She had just finished eating when her mobile rang.
‘It’s Max.’ To her surprise her stomach gave a little flip. ‘Am I forgiven?’
‘Whatever for?’
‘The lunge.’
Sam laughed, relieved. If anyone was at fault, it was her. ‘Of course you are. Don’t give it another thought.’
‘Still chums then?’
‘Definitely.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Having supper.’
‘Blast. I thought we could grab a bite to eat together this evening.’
‘Too late.’
‘Are you OK? You sound distracted.’
‘Do I? Sorry.’ Sam paused. ‘Actually Max, you know what? I am distracted.’
‘Thinking about me, no doubt.’
She lied, a bit. ‘Thinking about BS Moreton, as a matter of fact.’
‘Bull shit! A rival. He is married, you know.’
‘That wasn’t the direction my thoughts were rambling.’
‘What a relief. So what were you mulling over about our venerable archivist?’
Sam picked up her wine glass and drew her legs up on the sofa. She found Max easy to talk to. ‘The thing is, I’ve spent all day on that blasted inventory, and it appears a number of things have gone missing, and I can’t understand why BS isn’t more worried about it.’
‘I expect he’s extremely worried about it.’
‘No, he isn’t. He just keeps saying things have a habit of turning up and haven’t I got enough for an exhibition already.’
‘That’s not what I meant. He’s worried because he’s probably had the stuff away.’
‘Max! Of course he hasn’t.’
‘Of course he has. It goes on wholesale in places like Duntisbourne. Earl’s a shit, doesn’t care about his staff, rude to everyone, pays them very little, then puts them in charge of piles of treasures that have never been properly catalogued. Stuff must go missing all the time, and if BS has been in sole charge of the sealed chamber for the past however many years, who’d blame the old boy for flogging off a few pieces.’
‘That’s rubbish, Max. Why else would he want me to have the inventory?’
‘Did he?’
‘What?’
‘Want you to have the inventory?’ Sam was silent. ‘Are you still there?’ Max said.
‘Yes. I’m still here.’
‘If you want my advice, I’d leave it be. You’ve got a cracking exhibition already, so what does it matter if a few things have gone astray? It’s no skin off your nose. I wouldn’t get involved if I were you.’
‘I am involved.’
‘Your brief isn’t to unfrock the old goat. No one likes a snitch.’
Sam felt a flash of irritation and a strong desire to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion. ‘You know what, Max? I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I might see you tomorrow if you’re in.’
She walked into the kitchen to refill her glass and seethed. She didn’t have many allies stuck out here on the borders of Wales, but she thought she had found one in Max. Perhaps he was getting back at her for wounding him. His attitude incensed her. Of course she was involved. She had been employed by the trustees, under the direction of the earl, to curate a collection which wasn’t complete, and Max was suggesting that if she continued to push for the truth she was nothing more than a whistle-blower, something she had always regarded as contemptible.
She paced up and down the sitting room in front of the fire taking angry sips of her wine and then she swung round and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She looked furious and, she had to admit, ludicrous. She stared at the reflection of her own eyes and a half smile lifted her mouth. She shook her head. Her fury was for quite a different reason. She was smarting because Max had criticised her, and Max’s good opinion of her was rather more important than she had realised. She was behaving like a teenager. She had to stand by her own principles whether Max approved or not and despite his criticism he had thrown up a pertinent point, one that needed further investigation.
The following morning she got Maureen Hindle’s phone number from the office.
‘Maureen? This is Sam.’ There was a long silence. ‘Is that Maureen Hindle?’
‘It is.’
The two words simmered with such venom that Sam wondered if Maureen had mistaken her for someone else, someone she loathed. ‘Sam Westbrook, from Duntisbourne,’ she said.
‘I know who you are. You’re the reason I’ve been dumped from the rota. You come up here with your nippy little car, and your sharp suits and your manicured nails, and they all flutter around you and bow and scrape to you and you sit up there in your comfy little flat looking down on the rest of us and you think, I know, I haven’t actually got quite enough, so I’ll just have her job as well. What have I ever done to you?’
