by Lorna Gray
Duckett didn’t fling me out. He opened his hand wide in an exaggerated gesture of welcome and ushered me through into his office. I went, feeling like a fool walking to the gibbet, and took the proffered seat as he turned and shut the door. I half feared he might lock it and even went so far as to muster a breath to call out if he did, but of course he didn’t.
So I waited, feet crossed at the ankles beneath my chair and hands gripping the arms rather too tightly with a packet of sandwiches resting in my lap, while the man who had stolen nearly all my clothes in the world walked round to his place behind his desk and settled himself there amongst the files and shelves, a Great War medallion and the photographs that ranged like a stage-set across the wall. My heart was beating. I blinked at him mutely, in a manner that appeared to make him think I was meaning to convey, heaven help me, something of a challenge.
I had no idea I had it in me to look forbidding. It prompted him to begin by treating this meeting as a difficult session with the board. When he leaned in to prop his elbows upon the tabletop and joined his fingertips before his mouth, it occurred to me that neither of us was quite sure at that moment who was in charge of this. I could judge that he intended to establish pretty swiftly it would be him.
He spoke through the point of his joined hands in a voice that told me he was tense to the extent of breaking. ‘I must say I’m impressed. I didn’t think you were the sort for this kind of heroism. Unless you’ve got something particular you want to tell me? A message from the man himself, perhaps?’
My nerves were equally sharp. So was my tongue. ‘Actually, I have got something to tell you: I don’t like the way you’re trailing about my neighbourhood or Richard’s—’ I spoke determinedly over his pointedly raising eyebrows, which presumably meant to remind me that currently I was guilty of invading his neighbourhood. ‘And I should like my suitcase back, please.’
‘I haven’t got it.’ His gaze was expressionless now behind the screen of his fingers. Then something flickered and he amended his reply to say coolly, ‘Anyway, what suitcase? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
He was proud of his parry. His right hand dropped to the tabletop where it thumbed idly through a few papers while his eyes never left my face. I, in my turn, could finally establish that he was of average height for a man – an inch or so taller than me – so not quite the stunted male I’d described before. The thin belt of hair that rested above his ears was the colour of flecked steel and he had mercifully resisted the impulse that drove some to grow the top long and sweep it over. ‘So,’ he said crisply in the manner of one who was calling a meeting to order. ‘What is your plan here? Do you want me to make idle small-talk while you get round to asking me whatever it is you came here to say? How did you find your walk through the docks? You should be careful where you step out there. Sometimes I think the dockside machines take a tithe of life as their due. They’d certainly relish fresh prey like you.’ A brief glimmer of a smile came and went on his face as if to imply this was a joke and I shouldn’t take it seriously.
‘Really,’ I remarked flatly.
Amusement quirked again. ‘I first met your man ten years ago, you know.’
This was a surprise. ‘Really?’ This time I meant it as a question, quick and doubtful.
‘Yes. He seemed a weasel-ish sort of fellow, but she liked him so I let friendship overrule back then …’ He wafted a hand to emphasise that circumstances had changed now. He watched me to make sure I’d got the point – which I hadn’t – and then he dropped his attention to the disordered pencils on his desk. He had neatly filed fingernails, each very clean, and a gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. He was twisting it now.
I stared at him nonplussed. ‘Mrs Abbey introduced you?’
He swept on without acknowledging my question. ‘I knew roughly where Florence was living since her move away from Parliament Street, of course, but she took off just as soon as the judge passed sentence three years ago and at the time I thought it best to let her alone. But then he got out and started leaving a messy trail of dirty lairs and thieved gardens straight to that valley and I thought I’d better show my face. All in the spirit of friendship, you understand?’ His left hand strayed towards a waiting ashtray, but then changed its mind and resumed fiddling with a pencil instead. He peered at me from beneath lowered brows. He asked me quite calmly, ‘Have you encountered betrayal before, Miss Sutton?’
I was left wondering why he was saying it like that. Why he was saying the word betrayal as if it deserved time and consideration. It had struck me with a kick already that he was talking about Mr Abbey; he’d always been talking about Mr Abbey. Of course he was. This was the man Mrs Abbey had introduced as her lover ten years ago, and presumably introduced him to the business too, not Richard. It was ever so slightly absurd, really, that I should have ever thought otherwise. I moved to correct the mistake. ‘I don’t know—’
I might as well have not spoken. Duckett merely raised his voice a little to cover mine as he barked, ‘Has he told you what he did? Has he told you he’s a fraud and a hypocrite? Have you even bothered to wonder why a man who has barely had his liberty back for a month should prefer a life of hopping about from hut to shed to hovel over leaving us all alone and starting afresh elsewhere? It’s because he’s planning a far greater betrayal this time. He’s got that poor woman frightened out of her wits. He’s got her cowering in that filthy farmhouse where she thought she’d be safe enough from his attentions when he got out. But he won’t let her alone and I think he’s made it pretty clear that he’s got no intention of letting things rest between him and me.’
There was, in the midst of that authoritative torrent, that word again. Betrayal.
