‘I can’t buy unless I sell, you know. A lengthy bridging loan at current rates just isn’t on.’
‘Mr Bolling,’ the estate agent said, ‘is in one hell of a hurry to move, no doubt realising that he’s made a bloody fool of himself. In other words, keener on a quick sale than haggling over price...’
As James replaced the receiver Eileen ran towards him from the kitchen and stretched up for a kiss.
‘The wretched W.I. meeting went on and on,’ she told him. ‘I thought I’d never get away. Oh, James, now you’ve contacted Ford’s, is there any hope of Bridge Cottage? Len Bolling’s asking the earth, I suppose? Tea’s up. You must be dying for it.’
Repressing his irritation at her habit of bandying current catch phrases picked up from television programmes, James followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
‘Let me tell you,’ he said, as she began to pour out, ‘the Bridge Cottage kitchen isn’t a patch on this one.’
Teapot in hand, Eileen stared at him incredulously. ‘You can’t possibly know,’ she said. ‘You’ve never been inside the place. You’re trying to put me off.’
‘Admittedly I’ve never been inside,’ he said, ignoring her last remark, ‘but one can always make a recce from outside, you know. After I got back and found your note I went along to the Information Bureau on the pretext of needing stamps. After being briefed by Mother Trot on the past eighteen hours or so, it was easy to find out that Bolling had gone out in his van at about two. So after ringing the bell and getting no answer, I risked a good snoop through the ground floor windows.’
As he talked, the expression on his wife’s face was transformed from resentment to rapturous delight.
‘You absolute old sweetie!’ she exclaimed, her eyes shining. ‘Fancy you doing a thing like that? Oh, do tell me what it’s like. When can we go over it? Don’t you have to have an order to view, or something?’
She listened enthralled to his account of what he had been able to see, and the gist of his conversation with Ford’s.
‘Does he think it will be difficult for us to sell?’ she asked anxiously.
‘He seemed quite hopeful, I thought. Of course, it’s a dicey business selling a house at the moment, but he thinks Littlechester commuters might be interested... Look, if this American is coming at five, I must go and read up the correspondence. What’s he like?’
‘Awfully young. Funny to be so interested in your family history at his age. Rather a serious type. You’d never think he was an American until he starts talking.’
Back in his study James unlocked the filing cabinet and took out the Tuke folder. After glancing through the two letters he had received from Edward Tuke he read the notes that he had made in London. They apparently provided him with much food for thought. He sat motionless, staring out of the window and frowning. From his knowledge of Americans he had assumed that his prospective client would arrive by car, and made no move on merely hearing the gate click and steps approach the front door. The next moment a soft American voice made him spring from his chair and hurry to rescue his caller from Eileen’s over-effusive welcome, only pausing to push the pages of notes into a drawer.
‘Bit cramped in here, I’m afraid,’ he said, escorting Edward Tuke to the study, and indicating a small easy chair. Sitting down at his desk he swivelled his office-type chair round and faced his visitor. As Rodney Kenway-Potter had done, he liked what he saw: spruce, serious faced young man with a touch of British formality about him. He reflected that Eileen’s perception could be quite acute on occasions.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t manage to get back earlier Mr Tuke,’ he said. ‘I hope I haven’t held you up?’
Edward Tuke reassured him. ‘I didn’t reckon to turn up here until this afternoon myself, but managed to get a clear day and made an early start. I’ve been taking a look round Littlechester since lunch and wouldn’t have missed it.’
‘You’re putting up there, I expect?’
‘No, I’m staying right here in Woodcombe. I liked the look of your Green Man and thought I’d try a real old British pub if the landlord could fix me up with a bed.’
‘Well, you’ve hit on a good specimen. The Wonnacotts will make you comfortable all right, and Florrie — Mrs Wonnacott — lays on excellent grub. Plain, but the real old British sort, like the beer.’
‘Going in there for a drink turned out a lucky move in another way,’ Edward Tuke told him. ‘I’ve been asked up to a real old British home for some supper tonight: Woodcombe Manor.’
