Old Sins (108 page)

‘Can you tell me where I can find Father Kennedy?’ she asked a girl who was sitting with them, talking to them.

‘He’s inside in his office,’ she said, pointing. ‘Working on the books.’

Father Kennedy had a small room off the main hall; it had just space for a small shaky desk and chair. He had a host of papers spread in front of him, and an extremely old cumbersome-looking adding machine which he was shaking rather hopelessly.

He looked up at Phaedria as she came in.

‘Good morning.’

‘Father Kennedy?’

‘Indeed I am.’

She looked at the machine. ‘That doesn’t look too terribly healthy.’

‘It is not. It is like myself, it has seen far better days. What can I do for you?’

‘Well – I don’t know. I believe you may be able to help me find someone.’

‘And who might that be? We have all manner of people here, were you thinking this person might be among them?’

‘I don’t think so, Father.’ She suddenly felt rather frightened, a little faint. ‘May I sit down?’

‘Oh, now, what am I thinking of, of course you must sit down, come along with me now, and we will find you a grand chair.’

She followed him and he took the least decrepit of the chairs in the hall and set it out at the back of the building in the shade. A pair of cats sat looking at Phaedria interestedly as she sank down into it; Father Kennedy settled himself beside her on a three-legged stool.

She looked at him, a plump, white-haired old man, with all the patience and candour on his face that only a long life given
to the ungrateful and undeserving can provide, and felt she was in safe hands.

He looked at her for a while in silence, and then said, easing her into the conversation, ‘I expect it’s Miles you’ve come about?’

And yes, she said, yes it was, she needed to know about him, not just where he was, but who he was, and how well Father Kennedy had known him, and whether she was wise in pursuing him across half the world. She explained who she was, and why she wanted to find him; she felt it was the only fair basis from which to ask him what she needed to know.

Father Kennedy talked to her with great tenderness and care. He answered only her questions, he gave her no more information than she asked for, and even then he tempered his words with great thoughtfulness, rewriting history just a little in the telling to make the story easier for her to hear.

Yes, he had known Miles since he was a little tiny boy, and his parents too; nice people they had been, good and loving parents, a happy family.

Dean had died as a result of taking an overdose when Miles had been only about ten or eleven; the verdict had indeed been suicide, but he, Father Kennedy, had always thought that was an act of such despair, and that Dean had been a calm and a cheerful man, it seemed perhaps just a trifle unlikely, and that there was certainly a reasonable possibility that he had been drinking and then taken too many sleeping pills in his confusion.

And Lee, now that had been a dreadful thing, cancer she had died of, and only a young woman, in her early forties, but her end had been very peaceful, he had been there with her when she went; his only sorrow had been that Miles had not been there. People said children should have no part of dying or death, but he thought it was important for them to see there was nothing to be frightened of and to know it as the part of life that it was.

The boy had been all right at first, very sad of course, but he had been doing well at school, and he had been a wonderful games player; later on though he had stopped working, wasted his talents, fooled around a bit and that was when his grandmother had moved out to Malibu with him.

And that had been when he met the girl, a sweet little thing, Joanna, and such a nice family, very well off and so on, but with no silly ideas, they had been so good to Miles. And of course it had been a wonderful thing when he had been able to go to Berkeley and do so well there.

Yes, indeed, that had been when Mr Dashwood, Mr Hugo Dashwood, his name was, had stepped in and paid the fees; now wasn’t that a fine gesture for a man to make? – he had been a great gentleman, Mr Dashwood had, and it was the greatest pity that Miles had fallen out with him as he had.

No, he had no idea where Mr Dashwood was now, he had never seen very much of him, indeed he had seldom visited Miles latterly; owing to the difficulty between them the meetings that took place were not happy. He had had an idea he lived in New York, although he was English, and certainly the address that Mrs Kelly had had was not in England. Indeed he had not heard of him for some time.

He believed Miles had taken it very badly that Mr Dashwood had not offered him a job in his company; he had felt in some way that it was his due. Of course it was not, and it was very foolish of him to think that way, but the fact remained that ifit had been possible, it would have made the greatest difference to Miles and his life. But then on the other hand Mr Dashwood had been so good to Miles, so generous, it was hardly fair to expect any more.