This time it was concluded by a slap of his hand upon the tabletop. It made me flinch and drew the attention of the busy ladies outside his door. For their sake, he leaned in and beamed at me as though the strike of his hand had merely been a loud substitute for applause. He pretended that I’d made a witty joke and lowered his voice to a confidential growl. ‘He spent his war earning merit as an ARP by night, while by day he used the business – my business; her brother’s business – to defraud the Ministry. The press had it that he was only siphoning off a few sacks of grain here and there like a jolly sort of black-market trickster, but that’s just because they couldn’t report on the kind of treacherous, conniving crookedness that the propaganda machine was teaching us to believe was the reserve of the enemy. The truth is you could let your imagination run riot and still you wouldn’t come close to grasping the truth of that man’s total disregard for common decency.’
I retorted hotly, ‘I think I could grasp it. His fire killed some people.’
Duckett choked. The acid in my response stunned him. So much so, his only solution was to ignore it. His hand strayed to the ashtray again and this time his fingers started jiggling a matchbook up and down so that it made a rapid little tapping upon the desk. He said roughly, ‘Paul Abbey nearly died too. He ought to have died. Did you know that? The fire started in the attic where we housed our records – supposedly it was an accident – but he was there. He got caught by the flames when he tried to make a run for it. The heat sucked all of the air out of his lungs so that he could barely speak for weeks. And the last punishment of all came from the fact that I had some of his decidedly ambiguous papers in my office, so he didn’t even have the luck of knowing the fire had succeed in destroying the evidence. When the police started talking about possible charges of arson and began telling the world it had been an insurance job, I did the only thing I could do. I handed over the lot.’
As Abbey’s supposed friend, I was supposed to be outraged by that I think. Like Duckett’s act of good-citizenship was a different kind of betrayal. But I wasn’t. I was mesmerised by the photograph that hung on the wall just behind his head. Duckett twisted to follow my gaze just as I said in a tone of absolute disbelief, ‘Who is that man?’
‘Wh
o?’
The photograph was a large hand-coloured scene populated by stakeholders and directors at a gathering of some sort. I judged it to be a picture dating from later in the war since a number of the figures were clad in the single-breasted suits that belonged to the era of rationing and clothing shortages. It was this detail, and this alone, that had alerted me to the presence of the man beside Duckett. He was a man with a pleasant face and a supple smile that rivalled Mrs Abbey’s. A man she’d claimed as her husband but couldn’t possibly be, because by the time the people were assembling for this photograph, he’d have been either in prison or on his way to it.
Duckett himself was surprisingly hirsute in this portrait, to the extent that I wondered if he regularly sported a wig. The living, balding man before me looked perplexed. ‘What man? The man beside me? That’s our backer; the son of the fellow who founded this outfit. He’s Toby Mole, Florence’s brother. Has Paul mentioned him to you? Toby looks virile enough there, doesn’t he, but believe me, he coughed and spluttered when the Ministry had their revenge for the embarrassment we caused and downgraded us to animal feed. That fire nearly ruined Toby. He wasn’t terribly nice to his sister about it, either, so I doubt she’s told him about the threat Paul’s posing to her remaining tranquillity.’
His head swivelled back to me. I got the impression that if anyone dared tell Toby Mole about this, it wouldn’t be him. He climbed to his feet and as he did so, he suggested thoughtfully, ‘Perhaps you should warn Paul. Tell him to clear off while he still can and leave us all in peace.’
I found my hands were gripping the armrests of my chair so firmly that the strain was running up my arms. I made to rise and found Duckett in my way. I subsided and sat there, looking up at him as he stood over me. I told him with what felt like remarkable steadiness, ‘I would do if I knew him. But I don’t. I don’t know him at all. When you mentioned a friend … I thought you meant someone else.’
I sat there flushing slightly and I wasn’t remotely sure what I expected Duckett to do. I knew if he took hold of me I’d react, and loudly. He didn’t look particularly close to risking it, but then I wasn’t entirely sure what such a man would look like. Duckett was glaring at me, a mildly overweight businessman with a tie done up too tightly about his neck, sweating slightly because the room was hot and chewing a little on the inside of a lip.
After a breathless moment he wondered quietly, ‘I can’t help asking myself what’s in this for you?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Nothing at all. Because I don’t know him. Now I’d really better get on, if you don’t mind. I only stopped in because I saw your name on the sign and I wanted to ask you about my case.’
It wasn’t a terribly good idea to remind him of his lie, but it was the only excuse I had. His jaw tightened. For a moment I thought he really was going to act upon it. Then, suddenly, he stepped back, nodding vigorously, and made a gracious gesture that invited me to rise. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I quite understand. Nothing more to be said, is there? Let me show you out.’
And then I was bustling through the office and past the curious women, still clutching my packet of sandwiches, and he was opening the door for me onto the deafening roar of a busy docklands. The wide flagstones were shining silver. I was about ten yards away when he called my name.
He made me turn while every instinct told me to keep walking, to run, even, if that got me away from him. Instead, ludicrous civility made me dither, retreating more slowly with each backwards step while he strode out of his office building in the manner of one who was just meaning to share a private aside. Reaching me and bending closer as if anyone was likely to even see, let alone overhear, he said on a conspiratorial undertone, ‘I know Abbey is lurking up there and I know now that you’re the woman to help me find him.’
