Hand in Glove (41 page)

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

MAURICE: How can I beware what I know nothing about?

BEATRIX: You can’t, so long as you remain as pig-headed as you have been all your life.

MAURICE: Now look here—

BEATRIX: Out of interest, could you tell me what this is really all about? There has to be more to it than money. What is it? Simply your inability to accept that your wishes do not always take precedence over other people’s?

MAURICE: Oh, for God’s sake—

BEATRIX: What? Leaving so soon?

MAURICE: I’m glad you’re having second thoughts, Aunt, whatever the reason. I’ll look forward to hearing from you after your holiday, hopefully with good news. But, meanwhile, I’ve no intention of swallowing any more of your insults.

BEATRIX: As you please. I believe we’ve both said what needed to be said. I believe we understand each other now.

MAURICE: Perhaps we do.

BEATRIX: Don’t forget what I told you. There’s more at stake here than you can possibly imagine.

MAURICE: That’s eyewash and you know it.

BEATRIX: I know you think it is. But you’re wrong. Not that I expect you to heed my warning. I’d be surprised if you did.

MAURICE: And surprises aren’t good for delicate old ladies, are they?

BEATRIX: They’re not as bad as nocturnal intruders.

MAURICE: No. But you can take precautions against
them,
can’t you?

BEATRIX: By agreeing to your terms, you mean?

MAURICE: By being sensible.

BEATRIX: I shall certainly endeavour to be that.

MAURICE: Good.

BEATRIX: Can you see yourself out?

MAURICE: Yes. Of course.

BEATRIX: Goodbye, then.

MAURICE: (
from a distance
): Thanks for the tea. I’ll speak to you soon.

Have a nice
thoughtful
time in Cheltenham, Aunt.

BEATRIX: I’ll be sure to.

MAURICE: (
from a distance
): ’Bye.

BEATRIX: (
in an undertone
): Goodbye, Maurice. Thank you so much for your co-operation. It’s been invaluable.

C

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EIGHTEEN

Charlotte had bought a pocket cassette player before leaving New York and listened to the tape of Beatrix’s conversation with Maurice over and over again during the five-hour rail journey to Boston. At times she could imagine she was in an adjoining room at Jackdaw Cottage, eavesdropping on what they said. At others the realization that both of them were now dead rendered their words distant and ethereal. But the meaning of those words never altered. Beatrix had set a trap for Maurice and he had walked straight into it. Nobody who heard the tape could doubt his guilt. He had even specified the date of his unwitting confessional. Natasha was right. It would almost certainly be enough to acquit Colin Fairfax. He at least would go free.

But Samantha’s freedom still seemed a long way off.
“There’s
more at stake here than you can possibly imagine,”
Beatrix had said.

And subsequent events had shown just how much more. But what was it? What had she held for so many years in trust and secrecy? What had rendered her and Tristram’s literary fraud trivial by comparison?

Charlotte longed to be able to ask her, to turn to her and have every question instantly answered, every problem magically solved. But she was no longer there. Only her voice lingered in Charlotte’s ear. And what it said could never be altered. It could be heard at the press of a button. But it would always be the same.

Charlotte booked into a hotel in the centre of Boston and hunted down the telephone directory in her room as soon as the porter had left. Emerson McKitrick’s address was clearly shown, at a place called South Lincoln. Tomorrow, she would have to find him, there or wherever he was hiding. Tomorrow, she would have to forget the humiliation she had suffered at his hands and plead for his help in what threatened to be a hopeless task.

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When tomorrow came, Charlotte faced it with as much resolution and efficiency as she could muster. She bought a map, hired a car and drove nervously to Cambridge, where the opening week of Harvard’s autumn semester was in frantic progress. At length, she located the literature department and, entering, asked the first student she came upon where she might find Dr McKitrick.

“Not here, ma’am. He works at home most Fridays. Do you want the address?”

“No thank you,” Charlotte replied. “That won’t be necessary.”

She was, in fact, relieved to learn he was not there. Confronted in his domestic environment, he would find it more difficult to fob her off.