James Fordyce looked up quickly. ‘I’d no idea you knew the Kenway-Potters.’
‘I don’t. I’d never met them till this morning in the Green Man. Mr Kenway-Potter got talking and gave me the invitation. Very friendly, I thought, and so was his wife when she came in. It’s the big red house up in the woods, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. They’re very hospitable, and it’s an attractive house with some good pictures and furniture, if you’re interested in that sort of thing... Well, since you’ve got a supper date, Mr Tuke, we’d better get down to business, hadn’t we?’ James Fordyce swung his chair round and picked up the Tuke folder from his desk. ‘Briefly, this is the position, I take it? Your father emigrated to Canada in 1948 and after moving on to the U.S.A. in 1950, married your mother, the daughter of English immigrants called Brown, in 1951. You were born in 1952. In 1953 both your parents were killed in a car accident. You were taken over and brought up by your mother’s elder and unmarried sister, Miss Helen Brown. She died last year, and her parents — your maternal grandparents — had predeceased her. You want me to try to trace both your parents’ families. All correct so far?’
‘That’s all quite correct, Mr Fordyce. It feels a bit lonesome not having a soul who’s your own kin.’
James Fordyce turned over the correspondence in the Tuke folder.
‘Well, to do — or try to do — these searches for you, I need every bit of information you can give me as a starting point. Let’s begin with your mother’s family. You say her parents were both English emigrants. Unfortunately Brown is one of the commonest English surnames. What can you tell me about them?’
‘I know they came over after the 1914-18 war, just after they married, and both of them were from farming families, my grandfather from Somerset and my grandmother from Norfolk. He’d been in the war and got wounded, and she’d nursed him in an army hospital. That’s how they met up. Her maiden name was Melford.’
‘This looks like being a nice straightforward search,’ James Fordyce said, writing rapidly. ‘It ought to be fairly simple to find some connections for you on both sides of your mother’s family. Now, about your father’s family? Where did he come from?’
On getting no answer, James Fordyce’s upward glance detected reluctance.
‘Don’t mind bringing a skeleton or two out of the cupboard, Mr Tuke,’ he said. ‘Most families have them, you know.’
‘The trouble is I’ve damn all to bring out of the cupboard where my father’s concerned. I don’t remember him, of course. You know how smart kids are at picking up things without anything actually being said, though. I understood that my mother’s people hadn’t liked him or wanted the marriage. They never talked about him, and if I asked questions they’d clam up. Change the subject: you know. Pretty well all I could ever find out was that he’d come over in ’48, and had a job in Winnipeg, and then moved across into the U.S. where my mother’s people were farming, and got another one there. He was a salesman for one of the big carmakers and once asked my aunt — the one who raised me — what part of the U.K. he came from, and if he had relatives over here, but all I could get out of her was that she thought he had come from Longshire and that she’d never heard him speak of any relatives back home.’
‘What conclusion did you draw from this reluctance to talk about your father?’ James Fordyce asked, after a pause.
‘I reckoned he could have been in some sort of trouble and decided to clear out of the U.K.
It wouldn’t have been all that difficult back in ’48, with the war only just over. I’ve wondered if Tuke was his real name, come to that. Maybe a passport in another name was pretty easy to come by if you knew your way around.’
‘Do you think that your mother’s parents had found out something discreditable about him?’
‘No,’ Edward Tuke replied, slowly but emphatically. ‘I don’t. They wouldn’t have had the knowhow. They were decent simple folk. No, I think they felt he wasn’t the solid sort of chap with a family back here that they’d have liked their daughter to marry. And then, they blamed him for her death in the car crash, you see. The car went into a skid on a wet night, and there was evidence that he’d been driving the hell of a lick... Tell you the truth, Mr Fordyce, there’s something at the back of my mind that I’ve never been able to bring out, but somehow I can talk to you ... I’ve wondered if he was a deserter.’
‘From the British armed forces in the Second World War, you mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why do you mind so much about this possibility?’ James Fordyce asked.
