Authors: Jonathan Coe
‘Just as we were about to leave the restaurant, he drew my attention to a large manila envelope he’d brought along with him. It was to retrieve this, apparently, that he’d made his journey home. “Mr Onyx, I’ve a favour to ask of you,” he said. “I want you to look after this, just for a few hours. And promise me, that if I don’t meet you at your office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, you’ll deliver it into Miss Winshaw’s hands as soon as possible.” This seemed an extraordinary request, and I told him so: but he absolutely refused to divulge the undertaking which was to occupy him at this peculiar hour of the night. “At least tell me what’s in here,” I pleaded, reasonably enough, I think you’ll agree. And after a few moments’ hesitation, he answered: “My life.” Rather dramatic, wouldn’t you say? I tried to lighten the atmosphere somewhat by saying that if the contents of this envelope represented his life, then there didn’t seem to be much of it. He laughed bitterly at that. “Of course there isn’t much of it. This is what I’ve been reduced to, thanks to one man’s treachery: a few documents; some souvenirs of the old RAF days; a single photograph, the only trace of myself I’ve managed to leave behind these last twenty years. I want her to have them, anyway. She isn’t mad, Mr Onyx, I know that for a fact. They’ve got no right to lock her up in that place. But there’s been a terrible injustice done, and whatever happens to me, she’s the person to keep the memory of it alive.”
‘Well, I took the envelope and we said good-night. I knew now that something deadly was afoot, but it was no part of my job to stand in the way of – fate, destiny, call it what you will. I could see that the events to which I had involuntarily become witness had to be played out to their conclusion. And so we went our separate ways: I to bed, and Farringdon, as I afterwards discovered, first of all to steal a motor car from some luckless citizen–not a difficult task, for a man of his experience – and then to drive out to Winshaw Towers, there to gain entry through the library window which Tabitha, I surmise, would have opened for him, and to make his calamitous attempt on Lawrence’s life.’
I brooded on this. ‘From the way you’ve described him, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have much trouble polishing off a weedy little man like Lawrence.’
‘Maybe so. But Lawrence had made many enemies over the years, and had probably found it worth his while to learn how to defend himself against them. Besides, I suspect he was ready for trouble that night: he knew something was up. Farringdon’s best bet would have been to surprise him, if possible, but I’d wager he couldn’t resist having a few words with him first. Those wasted moments might have been critical.’
‘And then I suppose when he failed to show up in your office the next morning, you drove straight out to the house?’
‘You anticipate me superbly, Michael. Your prognostic powers defy belief. I was there shortly after ten. You probably know that although it can be seen from a great distance across the moors, Winshaw Towers is approached by a heavily wooded drive, and it was easy enough to conceal my car at some distance from the house itself and to arrive on foot without attracting any notice. In those days – and who knows, he may be there still – the premises were patrolled by an exceptionally lugubrious and unprepossessing butler by the name of Pyles, and I knew that, even with things being in such an obvious state of confusion, my chances of getting past him were not good at all. So I waited my moment, until I saw him disappear off in the direction of the outhouses on some errand or other, and then had no difficulty bluffing my way past some halfwit of an under-footman. I claimed to be a colleague of Dr Quince’s, I seem to remember.’
‘The family doctor.’
‘That’s right: some quack physician they used to slip a bribe to every three or four years to make sure that Tabitha remained safely under lock and key. I’d passed his car on the road a few miles back, so I knew that he’d already paid a visit. I said that I’d been asked to give a second opinion.
‘How to convey an impression of Tabitha’s state of mind that morning? She told me what had happened, quite calmly, without any apparent shock or agitation: but beneath her composure I caught glimpses of such despondency, such disappointment … Her last hope dashed, her one taste of freedom squandered, forfeited … I am anything but a man of sentiment, Michael: womanly feelings are entirely foreign to me, and yet that morning, absurd though it sounds, my heart almost broke. I handed her Farringdon’s envelope; she put it away in her writing case without opening it; and just then Mortimer knocked at the door, come to say his farewells. I had but a few moments to conceal myself: just time to leap into her dressing room and close the door, while Tabitha picked up her knitting and resumed her habitual air of abstraction. Their conversation was brief. When it was safe for me to emerge, she and I exchanged only a few more words. She had a considerable sum of money in her purse, I remember, and she insisted on paying me in full for my services. Then I took my leave. I slipped out through a back doorway and took a circuitous route to the car; and that was the end of my dealings with Tabitha Winshaw. I have not seen her since.’
