Hand in Glove (49 page)

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

“But you have doubts. I can see them in your face.”

“Yes. I have doubts.” Charlotte rose and walked to the window.

Outside, a grey morning of infinite stillness seemed to be waiting for her decision. Nothing moved, save a pigeon stirring faintly on its perch beneath the mansarded roof of the house opposite. She knew she should set off at once if she was to be back in England by mid-afternoon. But uncertainty dragged at her heels as it dragged at her thoughts. There had to be a way to disentangle Samantha—and everybody else—from the trailing tentacles of fifty years ago. But, if there was, she could not see it.

“I wish I could advise you,” said Madame Vassoir, joining her by the window. “But I cannot. I do not know enough to judge what it is best to do.” She sighed. “If only there was somebody who did.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte. “If only.”

Six hours later, Charlotte was driving west out of Dover, a large buff envelope containing Vicente Ortiz’s statement and Beatrix’s letter resting on the passenger seat beside her. She was driving fast through the irksomely thick traffic of a Friday afternoon, as if some destination were urgently fixed in her mind, as if doubt had long since given place to haste. But it was not so. Newbury, to tell Chief Inspector Golding everything she knew; or Bourne End, to let Ursula decide what should be done; or Tunbridge Wells, to brood a little longer upon her dilemma: even she could not guess which, in the end, she would choose.

When Derek Fairfax arrived home late that afternoon, tired and depressed, he had no intention of lingering. Indeed, he would have driven straight to the George and Dragon but for a suspicion that he might drink so much when he arrived that it would be prudent to dispose of his car first. To his astonishment, given how few visitors he generally received, there was a vehicle parked in front of his garage at Farriers. To his even greater astonishment, it was Charlotte Ladram’s Peugeot.

She was waiting for him, sitting in the car with the window wound down and chamber music playing on the radio. She looked even wearier than he felt, hair awry and eyes heavily shadowed. She

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did not smile as he approached, merely looked up and met his gaze with a strange expression of frankness and despondency.

“Charlotte! I never . . . What is it?”

“Can we talk, Derek? I need your advice.”

An hour later, they set off together for Wales. Charlotte’s argument was that Frank Griffith was uniquely well qualified to decide what to do. He had fought in Spain and come to understand the country and its people. He had known Vicente Ortiz and heard him speak of Colonel Delgado. He had been Tristram’s friend—and Beatrix’s as well. In that sense, he had a right to decide.

Derek had not opposed the argument, even though he did not subscribe to it. He sensed Charlotte needed some final word with Frank before she could surrender what she had discovered to those whose responsibility it was to rescue her niece. By the same time tomorrow, he imagined they would have placed the whole problem in the hands of the police. He would be glad when they had, though he was glad also of this unexpected chance to salvage their friendship.

That, so far as he was concerned, was the only benefit their journey to Wales was likely to bring, the only new beginning it was likely to represent.

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NINE

The fire was burning low at Hendre Gorfelen, but Frank Griffith seemed not to notice. Charlotte studied his lined and narrow face as he read, the hollowness of his eye sockets and the prominence of his cheek bones exaggerated by the flickering shadows of the fading flames. Beside her, exhausted by the long drive from Kent, Derek sat asleep in his chair, his chin sunk upon his chest.

But Charlotte felt as if she would never sleep again. Her anticipation of Frank’s response to his dead friend’s tale kept her senses alert, her 350

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thoughts at a jangling pitch. To her it was a fragment of a past she could not hope to understand. But to this old man it was a whisper from yesterday. The gnarled fingers clutching the pages had once squeezed the trigger of a rifle trained on the enemy at Teruel. The eyes peering at the posthumous words had once gazed at their author as he walked to his death in the hills of Aragon. But only now had they touched the truth and glimpsed its meaning.

Charlotte looked up at the clock and was surprised to see midnight had come and gone, though she could not recall hearing it strike. It was Saturday the third of October and already, she knew, she should have acted decisively upon her discovery. But instead . . . She looked back at Frank and started with surprise, for he was gazing across at her, the pages folded in his hands. He had finished.

“Why did you bring this to me?” he asked, in a voice scarcely raised above a murmur.

