Hand in Glove (25 page)

R O B E R T G O D D A R D

“If Griffith is correct—and it’s a big if—McKitrick’s the obvious candidate for having stolen the letters.” Did he have an alibi for Thursday night? Charlotte wondered. Was it one that would cause Maurice more pain than any of Fairfax’s accusations? “And since what they contain—what they
supposedly
contain—turns his account of Tristram’s career on its head, he’s probably already destroyed them.”

“I don’t think so.”

“No? Well, we’ll see.” For the first time, Maurice smiled. His confidence was returning as Charlotte watched, bringing warmth to his gaze and fluency to his thoughts. “Leave this to me, old girl. I mean to put a few hares back in their traps.”

“You really think you can?”

“Oh, yes.” Maurice was back to his self-assured best, neither as arrogant as Emerson McKitrick nor as hesitant as Derek Fairfax. This was what Charlotte had hoped he would be from the first. This was what she had been sure would rid her mind of doubt. How strange, then, that now it came to the point the doubt remained, as stubborn as it was insistent, greater indeed than it had been before. “You’ve done well, Charlie. And I’m grateful. But now I think I’d better take over.

Don’t you?”

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ELEVEN

Derek’s second bout of absenteeism had been greeted by David Fithyan with a silence more ominous than any cen-sorious interview. Derek had therefore beavered his way through the first three days of the following week, endeavouring never to be seen to be other than industriously engaged. He was well aware Charlotte Ladram was to meet her half-brother on Wednesday morning, but it was not until the early evening that he felt able to leave Fithyan & Co. with a clear conscience and proceed to Ockham House, high and cool in its leafy setting above the town.

When he drove up the drive, he saw Charlotte at once, seated on a

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wicker chair in the corner of the lawn where the setting sun still lingered. She was wearing a cream pinafore dress with a navy blue cardigan slung round her shoulders and a wide-brimmed straw hat that made her look younger and more carefree than he knew she was.

In his rumpled office suit, he felt miserably shabby, unequal to whatever the occasion represented. But there was a second empty chair beside Charlotte’s and she seemed to be smiling as he approached. He was expected and, if not welcome, could at least be sure that on this occasion he would not be turned away.

“Miss Ladram . . . I . . .”

“You’re later than I thought you’d be, Mr Fairfax.”

“I’m sorry. It’s been . . . difficult.”

“Please sit down. Can I offer you a drink, perhaps?”

She was being too polite, too altogether reasonable, for his peace of mind. There was an awkwardness to her expression at odds with the relaxation of her tone. What it meant he could not discern. “No.

Nothing to drink, thank you.” He sat down. “You . . . er . . . saw your brother?” He nerved himself to use the word without prefix, wondering whether she would notice or take it amiss if she did.

“Yes. I saw him.”

“When we spoke last Friday . . .” But last Friday seemed an age ago. As did the truce they had come close to declaring. He had been certain then that she meant to be honest, with him and with herself.

Now he was not so sure. “When we spoke, you undertook to put all the points I made—”

“I did.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then Derek said: “What conclusion did you reach . . . might I ask?”

“Maurice is innocent of any wrong-doing.” But her gaze had faltered. She looked down and away, squinting into the sunlight. “I’m sure of it, Mr Fairfax. Absolutely sure. He’s as unable to account for events as I am.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

A compression of her lips was the only sign of irritation. “I promised to inform you of my conclusions and that’s what I’ve done.”

“But the circumstances, Miss Ladram. The circumstances are just too—”

“Coincidence! Nothing more. I know you want to believe otherwise, but you’re wrong.” Her outward show of calmness was what gave the game away, Derek realized. If she really trusted Maurice, she 174

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would defend him with spirit and vigour, not a cool veneer of reason.

“I’m sorry, truly sorry, but there’s—”

“Hi, Charlie!” The voice, raised and drawled, reached them across the lawn. Derek looked round and saw a tall broadly built man striding towards them. Dark hair and a trimmed beard framed a handsome smiling face. He wore a loose fawn suit and open-necked shirt and was aiming his left hand at Charlotte in the likeness of a gun, thumb raised, index finger pointing. “Didn’t think I’d catch up with you, did you?”

“Emerson!” Charlotte’s exclamation and the American accent confirmed to Derek that this was Emerson McKitrick. As he towered above them, he gave every impression of being more than slightly drunk.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Derek Fairfax.”

“Oho! Buddying up with the enemy now, are we? Least-ways, Maurice’s enemy.”