‘Goodness me,’ said Sam. When attacked her immediate tactic was to apologise. ‘I’m extremely sorry you feel that way, but without discussing ...’ and here she paused ‘... all the details of that list of grievances, as far as the rota is concerned, you’ve got that wrong.’
‘Then why am I at home without a job and you’re still there earning goodness knows how much money and getting extra for filling in for guides?’
‘Maureen, listen. I have no idea why that has been done. It was nothing whatsoever to do with me and I couldn’t possibly guide here, and I wouldn’t want to. You and your colleagues do an excellent job, I couldn’t fill your shoes. That’s not what I do. I’ve already got a job. I can’t pretend to understand the way Duntisbourne runs that rota system, but I can assure you, this is none of my doing.’
‘BS Moreton’s then.’
‘I can’t really speculate. You would have to ask him yourself.’
‘Bunty said it was him.’
Sam had no intention of telling Maureen about her conversation with BS. Instead she said, ‘I only found out two nights ago that it had happened, and I can assure you, I will speak to Rosemary in the office and explain, if you think that would help.’
‘Two night ago? It’s taken you a long time to do anything about it.’
‘I’ve been busy,’ Sam said, determined not to let Maureen’s belligerence rile her. ‘Would it help if I spoke to the office?’
‘If you have a shred of decency in you.’
‘Then I shall.’ She paused in the hope that Maureen would give some indication that she was winning her round. ‘That’s not actually why I rang you,’ she continued, and quickly added, ‘but I’m extremely glad we have thrashed that out and hope that there won’t be any more ill feeling between us. When the exhibition’s done, I’ll be away and gone from Duntisbourne. I promise you I have no ambition to upset the status quo.’
‘I see.’ Still no thank you, but Sam sensed that Maureen was calming down.
‘I actually rang to ask you about the night BS had his accident.’
‘Yes?’
‘You brought the inventory to me.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you know where BS found it?’
‘Found it? He didn’t find it. He was hiding it.’
- 22 -
Max turned over and gathered his pillows up under his chest. Within seconds he felt that glorious sensation of his thoughts being plucked away and knew he was about to drop off to sleep. An owl screeched from the woods at the foot of the lane and Monty, who always slept under Max’s bed, stirred and moved out from underneath, folding himself up in the far corner of the room by the chest of drawers. Max dreamed he was lying in a field of kale under a moonlit sky. The dew had fallen, the countryside looked wide and exquisite, but the smell of kale increased until it was almost unbearable. In his dream he saw headlights sweep across the kale and he stood and saw Sam’s beautiful car whispering over towards him. He leant in through the car window to speak to her but the smell of kale mixed with a terrible aroma of shit and instead of Sam, he was face to face with Maureen Hindle, who was caked with excrement.
Max woke with a snort and sat bolt upright.
‘You stinker!’ he hissed across the room at Monty. ‘Jesus! I think my teeth are disintegrating. And you haven’t even got the decency to lie in your own cloud of phosgene.’ In the darkness Max saw the glint of a eye before it closed and the dog licked his lips and fell into an untroubled sleep.
Max sighed and turned on to his back and his thoughts, inevitably, turned to Sam. He didn’t seem to be making any headway with her at all – in fact, he seemed to blunder along from one mistake to another and the swift end to their chat left him in no doubt that he had made a big blunder this evening. He felt like getting out of bed and going downstairs for a cigarette, but earlier in the day he had made a decision to stop smoking and had tossed the remaining cigarettes into the bin, where they now lay under the kitchen detritus of the evening. He puffed ironically; he had quit smoking to improve his chance of success and within a few hours he had blown them again. Perhaps he was too old to get back into the dating game.
