‘You really don’t know, do you?’ he asked. ‘I thought for a while that you did, and were pretending not to. But you really don’t know.’
‘Know what?’ I asked impatiently.
John shook his head. ‘You can be really thick sometimes.’
‘Can I?’
‘Yes, you can,’ my brother said. ‘But let’s get off the subject,’ he continued, and from the tone of his voice I could tell he was smiling. ‘Let’s talk about where I plan to go when I resign.’
‘All right,’ I agreed.
‘There’s this little Greek island. Thira, it’s called. Lydia and I went there on our honeymoon and we both fell in love with it. It’s so peaceful – so unspoiled. You don’t need a sports car or a deep freezer there. If you want to go down to the market, you walk. And the fish you buy is fresh from the sea.’
‘And you think you could be happy there?’ I asked.
‘I know we could be happy there,’ John murmured as if he could already taste the salt air and feel the Mediterranean sun on his back. ‘Very, very happy.’
The church clock was just striking 12 as John pulled up in front of our father’s house.
I opened the passenger door and climbed out. ‘Do you want to come in for a night-cap?’ I asked.
My brother shook his head. ‘It’s late and I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. I think I’ll go straight to bed.’
I wished him good night, then watched as he reversed out of the driveway. The thought that I hadn’t listened to what he’d had to say earlier was praying on my mind, which was perhaps why I was careless and dropped my keys.
They fell into the flower bed which ran along the edge of the path, and though there was an almost-full moon that night, I couldn’t see them from where I was standing.
‘Bloody idiot!’ I rebuked myself, squatting down and running my hand over the damp soil between the plants.
It only took a couple of seconds to locate the keys, and as I was straightening up again I heard the sound of my brother’s car coming to a stop.
I walked back to the gate. To get home, John should have turned right at the end of School Lane, but instead he had parked just on the corner of it.
What the hell was he playing at, I wondered?
The sound of the car door slamming cut through the quiet night air, and I saw my brother striding towards the High Street.
Perhaps he’d decided that taking a walk might help him think through whatever he’d tried to tell me in the pub.
And perhaps now we were back in the village where we’d both grown up – and where he, at least, felt secure – he might give me a second chance to listen to what he had to say.
I slipped my keys back into my pocket and set off in pursuit.
By the time I reached the church there was no sign of him or anyone else. I was faced with two choices – I could either assume he’d followed the High Street to down to the steep hill which led onto the main road, or I could gamble on him having taken the small lane which led to Grandfather’s house. I chose the latter, but two minutes’ investigation was enough to convince me I’d made the wrong decision.
Very well then, I thought, I’d see if I could catch up with him on the High Street.
John wasn’t to be found there either, nor on any of the small lanes which ran off it.
I saw nothing in the least sinister in his disappearance, but it was certainly frustrating that I appeared to have missed my chance to make amends for my earlier inattention.
I checked my watch. I’d been wandering around for nearly 15 minutes, and what now seemed most likely was that John had decided simply to leave his car on School Lane for the night and walk home. I took the path to Smithy Lane, wondering if he was still up and felt like talking.
Through a chink in the drawn curtains of my brother’s lounge, I could see a light shining. I strolled up the path and was almost at the door when through that chink I caught sight of something which froze me in my tracks.
The gap wasn’t very wide and it only gave me a partial view of the lounge, but a partial view was enough to see the couple. They were locked in each other’s arms, kissing passionately. From both her hair and her general build, the woman was obviously my sister-in-law. But the man who was holding her tightly to him did not have my brother’s bulk. He was slimmer than John – much more elegant. And he looked vaguely familiar.
The lovers broke off from their embrace. Lydia walked across the room, out of my line of vision, and I was left looking at the profile of Paul Taylor, my father’s executive assistant.
How long had this been going on, I wondered?
And did John know about it?
I thought back to a conversation – or perhaps, more accurately, a confrontation – that I’d had with Philip at John and Lydia’s wedding reception.
‘I’ve only just met this Enid,’ Philip had said, referring to the girl he’d been chatting up, “but I’ll have her before the night is out – just see if I don’t. Even if I don’t get all the way, I’ll probably have more luck than your John will.’
‘And just exactly what do you mean by that, Philip ?’
‘You don’t know, do you?’ You really don’t know.’
‘Know what? Is this something to do with Lydia?’
‘Well, bugger me . And I always thought you were the smartest out of the three of us.’
And hadn’t John used almost the identical words to me on the drive back from the pub?
‘You really don’t know, do you? I thought for a while that you did, and were pretending not to. But you really don’t know.’
Both John and Philip had seen something in or about Lydia that had gone completely over my head.
And yet earlier, in the pub, John had said not just that he loved her but that his love made all of the other concerns of life seem of no consequence.
Perhaps that was why they been planning to move to their Greek island. Perhaps they thought that once they were there, Lydia would have the opportunity to become the kind of wife she should be – the kind of wife that John deserved.
Lydia appeared again, and the couple moved across the lounge towards the hallway. Paul was leaving!
