“He’s a grand little wretch too,” said Dick. “Look, that’s him again.”
But this picture was not of her lost son, only of a rather similar infant. That was part of the treachery of the frozen image.
By insisting on the pure truth of the isolated instant it denied the shift and dither of reality. Jocelyn, anchored in his
certainties, could never accept this.
“Why must you take such a lot of the things?” he would grumble.
“Can’t you make sure you’ve got what you want before you press the button?”
(It wasn’t the cost he grudged, or the loss of her time, but the sense of sheer waste, waste for waste’s sake.)
“It isn’t like that, darling. I can take two pictures of something—a boulder or a tree trunk—one after the other, with the
same settings and everything, but they’ll never be quite the same, not when you know how to look.”
“It’s the same rock, isn’t it? And anyway we aren’t just talking about a couple of pictures. You take a spool of film and
rough-print it—how much of it do you bother to print up? One picture in eight? Ten?”
“Something like that.”
“And how many of those do you put in an album? Same again, and that’s a generous estimate. They’re all just as real as each
other, Ray, but only about one in eighty of them makes it into your version of reality.”
“You’re shifting the argument, darling. And anyway the film’s all there in the attic. If I wanted I could go back and make
an album of every picture I took of you on Dinah at Meerut.”
He had laughed at the memory, but for his next birthday she had in secret got out the old film, stored in acid-free paper,
labelled and put away on their return to England almost twenty years earlier. She had needed to contact the celluloid onto
fresh film, but from those negatives had printed up forty-three reasonable shots of Jocelyn on his favourite pony during that
marvellous fortnight when the regiment had so very nearly won the All-India, and night after night they had danced till the
stars faded, and he had proposed to her loping beside her window as her train steamed out. It had been the second best present
she had ever given him.
Dick started to put the photographs away.
“May I keep the one of Stan?” she whispered.
“Sure you can. This one?”
“No. Breaking the ice.”
“Right, here you are then. I thought you might get a kick out of them.”
There was a smugness in his tone, as if he had conferred a major benefit on her and could now expect her to reciprocate. She
postponed the moment.
“How is Helen?”
“Firing on all cylinders, including some she’d never told me about. God, what a woman for a crisis! She’s found herself a
job, dogsbody in a locum agency, but they’d better watch out. Six months and she’ll be running the show.”
“You’ve lost your job?”
“Sharp as ever, Ma! But no, I’m still hanging on, though I can see which way the wind’s blowing. It’s always been a family
firm, and I’m the only senior bod left who isn’t one of the clan. If they’ve got to choose between me and some useless little
twerp who married the boss’s niece, you know darn well who it’s going to be.”
“Diffcult. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry, Ma. Something will turn up. It’s just a matter of having enough irons in the fire and tiding things over meanwhile.
By the way talking of irons, do you know where Da’s pistols are? The Laduries?”
The suddenness of it was like a physical blow. Dick didn’t seem to notice the pause. Perhaps, since she always needed to summon
the resources for speech, it hadn’t been markedly longer than usual.
“In the bank, I think. Why?”
“They’re really mine, you know. He left them to me in his will.”
“He changed it.”
“Yes, but that was after his stroke, when he was a bit gaga, poor old boy. I bet I could have contested it at the time, but
it wouldn’t have been worth the rumpus.”
It was astounding that he didn’t perceive her fury. Surely her eyes at least must blaze, blaze shockingly. The downright falsehood,
compounded by the perfunctory sympathy. If she could have moved a muscle she would have struck him. As it was, her anger supplied
the energies for a longer answer.
“His first stroke. The same time he set up the trusts. Was he gaga then, Dick?”
“That was old Bickner. He did a pretty good job on the trusts, and I’m very grateful.”
“Jocelyn told Bickner exactly what he wanted.”
“Well, that’s as may be, but—”
She could stand no more and cut him short.
“What about the Laduries? Why?”
He shrugged, glanced out of the window, then back at her, smiling, confident in the cloak of candour. It didn’t fit.
“Funny coincidence,” he said. “Here I was, coming to see you anyway… Do you ever watch a thing on the box called
The Antiques Roadshow
, Ma?”
“Sometimes.”