‘Bull shit!’ he said, rolling over on to his side. He mustn’t be too hard on himself, he thought, she had confided in him about the letters, so perhaps all was not lost. In fact ... and he sat up in bed with such vigour that Monty stood up on the other side of room and stared at him before coming over to the side of the bed and bounding up on to it. Max didn’t bother to shoo him off – he had thought of something, the postmark on the letter that Sam had shown him. He liked numbers, he remembered numbers, and he remembered the date on the franked postmark. He turned his side light on, reached for his iPhone and opened his calendar. He counted the days back and laughed softly to himself. He had found a great reason to contact Sam Westbrook again. Maureen Hindle could not have posted that letter to her, she had left for Scotland before the date on the postmark.
Max was not a man to feel down for long. On the way into work he dropped off at the chemists and bought a packet of nicotine gum. The ritual of popping the top off the cardboard box, pulling out the sheet of lozenges and cracking up a niblet to put in his mouth had some parallels to the pleasure of opening a new packet of cigarettes, and as he crunched through the minty coating he concentrated on the sensation in his mouth, confident that he would get a nicotine rush within a few moments. He chewed away as he drove and soon realised it was not going to replace the pleasure of a cigarette. He pushed out another, then another, chewing and packing several of them between his lower lip and teeth for extra impact, but they began to make him feel a bit queasy. How, he wondered, could he have smoked so many cigarettes for so long and yet find the nicotine in a piece of gum nauseating? He rolled down his window and flung the box into the hedgerow.
Max strode across the great courtyard, looked over to the windows of Sam’s flat and smiled. He had found a way of moving back into a favourable position and there was plenty going on that morning to amuse him until the right opportunity arose. The day began with a bang when Sharon the cleaner was set with the task of dusting the two suits of medieval armour which stood at the foot of the staircase, one on each side. Deciding she could get a better angle from which to flick away the dust and cobwebs, she had climbed half way up the stairs and was leaning over the banister. Unfortunately her duster caught on the sharp point of one of the helmets, and with a swift jerk she managed to start the suit of armour rocking. Her duster remained attached, and she continued to tug despite the cries of alarm from Max, Noel and Bunty who rushed across the great hall to try and divert disaster.
They failed. Like a house of cards the pieces of armour began to tumble and separate, falling on to the stone with a clatter of metal and swords, scattering visitors in different directions like a shoal of fish. Breast plates and shin plates skittered across the floor, the helmet struck the ground on one edge and rose up again like a cricket ball, spinning and turning before crashing back down into the pile of armour. Max, Noel and Bunty were joined by other members of the guiding team and they stood around the pile of tangled metal in silence.
The door into the private apartments opened with a crash and the earl, his breakfast napkin still tucked into his collar, stormed into the great hall. Sharon, crouched down on the stairs, covered her head with her arms as the earl pushed through the crowd. His ashen complexion slowly turned puce as fury overwhelmed him and, shooting a look of pure venom towards Bunty, he turned on his heels and left.
‘Come along, everyone,’ said Bunty briskly. ‘Let’s get this cleared up. Each of you take a piece.’
‘Where to?’ Laurence asked.
‘I don’t care. Pop it all in the office. Just get it moved!’ They scuttled up and down the passage with dented pieces of armour. Major Frodsham carried the helmet and the moment he got to the statue corridor he tried to put it on. ‘Major Frodsham!’ Bunty yelled from the hall.
‘Good God,’ Frodders muttered. ‘That woman has got eyes in the back of her ruddy head.’
On his way back from the office, Max heard a familiar jingle of beads behind him and without turning round he said, ‘I know who that is.’
‘I owe you an apology,’ Sam said. She fell into line beside him and he slowed his pace. ‘I was sharpish last night.’
‘Were you?’
‘And you may have been right.’
‘I usually am.’ He looked across at her and held her gaze to show her he was teasing. She smiled and he grinned back at her. ‘Right about what?’ he added.
‘Pop in this afternoon on your way home, would you?’ she said. ‘I’m going this way,’ and she left his side and ran lightly away from him and up the stairs towards the sealed chamber, her beads and scarves and spectacles jingling like horses’ tack.