“Because Vicente was your friend. He died for you. You had a right to—”

“A right?” His face creased as if in pain. He closed his eyes for several seconds, then said: “Beatrix knew me too well. Perhaps she knew all of us too well. Her decision was the correct one. It would have been better for Vicente’s story to remain untold. But for your brother . . .”

“It would have done. I realize that. Maurice was a fool. He had no idea what he was meddling in. But none of us did, did we? Except Beatrix.”

“Except Beatrix,” Frank echoed, sliding her letter to Isabel Vassoir from beneath the other sheets of paper and glancing down at it. “I loved her, you know.”

“Yes. I think I do know.”

“But she didn’t love me. Cared for me, of course, liked me, helped me. But her affections were too . . . too universal . . . for what I wanted.

Besides, love implies trust. And she had too many secrets to keep. Too many by far.”

“Frank, about my niece—”

“You believe this is why she was kidnapped?” He tapped the pages with his forefinger.

“Don’t you?”

He thought for a moment, frowning in concentration, then replied. “Yes. It has to be.”

“Delgado?”

“Maybe. If he’s still alive. Or somebody who inherited his

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knowledge. Or came by it. Clearly, they only found out recently that Beatrix had been keeping what they wanted all these years. Maurice must have attracted their attention in some way. Otherwise—”

“Does it matter how they found out? The point is they did.”

“It may matter. It may not.” He stared at her. “What are you going to do, Charlotte?” It was the same question Isabel Vassoir had asked—in exactly the same words.

“I’m hoping you’ll tell me.”

“Me?”

“You were there, in Spain. You knew Vicente. You heard him talk about Delgado. You’ve a better idea than I have how such people think.”

“Have I?” He grimaced and reached down for his glass where it stood on the floor beside his chair. But it was empty. With a grunt, he levered himself upright and crossed to the desk, where the vodka bottle was waiting.

“Don’t you think you’ve drunk enough?” said Charlotte, instantly regretting her presumptuousness.

“I know I haven’t,” he growled, pouring himself a substantial measure. “I can still remember, you see. The smile on Vicente’s face.

The fatalistic shrug of his shoulders as he left the barn and scrambled down the slope to surrender. And a question Tristram asked me in Tarragona as he lay dying. “Was the patrol that picked up Vicente one of Delgado’s, Frank?” I didn’t know, of course. And I couldn’t see why it mattered.” He swallowed some vodka. “Until now.” Then he turned to face her. “If I
had
known—if Vicente had trusted me instead of Tristram—would I still have let him give himself up?”

“I . . . I can’t say.”

“No. And neither can I.” He returned to his chair and lowered himself wearily into it. “I’m no use to you, Charlotte. I wasn’t any use to Vicente either. Don’t ask me what to do.” Wounded pride and a troubled conscience were curdling inside him, sucking him down towards introspection and despair. Suddenly, Charlotte realized she had to shock him free of self-pity.

“I am asking you! I’m asking you because there’s nobody else.

Help me, Frank, for God’s sake!”

Derek woke with a sudden jolt and looked round at her. “What . . .

I’m sorry, I must have . . .”

“You’ve been asleep,” said Frank. “But not as long as I have.”

“You . . . You’ve read it all?”

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“Yes.”

“What . . . What do you think?”

It was at Charlotte that Frank stared as he replied. “I think you have three choices. And they may all be wrong. The most obvious is probably the wisest. Go to the police. Tell them everything. If Delgado’s still alive—or if Cardozo is—the Spanish authorities should be able to find him. But whoever’s organized this is no fool. He won’t be waiting obediently with the girl trussed up in his drawing room. She’ll be well hidden. And his tracks will be well covered. It’s more than possible the police may fail to locate him before the eleventh. Or,
if
they succeed, they may simply frighten him into . . .

desperate measures.”

“You mean he’ll kill Sam?”

“It’s a risk. It’s bound to be.”

“But the police are experienced in this sort of operation,” put in Derek. “They know what they’re doing.”

Frank’s eyes were still fixed on Charlotte. “What’s the second choice?” she asked.

“Place the advertisement in the
International Herald Tribune
.

When the kidnappers make contact, explain your problem. Try to persuade them the map is out of their reach—and everybody else’s.

