She arrived at a small door on the south side of the Castle, looked around to ensure she wasn’t observed, slipped a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and went in. The musty hallway was dark. She went to a tiny window for enough light to read her watch. Five minutes late. She swore again.
She put the key back in her pocket, reached into her capacious shoulder bag, and pulled out a mobile phone. She punched three buttons for a preprogrammed number, and waited impatiently while it rang.
“Hello?”
“I’m here, in the back hall. I know I’m late, I got held up. Is he there yet?”
“No, not yet. I haven’t seen him.”
“Thank God. I was afraid I was going to get yelled at.”
“Darling Crumpet, when have I ever yelled at you? I’m going to ring off now. Stay there till I ring again, O.K.?”
“O.K., but it’d better be soon. I don’t fancy crawling around on the bloody floor all afternoon.”
They had decided that in case she was discovered loitering, she was to pretend to be looking for an earring she’d dropped.
“Crumpet, you’re my hero. I shall bathe you in champagne for this. Bye now.”
Derek rang off, and Crumpet switched off her phone and got down on the floor. At least it would be convincing that she was having trouble finding something small on the worn flagstones. The only light switch in the hallway was cunningly hidden behind a huge old armoire, and Crumpet, being neither staff nor Family, would not be expected to know how to find it.
She was dressed for the sun outdoors, and she was soon wishing she’d brought her cardy. Or a cushion to sit on; her bottom was freezing, sitting on the old stones. Of course, a cushion would have ruined it; if she heard footsteps coming or a key in the lock of the door, she was going to roll onto her hands and knees and start patting the floor.
After what felt like hours, her phone purred quietly (she had turned the ringer volume down).
“Yes?” she whispered.
“Yes. Go! Now!”
She turned the phone off and scrambled to her feet. She hurried around the bend in the hallway; the passageway widened, and well-spaced lights in wall sconces brightened her way. She reached the steps of the muniment room, ran up them, and opened the heavy door as quietly as was possible. Derek had not failed her; Rob Hillman was nowhere to be seen. Quickly she moved to the long table and scanned the piles of manuscripts, file folders, notebooks, and other scholarly clutter.
There it was, glowing like a jewel among the dull papers: a small square, intricate and brilliant in gold and scarlet and blue, sandwiched between two pieces of glass, held upright by a stand of black wood.
Crumpet hesitated. Was she supposed to take the stand, too, or just the fragment? They hadn’t discussed it. She thought a moment. If she left the stand where it was, Rob might notice it. He’d know instantly that the fragment had been taken. Better to take the stand as well. She knew from experience that people frequently don’t notice if something is missing altogether.
She pulled a hand towel out of her shoulder bag, picked up the fragment by the corner of its stand, and wrapped the towel around it. She had started back toward the door before she had even finished wrapping, and with equal care and haste tucked the impromptu parcel into her bag before pulling the door open and making good her escape.
She tried not to walk too fast down the corridor, but she was terrified somebody would see her before she got out of the Castle. If someone did see her, she was to say she was looking for her dad, but she was afraid she looked too nervous, too excited, not to arouse suspicion.
Around the turn into the narrow dark hallway, she broke into a tiptoed run, fumbling in her pocket for the key. Outside, with the door locked behind her, she looked around. If her father saw her again, the game would be up; he’d see through her in a minute. She headed away from the servants’ garden, around toward the terrace. Behind a yew hedge, out of sight of the house, she again pulled her mobile phone out of her bag and punched the three digits.
“Yes?”
“Got it!”
“Good girl! Excellent girl! Where are you?”
“Between the terrace and the woods. I’m pretty sure nobody’s seen me. But I want to get the hell out of here.”
“Do that. The White Hart at five?”
“Can’t. Ran into my dad going through the garden and got hooked into tea with my folks. Couldn’t say no, could I?”
“No, I guess you couldn’t. Never mind, we can—what the—?”
“Derek?”
Silence.
“Derek, what’s happening?”
No reply.
