Brothers' Tears (2 page)

There would be calls of ‘hear hear!' and applause then. But he'd hold his hands up modestly and sit down a few seconds later, when he'd told them all to enjoy themselves in this wonderful place. He didn't need to announce his other speaker, because the toastmaster would do that.

Jim O'Connor finished his dessert, took a final look at his watch, then tapped his glass with the fork he hadn't used. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a comfort break of no more than ten minutes. Please be back in your seats by then for coffee and
petit fours
. Oh, and the odd speech. I promise you they'll be very short!' There was a little laughter, then a shifting back of chairs, a swift and grateful exit by the men who had been drinking beer earlier in the evening. The noise level rose as people took the opportunity to move round the room and chat to people on other tables.

The toastmaster leaned over the man who'd paid for his services, as for everything else in the evening, and said resentfully, ‘I could have made that announcement for you, sir.'

‘Spur of the moment!' said Jim, waving an arm vaguely towards the noisy room, as if the gesture could explain things. ‘You'll get your fee, never fear.'

The man bristled at this coarse reference to money. He shuffled back to his position, standing upright against the wall and staring unseeingly ahead, looking like a small, ageing and rather ridiculous version of a soldier on guard outside Buckingham Palace. O'Connor was already regretting his impulse. The comfort break had been a mistake. He had merely postponed his ordeal, when he could have had it over and done with. He was suddenly desperate to relax. He was getting things out of proportion, a thing he never did in his business life. Sarah was in earnest conversation with the man next to her. Jim whispered in her ear, ‘I'm just slipping out for a breath of air,' and was gone before she could reply.

The night air was cool and welcoming. He stood for a moment at the top of the steps beneath the house's high, rounded entrance, looking down the long, very straight drive to the lights of the gatehouse which were all he could discern in the darkness. The family who owned this place had been here since the Norman Conquest, they said. Almost a thousand years. But things had changed – and had changed fastest of all in the last century. They needed to open the place to visitors now. They were glad of people like him to hire the banqueting hall and bring in the money. They were glad to entertain people who would never have been allowed past the gatehouse at one time.

The world belonged to people like him now. To Irish peasants who might once have come to the estate as casual workers in the haymaking season. Move over, Sir Cuthbert or Sir Jasper or whoever you were. Make way for Jim O'Connor and his raft of ways of making a quick buck. This is the twenty-first century, mate. And that stuff about the past was a romantic notion: he'd never been an Irish peasant. He'd had a good education and he'd used that and his rugby to get himself started.

Jim turned and wandered back through the house, taking care not to catch the eye of any of his guests he might meet. He didn't want to talk now. And least of all did he want to hear the sycophantic small talk which the people he'd invited here might think compulsory if they met their host. He tried the handle of another door, a tall, wide affair, probably oak, he thought. To his surprise, it turned easily and he slipped out into some sort of garden. There was fallen cherry blossom at his feet, thick, pink, almost luminous as his eyes grew used to the pale light from the stars in the clear night sky. He moved around the building, glancing up beyond the high stone wall beside him. There was a wrought-iron gate, not quite closed and latched. He pushed it and walked through to the open area beyond it.

He recognised where he was now. This was the edge of the car park. He could see the rows of neatly parked vehicles, their roofs shining almost white where they caught the light from the crescent moon which was visible in this more open area. Even as he thought how still it was on this early May night, the slightest of breezes swept through the car park, ruffling the dark outlines of the trees away to his right, sighing a little in the tops of their canopies as it passed through them. It was cool and unthreatening out here. Jim O'Connor breathed deeply of the clear, clean air, knowing that soon he would be back in that warm and crowded room and facing the ordeal of his speech. He glanced down to check the time on his wrist before he turned back towards the house and duty.

It was his last conscious action. But he felt the steel of the pistol against his temple, heard the sudden roar of the weapon as the swift and final violence of the bullet ended his life.

‘Y
ou heard the news this morning?'