Appeal to their powers of reason. But remember: you’ll only have one chance at most. When the advertisement appears, the police will see it as well as the kidnappers. And they may respond more quickly. The second choice may become the first choice against your will.”

“Then surely the sensible course of action is to make a clean breast of it straightaway,” said Derek. Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte could see him looking at her, but she did not shift her gaze from Frank.

“What’s the third choice?”

“Assume Delgado is responsible. Then find him yourself. Negotiate with him personally. Make him understand that killing the girl will trigger a scandal destroying his reputation. A good fascist cares about honour more than money. Pray Delgado isn’t an exception.”

“But we already know he is,” said Derek. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have tried to keep the gold for himself. He’d have donated it to the cause.”

“True,” conceded Frank.

“And we can’t be sure he’s guilty. The real culprit might be Cardozo. Or somebody else altogether.”

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“Also true,” said Frank.

“Besides, we have no idea where Delgado is and no means of locating him. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

“Not true,” said Frank, his stare at Charlotte intensifying. “I think I can find out if he’s alive and, if he is, where he lives.”

“You can?”

“Yes. The question is: do you want me to?”

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TEN

As they entered the outskirts of Swansea, the task of keeping pace with Frank’s Land Rover became more complicated and Derek’s reservations about their journey more numerous. It seemed clear to him that there was only one thing to do: go to the police, who had the necessary manpower, resources, contacts and experience, whereas Frank Griffith had only fifty-year-old memories and an excess of stubbornness. He had not even consented to explain why they were going to Swansea or why they had to travel in separate vehicles. Charlotte had freely admitted she had no idea. But she had decided to give Frank his head. And where she went Derek was bound to follow—even against his better judgement. Their friendship was something he valued more highly than logic and responsibility. It had survived several crises already and he was determined not to impose what might be one crisis too many. Charlotte trusted Frank. Therefore Derek was obliged—for the moment—to do the same.

Thankfully, they would not have to cling to the old man’s coat-tails much longer. Charlotte had promised as much before leaving Hendre Gorfelen that morning.
“I just want to see what he has in mind,
Derek. He seems confident he can learn something about Delgado. Isn’t
it worth finding out what?”

“Before going to the police?”

“Yes. Of course. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just give him a chance, shall we?”

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“Starting in Swansea? What can we learn about a Spanish fascist in
Frank Griffith’s home town?”

“I told you,
I don’t know.
But I’m going anyway. Are you coming
with me?”

“Yes. Of course I am.”

And now here they were, heading south through drab suburbs beneath a louring sky. To their right grey swathes of housing climbed the hills, while to their left factories and derelict plots traced the straggling line of the river Tawe. Somewhere in all that seemed so harsh and alien to Derek, Frank Griffith had led the greater part of his life. And to something here he was now returning.

They reached the seafront through the Saturday morning chaos of the city centre, then followed the line of the bay west towards the distant lighthouse on Mumbles Head. Their surroundings altered as they went, easing them into a gentler world of seaside guesthouses and ice-cream parlours, of putting greens and boating lakes. Then Frank turned up a steep and winding road where pine trees and rhododendrons screened the frontages of discreet Victorian villas. And in one of these they found their destination: Owlscroft House Retirement Home.

“We’re going to meet a friend of mine,” Frank explained in the car park. “Lew Wilkins and I started together as fifteen-year-olds at the Dyffryn Tinplate Works in Morriston. Nine years later, we caught the train to London one Saturday afternoon, made our way to the Communist Party recruiting centre in the Mile End Road and enlisted for Spain.”

“Did he know Vicente as well?” asked Charlotte.

“No. Nor Tristram. He was wounded at Jarama early in ’thirty-seven and invalided home.”

“Then why—” Derek began. But Frank did not stay to listen. Already he was marching away towards the ivy-hung entrance, leaving Derek and Charlotte to smile at each other and fall in behind him.

Lew Wilkins’ room was small but brightly decorated, with a view of the garden and a distant glimpse of the bay between the tree-tops. He was a slightly built wizened old man unable to rise from his armchair to greet them, whose voice seemed to waver in time to the trembling of his hands. But in his eyes there was the same fire that burned in Frank Griffith’s, inextinguishable even by age and infirmity.