At the end of the working day, Max bounded up the stone stairs towards Sam’s flat with an equal lightness of step. When she opened the door he saw that she had changed into comfortable clothes, which made her look softer than her working self.
‘Max! How are you?’
‘Embarrassed, ashamed, hoping for an early death ...’ he replied.
‘Stop it. I was snappish, you have nothing to apologise for, and besides, as I said this morning, you may well be right. Come on in.’ He followed her through to the kitchen. ’Beer?’ she asked.
‘I must be drinking you dry.’
‘I do seem to be getting through rather more alcohol than usual,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s go through.’
The fire was burning merrily in the grate and Max dropped down into his usual end of the sofa. He liked Sam’s flat. ‘So, what’s this apology all about?’ he said.
‘I thought a lot about our conversation last night and decided to ring Maureen direct.’
‘Brave.’
‘She’s a very strange woman. My whole conversation with her was extremely tense, it made me very uncomfortable. The moment she realised it was me speaking, she began to spew up such a foul diatribe of bile about me, how I’d swanned in here and taken her job. Horrid stuff. And her manner ...’ Sam shuddered.
‘Classic passive aggressive, isn’t she?’
‘Oh, she’d dropped the passive, I can tell you. I was beginning to come round to BS’s way of thinking. She told me he was trying to hide the inventory.’
‘Did she now? That certainly seems compelling evidence,’ Max said.
‘Is it though? We know she hates BS. What about the letters?‘
The thrill and excitement of Sam’s apology had knocked his earlier plan completely off course and Max sprang to his feet and spun round to face her. ‘I meant to tell you,’ he said. ‘The letter. Show me that letter you got,’ and with a puzzled frown Sam went over to the table and pulled it out of the pile again. She handed it to Max, who flicked his nail against the postmark. ‘There!’ he said, ‘Look at the date. Maureen Hindle was in Scotland. She couldn’t possibly have got this letter into the post tray at Duntisbourne Hall. She was four hundred miles away.’
‘Oh God,’ Sam moaned. ‘This is getting far too complicated.’
‘You said yourself all the evidence against her wa
s circumstantial,’ Max said as he handed the letter back. ‘She’s exonerated on this one though.’
‘Possibly. But she could have found a way round it – got a someone else to put it into the out tray for franking after she left for Scotland.’
‘Is that really likely?’
Sam’s mobile buzzed into life and she glanced down to see who was calling. ‘Sorry, Max,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to take this. It’s my daughter.’ She scooped the phone up and went into the kitchen, partially shutting the door behind her for privacy.
To kill time Max pushed a log down into the fire with the poker and dropped another one into the grate. He brushed his hands together and turned around to warm his back. He could hear Sam making a few sympathetic noises in the room next door. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he recognised the tone of voice and felt a kinship with her. She was comforting her daughter, there had been a crisis, but if her daughter was anything like Charlotte, the crisis would be minor. He hoped it was. He spotted some photographs on top of the low bookshelf and went over to investigate. They were of Sam, her hair much shorter and parted to one side, younger and, Max was interested to note, not nearly as attractive as she was now. With her was a girl, her daughter, Claire, he assumed. Pretty, but she looked high maintenance to Max.
Sam came through from the kitchen and although she was still holding the mobile to her ear, she caught Max’s eye and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ to him. He shook his head and smiled to show that he understood.
‘What darling? No, of course I was listening.’ She paused, then added, ‘as a matter of fact, there is someone here,’ and she turned on her heels and disappeared into the kitchen. A few more minutes passed before she returned. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘That didn’t go down very well.’
‘Not me, I hope.’
‘It’s not really you, Max. It was my fault. Trouble is – and I know this will sound so unsympathetic – I could write the script for these phone calls. It’s always the same problem: Jake.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Husband. And there’s nothing I can do except listen and make the right noises. I feel so helpless – she’s thousands of miles away, I’m stuck here. All she seems to want to do is go over all the times he’s behaved like a jerk, but heaven help me if I agree with her and say he is a jerk.’
The Archivist Page 19