I baulked. He came with me. We were yards from the rank of three or so reclaimed army wagons that were now doing service as delivery vehicles to the local feed merchants. They bore the company name Abbey, Mole & Duckett Ltd. and positively oozed resentment for the enforced reduction in the scale of their business. They were parked with their noses towards the sheer drop of the kerb into the basin. The towering hulk of the nearer, undamaged warehouse behind him and the crowd of decaying boats behind me waiting for their turn in a dry dock made this feel, suddenly, like a very private spot. He’d planned this. I really was a fool for coming here.
Duckett’s temper was suddenly quivering. He seemed powerful out here. Braced beneath the padding of too many boardroom lunches. ‘I know he’s up there. I know he is because he’s acted with his usual tomfoolery and thought nothing of harvesting food from honest folks’ gardens and thereby repeated his mistakes that got us all into this mess in the first place. He can’t live off stolen beans. He’s done it because he knows a few robbed potatoes will save his hostess from having to betray her dinner guest by suddenly trying to buy double her usual rations. I presumed at first that Florence herself was that woman – Don’t do it.’ This was as it occurred to me that I might just walk away. It was a mistake. I couldn’t. I hadn’t got the confidence when I knew it would only escalate this scene to the point where he would feel obliged to lay a hand upon me purely for the sake of forcing me to listen while he said his piece.
Instead, his sharp command jolted me into taking an involuntary step the other way into the shade of the last delivery lorry. He continued as if nothing had happened. ‘I know I was mistaken about poor Florence. I realised it as soon as I saw her face, poor woman. She’s worn and wretched and she wouldn’t have him back now and she wouldn’t betray me. But you …? Did you really think no one would notice the uncanny timing in your sudden enthusiasm for the company of his wife? Or the fact that your little cottage garden has conveniently escaped the ravages of thievery? Or your recent interest in the condition of his old house?’
A smile came and went on his thin lips when he saw the shock run through me and settle in the grip my hands had on that poor packet of sandwiches. He admitted, ‘I saw you when you were choosing the hotel for your lunch. You’re young. You’re at that impressionable age when any man who can spin a tale of injustice is going to win your heart. Did you know him before you came here or did he befriend you on your first day?’
‘He didn’t,’ I gasped. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. Someone else did. I mean—’
‘Keep your voice down. And step back out of the lee of the lorry here and tell me what you see.’
The slight movement of his hand towards me made my feet do what my mind couldn’t. And I saw the span of his warehouses, the malthouse that toasted the grains and the damaged warehouse beyond. I swallowed my nerves, found my courage and suggested hoarsely, ‘Your business.’
I think the defiant lift of my chin amused him. I was an ordinary woman standing before him in slacks and a blouse and to anyone passing this would have looked like a swift meeting between an authoritative company director and his junior secretary away from the wagging ears of her superiors. He laughed. ‘Clever girl. My business. And I suppose Florence’s business and you can tell your man I intend to keep it that way. It’s her name on the wall now, not Paul’s. I only allowed that man onto the board when she married him as a grudging favour to an old friend. He lost his stake when he went to prison. She bought a small portion back through her brother just as soon as she could and we intend to keep it that way. The dividend pays a kind of pension to her and I haven’t spent all this time rebuilding my good name, only to have him destroy it a second time. So when you see Paul later – and I know you will – you’re going to tell your man of our meeting today and then you’ll—’
That amusement deepened when I flinched after he shifted a fraction closer. Eyebrows lifted. ‘What are you frightened of, Miss Sutton?’ he asked silkily. ‘No one’s touching you.’
He was enjoying this.
He thought I deserved this for launching into a sordid affair with a corrupt married man. It burned my pride. Unexpectedly, I felt my resolve rise.
I stood a little taller so that there was only an inch’s difference between our heights. I demanded icily, ‘You know my name and I should like to know how you learned it. Did you bully it out of that poor woman yesterday before you pitched up at my cottage, only to have the misfortune of finding a policeman already there? Or did you have to go back later and beat her into telling you, since you didn’t find any clues in my suitcase? Doesn’t it even occur to you to wonder why my case was there in the Manor? I was going away again, until you took my things and made it impossible.’
Suddenly, he was looking at me strangely. As if I repulsed him. His tone demolished mine as he snarled nastily, ‘I haven’t bullied anyone. Florence is a good friend and she’s as angry as I am. When you met me on the stairs yesterday, I thought I’d just had a brush with some little woman of all work. But Florence told me who you were. You were probably hiding him there. And now I’m treating this nonsense about your suitcase as a sign he sent you here today to pursue a pathetic attempt to incriminate me in some imaginary crime. Is this the best shot he has? Really?’
His anger wasn’t the part that made me press the heel of my hand against my brow. The sense of his words was working like needles in my mind. My thoughts were jarring. I had to fix myself to something sure and solid by putting out my other hand against the wing of the nearby lorry. Finally I formulated the language to make sense out of what had shaken me. ‘She told you to come after me?’