It was a small hotel, allowing a friendly relationship between owner and client, and the proprietor was eager to drop his little bombshell and then talk about it. Murder was better than politics for a conversation – better than most things, better even than sport. You could get into trouble with politics: it was surprising what strong views some people had, whatever the evidence you cited. Sport was pretty safe, but even there you had to be careful; people had their favourite teams and they could be very blinkered. Even worse, the guests could sometimes be totally uninterested in sport. And then you were left at the end of the diving board, without anything to do except tumble into the pool and look silly.

But a good juicy murder was pretty safe. Everyone enjoyed talking about death; everyone enjoyed wondering what the world was coming to. They thought the crime was terrible, but they usually wanted all the details of it with their breakfasts. The older ones often wanted to bring back hanging; he'd got used to that. And he had his reaction ready: you shook your head gravely and retreated into the illusions of how much safer a now long-departed world had been.

These two were young. The woman was quite a looker, with that striking red-brown hair and those bright blue eyes which seemed to be taking in everything and smiling at it, not to mention that healthily curving body beneath. When you wore your white chef's hat and asked whether they'd enjoyed the food, people thought you didn't notice how they looked, but you did. He wondered for a few seconds how that little bald-headed bloke with the moustache had got himself a girl like that, but he'd long since ceased to give much time to such speculation. You saw all sorts of couples here, some married, some not. These two were married, he was sure of that. They were easy with each other; they had the air of amused tolerance which he saw only in long-term couples.

They must surely have heard his question, but they gave no sign of it, seeming to be immersed in their choice of cereals from the wide range provided at the side table. The proprietor repeated a little less certainly, ‘I expect you've heard the news this morning, Mr Peach?'

The man's near-black eyes turned sudden and full upon him. ‘No, we haven't. And we don't want to. No offence, Mr Johnson, but it's part of the holiday for us to get away from what's happening in the world. No newspapers, no radio, no television. That's been a rest in itself, these last four days.'

‘Fair enough.' The owner nodded four times, which was at least two too many. ‘Very understandable. Very sensible, I'm sure. I can see the point of that.' He went back into his kitchen, leaving the pair to breakfast in peace. They were the first ones down this morning. The others would want to talk about this killing when they came, might even broach it with him, if they'd been listening to the radios in their rooms. Took all sorts to make up a world – that was one of the clichés he loved to swap with his clients in the peculiar world of hotel-speak. He could still picture those dark eyes in that round, unrevealing face. The man had been perfectly polite, but he'd decided in that instant that he wouldn't want Mr Peach as an enemy.

The couple he'd left behind were deliberately friendly towards him when he served the breakfasts they'd ordered, as if they wished to emphasize that there was nothing personal in their rejection of his conversational sallies. The man must be ten years older than the girl, he thought – when you were approaching sixty and had grandchildren, all women under thirty were girls to you. She had bacon and egg and tomato. The man had the full English, which he despatched with amazing speed and obvious relish. He told the chef it was good bacon and sausage and cooked just right. It seemed he wished to compensate for his earlier brisk rejection of the news.

They disappeared from the dining room as the first of his other guests entered it, as if they wished to preserve themselves from any further discussion of events in the vulgar world around them. Detective Chief Inspector ‘Percy' Peach and Detective Sergeant Lucy Peach had signed into the hotel as plain Mr and Mrs Peach. In a few minutes, they would pay their bill and sign out again. Peach would put something complimentary in the visitors' book, but they would remain Mr and Mrs Peach as they departed. There was nothing unusual in that. Police officers prefer to conceal their calling; they consider it politic to do so in our civilized twenty-first century. Most of the men and women who serve in uniform prefer to don the garb of their trade only at work; they leave it behind in the locker room when they finish the working day, shedding their work along with their clothing.