I wanted to stay where I was – to confront them, to say that John was the best man I’d ever known, and they were worth less than the dog shit on his shoe.
But I didn’t – because if John knew what was going on, and had decided that it was a price worth paying to keep Lydia, then my intervention might do more harm than good.
And so I stepped quickly back across the road and like a guilty schoolboy took cover behind one of the plane trees.
The front door opened, and I saw Lydia framed in front of the hall light. She glanced quickly up the lane and then down it, but shrouded in darkness as I was, I was confident she couldn’t see me. My sister-in-law stepped to one side and Paul Taylor emerged. After checking the lane for himself, he turned quickly to the right and headed for the track to the village which I’d come up.
Lydia closed the front door, and I was about to move off myself when I saw the car headlights coming from the opposite direction to the one Paul had taken.
John! It could only be John!
I heard the church clock strike. It was exactly one o’clock.
Was that a coincidence?
Or had it been pre-arranged? Had John deliberately stayed away until one because he knew Paul Taylor would leave just before then?
John drove his car into the garage and entered the house. I waited until the downstairs lights went off, then set off towards home.
Should I tell my brother that I knew what was going on, I thought as I walked?
Or should I pretend I didn’t know – as he seemed to think I’d been pretending all along? I hadn’t made up my mind by the time I reached my father’s house, and was no closer to a decision as I pulled up in front of my flat in Oxford the next day.
****
Why hadn’t I told Owen Flint any of this, I asked myself, ba
ck in my office, as another pain shot through my bad leg?
I hadn’t told him because I hadn’t thought it was relevant. With divorce so easy nowadays, no one kills for love. I was sure, too, that Lydia knew John well enough to realise that even though she was the guilty party he would still make a generous financial settlement – so money couldn’t have been the motive either. And while I couldn’t bring my brother back to life, I could at least prevent people from sniggering at his memory by keeping quiet.
That was how I felt the first time I spoke to Owen Flint, and how I continued to feel until I turned on my car radio later that afternoon and heard that the police urgently wanted to talk to Paul Taylor in connection with three murders, and believed him to be somewhere in the Bristol area.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was two days later, the coroner having finally released the bodies, that I drove back to Cheshire to attend the funerals of my father, brother and uncle.
The church was full to overflowing for the service. Grandmother was not there – Jo Torlopp had ruled that the strain would be too much for her – but the remaining members of my immediate family, my cousin Philip and sister-in-law Lydia, sat on the front pew next to me.
I listened for a while to the eulogies, and opened my mouth when the vicar’s words required a response from the congregation, but my mind was not really on the service at all. I was not there to remember the dead – my mission was to seek out justice for them.
Lydia and Paul.
Paul and Lydia.
Had they really plotted to kill my brother? It still didn’t make sense that they would have – but if they hadn’t, why wasn’t Paul Taylor there now saying just how ludicrous the whole idea was?
We all walked solemnly to the graveyard. My mother’s grave had been opened to accommodate my father, and two fresh graves had been dug for my brother and my uncle. We listened to the vicar talk about ashes to ashes and dust to dust; we watched as the coffins were slowly and reverently lowered into the holes; we threw a handful of soil on each of the shiny wooden lids. Then, with a collective sigh, we turned our backs and began the process of getting on with the rest of our lives.
I lost Lydia in the crowd, and by the time I had reached the lychgate there was no sign of her. But that didn’t matter because I knew where she was going. She would be at Philip’s house, to which Philip – the new patrician of the Conway family –had summoned us all for post-funeral drinks
When I reached the house ten minutes later Philip was at the door greeting new arrivals. In his stylish black silk suit, he looked every inch the grieving son. But I was not fooled – there was a lot of his actress mother in my cousin and he was doing no more than playing the role.
We exchanged what passed for a dignified handshake and I made my way to the lounge. A number of people were already there including Lydia. Another early arrival, Bill Harper, was surrounded by several young executives and quite clearly holding court.
I made a beeline for my sister-in-law, but Harper broke away from the group and stepped in my path.
‘I’ve been taking a close look at the whole set-up in Cormorant Publishing,’ he said, ‘and it seems to me that what we have are some tremendous possibilities for expansion into a wider market.’
It could have been my cousin talking only a few days earlier – just before he did a complete volte-face after speaking to this same Bill Harper on the phone.
‘Do you really think this the time and place to discuss business?’ I asked coldly.
Bill grinned. ‘There’s never a time or place when you shouldn’t talk about business,’ he said. ‘Not if you want to get on. And my impression of you, Rob, is that you’re a man who wants to do just that.’
He was intoxicated, I realised – not rolling drunk, but drunk enough to make him shed what little inhibition he still seemed to have left – and my wisest course would be to end the conversation there.
‘What do you mean by “we have some tremendous possibilities”?’ I heard myself say. ‘Philip promised me that I’d have complete freedom to run the publishing house the way I wanted to.