An hour later, she had reached Drumlin Hill, South Lincoln, a lushly wooded cul-de-sac of executive residences beyond Boston’s western suburbs. McKitrick’s house lounged on a maple-strewn ridge, sleek and contemporary, with a gable end sporting one huge circular window that stared down at her like an unblinking eye.

The door was answered by a slim blonde-haired woman of about her own age dressed in jeans, trainers and a candy-stripe shirt several sizes too big for her. Bending one knee to restrain an enthusiastic red setter, she unzipped a dazzling smile. “Hi! What can I do for you?”

“Good morning,” Charlotte ventured. “I’m looking for Emerson McKitrick.”

“He’s not here right now.”

“Will he be back soon?”

“Any minute, I guess. What . . . Is he expecting you?”

“No.”

“You’re English, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. My name’s Charlotte Ladram.”

“Ladram? Don’t I know . . . Hey, Ladram Avionics, right? The corporation Maurice Abberley ran.”

“Maurice Abberley is—was—my brother.”

“Your
brother
? You’d better come in.” She opened the door wide and held back the dog, whose tail was beating wildly on the wall behind it. “It’s OK. He just gets overexcited. Come on in.”

Charlotte stepped into the hall and grinned down at the dog.

“Hello, boy.”

“Go on through. I’ll get rid of this brute.” The woman led him away, leaving Charlotte to wander into a long pine-panelled room

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with a huge stone fireplace at the far end and a picture window to her right commanding a view of the terraced front garden and the curving drive up which she had walked. The seating was low and yielding, the decoration largely subordinate to a vast abstract oil painting on the longest wall. Charlotte was gazing at its aimless explosion of colour when her hostess returned, still smiling broadly, and extended a hand in formal greeting.

“Sorry about the dog. I’m Holly McKitrick, by the way.” It was probably Charlotte’s frown of puzzlement that prompted her to add:

“Emerson’s wife.”

“Oh. I see.” As soon as the handshake was complete, Charlotte turned away, eager to look elsewhere for the instant it took her to absorb the simple fact of his marriage. He had lied about this as about much else and she knew she should feel neither hurt nor surprised.

But in reality she felt both. “You have . . . er . . . a lovely house,” she said, glancing back at Holly McKitrick to find her blue eyes trained studiously upon her.

“Glad you like it.”

“I expect you’re . . . er . . . wondering what brings me here.”

“Well, we heard about your brother’s death through Emerson’s British publisher. It sounded awful. And his daughter’s been kidnapped, hasn’t she? She’s your niece, right?”

“Yes.”

“If you’ve come all this way at such a time . . .”

“It’s because Emerson may be able to help us secure Sam’s release.”

“You made his acquaintance when he was over in July researching Tristram Abberley?”

“Yes. I did.”

“Well, I’m sure he’d want to help any way he can, but I don’t rightly see—”

“We have to try everything.”

“Yeh. Of course.” She smiled. “Would you like some coffee while you wait?”

“Er . . . Thank you.”

“It won’t take a second.”

Left alone, Charlotte walked slowly down the length of the room, debating with herself how much or how little Holly McKitrick might know. By the time she reached the fireplace, she was also beginning to wonder whether Maurice had known McKitrick was married. If so—

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But speculation was cut off when, turning round to retrace her steps, she caught sight of a red sports car winding up the drive. She moved to the window and watched it pull up. Emerson McKitrick climbed out, dressed casually in jeans and a tennis shirt. He looked relaxed and carefree, singing under his breath as he lifted a bulging paper sack from the back seat, then started towards the house. But something made him glance up at the lounge window as he approached.

And the sight of Charlotte, staring down at him, stopped him in his tracks.

What followed was for Charlotte a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. She had planned to appeal to Emerson’s better nature, or, if this failed, to argue that he owed her whatever assistance he could give in return for his earlier deceit of her. But Holly’s presence ensured she could do neither. Instead, she was obliged to subscribe to Emerson’s misleading account of their acquaintance. This he unveiled with grinning blatancy whilst clasping his wife ostentatiously round the waist. In defying Charlotte to contradict him, he was on safe ground, for she knew—as she felt sure he did—which of them Holly would believe.

