A Dangerous Deceit (29 page)

‘Oh, your latest murder?' Judy came back maliciously. ‘Unsolved, like the last?'

‘Neither unsolved for much longer, I hope.'

‘Really? Well, it's good to see the police recovering from their inefficiency at last.'

‘That's not a word I would use.'

‘I don't suppose you would, but a murdered man is found, and nearly two months later you still don't know who did it. And now another one, equally unsolved. I'd say that was inefficient, wouldn't you?'

‘I'm not interested in bandying words. This isn't a game. We're investigating two murders and I need some answers from both of you.' He was annoyed with himself for being drawn and let a moment or two pass before saying abruptly to Vinnie Henderson, ‘I'd like you to take a look at this photograph, please, and tell us who you recognize.'

She held it steadily, taking her time, then shook her head.

‘You see no resemblance to anyone you know?'

‘You don't have to answer that!'

He silenced Judy with a look, her feet twisted around the rungs of her seat, not so much a fairy now as a wicked gremlin perched on a toadstool.

‘It's all right, Judy.' Vinnie scanned the photo but in the end shook her head. ‘The way these people are dressed, this photo must have been taken before I was even born. Why should I know any of them? Who are they?'

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me. What about you, Judy?'

‘No.' She scarcely looked at it before returning it.

They were both lying, he was sure, and Judy Cash was beginning to irritate him seriously. ‘Look here, it's been a long day, and I'm not prepared to waste any more time with either of you. Perhaps you might be more accommodating if I asked you, both of you, to accompany us down to the police station. We have a car waiting.'

Neither of them answered. Some tense, unspoken communication was passing between them, almost a battle of wills. At last Vinnie gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head and unwound herself from her position on the floor. Unconsciously echoing Judy's words at the door, she said, ‘To begin with, it isn't what you think—'

‘For God's sake, Plum! Are you crazy?'

‘It's OK. I know what I'm doing.' She began again, ‘Nothing turned out as we expected. You see—'

Judy jumped off her stool so quickly it fell over behind her on to the floor. ‘Take no notice of her! She doesn't know what she's saying. Her wits have gone haywire.'

But Vinnie looked entirely sensible, an odd, stoical look on her face as she opened a drawer in a rickety sideboard and took out a writing pad, tearing off a wad of sheets, folding them in two and offering them to Reardon. ‘There's nothing for either of us to be afraid of, Judy. It's for the best.'

Judy, however, sprang forward, snatched the papers from her and would have tossed them into the fire, had Joe not grasped what she was about to do and intercepted her, grabbing her wrist until she let go and the pages scattered loosely and harmlessly to the floor in front of the hearth.

Reardon bent and gathered them together. ‘What's this?'

‘It's a letter to the Rees-Talbots … Felix and Margaret. It's not finished yet, but I think it'll tell you all you need to know.' She faced Judy. ‘Burning it wouldn't have solved anything.' To Reardon she said, ‘Since you know so much, there's no point in not telling you.'

A sound came from Judy that might have been either an exclamation of temper or a dry sob. She jerked her wrist from Joe's grasp, stalked to the window and turned her back on the room, looking out over the street. Every line of her narrow back expressed outrage.

Reardon glanced briefly through the neat but closely handwritten pages he'd picked up. He didn't much fancy reading what might turn out to be a confession, here under the silent scrutiny of three pairs of eyes, even if one pair did belong to Gilmour. On the other hand, he knew he had as yet nothing against either of the two women to warrant an official interrogation. ‘You can both remain silent while I read this,' he told them, ‘or I must ask you to come down to the police station. It's your choice, though in any case there'll be more questions after we've read this, and statements to make, I dare say. Which is it to be?'

Judy spun round to face him, taut as a bowstring. ‘Does that mean me, as well?'

‘Yes, Miss Cash. It does.'

‘Are you arresting us?'

‘Not unless you resist. At the moment, you're merely helping us with our enquiries.'

She turned back to the window as Vinnie said, ‘Please read the letter.'

Dear Felix and Margaret,

Events have compelled me to leave Folbury suddenly. This is not a good way to tell you, after all your kindness, but I could not bring myself to do so in person. I know you'll feel I have behaved badly, and believe me, I have felt badly about deceiving you – as well as having to leave without saying proper farewells. I have good reason for this, as you'll see when you have read this letter. I deeply regret having done what I have done – the repercussions have been more than any of us bargained for. Bear with me if I begin with a long preamble. I'm writing it in the hope it will help you to understand, if not to forgive …

I was born and raised in South Africa, something I believe no one here has guessed up until now. I never knew my mother – or only as an elusive shadow that darted across my mind at unexpected moments, quick as the blink of an eye, impossible to catch, but bringing with it a feeling of being held, close and warm, and then leaving me with an immense sadness.

I didn't realize that fleeting shadow was a memory of my mother – not then, not until I had been living with Tant Sophie and Oom Cornelis Joost for most of my thirteen years, when Tant Sophie, in a moment of temper at my refusal to accompany her to one of her prayer meetings, told me I was not their child, but her sister's. I had never had any reason to suspect they were not my parents. Up until then, but never afterwards, I had always called them Mama and Papa – but I was not unduly upset when Sophie told me; in fact I soon realized it was something of a relief. It explained why I had always felt so different from them, why we had never been able to connect.

I suppose I had imagined it had simply been an accident of birth that I had been landed with the parents I had – dutiful but distant, concerned with their own lives and especially, in my uncle's case, his exporting business … or in recent years, to be more precise, its failing, since the European demand for elephant tusks, lion skins, ostrich feathers and native artefacts was falling off considerably. We were not well off, but I was never actually deprived of anything – except affection. As an adult, I came to realize that perhaps it was an inability in either of them to show any such emotion, rather than a deliberate withholding of it, but when my younger self saw my friends and the fun and laughter they had with their families, I used to feel curiously empty, and envious, while not knowing what it was I envied.