“I don’t know what you mean. We’re simply—”

“Save the denials for big brother, Charlie. I don’t need them.”

“What are you doing here, Emerson?” Charlotte’s voice cracked as she spoke.

“Had the bum’s rush from Swans’ Meadow. Thought I’d spend a couple of nights here before flying back to Boston. I’m staying at the Spa Hotel. Why don’t you join me for dinner?”

“I hardly think so.”

“Your loss, sweetheart.”

“I’m not your sweetheart.”

“Wanted to be though, eh? Wanted to be another of my many conquests. I could have had you the first night we met.”

Charlotte’s flinch of shame at the words drove Derek from his chair. “That’s enough!”

“Enough?” bellowed McKitrick. “I haven’t even started yet. Why don’t you crawl back to your counting-house, Fairfax? Leave Charlie and me to bill and coo at each other like the pair of love-birds we aren’t.” He was not only drunk, but angry, though whether with Charlotte or Derek or somebody else altogether was far from clear.

“I don’t want you to leave,” said Charlotte, looking up at Derek in direct appeal.

“Don’t be too sure,” said McKitrick. “You mightn’t want him to

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hear what I have to say. It’s time you learned the truth about brother Maurice, you see. And I’ll bet you won’t want to share it, let alone with your tame accountant.”

“He’s not
my
accountant.”

“No? Well, maybe he ought to be. You’ll surely need one in this affluent future Maurice has planned for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t tell me you’re not taking a cut. Isn’t that how he means to shut you up?”

“A cut of what?”

“The royalties, Charlie. The royalties that won’t run out next year.

Maurice has told me all about it. He had to, even though he knew it meant I’d realize what he’d been up to right from the start.
He
approached
me
, not the other way round.
He
told
me
about the letters.

Beatrix never did. He knew I’d be unable to resist the lure of fresh material on Tristram. That’s how he led me on. He said we’d have to keep his role in the whole thing secret to ensure your co-operation, which, as heir to Beatrix’s property, we had to have. I was happy to go along with it, of course. I was happy to do just about anything to lay my hands on those letters. For the sake of scholarship, I might add.

Not for money.” He grinned. “Well, not just for money.” At that he paused and leaned against the back of Charlotte’s chair for support.

“You’re saying Maurice put you up to this?” Charlotte was staring up at him, eyes wide with fear of what he might yet reveal.

“Sure, Charlie. You’ve got it. He claimed he wanted to make his father’s biography as complete and accurate as possible. I never swallowed that, of course. I expected a trade-off when we found the letters.
If
we found them. What I didn’t expect was that Maurice was playing a deeper game, for bigger odds than I’d ever imagined. We found the letters for him, you and me. And now he’s snatched them from under our noses. I’m not sure how, but I’m damn sure why. So he doesn’t have to go short after the expiry of copyright. Because it won’t expire, will it? Not now he can prove Beatrix was the real poet. Not now he can show up my study of his father’s life as a sham, built on a lie it’ll suit him to expose. Do you know what this will do for my reputation, my academic standing? Do you have any idea? I’ll be a laughing-stock. Students sniggering in my seminars. Colleagues whispering behind my back. My whole career may go down the tube.

And why? To serve the truth or honour the dead? Hell, no. Not for 176

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anything as high-minded as that. Just to keep Maurice’s royalty account topped up for the rest of his life.” He pushed himself away from the chair, swayed slightly, then clapped a hand to his brow. “I’ve been taken for a fairground ride, Charlie. And kicked out of the chair at the top of the ferris wheel. So you’ll have to excuse”—he glared at Derek—“any lack of courtesy.”

Charlotte had screwed her eyes tightly shut as McKitrick spoke.

Now she slowly opened them and looked at Derek, her face pale, her lips parted, her knuckles white where she clasped the arms of her chair. Then her gaze shifted past him and she said: “I had no idea . . . I didn’t know . . . anything about this.”

“Then you’re a bigger fool than I took you for,” said McKitrick.

“Though not as big a one as I’ll look. In time, that is. In Maurice’s own sweet time.”

Derek stared at each of them in turn. McKitrick was not lying and Charlotte knew it. And the truth of what he had said dictated another truth, greater and more hideous by far. In Charlotte’s expression he could see its realization. In his own mind he could sense it spreading. “Why did Beatrix go to such lengths to hide the letters?”

he asked.