Percy and Lucy were members of the CID, of that elite police section which operates throughout the day in plain clothes, attempting as far as possible to blend into the world around it. But they still preferred to keep the nature of their work secret, unless they were asked directly about it by innocent strangers, when both of them found it difficult to lie. As Lucy brushed her teeth vigorously in their bathroom, Percy said, ‘Our last day. Best make it a good 'un.'

‘If you'd let me listen to the weather forecast, we'd know better what to do now.'

Percy eyed the small patch of blue sky he could see through their window, watched a white cloud race quickly across it. He said with all the confidence he could muster, ‘Bright. Breezy. Possibility of an occasional shower. Keep waterproofs handy in the rucksacks.' He sought something which would add the edge of reality to his forecast. ‘Probably not warm enough for outdoor nooky.'

‘Thank you, Mr Weatherman. That's quite enough of that.' She emerged from the bathroom in jeans and anorak. ‘Ready for action when you are.' She caught an instant reaction in those dark eyes as he reached out lustful arms. ‘
Walking
action please, Casa-bloody-nova!'

Three hours later, they were two thousand feet up on the slopes of Crinkle Crags, looking back at Red Tarn and the track they had climbed. No rain yet, but a brisk breeze around their ears as the sun climbed higher. Percy breathed deeply of the cool, clean air and accepted a square of chocolate as they paused to rest before the steep climb up to the crags above them. ‘All this bracing air, all this spring sunshine, all this magnificent scenery, and the finest backside in Britain moving two yards ahead of me!' he murmured euphorically.

‘Don't you ever think of anything else?' said Lucy, shifting a little on the rock to accommodate the backside in question.

‘Not if I can help it,' said Percy happily. ‘You said we had to forget all about work and your bum helps me to do that more than most things. It's good to have such ambrosia perpetually on tap, now that we're married. It's like having your own real ale on draught, only better!' He lay back with his head flat against the sloping fellside, chewing happily on the stalk of coarse moorland grass he had plucked.

Lucy felt that she should make a feminist protest about male assumptions of ownership, but she couldn't quite isolate the right phrase to attack. It was much better to be appreciated than ignored, her mother always reminded her. Mrs Blake was an enthusiastic and consistent admirer of Percy, when she might have been expected to reject him as a divorced man ten years older than her daughter. The elderly widow of seventy and the bouncy little detective of thirty-nine got on as no one could have predicted and it was a formidable alliance. The starting point had been Percy's twinkle-footed prowess as a Lancashire League batsman; Agnes Blake had been a devoted cricket fan since her girlhood.

Lucy contented herself in the end with saying firmly, ‘A mature man like you should be able to control your lust after almost a year of marriage. You can lead over the next bit. You'll need to keep your attention off my contours and firmly on Wainwright.'

Percy consulted the famous guidebook ostentatiously. ‘Piece of cake, for a fit youngster like you, he says. Old men like me have to watch their step on the second Crinkle.' It was over fifty years since the grand old man of Lakeland had published this book. He was long dead now, but still overwhelmingly the best guide to walking in the mountains. Percy felt that using the guide he had first handled as a boy, with its detailed drawings and helpful, humorous text, was a kind of homage to the man who had so loved these heights.

They worked their way up the long, zigzag climb to the first Crinkle, then along the mile of magnificent scrambling, with its series of dramatic views to either side and the gradually emerging view of Bowfell to the north. The wind was strong here, at nearly three thousand feet, so that sometimes you used hands as well as feet to keep your balance. But they had anoraks zipped high and woollen bobble hats, so that the stiff breeze only made the experience of the finest ridge walk in Britain more exhilarating.

The Easter holiday for schools was well over now, and they met only a few fellow enthusiasts in this wild place, most of them traversing the ridge in the opposite direction. They were completely alone when they reached the end of the ridge and stood looking down into Great Langdale. Percy put his arms round Lucy, with their bodies braced against the wind. They didn't need words as he held her for a long thirty seconds. In this high, remote place, where you felt nearer to whatever gods you did or did not believe in, the moment felt like another step forward in their relationship.