The Doll’s House (14 page)

‘I don't find it funny.'

‘I don't either. Can I have another biscuit? If you wonder why I'm telling you all this, it's for a reason.'

‘I'm sure,' Rosa nodded. ‘Help yourself. More tea?'

She poured for him.

‘I want to paint a picture of Harry Oakham for you. And it's not easy, but I've got to try. If you take this on, you ought to know what you're up against. Oakham wasn't quite right and I knew it, but I couldn't put a hand on my heart, and say this is why. And I had to do that before I put in a report. So I stayed on at Dedham over the weekend and I did a bit of snooping.'

He went out for a walk after breakfast on the Sunday morning. It was warm and sunny as he strolled round the charming village, glancing through the gift-shop windows and boutiques. The ancient church stood proud in the main street, its four-pointed tower dominating the skyline. You never heard bells on a Sunday any more, Parker thought. Not where he lived anyway. The scene reminded him of the small country town where he grew up; his father went regularly to Morning Service, while his mother prepared the ritual Sunday roast for lunch. He had two sisters and a brother. The sisters had married and moved to opposite parts of the country, the brother was a dentist in his father's practice. His mother was alive, but old and too confused to live alone. He tried to visit the residential home as often as he could. He'd drifted apart from the others.

He watched the groups of people walking up the short path to the church, and on impulse he followed and took a seat at the rear. The smell was familiar. Like this one, the church at his old home dated from the thirteenth century and there was a musty smell that made him think of dead birds when he was a boy. He didn't follow the service or join in the hymns. The sermon didn't impinge on his own thoughts. The service ended and the last notes of the organ wheezed and died away. There hadn't been many worshippers. The church was soon empty. Harry Oakham must have come here when he was a boy. Oakhams had lived here for generations. He remembered the old man in the pub, looking at him with the countryman's suspicion.
Try up at Bruton Hall
. Harry Oakham's family were old-fashioned gentry. But he wouldn't be the first of his kind to set out as a freebooter. To dip his hands in bloody mire and wash them clean at the Arts Club before dinner.

He got up and wandered round the church. There were memorials to the Oakhams on the walls. An Oakham among the list of vicars. Harry's grandfather. That was on his file. A small stained-glass window in the Lady Chapel with a sentimental Christ cradling a toyshop lamb and two fat angels gazing up to heaven. Given in memory of 2nd Lieutenant Arthur David Oakham, the Suffolk Regiment, killed on the Somme, 10 September 1916, aged twenty. His name liveth for ever more.

Parker paused by it and walked back to the entrance. A man in a cassock was waiting to close up. He smiled at Parker and said, ‘Good morning.' He had a gentle, friendly face. A good shepherd of his flock. Parker remembered his father saying that about their own vicar. He shook off the nostalgia, and started to walk round the churchyard, looking at the tombs. It was at the back, guarded by a low rail and a tall granite headstone. No weeds had insinuated themselves through the coverings of granite chips. The flower vase was empty, with a film of spider's web across the top. Nobody had been there for a long time.

Judith Elizabeth, beloved wife of Henry Oakham. Born 1953, died 1977. She'd died very young. He stood looking down at the grave. It was all in Oakham's file. Killed in an accident at Verbier. Standing there made it real for the first time. Dead, only two years after they were married. And then, following the zigzag of unpredictability, Oakham had married the woman Parker had interviewed. He'd lived in the modest little house like a stranger and abandoned everything immediately he left the Service, to end up in a luxury hotel on his old home ground. In an improbable job for which he was unqualified. A lethal weapon, disarmed and hung up on the wall … Man management. He was good with people. He'd got the job through family influence.

The sign said
BRUTON HALL
, and he set off up the long drive. It was well kept, the surrounding parkland post and railed, with a few cattle browsing in the distance. The house stood at the end of an avenue of fine old lime trees.

Generations of them have lived here, he repeated. But times have changed. There were cars in the forecourt, the unmistakable signs of a big house commercially broken up into flats. He went to the main entrance, a stone portico protecting a handsome door, and looked up the list of flats and the names beside the numbers. He found ‘Oakham' on the top floor.