What had Mr Dashwood been like? Oh, a very typical Englishman, Father Kennedy would have said, a fine-looking man, very tall and slim, and what he would always have imagined a public school person would be like, but Lee had told him that wasn’t right, he had gone to a grammar school and made his way in the world himself. He had had a wife, yes, Lee had also told him, with some old-fashioned English name, Alice, now that was it, and two or three children, boys if he remembered rightly. He had been a good friend to Lee as well as to Miles and done a lot for her when her husband had died.

The house in Malibu was still empty, be believed, although there had been rumours it was up for sale; if she wanted to go and have a look out there, it would do no harm, he could tell her where it was, it was only half an hour’s drive away.

And where was Miles now? Well, he supposed there was no
harm in telling her the address, although he had written there himself and not had an answer, so it was possible that they had moved on. He had been sad to have lost them, Miles and Mrs Kelly. He hoped they were well. If she went out to Malibu one of the neighbours might have a more recent address.

‘Now, I wouldn’t go rushing off to Nassau yourself,’ he said, looking at her with concern in his faded old blue eyes. ‘I really don’t know that they are still there, and it would do you no good in your condition. Write to this address, child, and see what comes of it. Now, Mrs Kelly’s friend is called Mrs Galbraith. That is the lady they were staying with. You may have more luck than I. Or send someone else. That would be a better thing.’

‘I probably will,’ said Phaedria, standing up and smiling down at him. ‘Thank you, Father, you have been so very kind. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. How can I thank you?’

‘Oh, it was nothing, now what has it cost me?’ he said, smiling back at her. ‘However –’ Father Kennedy would have starved to death without a whimper of complaint himself; for his flock he was shamelessly greedy – ‘if you felt able perhaps to make a small donation to the refuge that would be a wonderful thing.’

‘Oh, of course I will,’ said Phaedria. ‘I would be really happy to. Here –’ she thrust a hundred dollars into his hand – ‘take this for now. When I get home to England, I will see that a trust fund is set up for you, supplying you with a regular income. I promise. I won’t forget.’

Father Kennedy believed her. She was a sweet, pretty child, and he wished her nothing but well. But he watched her drive away, waving to him gaily, with a little foreboding. He hoped she wasn’t going to learn anything about Miles that would cause her distress.

Andrew Blackworth stood miserably in the Reception of the Cable Beach Hotel and wished he had never heard of the Morell family. It was hot here, it was ugly, and he felt suddenly sharply homesick. He decided to make his stay here extremely short and to continue with his inquiries at long distance. Mrs Emerson could come down here herself if she was so extremely anxious to find young Wilburn.

It was lunch time, and after checking in he sat in the bar for an hour, developing a stiff neck from the fierce air conditioning, drinking iced beer and wondering what he should do next.

He decided the telephone directory might yield a Wilburn or two, but it did not; the next step was either the police, or the barmen. The barmen were usually better company.

That afternoon he did a dozen bars along Cable Beach; and learnt nothing. At the twelfth that evening, the barman told him sympathetically he should try Paradise Island. ‘My friend Barney, in the Royal, he knows everything that happens in this place. You try there.’

Andrew took a cab and went to the Royal. He ordered a champagne cocktail and asked where he might find Barney.

‘I’m Barney,’ said the bartender, smiling him one of the huge Bahamian smiles that despite himself Andrew was beginning to like. ‘What can I tell you?’

‘I’m looking for Miles Wilburn. Do you know him?’

A rather wary look came over Barney’s face. ‘Who wants him?’

‘A family in England I represent.’

More wariness still. ‘You a detective?’

‘Yes.’

The face went blank, closed up.

‘I don’t know him. I never heard of him. Sorry, mister, you asked the wrong guy.’

Andrew was baffled. ‘Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m not the police. I’m a private detective. He hasn’t committed a crime.’

‘I told you, mister, I never heard of him. OK. Now you want another drink, or will you go and sit down and be comfortable over there?’

Andrew, baffled, went and sat down.