Findlay stared into space. A mood of profound melancholy seemed to have come over him, and for the moment I could think of nothing to say.
‘It was a glorious morning,’ he continued suddenly. ‘Bright sunshine. Deep blue skies. The leaves just turning to gold. Do you know that part of the world at all, Michael? I miss it sometimes, even now. Winshaw Towers is on the edge of Spaunton Moor, and since I couldn’t face going back to town, I drove to a quiet spot and walked for several hours, thinking back over the last few curious weeks, wondering what it all meant and where it left me. The seeds of my decision to come down to London were sown that day, I think. It was a Sunday, but there weren’t many walkers: I had the place more or less to myself, and the sun shone kindly on my schemes and resolutions.’
‘You were lucky,’ I said. ‘I remember that Sunday, too, but it poured with rain. At least where I was.’
‘Come come, Michael, you romanticize,’ said Findlay, chuckling incredulously. ‘You were only a young boy at the time. How can your memory possibly distinguish one such day from any other?’
‘I remember it vividly. It was my ninth birthday, and my parents took me to Weston-super-Mare, and it rained in the afternoon so we went to the cinema.’ This information didn’t appear to mean much to Findlay, and since we were now both in danger of sinking into a nostalgic torpor, I decided that a rapid change of tone was called for. ‘Anyway – what do you want to do about this note? Hang on to it?’
He read the message again and then handed it over. ‘No, Michael. This is of no further use to me. I’ve committed it to memory, in any case.’
‘Aren’t you going to perform tests on it, or something? Look for invisible ink?’
‘What colourful ideas you entertain when it comes to the detective’s art,’ said Findlay. ‘My own procedures seem very prosaic in comparison. I must be a disappointment to you.’
His sarcasm was mischievous rather than icy, so I tried to enter into the spirit.
‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘I was brought up on a diet of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. I even used to write detective stories once, when I was very little. I was rather hoping that you’d give it a cool, expert glance, and then look at me through half-closed lids and say something impressive like, “Singular, Mr Owen. Very singular”.’
He smiled. ‘Well, all is not lost, Michael. We still have work we can do together, avenues to explore, and besides …’ He tailed off suddenly, and a transient gleam seemed to flicker in his eye. ‘… and besides … You know, you may actually have a point there.’
‘I may? What point?’
‘Well it
is
singular, isn’t it? That’s the strange thing about it.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’
‘The word “biscuit”, Michael. Surely it ought to be in the plural.
One
biscuit, to be taken with some cheese and a stick of celery? It doesn’t sound very substantial, does it, even for a snack?’
I cast around for an explanation, and said rather lamely: ‘Well, this was during the war. Perhaps with rationing, and so on …’
Findlay shook his head. ‘Something tells me,’ he said, ‘that wartime economies would not have impinged very seriously on the Winshaw ménage. They have never struck me as being among nature’s belt-tighteners. No, this is beginning to look more interesting than I’d supposed. A little further thought may be called for.’
‘And there’s another mystery, too, don’t forget.’
Findlay waited for me to explain.
‘Don’t you remember? All that business about Tabitha thinking that she could hear German voices coming from Lawrence’s bedroom, and how she locked him in there but it turned out that he’d been in the billiard room all along.’
‘Well, of course, there’s a perfectly plausible explanation for that. But we’d have to visit the house itself to put it to the test. In the meantime, I thought we might try approaching the problem from the other end.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that there’s one part of this story, one component, which sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. One player who sits so uneasily with the others that you wonder whether he hasn’t wandered in from a different drama altogether. My reference, Michael, is to yourself.’
‘Me? What have I got to do with it? I just drifted into this whole business. It could have been anybody.’
‘It
could
have been anybody, naturally. But it wasn’t. It was you. Now there may even be a reason for this, and it may be possible to find out what it is. Tell me, Michael, don’t you think it’s about time that you met Tabitha Winshaw? She may not be around for much longer, after all.’