“Derek, damn it! Tell me what’s going on! Derek!”
She heard two brief clicks, then the dial tone. Derek’s phone had been switched off.
Chapter 24
WINTER 1995
Two Years Before Rob Hillman’s Death
There were two telephones on the desk in Sir Gregory’s library. The black one was the house telephone; Sir Gregory rarely used it. Persons who wished to speak to him generally came to do so face-to-face; if the Baronet wished to summon anyone in the household, he preferred to use the old bell rope by the fireplace, a relic of former days which it amused him to keep in working order.
The white telephone, an altogether more modern machine with a wireless receiver which the Baronet could hold to his left ear while maneuvering his chair about the room with the controls on the right armrest, was the family telephone. The only people who had the number were Sir Gregory’s six living relatives, and only two of them, Derek and Meg, used it regularly. Since they were well acquainted with the old man’s habit of retiring to his bedroom every night at nine, it was a bit of a surprise the instrument rang at precisely that hour.
The nightly handover, as Sir Gregory referred to it, was in progress; Crumper had ascertained that Sir Gregory required nothing more of him that evening, and opened the door for a stately exit; as frequently occurred, Sir Gregory’s valet Hickson was upon the threshold preparing for an unobtrusive entrance; the two men nodded cordially to each other, Crumper held the door open, Hickson entered, Crumper exited, and Hickson began to ask his invariable nightly question: “Are you ready to go up, Sir Gregory?”
The unexpected ring cut him off in midsentence. Sir Gregory murmured a mild “My word!” and rolled his chair back to the desk. He picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
Derek’s voice, shrill with agitation, assaulted his ear with a babble of apologies and explanations. “Oh, Uncle . . . so sorry . . . my mother . . . I can’t . . . I couldn’t . . . she’s mad . . . I never . . . she said . . .”
The old man’s heart sank. He had been afraid of this ever since Dotty Mallowan had announced her engagement in January. He did his best to pour oil over his nephew’s distress; they reached an agreement, and the baronet switched off his telephone.
“Hickson.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell Crumper immediately, please, that Derek is arriving at Oxford station at eleven thirty-seven and will need to be met. When he arrives here he is to be brought to my room. You will awaken me at eleven forty-five and help me into my chair so that I am able to receive him.”
“Yes, sir.” The valet turned toward the door.
“Oh, and Hickson?”
“Sir?”
“See that there’s brandy in my room. And a fire.”
The brandy, as Sir Gregory feared, turned out to be well and truly necessary.
He got to bed only fifteen minutes late, but he scarcely slept before Hickson entered a scant two hours later to wake him. It wasn’t that he needed to consider what to tell Derek; Sir Gregory had seen this conversation coming for years, and he had his speeches well rehearsed. But the impending task of delivering them made his heart grow cold.
Before he could say anything to Derek, however, he had to listen to him.
“She was raving mad about Dotty marrying Harry Tandulkar. The things she said about him! And Will, t
oo. I don’t want to tell you what she called them.”
“You don’t have to; I’ve heard it myself. She calls them ‘those filthy niggers.’ ”
Derek winced. “Yes, sir. I think that was what made me snap. I told her I was going to the wedding, and she needn’t waste her time trying to talk me out of it.”
“I can imagine,” Sir Gregory said dryly, “how well that was received.”
Derek closed his eyes. “She actually started to throw things at me, vases and things. I was afraid she was going to have a heart attack. She stopped throwing and I stopped ducking, and then I began to make out what she was screeching at me. I was no son of hers, she said; she was going to disown me. Disinherit me. Cut me off without a shilling. I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Then—” He faltered. “Then she started saying there was only one way I could redeem myself, prove I was her son. She said—” Derek shook his head. “You won’t believe me.”
“Try me,” the old man said gently.