‘As if I would tell on Miles,’ said Barney indignantly to his wife Josephine late that night in bed. ‘That’ll be one of those spies sent by one of his lady friends’ husbands. Well, he done a lot for those ladies, he don’t deserve to get into no trouble over it. What’s more, I’m going to see none of the other boys tells this English guy anything either.’

Josephine looked at him admiringly. Then she lay down and turned her magnificent black breasts to her husband. ‘You’re a
good friend, Barney. Miles is lucky to have you. How about you being a good friend to me now for a while?’

Andrew found the same baffling lack of helpfulness in all the other bars on Paradise Island. Weary and irritable by the end of the second day, he made his way back to his hotel. Clearly all these people had known Miles. Why wouldn’t they tell him where he was? He felt discouraged, and in addition he had indigestion from all the bowlfuls of peanuts and crisps he had been consuming in all the bars, and a filthy headache. When he got back to his hotel room he felt worse. The pain in his stomach had intensified. Damn. He knew what this was. It was his ulcer working its way back into his life. No wonder, the punishment he had been meting out to it over the past few days. Well, he wasn’t going to suffer the torments of a perforated ulcer in this benighted place. He was going home. The Morells could wait. He would make some inquiries long-distance. He picked up the phone and asked them to check on the next available flight to Heathrow.

Phaedria turned the Mercedes in the direction of Malibu. Driving in California was a very pleasant experience. Nobody rushed, the speed limit was fifty-five and you could simply bowl along in the sunshine, enjoying the view. And it was a beautiful view. The ocean stretched endlessly, gloriously to her left; to her right now the dark sharp shadows that were the Santa Monica Mountains were beginning to rise. It was hot; she was glad the Mercedes was convertible. If she hadn’t been pregnant she would have stopped and gone in the sea. She stopped briefly at Malibu Pier and had a glass of iced tea and a crab sandwich in Alice’s Restaurant, watching the surfers riding endlessly on the waves, zooming, skimming, swooping in or sitting appraising the sea from the beach, chatting, laughing, sun-soaked. She could see why Miles had liked it as a lifestyle. Who was she to take him away from it, she wondered. If she ever found him.

She paid the check, walked over the hot road, back into her car and drove on. Latego Canyon, Father Kennedy had said. Make a right just after Pepperdine University. Here it was. She swung in, drove cautiously up the winding dusty road. She had
to stop twice just to drink in the view: the interweaving hills, the sea, the endless range of headlands. It caught hold of her heart; she wanted to stay for ever.

She drove on, about three or four miles. ‘Then the road will fork. Take the left fork. Two miles on, there is a blue house. That’s the one.’

And there it was, the blue house, built cleverly on three levels into the hill. There was parking space in front of a garage. She pulled in and parked. Then she got out and looked at the house. It was quite definitely empty.

Phaedria wandered round it, up and down the steps, peering in at the windows. It was desolate, dusty, still. The furniture wasn’t even covered in sheets. It was modern furniture, neat, soulless. No clues.

Everything was locked. Every door, every window. She tried the garage. That was locked too. She sat down on the grass to rest for a while and try to think what she wanted to do next when she heard a voice.

‘Can I help you?’

Phaedria jumped. A man stood on the grass, smiling at her; friendly, helpful.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. We live next door. These folks moved years ago. Never sold the house, though. Are you looking for them, or looking to buy the house?’

‘Oh, I’m looking for Miles and – and Mrs Kelly,’ she said. ‘Do you know where they’ve gone?’

‘Can’t rightly say,’ said the man. ‘Mrs Kelly kept herself pretty much to herself, and Miles was a bunch of no good. We didn’t have much to do with them.’

‘I see.’ Phaedria was silent. ‘Well, thank you anyway. I just thought I might find a clue or something. But everything’s locked.’

‘Did you try the shed down there?’ asked the man, pointing to a hut on the lower lawn. ‘That might be worth a try. They left in a mighty big hurry. They didn’t take hardly anything with them at all.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Phaedria. ‘Thank you.’

She clambered down to the lower lawn and pushed cautiously at the shed door. At first she thought that was shut too, but a second, harder push and it yielded.