‘Aw, hell — it’s difficult to explain! I’m legally a U.S. citizen, of course, and didn’t they din it into me when I was a kid. Maybe it was a kid’s cussedness, but as far back as I can remember I told myself I was British. Read all the books I could get hold of about the U.K. And I made up my mind I’d come over here when I grew up and see it. And the thought that my dad might have ratted from the British army when Britain was right up against Hitler just sticks in my throat.’
‘Now you’re over here,’ James Fordyce asked after a further pause, ‘how do you feel about this country?’
‘Even more than I thought I would. So I’m coming back. I’ve applied to the firm for a transfer, and there’s no problem, they’ve told me. So that’s why I want to link up with my people, if you can track them down for me.’
James Fordyce sat silent for a few moments, turning over the papers in front of him.
‘It’s only fair to tell you, Mr Tuke, that these searches you want me to undertake for you, and especially the one into your father’s family and personal history will take time and cost you quite a bit.’
A smile lit up Edward Tuke’s composed young face. ‘No problem, Mr Fordyce. I’ve waited twenty-eight years to get moving on this, and I reckon I can wait a bit longer. And the money’s O.K. I’m pulling down a decent wage packet with Integrated Oils, and Aunt Helen left me all she’d got. It came out quite a tidy bit.’
‘Very well, then,’ James Fordyce replied. ‘I’ll go ahead. How much longer are you going to be over here on this trip?’
Edward Tuke outlined his immediate plans. Suddenly he glanced at his watch.
‘It’s just turned six o’clock. Say, would I have the time to go up and take a look at this famous old stone in the woods before I go along to the Manor? A lady Mr Kenway-Potter introduced me to in the pub this morning told me all about it. A Mrs Rawlings.’
‘Good Lord!’ James Fordyce exclaimed with amusement. ‘Really K-P shouldn’t have let her loose on you. She’s got a folklore fixation. She’s our neighbour, and descends on us at intervals with some extraordinary old yarn that she’s unearthed... Yes, to answer your question you could make it all right, and the view from the top of the ridge is well worth seeing. Where’s your car?’
‘Back at the pub. When I come down I’ll pick it up there and drive round to the Manor.’
‘Right, then. Let me show you where the path starts up. It’s only a couple of minutes’ walk from here: quicker than going to fetch your car.’
Leaving the bungalow together they walked the short distance to the main road and turned right towards Upper Bridge.
‘This little river’s the Honey,’ James Fordyce said. ‘It’s a quite good trout stream and Rodney Kenway-Potter owns the fishing rights here. If you cross that stile on the left bank and take the path going up on your left it’ll bring you out at the longstone. From there it’s a short distance to the top.’
‘O.K.,’ Edward Tuke said, ‘and thanks a lot, Mr Fordyce, for taking me on. And I mean that. We’ll be in touch.’
They shook hands. He vaulted over the stile, gave a parting wave and started up the path at a brisk pace, making his way upwards under the shimmering light green of trees just breaking into leaf. The early evening sun came slanting through the branches, shafts falling on drifts of primroses and wood anemones. He paused briefly to track down a delicious elusive fragrance and traced it to a clump of wild violets. Bird song came cascading down from overhead, and he had the sensation of breasting a sea of pure enjoyment. The path steepened as he gained height. Suddenly he emerged into a clearing and stopped dead in his tracks. A pillar of rough weather-beaten stone lay prone on the ground, pointing to the direction from which he had come.
James Fordyce walked slowly home, reviewing his conversation with Edward Tuke.
As he expected, Eileen was impatiently awaiting his return. Over the years since their marriage he had developed a satisfactory technique for meeting both her demands for attention and his own need for solitude. During supper he gave the subject of their possible purchase of Bridge Cottage and its implications his undivided attention, taking her views seriously and contributing his own in a form geared to her understanding. Then, when the meal was over, he remarked that he must get the information young Tuke had given him sorted out while it was all fresh in his mind. Back at his desk, he assembled the original correspondence with Edward Tuke, the notes that he had made during their conversation, and those which he had brought back from London. For half an hour he sat mulling over them, at intervals leaning back in his chair and staring unseeingly at the back garden of the bungalow. Suddenly the telephone rang. He got up with a grunt of irritation to go into the hall. As he expected, Eileen was already taking the call.