“She said I was to kill Harry Tandulkar before the wedding. I was so gobsmacked I couldn’t utter, just stared at her with my mouth hanging open. Then she— she actually started suggesting ways I could do it. That was when I left, just walked out of the room, walked out of the house, got in my car, and started driving. When I turned onto the A-Three, I realized I wasn’t in any condition to drive, I was shaking so much; I got off at Guildford and caught the train.”
Derek had been pacing all the time he was relating this ugly tale. Having finished, he dropped into the chair opposite his uncle and wiped his face with one hand. “I know it’s an ungodly hour for you, Uncle, but I was desperate to see you. I knew you would be able to help somehow. I’m sorry I—”
“Don’t apologize. You did the right thing in coming to me. I have feared for years that it might come to this, and now it has. The situation requires action. And Derek, it will also require courage.”
Derek looked at him with some trepidation. “What are you saying, Uncle? What must I do?”
“You must put your mother in a home for the criminally insane.”
“Uncle!” Derek exploded, incredulous. “You can’t be serious! I mean, just because she’s flown off the handle, you can’t honestly think she would do anything—anything really—I never—really, Uncle!”
Sir Gregory sighed. He had expected this reaction. He set himself to persuading his nephew first, that he was entirely serious, and second, that Derek must immediately take steps to see to it that his mother was confined.
Sir Gregory tried his best for several minutes and got exactly the reaction he anticipated. Derek backtracked, began to claim that it wasn’t all that bad, his mother had just had a worse-than-usual temper tantrum. Sir Gregory allowed him to talk himself out, and a brief silence ensued.
It was broken by a long sigh from the Baronet, who said sadly, “I was afraid, Lovely Boy, that you would need convincing. I am sorrier than I can tell you.”
“Sorry for what?” Derek asked, puzzled.
“Sorry that I can only think of one way to convince you. I must demonstrate to you the sort of person your mother is.”
“Demonstrate?”
Sir Gregory closed his eyes for a few moments as if gathering strength. Then he began.
“I’ve always been convinced that your mother detested, shall we say, the personal aspects of marriage. She was duty bound, of course, to give your father an heir, and that was an age when we did our duty. She managed to produce poor Clare, of course, but after that there was a very long dry spell.”
“She sometimes rants about miscarriages.”
“She claims three.”
“Claims?”
“All three occurred so, ah, early that there were never any visible signs she was pregnant. She said she was. She said she miscarried. And after this had happened three times, Clarissa said she was giving it up. She established her own bedroom, down the hall from your father’s. Then years later the Tandulkar twins were born, and suddenly your father had an heir—two heirs—who were sons of a black immigrant. Your mother made no secret of her feelings. She flew into a rage, said dreadful things, your father told me. The phrase ‘filthy niggers’ dates from that time.”
“Uncle, you don’t think—I mean—just because Will and Harry are half-Indian . . .”
“Of course not! Anyone educated at Eton is a gentleman, provided he behaves like one. At any rate, shortly after that your mother went abroad. You know, of course; that you were born in Italy. Eight months after your mother’s departure, your long-suffering father received a telegram from her and came posthaste to Datchworth, nearly incoherent with joy. Clarissa had been safely delivered of a baby boy. In Rome, it was. She hadn’t told him when she’d discovered she was expecting, because, she said, she didn’t want to disappoint him again. A few weeks later you were brought home in triumph and displayed to both sides of the family with what I have always thought was unattractive smugness on the part of my sister.”
Derek was looking alarmed. “Sir! You don’t mean you think I’m—that’s to say, if I was born eight months after she left, it must have been my father, I mean, before she went—”
Sir Gregory looked immensely sad. “Lovely Boy, I’m not suggesting your mother became pregnant on the Continent.”
“Thank God!” Derek said with feeling.
“It’s worse,” Sir Gregory managed to say.
“How the devil could it be worse?”
“I’m suggesting your mother never became pregnant at all.”
“But how—” Derek stopped as the full import of his uncle’s words struck him and rendered him temporarily speechless. His mouth moved but no words came out.