He pressed the bell and waited. There was an intercom.

A voice called through to him, ‘Yes?'

‘Mrs Oakham?'

‘Who's that?'

‘My name's Parker. Is that Mrs Oakham?'

‘No, sorry. They're away. I'll come down.'

A middle-aged woman in trousers opened the door to him. It didn't open fully because she had left the security chain slotted in. So much for Britain in the 1990s; even in rural Suffolk fear of the stranger prevailed.

‘Mr Parker?' She had a nasal voice that rose on the last syllable.

He said, ‘Yes. So sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but I was really looking for an old friend of mine. Harry Oakham. I'm staying in the village and they told me to come up here and ask.'

She slipped the chain and opened the door to let him into the hall. It must have been a very large house before it was converted.

‘Isn't he working at some hotel near here? I think Liz mentioned something. The name rings a bell. He's some kind of cousin of theirs. I'm just a friend. I'm dog-sitting while she and Peter are fishing up in Scotland.'

‘Did they say which hotel it was by any chance?'

‘No, I don't think so. I think they said he'd rung them up or something. Sorry to be so vague about it, but I got the impression they hadn't seen him for ages. I can leave them a message if you'd like to give me a number, they can telephone you. They'll be back next week.'

He smiled, shrugged the offer aside.

‘No, don't bother, I was just staying a couple of nights and I thought I'd try and look him up on the off chance. Thanks very much.'

The door closed and he turned and started walking back. A Ford Cortina gleaming with Sunday polish sped past him and drew up in front of the house. One of the flat owners. The friend who was dog-sitting had a voice like Joyce Grenfell. Looked a bit like her too. She'd got the impression Oakham's cousins hadn't seen him for ages. Oakham had said ‘family influence'. His cousins were friends of the new owners, they'd got him the job.

Parker went into his office on Monday morning and wrote a memo for his immediate boss. One lie wasn't much to go on, but it was all he had beside that nagging instinct. His boss had learned to respect that. The investigation was initiated.

‘The trouble is,' he explained to Rosa, ‘we can't put any of the pros on to this. There's always a chance Oakham would spot them. Even know some of them. It's a small world and it's not that secure. He's only been out of it for a few months. We need a new face. Somebody who doesn't carry a label he'd be able to read. That's why we approached Sir Peter Jefford to see if he had anyone he thought could take it on. He suggested you.'

Time had gone by very quickly. She got up.

‘Have a drink, I'm going to. What would you like?'

‘What's on offer?'

He was pleasant to her now; she quite liked him.

‘Pretty well everything. James left me a cellarful of wine and there's stacks of spirits.'

‘He was generous, wasn't he? I'd like a Scotch, on the rocks.'

‘I'm a vodka lady tonight,' she said. ‘Won't be long.'

He lit a cigarette while he waited. She was impressive. She listened, she didn't interrupt to show how clever she was. He liked that. He was beginning to like her. If she was as good as he hoped, she'd pick up something. If he was right and there was anything to pick up. It wasn't much to go on. A lie, making himself out the big fellow with the family that could snap its fingers and put him in a top job. It had grown into a bigger lie when enquiries established the new owners as a Swiss consortium based in Geneva. They weren't friends with anybody.

Rosa Bennet would fit in to a hotel like Doll's House Manor. She had a perfect cover and for a change it was the truth. She was having a holiday, picking up the pieces after a divorce. Two or maybe three weeks staying in the country. Reading, doing the antique shops, touring a bit. And looking for any little detail about Oakham's position that didn't add up. Depending on what she came up with, the boys from Special Branch would take over. She wouldn't be in danger so long as she was careful.

She came back with the drinks. She smiled at him.

‘I found a special Chivas Regal. I didn't put in too much ice.' She sat beside him. ‘Where would I fit into all this? I don't quite see a role for myself.'

‘First thing,' Parker answered, ‘I want you to do is think about it. Think very carefully before you make up your mind.'

