trouble started?’
‘Toby disapproved of the company she started keeping while she was modelling.’
In search of high-octane thrills. Henry had used that expression once – apropos of something completely different. Oh, how Henry would enjoy this!
‘She met some man, didn’t she? Some – foreigner?’ Iris peered into her cup. ‘She said he was one of her “sponsors”, I remember, but of course it turned out he was something completely different – or have I got the wrong end of the stick?’
‘The man was an Arab. He was an escort agency owner. Terribly rich.’ Lucasta spoke in measured tones. ‘He was the head of an international escort agency. Branches in London, Paris, Shanghai, Bahrain and so on. He made her an offer, apparently, which she accepted. All that came out later on, mind. Sorry, Iris. I am a bad hostess. Would you like some more coffee?’
‘Yes, please.’
Lucasta picked up the pot with a steady hand. ‘Toby learnt the exact nature of what was going on entirely by chance. The exact nature of – of what she did. It came to him as a bolt out of the blue. He happened to open her diary, you see. Quite by chance. Oh well, you might as well know the whole story. He saw names – dates – a record of the payments she’d been receiving – instructions – addresses.’
‘Instructions?’ At once Iris wished she had held her tongue.
The redness on Lucasta’s cheeks intensified and her lips pressed tighter. ‘Instructions from clients. Concerning their . . . particular . . . tastes. Lists of outfits and – objects – paraphernalia – even lines of dialogue. He confronted her at once, asked for an explanation. She accused him of snooping. She was terribly rude to him. At first she prevaricated, told him it was none of his business, but then she came out with it. She looked Toby in the eye and told him what she did. In some detail.’
Only once before had Iris felt the discomfiting fascination of the appalling – on lifting a fallen branch in her garden one day and finding a dead squirrel crawling with maggots. (Dulcie had barked her head off. Max, the coward, had run off.) That, Iris reflected, was how those watching the corpse of Pope Pius XII, embalmed by an amateur taxidermist, turn green and then explode, must have felt. Objects? Paraphernalia? Clients? The dreaded headline swum before her eyes once more and this time it wrote itself out in full.
APPEAL COURT JUDGE’S DAUGHTER TURNS HOOKER.
‘She probably exaggerated, but it all sounded horribly convincing. Toby turned white as a sheet. He went up to her and slapped her face. She slammed out of the room – left the house. Toby broke down and cried. I’d never seen him in such a state. He was distraught. He wouldn’t let me go anywhere near him. Kept pushing me away.’ Lucasta’s voice quavered. ‘He didn’t sleep a wink that night.’
‘Poor Toby,’ Iris said. ‘Poor you.’
Toby’s portrait hung above the fireplace. It was by Andrew James, an awfully fashionable painter, much in demand, Iris had been told, and it had cost the earth, apparently. Toby had ordered it to mark his retirement from the bench the year before. The portrait showed Toby wearing his judge’s wig and rather majestic scarlet robes. It was a theatrical kind of picture. Toby had been depicted holding a pair of scales in his right hand and a parchment with a blood-red seal on it in his left. His lips were a bit too full and nearly the same shade of red as the seal, giving him a somewhat dissolute air. There were bluish shadows about the eyes. (Henry insisted that Toby had been en maquillage.)
The portrait made Toby look like an actor playing a judge. It put Iris in mind of Alec Guinness. She’d always found Alec Guinness a little creepy, especially when he smiled. Well, Toby had a strong histrionic streak in him, but then that could be said about most judges. As a boy Toby had excelled at charades and he had been unrecognizable as Charley’s aunt in the school production of that play. So droll! Papa had laughed so much, he’d had hiccups followed by a giddy spell. ‘A highly sinister talent,’ Toby’s headmaster had declared with a little shudder, Iris remembered. (Did people still find jokes about aunts and nuts coming from Brazil amusing?)
She went on gazing at the portrait. Something cruel and sinister about the mouth and the eyes. The painter had clearly taken liberties, though Toby had liked the portrait immensely. So, for that matter, had Lucasta. They were such an odd couple. Henry had dubbed Lucasta the ‘Lady Macbeth of Noon’s Folly’ – a woman of dark and impenetrable passions, about whom an opera should be written.
Iris suppressed the sudden urge to giggle. Terrified that Lucasta would notice, she pretended to cough.