His uncle clenched both hands tightly on the arms of the wheelchair and continued, “When you recover your tongue you are going to say you don’t believe me. I don’t blame you. Even I had no suspicions at first, and I believe I have as low an opinion of your mother’s moral worth as anyone who knows her. But then the maid who had gone to Europe with her—indeed, her only companion for all that time—was dismissed out of hand. Clarissa accused her of stealing a diamond necklace.”
Derek was staring at his uncle with mulish incredulity, but he was too shaken to speak.
Sir Gregory continued. “I thought it was a bit smoky, to say the least. If the girl was a thief, why wait until they got back to England? Why not grab the necklace and simply escape into the wilds of Italy? At the time, I was a couple of years into the Sirdom, my father having died in 1964. I had money and resources and nobody to tell me what I could or could not do with them. So I hired a private detective.
“He followed the maid to London and found her. She was living far too handsomely for an unemployed domestic, and though it was clear she resented his questions, she appeared to hold no resentment against my sister. The charge of theft had not been true, she said, but she shrugged it off as a misunderstanding. I found another private detective. His name was Bendini; he had been born in Naples and brought to England as a teenager. He was, of course, fluent in Italian, and I sent him to Rome.”
Derek was shaking his head just perceptibly back and forth and he was silently and repeatedly mouthing, “No.”
Sir Gregory’s mouth was a thin line and his old eyes sagged much more than they usually did. He pressed a button on his wheelchair and it hummed quietly over to his dresser. With some difficulty the Baronet inserted a finger between his buttoned pajama collar and his withered throat, fumbled a moment, and pulled forth a fine gold chain upon which hung a single key. This he inserted into the lock of the top left drawer.
From the drawer he removed a thin, flat, brown box like a miniature suitcase. He laid it on the desk, opened it, and extracted a folder labeled “Italy.” Navigating over to his nephew’s chair, he placed the folder in Derek’s nerveless hand. “Mr. Bendini’s report,” he said gently.
Derek stared at the folder like a bird transfixed by a snake. His hands, completely unbidden, opened the folder and picked up
the first of several sheets of paper.
It was all there. Every horrid, soul-shattering detail. Since his father’s mother—Derek corrected himself— since John Banner ’s mother had been from Naples, Italy had been the logical place to look for a baby. The family of his birth had been, for Italians, unusually light-skinned. His mother—Derek corrected himself again— Clarissa Banner had chosen well. I matched, thought Derek desolately. Nobody ever suspected. Except Uncle Gregory. Who is not my uncle.
The Baronet watched, not bothering to wipe the tears from his face, as Derek’s world fell horribly apart around him. By the time the last page was read and laid back in the folder with a shaking hand, Derek had been crying quietly for a quarter of an hour. At one point his entire body had begun to tremble; Sir Gregory had fortified him with a double brandy, and the trembling had eventually stopped. The tears had kept flowing.
Derek looked up at his uncle—not his uncle—dazed, lost.
“Take those papers,” said Sir Gregory with quiet command in his voice, “and put them on the fire. Do not hesitate. Do it now.”
Entirely willing, Derek stood up. Or tried to. Swaying, he grabbed the chair arm. He steadied himself, and with clenched jaw put one foot in front of the other until he stood by the fireplace. He took the loathsome pages from the folder and threw them in a bunch into the flames. Then he ripped up the stiff card folder and threw it after them.
“Now hear me, Derek—” Sir Gregory began.
“That’s not even my name!” cried the young man in anguish.
“Don’t be silly!” the Baronet barked, forcing himself into a sternness he was far from feeling. The boy had to be pulled back from the brink. “You were baptized Derek St. John Bebberidge-Thorpe Banner in St. Paul’s, Greyswell, by the Bishop himself. That is your name. You are my nephew and my heir, and I will attest to that before any court in the land. A year from now I want you to have forgotten that you ever saw those papers.”
“Then why on earth,” cried Derek, “did you show them to me?”
Sir Gregory sighed deeply and sagged in his chair. One excruciating hurdle cleared, one more to go.
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