‘I could if I knew what was involved,' she retorted. ‘I'm not a mind reader, Jim.'

‘You'll have to learn that too, if you're going to be any good. Lovely Scotch. You'll have to go down and stay at that place. Keep your eyes open, try and get on terms with him if you can. Talk to him, trail your coat a bit. You're a very attractive lady. You're divorced, you're at a loose end, taking a bit of time to get yourself together. And be very, very careful not to make him suspicious. You know the kind of man he is. What he's capable of doing.'

She didn't answer at once. She drank some of her vodka.

‘When you say trail your coat … you mean sleep with him?'

‘You'd have to judge that,' he said. ‘Might not arise at all. Or it might. I can't guarantee how far you'd have to go. But I don't want an answer now. And if you turn it down, you'll most likely be doing the right thing. Nobody'll think any less of you. I certainly won't. So take forty-eight hours. Don't rush it. Then ring me. If it's yes, I'll give you a last briefing and a contact number. If no, then we'll just have a drink together. Or some lunch if you like. I'd better go now.'

‘Rosa, darling, why don't you go off somewhere in the sun?'

Her mother looked up from her tapestry work. She was a woman who couldn't sit idle-handed. She had to be making something. She thought it was a pity her daughter didn't take up needlework, it would have helped her relax.

‘You do look so strung up,' she went on. ‘Now it's all over you ought to get away as soon as possible. Pass me the scissors, will you, they're on the table.'

She was fond of her daughter, but they had little in common. She had been a widow for four years and made a busy, satisfying life for herself. There were lots of activities in the village and she took part in all of them. She hadn't time to be lonely, she said.

‘I'd rather go somewhere in England,' Rosa said.

‘I don't know why you're so dead set against Spain.' Her mother threaded a silk through her needle. ‘Sally and I had a wonderful holiday last year.'

She went away with friends, and adored travelling. She was convinced that a bit of sun would do Rosa the world of good, and had spent most of the weekend recommending her own favourite resorts.

‘The thought of the Costa del Sol gives me the horrors!'

Rosa got up and handed her the scissors.

‘I'm not going to Spain or Majorca on a package tour and I do wish you'd leave it alone, Mum. I'm going to a nice quiet hotel, in easy driving distance, where I won't be bothered by people.'

The weekend was becoming fraught. They had always argued in a mildly irritable way. Her mother had been horrified by the break-up of her marriage. She had always liked James, who liked her, and she thought her daughter had thrown away a very good husband, with money and prospects, and would live to regret it.

When Rosa first telephoned and told her what had happened she had said so forcefully, ‘You're being obstinate and silly! Why should this other woman walk off with him? Oh, don't start all that nonsense about a baby; she only did it to catch him! If I were you, I'd try and get him back. This job of yours is all very well …'

Rosa had cut short the conversation, and didn't come down to see her until the legal details were finalized. Now it was over.

Her mother said, ‘If that's really the kind of holiday you want, then I won't try and persuade you to do the sensible thing. I think you'll be bored to death, you know what you're like. I'll make us a cup of tea.'

Rosa watched her go out to the kitchen. She was a woman who moved with a purpose whatever she was doing. She had always hurried through her life as if everything she did was terribly important. Rosa's father never hurried.

He was quiet, self-contained, a reflective man who enjoyed silence and his own thoughts. He had been Regius Professor of History at Oxford, till he retired after a minor heart attack. They had one son, older than Rosa. He and she were opposites too. He was sporting, unimaginative. He went to Australia instead of university and settled down to live there. He had an Australian wife and a brood of children who were allowed to run wild in the house when they came on a visit. Rosa had nothing in common with any of them. Her parents were pleased to see them and openly relieved when they went home. Rosa was the academic child, the brilliant student who came down with a double first from Lady Margaret Hall. Her father had been very proud of her achievement and encouraged her choice of the Foreign Office as a career. Her mother had been much more gratified by her marriage to James Bennet.

‘Here we are. There's some nice sponge cake. Have a slice. Where are you going then, have you found somewhere?'