The worst of it was that Charlotte had intended to emphasize how she had come in search of information, not confrontation. But the lies Emerson had told sprang up as a barrier between them, insur-mountable because they could not be acknowledged. When she explained what the kidnappers were after and asked if he had any idea where or what the document might be, his reply was predictably negative. Heard in the context of his and Holly’s gushing sympathy, it sounded very like the truth. But Charlotte would have needed to be alone with him, decks cleared of their differences, for certainty on the point. And that he seemed determined to avoid.

“I can’t help you, Charlie. I’ve never heard of any of this before. A document written in Catalan and entrusted to Tristram by a friend.

Which friend? About what? And why, all these years later, would it suddenly matter so much?”

“I don’t know. But the kidnappers know about the letters. So, they must have learnt about them from somebody. You’re one of the few who was aware of their existence. If you mentioned them to a colleague or—”

“But I didn’t. Holly here’s the only living soul I told. The letters

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knocked a hole in my book about Tristram. Why should I publicize them?”

“Charlie’s not saying you did, honey,” his wife put in. She smiled across at Charlotte. “You’re just checking every possibility, aren’t you?”

“Yes. It’s . . . er . . . not been made public, but the kidnappers have set a deadline of October the eleventh for handing over the document.”

Emerson’s eyebrows twitched up. “Failing which?”

“They say they’ll kill Sam.”

“Oh, God,” murmured Holly.

“So you see—”

“That’s tough,” said Emerson. “She’s a good kid. It’d be a tragedy if . . .” He shook his head. “If there was any way I could help, believe me, I would.”

“But there isn’t?”

“No.” He met Charlotte’s gaze for a moment and it seemed to her that in this at least he was sincere. “No way in the world.”

When she left, Emerson volunteered to escort her to her car at the bottom of the drive. Charlotte realized he was still stage-managing their encounter, moving Holly into and out of the wings as and when it suited him. Now, when there was a strict limit to how long he would have to talk to her, it was convenient—perhaps even imperative—to do so unimpeded by a third party.

No sooner had they set off than he said, in a tone completely different from the one he had used in Holly’s presence: “You shouldn’t have come here, Charlie, you really shouldn’t. You could have phoned.

There was no need for this.”

“I wanted to see you face-to-face.”

“Well, now you have. What have you gained from it?”

“Nothing. Unless you count nailing another of your lies.”

“Pretending I was unattached was Maurice’s idea. He reckoned it would make you more . . . susceptible.”

“It’s easy to say that now he’s dead, isn’t it? Easy to blame him for everything.”

“Yuh. It is. But it also happens to be true. He
is
to blame—for starting whatever the hell it is Sam’s kidnappers mean to finish.”

“And you really have no idea what that might be?”

“Not a clue. My researches into Tristram’s time in Spain were 296

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geared to the effect it had on his poetry. They never touched on anything even remotely like this. And I’m glad they didn’t, if what happened to Maurice is any guide. One word of advice—” They reached the foot of the drive and paused. “All I
do
know about the Spanish Civil War is it left a lot of scars that never healed. Feuds. Vendettas.

Debts of honour. And some of blood. If Maurice succeeded in calling one of those in . . .”

“Yes?”

“Then the only smart thing to do is to stay out of it. Right out.”

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NINETEEN

Charlotte had telephoned Derek from Boston late on Friday night to ask if he could meet her off the plane at Heathrow on Saturday morning. Naturally, he had agreed. Only later had it occurred to him to wonder whether he should feel alarmed by Charlotte’s anxious tone or flattered that she felt she could turn to him for advice. There was something about the mystery she seemed determined to solve which both excited and enthralled him. Until, that is, he remembered what had happened to Maurice Abberley.

Then the profit-and-loss column of his mind blared out its warning.

And sometimes he was inclined to listen.

Not, however, when Charlotte sat opposite him in an eerily empty airport café and described her experiences in the United States while gazing at him with an expression implying what he most wanted to believe: that she trusted him unreservedly. It was a miracle, given how often her trust had been betrayed of late. But it was a miracle, he well knew, born of desperation.

“I wanted to speak to you before I saw Ursula,” she concluded,

“because she might object to my giving you the private detective’s report on Maurice’s finances.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“Yes. And the tape I obtained from Natasha.”

“But . . . why?”