‘Here he is!’ she was saying gaily. ‘It’s Rodney,’ she mouthed to her husband, wide-eyed with excitement. ‘Could it be about the cottage?’
He took the receiver from her unresponsively.
‘Hallo, old man,’ he said. ‘Congratulations on the outcome of the case. What can I do for you?’
‘Is that young American still with you?’ Rodney Kenway-Potter sounded annoyed and faintly puzzled.
‘Good Lord, no. He went off just after six. He wanted to go up to see the longstone and the view from the top. I put him on the path at Upper Bridge.’
‘Well, where the hell is he? He was due here at seven, as he probably told you, and it’s past eight.’
‘Have you rung the Green Man?’
‘Yes, I have. Tom says his car’s in the car park where he left it when he came in from Littlechester at about a quarter to five. Then he went out again soon afterwards on foot, to his appointment with you, presumably.’
‘Seems a bit odd. He said he was picking up his car and driving up to you when he came down, and was a bit anxious about being on time.’
‘I call it damned odd... I suppose he hasn’t taken a purler on the path and broken a leg or something ... I think I’d better go along and have a look round. Amaryllis is here if he turns up.’
‘Like me to come with you?’
‘No, don’t bother, thanks all the same. Not at this stage, anyway. I’ll ring you later if the chap doesn’t materialise.’
He rang off. Puzzled and faintly disturbed James disillusioned Eileen on the subject of Rodney Kenway-Potter’s call and went back to his study, disregarding her exclamations of surprise. Unusually for him he found it difficult to concentrate on the problems presented by the Tuke search, and finally decided to knock off for the evening. At this point the telephone suddenly rang again. He had been subconsciously expecting another call from Rodney, and this time managed to arrive in the hall before his wife.
‘James, the most bloody awful thing’s happened,’ Rodney told him hoarsely and without preamble. ‘I found Tuke in the river. Drowned. Just downstream from the old bridge.’
‘In the rive
r?’
‘Yeah. Those blasted yobs had chucked the warning notice about the bridge being unusable into the water, like the others.’
‘But how on earth did he drown in that depth of water?’
‘Hit his head on a rock. Must have concussed himself. His nose and mouth were submerged. I dragged him out and tried artificial respiration, and chaps from the pub took turns but it was no go. Dr Bryce is here and an ambulance is on the way. And the police, of course.’
‘Shall I come round?’
‘Do, for God’s sake. Get here before the police start pushing everybody about. I suppose you were the last person to see him alive, anyway.’
‘Right. I’ll come up.’
As he put down the receiver James turned to see Eileen looking aghast, her hand to her mouth. He gave her the bare facts and started for the front door.
‘James! Wait! I’m coming too. Amaryllis will want someone with her. I’ll get my coat.’
His habitual self-control snapped suddenly. ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered peremptorily. ‘This isn’t the moment to go forcing yourself on them. There’s nothing you can do.’
A second later the door slammed behind him. Eileen stood staring after him, biting the joint of her right thumb.
Chapter Two
On a June morning, six weeks after Edward Tuke’s death, a conference was in progress in the Chief Constable of Buryshire’s office at Littlechester police headquarters. Those present were Superintendent Newman and Inspector Deeds of the County C.I.D., and Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Pollard and Detective Inspector Toye of New Scotland Yard. A request for the Yard’s assistance had been made on the previous day.
‘So that’s about the length of it,’ Robert Gregg, the Chief Constable concluded. ‘And proper Charleys we feel taking the case as cleared up as far as it ever could be, and then having to send you people an S.O.S. after all this time when the trail’s stone cold.’
Pollard, who had taken to him on sight, grinned back, reclining in his chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his hands clasped behind his head.
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