“Helen makes a point of it, so I do too if I’m around. Last Sunday…You know how it goes. They have these experts, and they
set up shop in the town hall somewhere, like Salisbury, and people bring their heirlooms in to ask about—pictures, furniture,
knickknacks, whatever, and then some old biddy who’s had a Rembrandt hanging in the loo all these years pretty well has a
heart attack when they tell her what it’s worth. Right? Well, this time one of the pros was doing arms and armour, and some
young woman—never seen her in my life before—showed up with a pistol, just the one of them, but I knew it was one of the Laduries
the moment I clapped eyes on it. It had the initials even, J.M. ‘Hey! That’s one of Da’s,’ I told Helen. And the fellow who
looked at it really knew his stuff. He spotted it for a Ladurie at once, and got very excited. Said it ought to be in a museum,
and all that, and it must be one of a pair, and if the woman had had the other one and the box and all the fittings it would’ve
been worth getting on fifty thousand quid—more, if it had belonged to someone famous, which it easily might have, judging
by the workmanship. He even got it right that it could’ve been made for one of Napoleon’s marshals. The trouble was she’d
only got just the one, and it hadn’t been properly cleaned last time it was fired, which knocked the value down a bit, but
even as it stood he said it might fetch a couple of thousand. Are you listening, Ma? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Rachel had closed her eyes, rather than gaze any longer into the countenance of Greed. Lardy cake, she thought. I might have
guessed, even then.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Go on.”
“There isn’t anything more. That’s it. The question is, How’s this woman got hold of one of my pistols? And where’s the other
one, and the box and stuff?”
“Not yours.”
“Ours, then. When did you last see them? Where are they now? In the bank you said.”
“Don’t know. I’m tired. Can’t think.”
“But listen, Ma…”
“Sorry, darling. Tell Dilys… nurse … need her.”
He drew breath to persist, but then gave in.
“Oh, all right. I’m sorry, Ma, if I’ve upset you, but I’ve got to be on my way in any case. I’ll have a word with Flora about
it. She’s got power of attorney, hasn’t she? See you soon.”
He squeezed her hand—she could feel the touch but not the compression—and kissed her on the forehead, but didn’t think to
remove her spectacles. Her fury was now mingled with shame as she listened to his footsteps crossing the room. The door opened.
She heard both voices from the corridor, footsteps returning, a murmur from Dick and a thank-you from Dilys, the door closing
behind her as she crossed to the bed.
Good heavens, Rachel thought, Helen’s been teaching him manners. The notion was bitter.
“How are we then, dearie? Mustn’t wear ourselves out, chatting away, must we! Done with our specs, then?”
“No, leave them. Lock the door, please. Need you.”
“Now what’s this about?” said Dilys, coming back and feeling Rachel’s pulse. “So we’ve got ourselves excited, haven’t we?
Tsk, tsk.”
“Do something for me. Important.”
“Well, well, well, aren’t we being mysterious? Out with it, then.”
“Don’t tell anyone, Dilys. Not Flora. Nobody.”
“Cross my heart. It’s all right, dearie, it’s just my manner of talking. I can see you’re dead serious, and I shan’t let you
down. There’s secrets I’ve heard over the years from patients of mine—not like you, dearie, because maybe they’d lost their
grip a bit and you’re all there and no mistake—but anything they told me like that, it’ll go with me to my grave. It wouldn’t
be right any other way, would it?”
She spoke earnestly, with pride in her professional reticence—nothing that she’d ever taken an oath to, but she was a confidential
nurse, and for her the word meant what it said.
“Thank you,” said Rachel. “Bottom drawer of bureau. Take everything out. Pull drawer right out.”
“Got you. My, isn’t this exciting!”
Dilys bustled off. Rachel listened to the slither of the drawer, and the movement of packages. While she waited she thought
about the trusts, one for the as yet unborn children of each child. Jocelyn had begun to set them up a fortnight after his
first stroke, when he could still barely make himself understood, and then only to her—just as she had at first been the only
person who believed that Jocelyn himself was still there, locked inside the mumbling wreck in the wheelchair, all his intelligence,
all his pride, all his immense willpower. Mr. Bickner had come and sat with them in the study, stiff and uncertain. Jocelyn
had mumbled, she had interpreted, Bickner had answered pityingly, patronisingly, speaking to her, not Jocelyn, until she had
been forced to interrupt him in mid-sentence.