‘A frog in my throat,’ she croaked, jabbing her forefinger at her collarbone. She had nearly exploded earlier on, when Lucasta had said ‘tastes’ and ‘paraphernalia’. She had had to dig her nails into her arm. She must ask Henry what paraphernalia that could
be. Whips? Outsize syringes? Silk stockings? She had actually read somewhere – Stop it, she told herself. Handcuffs? She was as bad as Henry! If she went on thinking about it, she would become hysterical and that would never do.
I must be serious, Iris reminded herself. This is no laughing matter. She tried to be as positive as she could about her brother and his achievements. Toby had devoted his life to justice. Toby had high moral standards. Toby was passionate about the truth. He had become notorious for his sadistic sentences. He had been hated and feared. Fifty years ago he would most certainly have been known as a ‘hanging judge’ –
No – that wasn’t particularly positive! Iris sighed. She wished she liked her brother more.
Lucasta was speaking. ‘She came back the next day. She talked to me as though nothing had happened, but pretended Toby wasn’t there. He tried to speak to her but she ignored him. She went up to her room and started packing. Toby went after her. He looked terrible – like death warmed up. Then they had another row and she managed to reduce him to a state of near-collapse. After that she left. Her parting words were that she was never coming back. Good riddance, I thought, I felt relieved, but then . . . then . . .’
‘Her letters started coming?’
‘It’s all calculated to drive him mad, or to kill him. She insists on recounting her exploits. I did consider writing to her and telling her to stop. All right, do whatever you like, it’s your life, but, for heaven’s sake, stop bothering your father – something on those lines. I don’t dare. I am afraid she’d tell Toby. She might, just to cause trouble between us – she’s that kind of girl. Toby would never forgive me. He’s already accused me of interfering – of being a “meddler”. Well, perhaps, if I had been her mother, things might have been different.’
‘She was a real handful as a child. I am afraid Imogen couldn’t cope. She was very much Daddy’s little girl. Toby spoilt her, rather.’ Iris lowered her voice. ‘They kept changing nannies.’
‘I try to put a brave face on it, but the truth is I am at my wits’ end. My marriage is being wrecked. I watch Toby being destroyed – slowly, methodically, relentlessly – and I can’t do a thing. Not a thing.’
Once more Lucasta crossed over to the window and stood there, staring out into the garden, her hands clasped before her. ‘Our poor maple tree,’ she murmured.
The last few leaves on the maple tree in the front lawn had been shrivelled by early frost but still clung to the nearly bare branches. Dead leaves, as far as Iris could see, lay everywhere, dark and wet, a blackened coating on the ground. And the mist went on swirling round – swirling round – something mesmerizing about it.
The Kraken . . .
‘It’s been an hour. He said he’d be back in twenty minutes. It’s very cold outside. He’s weak as a kitten. Am I a fool to worry so much?’ Lucasta had a somewhat manic look about her. ‘What do you think?’
Iris blinked through her glasses. ‘You – you don’t mean we should go and search for him?’
‘Would you mind awfully?’
The idea of a ramble through the misty forest was far from inviting. ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind. Not a bit,’ Iris assured her.
She in fact felt the reluctance of a dog about to be led to its bath water.
3
Flowers for the Judge
My dear girl, Lord Justice Leighton whispered as he leant against the ancient oak tree and shut his eyes. My dear sweet girl. Just now I had the very strong feeling that you were here with me. This oak – do you remember? Our oak.
Of course you remember. It looks and feels exactly as it did twenty years ago. Gnarled and misshapen and bunioned and covered with patches of moss.
The same. Unchanged. How is it that you changed so much?
We used to walk in the woods, you and I. You were five or six at the time. The loveliest, cleverest little girl. You had such a winning way with you. If I forgot to take your hand you pushed it into mine. We always ended up beside the oak. It had become our oak. You kept asking for stories. You loved nothing better than a good story. Andersen, the Brothers Grimm. Andersen, in particular. Little Ida, Gerda, the Snow Queen! All a little too spooky, I thought, but then you were fond of Winnie-the-Pooh as well . . . Funny fellow, Milne. Wrote all those books for the parents, rather than the children, or so it’s been claimed. Christopher Robin hated him, apparently. Read about it somewhere. Christopher Robin said he felt ‘exploited’. Wrote a memoir on the subject. Talk about unsatisfactory fathers!