Bill’s grin broadened. ‘Philip!’ he said contemptuously. ‘What does Philip know? And what does Philip matter? He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and as long as nobody tries to take it away from him he’ll be perfectly happy.’
‘I will not tolerate any interference in the way Cormorant Publishing is run,’ I said stiffly.
Bill Harper’s smile froze, but did not completely disappear. ‘I wouldn’t be so dogmatic if I were you, Robbie-boy,’ he said. ‘You either work with me – or you work against me. And if you decide to work against me, don’t go conning yourself into thinking that you can rely on Philip for support, because you can’t. He’ll back me over you every single time. And the sooner you learn that, the easier it will be for you.’
‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ I said, taking one step to the side.
I felt his hand on my arm. ‘I haven’t finished what I was saying yet,’ he snarled.
‘But I’ve finished listening,’ I countered. ‘And if you think I wouldn’t dare hit you because this is a wake, you’re wrong. It’s what my father and brother would want me to do – in fact, I can almost hear them urging me to take a swing at you right now.’
Harper released his grip. ‘I’ll talk to you later, when you’re feeling more rational,’ he said before turning and rejoining his courtiers.
Lydia had been watching the whole exchange – mainly, I think, because she had already been watching me – and as I advanced towards her, she smiled and held out her hand.
‘It’s good to see you, Rob,’ she said.
‘How are you, Lydia?’ I asked, noncommittally.
‘Well, as you can imagine, I’ve been better,’ she said. She looked around the room. ‘We need to talk, Rob.’
‘That’s funny,’ I told her. ‘I was just about to say exactly the same thing to you.’
‘In private,’ Lydia said with emphasis.
‘Where do you suggest?’
‘I don’t suppose Philip would mind if we used his study, would he?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I agreed.
As I followed her down the hallway, I was working out the best way to deal with her. My instinct was to grab hold of her and shake her until she told me the truth – but as personally satisfying as that would have been, it wasn’t the way to find out what I wanted to know.
We entered the study. When it had been Uncle Tony’s workplace, a large antique roll top desk had dominated the room. To the left of it there’d been bookcases weighed down by heavy, leather-bound volumes which my uncle had never opened. Facing that had been a plain wall which had been covered with 19th century hunting prints, purchased in bulk I’d always suspected, by an interior designer who specialised in country themes. Now the old desk had been replaced by an expensive but functional chrome and glass desk, the bookcase held glossy company reports, and the hunting prints had been replaced by flow charts and a whiteboard. King Tony – who had reigned ever so briefly – was dead. Long live King Philip!
Lydia sat on the edge of the desk and crossed her legs. Though I didn’t want to look at those legs – the very act of looking seemed almost incestuous – I found my eyes drawn momentarily to them.
They were shapely legs, I thought – very feminine – and I wondered how I could ever have thought of her as boyish?
‘I wish I’d done more for John,’ my sister-in-law said.
‘More?’ I repeated.
‘Yes. I could have worked so much harder than I did at making him really count in the village. I should have pushed him to stand for the parish council. He’d have been bound to be elected. I should have been able to persuade him to join the hunt – with my backing, you know, he’d have stood a good chance of being master in a few years.’
‘Perhaps that’s true,’ I said, ‘but would he have cared about those things, one way or the other?’ I asked.
‘But of course he would. Everyone wants a better position in society,’ my sister-in-law said fiercely, ‘and anyone who says he doesn’t is nothing but a liar.’
There was an air of unreality about the way the conversation was going. We didn’t need the privacy of Philip’s study to discuss Lydia’s social aspirations – and we both knew it. Besides, I sensed that if my sister-in-law wasn’t exactly fearful of saying what she had led me into the study to say, she was at least extremely apprehensive about it.
‘What’s really on your mind, Lydia?’ I asked.
But she wasn’t yet ready to tell me yet, and reading her uncertainty I thought it likely that before she took a leap into the dark she wanted to prepare some soft ground for her landing.
‘They’re like a pack of hounds out there, baying for blood,’ my sister-in-law said.
‘Who are?’
‘People.’
‘That’s a rather broad generalisation.’
‘Maybe it is – but it’s still true.’ Lydia paused. ‘If I tell you a secret, will you promise to keep it to yourself?’
Ah, the “let me tell you a secret” tactic!
I’d done enough negotiating over the years in Cormorant Publishing to recognise how the tactic was expected to work. The first thing it was designed to do was flatter me – I would, after all, have been entrusted with something that the rest of the world was being denied – and draw me into a camp in which Lydia and I were “us” and everybody else was “them”. Then, once my defences were breached, she would attempt to slip something through the gap – in this case, I was betting that she would try to make me feel sorry for her, which could have the additional bonus that it just might stop me from probing for any darker secrets which she’d do almost anything to protect.
The tactic wasn’t going to work on me, but before any advance could be made in any direction, I had to give her the chance to employ it.
‘Please Rob, it was hard enough for me to pluck up the nerve to ask that question, and your silence is nearly killing me,’ Lydia said.
The Vital Chain Page 19