“Stop. This won’t do. You must talk to my husband, not me. Look him in the eye—it’s what he expects you to do. He understands
every word you’re saying, better than I do, in fact. And listen to him. You can hear what he’s saying, if you really try.
Think of it like a very bad line on a telephone, but you’ve got this important message coming and you’ve just got to catch
it, somehow. Please. You’ve been a very good friend to us over the years, so do please try. Now, darling, just a few words
at a time, so I can help Mr. Bickner understand what you’re telling him.”
And stuffy, unimaginative old Bickner had genuinely tried, and by his third visit was making something of it and answering
Jocelyn direct, without waiting for Rachel to interpret. That had been wonderful for Jocelyn, just knowing that there was
someone other than his wife and one daughter who was prepared to make the effort to reach him… Dick couldn’t be bothered,
and Anne, alas, had stayed away, furious and frightened … only Flora … Did she ever think how unfair it had all been? Anne
always Jocelyn’s darling. Dick Rachel’s, but Flora, decent, impulsive, conscientious Flora, simply taken for granted, given
her due of parental concern and affection, but never that extra element of passionate love?
There was a rap and creak as the drawer was pulled free. Dilys came back.
“That’s all done, dearie, but there’s nothing I can see in behind.”
“Put a lamp on the floor. Knothole at back on left. Put your finger in. Push left, till it clicks. Pull panel out. Package
behind. Bring it.”
“Oh, a secret compartment, like in a Victoria Holt! I knew it had to be.”
Almost exhausted now, Rachel lay and waited, willing fresh energies to secrete themselves. She watched the rooks without attention,
just letting them come and go… The panel clicked. Dilys gave a tweet of excitement. There was a scrabble as she eased the
package free. It had barely fitted when Rachel had wedged it in against the back panel of the bureau… and then Dilys was by
the bed again, her eyes bright, her mouth slightly open. She showed Rachel a large buff envelope with a flat rectangular shape
inside it.
“Well done,” Rachel whispered. “Box inside. Undo catches. Tilt it so I can see. Then open it. Please don’t look. Sorry.”
“That’s all right, dearie. A secret’s a secret only till you’ve told it, I always say. I promise you I’m not bothered.”
Dilys followed her instructions to the letter. While she studied the catches Rachel looked at the box. It was just as she
remembered, about nine inches by eighteen, polished rosewood with a silver coat of arms let into the top.
“Ready,” said Dilys, sliding brass hooks free. “You don’t think anything’s going to fall out?
“All in its own little beds.”
“Right, here we go then.”
Dilys tilted the box into position, crooking it on one forearm, ostentatiously closed her eyes, and opened the lid with her
other hand.
Rachel had not seen the contents for almost forty years, since the night when the young man came, but she remembered exactly
how it had looked. The purple baize lining, indented with shaped slots and pockets. All but one still held the specific item
for which it had been made. The two cleaning rods, brush and plunger, spanner, screwdriver, keys, oil phial, cap-flask, mold,
cartridges, slugs and a single pistol, its dark metal lightly chased, its ebony butt inlaid with the two silver initials—expensive,
beautiful in its precision and its dormant power, a tool to use. The other pistol was missing. The wrong one.
Perhaps her eyes were failing her.
“Closer.”
Dilys obeyed.
No, there was no mistake. To the casual eye the pistols had seemed identical, but trying them in his hand Jocelyn had decided
that one was lighter than the other, and weighing them on his postal scales had found this to be the case, though the difference
was barely half an ounce. The discrepancy was evidently deliberate. Concealed in the chasing below the firing hammer, unnoticeable
unless you were searching for it, was a single letter, a D for the heavier weapon and an S for the lighter one. Ladurie had
been a Swiss, working in Paris.
Droit. Sinistre
. The lighter gun was intended for the left hand. It had been natural for Rachel to use it when she and Jocelyn had been doing
target practice together.
She had been expecting one gun to be missing, since the mysterious woman had apparently shown up with one on
The Antiques Roadshow
. But it was the wrong gun.