‘I know, I’ve been putting it off. Also I’ve always had the sense, somehow, that the publishers have wanted to discourage it.’
‘Ah, yes, your inscrutable publishers. Quite an outfit, I must say. I was most impressed by their offices, or what I could see of them, on my brief and unofficial visit. I even helped myself to one of their brochures, you’ll be shocked to hear.’ Reaching over to his desk, he brandished a glossy, expensively printed catalogue and flicked through its pages. ‘The list is certainly eclectic,’ he murmured. ‘Take this, for instance:
Dropping in on Jerry: A Light-Hearted Account of the Dresden Bombings,
by Wing Commander “Bullseye” Fortescue, V.C. Sounds hysterical, I must say. This one caught my eye:
A Lutheran Approach to the Films of Martin and Lewis.
Or, better still,
The A-Z of Plinths,
by the Reverend J. W. Pottage – “an invaluable reference companion”, it says here, “to his earlier groundbreaking work”. Well, well. Quite a cornucopia, isn’t it?’
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ I said. ‘I get sent a parcel of the things for Christmas every year.’
‘Well, that in itself is rather generous, don’t you think? There seems to be no shortage of money in their line of business. This fellow who runs it – McGanny, isn’t it? – must be something of a shrewd operator. I’ve a feeling that it might be worth looking a little more closely into his affairs.’
I was disappointed by this proposed line of inquiry, and couldn’t hold back from saying so. ‘How’s that going to help us find out what Lawrence was up to in 194z?’
‘Perhaps it won’t, Michael. But perhaps that isn’t the real mystery in any case.’
‘What are you suggesting, exactly?’
Findlay got up from his armchair and sat beside me. ‘I’m suggesting,’ he said, laying a claw-like hand on my thigh, ‘that the real mystery is you. And I intend to get to the bottom of it.’
∗
Kenneth said: ‘Miss, you don’t happen to know where my bedroom is, do you?’
Shirley shook her head sadly and said: ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
Kenneth said: ‘Oh,’ and paused. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go now.’
I thought about Findlay’s description of me: ‘one player who sits so uneasily with the others that you wonder whether he hasn’t wandered in from a different drama altogether’. It seemed oddly perceptive, suddenly exact about the way I tended to feel when contemplating the Winshaws. This evening, for instance …
Shirley hesitated, a resolve forming within her: ‘No. Hang on.’ She gestured with her hand, urgently. ‘Turn your back a minute.’
Kenneth turned, and found himself staring into a mirror in which he could see his own reflection, and beyond that, Shirley’s. Her back was to him, and she was wriggling out of her slip, pulling it over her head.
… leaving Findlay’s flat, catching the Number 19 bus, feeling the characteristic lowering of the spirits as I returned to South West London; arriving home. All this mundanity, my too familiar surroundings, made his narrative and the mad, gothic horrors towards which it gestured seem like a grotesque fantasy …
He said: ‘J– just a minute, miss.’
Kenneth hastily lowered the mirror, which was on a hinge.
Shirley turned to him and said: ‘You’re sweet.’ She finished pulling her slip over her head, and started to unfasten her bra.
… Did they have the same worries that I had, these absurd people? Did they have the sort of feelings I would even understand? It wasn’t enough to say that they came from a different walk of life. It was more extreme, more final than that: they belonged to a different
genre
of existence altogether. One which actually horrified me …
Shirley disappeared behind Kenneth’s head.
Kenneth said: ‘Well, a – a handsome face isn’t everything, you know.’
Continuing to hold down the mirror, he tried not to look in it, but couldn’t resist taking occasional glimpses. With every glimpse, his face registered physical pain. Shirley put on her nightgown.
… and one which over the last few years had almost caused me to lose, I now realized, any sense of life as it ought to be lived. Had almost killed me off, in fact, or at least put me to sleep: bringing on a paralysis from which I might never have recovered if it had not been for that knock on my door: if Fiona had not appeared, to unfreeze the frame …
Kenneth said: ‘All that glitters is not gold.’
She emerged from behind his head, her body swathed in the knee-length gown, and said: ‘You can turn round now.’