My uncle and aunt had no children of their own. I never found out whether she minded this or not, but now I fancy resentment and jealousy of her sister played a good part in her attitude towards me. She had done her Christian duty, taking me in when my mother died, but I was not, and never could be, her own child. She cried a good deal, Tant Sophie, a woman who felt circumstances were always against her: she had married a man who had fallen on hard times … he was forever preoccupied with his business troubles … she had been forced to accept an infinitely less affluent lifestyle than the one in which she had grown up and had had every reason to expect would continue … I was an ungrateful and uncooperative child. This last was true enough quite often, at home, but at school, where I was happy, I pleased my teachers, I was popular and had plenty of friends.

The red leather family photo album that held so many memories for Sophie and sat prominently on top of the gramophone cabinet was scuffed, its pages grubby from being thumbed through so many times, marked with the tears that constantly fell on it. I used to think I might have cried too, if I had been married to Oom Cornelis, who was a farmer's son from near Pietermaritzburg, an uncommunicative man with a strongly developed streak of Voortrekker Christian pig-headedness.

‘Is there a photo of my mother?' I asked on that momentous day she told me who I really was – when I had got my breath back, that is. I'd never paid any attention to the album before, having no desire to look through anything which could cause so much misery to anyone.

She opened the album and showed me the photographs then. Dozens of them, on the ornately decorated and gilt-edged pages of thick card. I was amazed to see how pretty Sophie had once been, though she could not hold a candle to her sister, Bettje, in my opinion. Even more amazing was how happy and smiling everyone in those pictures was – except for my grandparents, whom I saw for the first time: he, Titus de Jager, a tall, stern-looking man, and she prim and proper with a buttoned-up mouth. But it was Sophie's younger sister Bettje, my mother, who held my attention. She wasn't beautiful, but even through the dim sepia tones of those faded old photos, I could see she had a smile that hinted at mischief, she looked like a girl who would be full of fun and bubbling with happiness, the exact opposite of her sister, my aunt. I knew I should never get my fill of looking at her.

But, duty done, Sophie closed the album. ‘Well, now you know. You came to us when she died, and that's all there is to it,' she concluded, reaching for yet another of the indigestion remedies she was always swallowing.

Who was my father? Where was he? Was he dead, too?

But those were questions she would not answer, and the album itself revealed nothing of him. There were stiff, formal pictures of Tant Sophie outside the church in her wedding finery with Oom Cornelis, but none of my mother as a bride, or even of me as a baby.

‘Where are her wedding pictures?' I persisted.

‘She wasn't—'

She broke off and pressed her lips together. Clearly, she could have bitten off her tongue, but it was too late. Young as I was, I knew then that my mother had been what Tant Sophie and the respectable ladies at her church called a Fallen Woman.

It did not make my longing to know more about her, and my father, any less. The red leather album became as important to me as it was to my aunt. I pored over the pictures of Bettje, trying to see any resemblance to the face I saw every day in the mirror, but it seemed to me I looked more like Sophie, one of those indefinable family looks that are passed down.

The next year, when I was fourteen, I entered a competition run by the local paper for its younger readers. The subject was ‘Old Cape Town' and I won the first prize, which was to have my piece printed in the paper. Greatly impressed by this, my aunt persuaded my stubborn uncle to let me have lessons in shorthand and typing, like my best friend Judy Cash, something I'd been hankering after for some time but which he'd adamantly opposed. I had already decided that was the first step towards something I knew I could do, for which I would need shorthand skills. I had no wish to be a journalist, like Judy, but I fancied the next best thing to being a successful person in business, nearly impossible for a woman, was to become secretary to a highly successful man.

But though I gained excellent qualifications and was able to command a reasonable salary when I went to work, time went on and I still hadn't succeeded in getting right where I wanted to be. I was tempted to think that perhaps men might have a point in believing women don't have the necessary intellectual capacity to compete with them on equal terms. But Judy was shocked to the core when I spoke like this, and lectured me about even allowing myself such backward thoughts, never mind expressing them. We had every right to believe we were the equals of men, she said, possibly their superiors. When it came to men like Wim, I could not but agree.

Willem. Willem Mauritz, always known as Wim. Who was he really, apart from an adventurer, a chancer, a younger cousin of Sophie's?

I had known him always as an occasional visitor to our home. The only time I ever saw Sophie really animated was when he arrived on the doorstep, always unannounced but confident that a bed and three meals a day would be available to him for as long as he chose to stay. Which of course they were. What he did for a living was anyone's guess – but it must have been a precarious existence; he would turn up at the house and stay there until something else of glorious promise appeared on the horizon and took him off again. But this time he had stayed away so long, without a word to say where he was, or even letting us know if he was alive or dead, that I believe Sophie had almost ceased to believe he would ever come back.

‘Where is she?' he asked when I opened the door to him.

This time he was too late. Tant Sophie had died a few weeks before, of a perforated stomach ulcer which might have been detected earlier had she ever consulted a doctor about her chronic indigestion. I suppose her death must have affected me because I missed her – even the tearful turning of the pages of the photograph album. She had been a sour and undemonstrative woman, but she had taken me in, motherless and fatherless. In her own way, she had done her best for me – and for my mother, when she'd been left in the lurch.

He had wicked black eyes, Wim Mauritz. There was nothing else remarkable about his looks, but he was the sort of man who was said to charm birds off trees – and most women into his arms – and he knew it. Even Tant Sophie was not immune, though to her, who had known him since he was born, he was still a delightful, delinquent child who could be forgiven any mischief. I was not one of those who were charmed, however. I knew he was wild and I suspected he was a liar. I did not trust him.