“Because she must have known what Maurice was planning,” said McKitrick. “Known and refused to go along with it. Maybe she didn’t want to sully Tristram’s reputation or expose her part in the fraud. Or maybe she just wanted to spite Maurice. Either way, she wouldn’t give in. So Maurice decided to . . . over-ride her objections.”

“Murder her, you mean?”

“Reckon so, don’t you? He must have thought it was just a question of knocking the old lady on the head and faking a break-in, then blaming it on your brother and pocketing the letters. Only Beatrix had put them out of his reach, so he had to use me to find them. And you, of course, Charlie. You were one of his pawns as well. How does it feel?”

Charlotte did not look at McKitrick as she responded. “What do you propose to do now?” she murmured.

“There’s nothing I
can
do. That’s the worst of it. Or the best of it, from Maurice’s point of view. My evidence wouldn’t stand up in a thesis, let alone a court of law.”

“Then why are you telling me all this?”

“So you’ll know, when he unveils the letters a year or so from now,

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and claims he found them, or was sent them, or was sold them, or whatever damn story he comes up with—so you’ll know then, and ever after, what the truth of it is. That Beatrix was beaten to death, and this man’s brother was jailed, and I was ruined, just to feather Maurice’s nest. And yours, of course. I don’t doubt he’ll be generous.

He can afford to be now, can’t he?”

“Please go.” Still she did not so much as glance at either of them.

“Please go now, both of you.”

“It’ll be a pleasure.” Unexpectedly, McKitrick stepped forward, raised Charlotte’s hand from the arm of the chair, and kissed it. “So long,
sweetheart
.” With that he turned and strode away across the lawn. Derek heard Charlotte release a deep breath she had been holding and watched her slowly wipe the hand McKitrick had kissed against her dress.

“You want me to leave as well?”

“I would be grateful.” She spoke softly and precisely, stressing each syllable equally.

“Without further discussion?”

“What is there to discuss?”

“You heard what he said. It proves I’m right.”

“Perhaps.”

“How can you doubt it?”

“Maurice is a wealthy man.” She seemed almost to be in a trance, hypnotically convinced that such phrases, if repeated often enough, would hold his guilt at bay. “He didn’t need to do this. Any of it.”

“But he did do it. You know he did.”

At last she looked at him. “What now, Mr Fairfax? What next?”

“I . . . I shall inform my brother . . . and his solicitor . . . but . . .”

“Yes?”

“Nothing can be proved. McKitrick said so. And he’s right.”

“Exactly. Nothing can be proved.” She raised one hand to her forehead. “Don’t you see why that’s as awful for me as for you?”

“Frankly, no.”

“Because nothing can be
disproved
either. Nothing, one way or the other, can be known for certain. Your brother’s not the only one in prison, Mr Fairfax. From now on, we all are.”

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TWELVE

Summer rain, gentle but insistent, smeared the world grey and green. Charlotte stood at her bedroom window, watching it fall and wishing it would continue for ever, listening to its peck and patter against the glass, wanting the stain of every sunny day washed from her memory.

Hope Cove, at the dawn of her childhood recollection: the sand between her toes; the tiny crabs scuttling in the rock pools; her mother warmly scented and ever smiling: her father boisterous and laughing; and Maurice in his late teens, self-conscious and wary, uncertain whether he wanted to join the game on the beach or stand apart and scoff. It had been sunny then, the whole fortnight. And already the lie had begun.

Charlotte lowered her chin to meet the soothing coolness of the bathrobe and closed her eyes, prising apart the tangled undergrowth of long-ago incidents in search of the discrepancies she should have noticed, the inconsistencies and contradictions which must have formed the fabric of the lie. But there were none. They had remained loyal to each other. They had let nothing slip, nothing show, nothing reveal the falsehood upon which they were set.
“This is a photograph
of Tristram Abberley, Charlie.” “This is a book of his poems.” “These
are the verses that feed and clothe you, Charlie.” “These are the secrets
we will never tell.”

She turned and walked into the bathroom, where already the water was halfway up the tub. She looked in the mirror and cursed her weakness that showed in the brimming redness of her eyes. She could not free her throat of the constricted urge to sob, to weep and surrender to the bitterness she felt. A night had passed since Emerson McKitrick had forced her to confront the possibility that everything alleged against Maurice might be true, a night since Maurice had telephoned her in a fluent yet flawed attempt to set her mind at rest.

“It’s possible you might hear from McKitrick, Charlie. He’s in a
vindictive mood and I wanted to warn you not to take what he says seriously.”