You adored that bouncing Tigger. You said you were going to marry Tigger when you grew up, remember? When we tired of playing at Pooh-sticks, pretending to be Heffalumps, and having ‘expotitions’, I started making up stories for you. One particular story became your favourite – about a little squirrel who lived inside the oak. The squirrel had a squint, got squiffy on squash that had been laced with liqueur, squandered her acorns and quarrelled with her squaddies! It was all unbearably silly nonsense but that was the way you liked it. I made things up as I went along. How you laughed! I would give anything to hear your laugh again.
The squirrel’s name was Ria. You liked that name so much, you started calling yourself ‘Ria’. You still do. Ria. That’s how you sign your letters. It gives me a jolt, every time. The name suited you, I thought.
It’s as though none of it ever happened.
I am still in a frightful state about you. About you becoming that – that other person. I don’t understand it. It defies logic. Sometimes I think it is all a bad dream. Why choose the gutter when you could have had the sky? You had beauty, brains, every social advantage. You’d never wanted for money either. I sent you to the best schools. Queen’s Gate, Kensington, then Mont Fertile in Switzerland, to be ‘finished’. Such a marvellous place, Switzerland. All those mountain peaks glittering like wedding cakes.
You had a string of the most eligible suitors. Young men from good, distinguished families. I keep thinking of Prince Norbert of Wchinitz and Tetau. You met him in Geneva. At a thé dansant – they still hold old-fashioned social events like that there. I found him a charming young man – such excellent manners and so taken with you! You would have made the perfect princess. I rather wished – I rather hoped – in fact, for a while I did believe that he and you . . . but it wasn’t to be. You were not interested.
I know I mustn’t upset myself – must take care of my heart – that’s what Lucasta keeps saying, damn her. I didn’t bring any pills with me.
Was it all my fault? I keep racking my brains, but I haven’t been able to get a satisfactory answer. It couldn’t have been Lucasta’s fault. It would be so easy to blame Lucasta for our estrangement, the wicked stepmother and all that, but the problems started before Lucasta appeared on the scene.
You didn’t like the discipline I tried to impose on you. You began to rebel, to act in a wilfully disobedient manner. You started defying me. You seemed to enjoy defying me. You took particular pleasure in saying outrageous things. You seemed to find some of my reactions amusing. Well, I do tend to over-emphasize, pontificate and use Latin phrases – to enunciate orders as though they were papal encyclicals! There was that scornful look in your lovely eyes. That upset me. You don’t know how much that upset me. Stop treating me as though I were one of your criminals. That was what you said.
Did I treat you like a criminal? It’s my unfortunate manner, I know. Mea culpa. I am sorry. Perhaps after so many years on the bench, some kind of professional deformation does take place? I was never aware of it – not until you mentioned it.
I am sorry I hit you that day. I should never have done it. I am haunted by the memory. That last day, when you said you were never coming back. I never meant the things I said to you. Your letters make it clear you believe that I hate you. ‘Detest’ is the word you use. Oh, my dearest child, if only – if only – I could put into words how much I love you, how much I care! I only wanted what was best for you . . .
The mist seems to be thickening. Darkness falls
. Or is it my eyes? How drab and barren everything looks. Black clumps of earth, dry leaves, not a single flower in sight! Flowers – you loved picking flowers. Bluebells in spring. You’d pick a bunch of bluebells, hide them behind your back and then give them to me as a surprise. You would then shut your eyes and I knew you expected a kiss. Your sweet lovely face . . . No bluebells now – wrong season – not a single splash of colour. Only last week the trees were flame-red, but nature’s started dying. Decayed leaves everywhere – heaps – mounds. I don’t like mounds, they remind me of graves. There’s a smell in the air . . . something rotting . . . some dead animal . . . I don’t feel too well –
I am being morbid and melodramatic, I know, but if I were to die, would you come back for my funeral? Put flowers on my coffin, shed a tear?
I haven’t been able to sleep. It is as though I’ve been fed Cannabis indica. That’s Indian hemp, hashish. I suppose you get a lot of that sort of thing where you are at the moment? Do you take any drugs? I am prone to all sorts of silly fancies . . . Paranoid . . . You see, I suspect Lucasta of putting something in my tea, of trying to sedate me. She fusses too much. She believes I am mortally ill, that I may pop off at any time. I find her attentions annoying, to say the least. I know she means well, but she does tend to overdo things. Perhaps it was a mistake marrying her. I should have devoted myself to you, body and soul – to you, dear child. I should have tried to understand you better.
4.Little Victim Page 2