Armistice (23 page)

“Yet,” she said, reddening. She hated being called
miss
in that way, with
little
a silent preface.

“Am I to take it that you're a suffragette?”

“Am I to take it that you disagree with universal suffrage?”

“We were discussing who slandered me to you,” said Anthony.

Both tetchy, now. He unable to fully hide his personality, she not seeking to conceal hers.

“Did you like Dan?” she asked.

“I admired him.”

“You didn't know him very well.”

“You don't know that.”

“He never mentioned you in his letters and you referred to him as Daniel in yours. And why did you write to me? That wasn't your job.”

“As I wrote: his death was a crime.”

Anthony didn't blink. When he'd written those words in his letter it had been without cynicism. He'd been in an altered, densely quiet, trance-like state in which he wrote and thought as if slightly apart from himself. These days he was different. He knew Case's death was a crime and that he was the perpetrator of it. He knew, and praised himself, that he said things that sounded right to the listener, but meant something else entirely to him. He deployed ambiguity so that it satisfied both their story and his.

“Why do you think anyone would lay a false charge against you?” he heard her say.

“For the reasons I've outlined; their state of mind,” he shot back.

“But why such a detailed allegation?”

“Someone in possession of a febrile imagination inflamed by circumstance; that is who could invent such detail. And because you heard that man's story before you—”

“I did not say that a man told me.”

The fire flared in her eyes. She looked magnificent. Anthony forgave her interruption.

“Whomsoever told you, you have been unduly influenced. In the same way that I could be forgiven for thinking you are one way because I first met you as Felicity in a particular
place. First impressions can be all too hard to correct. Can you try to imagine what your reaction would have been to the story if you had already met me? I put it to you that you never had a chance to form an accurate opinion of me, until now—how can I prove that I didn't do something?” Leaning forward in his seat, now. “I have no alibi; I was there on the same battlefield, I had the opportunity. I possessed a gun—the wrong kind, mind, but I had the means—there were other guns. But no motive! There was no card game! And there is absolutely no proof! No evidence! No man or woman in this country is expected to prove that they didn't do something. The onus is on the other side; those making the allegations have to make them stick. If I sued Jonathan Priest for libel or slander I'd undoubtedly win.”

Philomena concealed any reaction to Jonathan's name. Went on the offensive.

“How did you discover that I'm Philomena Bligh?”

“Luck,” replied Anthony, emphasizing the consonants.

Philomena didn't think that it was luck. Was he watching Jonathan when Jonathan thought it was the other way around? Anthony had seen her with Jonathan? Or was he paying someone to watch for him?

“Are there any gaps in my story, in my version?” he asked, sounding disheartened, exasperated; almost forlorn.

“Your version is quite clear,” she said.

He rubbed his forehead, aping a gesture that he hoped conveyed exasperation, fatigue and despair.

“My inability to convince you is testament to my plight …”
He tailed off and turned his head away. She looked at his profile and believed that he was absolutely sincere in what he'd just said. She felt sorry for him.

“I've no real friends,” said Anthony, “no one to stand up for me. There are people I pay to do things for me. Some of us are destined to keep our own company, aren't we? I've always been on the edge of things. At the periphery.” He sighed and shook his head as if he wearied of himself, and looked at her as if confirming that she would be quite justified should she share that view. “But all that can be of no concern to you.”

He stood. She wondered how to let him pass her without getting too close. She might have to go out of her room before him.

“You can forgive my confusion about what sort of girl Felicity is. In that sort of place you'd expect a sort of girl. And even in respectable places the war has confused matters. Before it I would never have imagined that I'd see a woman in uniform—apart from nurses—or see young women eating out alone. Did you work in the war?”

“Tram ticket collector. Manchester.”

“Before that?”

“Seamstress.”

“A seamstress.”

“Yes, a seamstress.”

She was a seamstress and tram ticket collector and he was having to engage with her as an equal? His temper flared and he forgot that he wanted to seduce her.

“But not an artist, like Felicity. Yes, before the war it was
only really prostitutes who walked the streets alone. I can imagine you as one of those new female police matrons—apart from the fact that you're too pretty—poking your nose about.”

Philomena let her irritation show on her face. This dismayed Anthony. It was quite the wrong note to end on. He sought a more appealing register.

“All I ask is that now having heard me out, you judge me fairly. I don't ask you to like me, just give me justice.”

He indicated with his hat that he would like to pass her to leave the room. She sat on the edge of her bed to give him free passage. He stopped by her. Philomena stared down at his shoes. There was a smudge on the shiny black leather toe of one. Someone would fix that for him.

“I liked Felicity. Shame,” she heard him say.

And with that, Anthony Dore left her room, shutting the door behind him, pleased enough with his performance, reassured that no hard evidence against him had emerged. Felicity had been a lure, an enticement. Luckily, he'd spoiled her game. Had Priest set the bait? Was she in a conspiracy with Priest? He hadn't established that. Were they connected? Priest had told her, must have. He'd put money on it. That might need a response. From his lawyers. But Priest had been warned—can't warn him a second time; that would come across as weak.

Anthony descended the stairs. He might have to kill Priest, or have him killed. But the trouble with assassins was that they knew they'd been hired, and could discover by whom.
Kill Priest himself. One of the things that Anthony had acknowledged since he'd become a murderer was that he had felt homicidal before. He'd wanted to kill; he'd muttered under his breath that he was going to kill. Until Daniel Case on that battlefield, motive, opportunity and implacable dislike had never coincided so invitingly; the deed had felt spontaneous. The premeditated murder of Priest scared him. It would have to be a shot. Anything else required being too close—within touching distance. But the noise a gun makes, hard to get away afterward. And what if it went wrong and he only wounded his target? Priest would be furious. Priest would retaliate, come after, overpower and deliver him up, or kill him.

Anthony reached the so-called hotel's so-called reception. No porter. Good. He crossed the so-called foyer, daring a challenge. As he strode through the exit he thought how he'd seen his labeling Priest “mad” strike home. He'd bet that Priest was the tall dark man who'd spent two hours in room four oh seven leaving stains on the pillow. Philomena/Felicity was a filthy slut. Jonathan Priest was mad. Let the latter be known.

Philomena had keyed the lock and half-fallen back down onto her bed, exhausted with it all. She'd lain still for a few moments then sprung up and gone to the window where she looked down on Anthony as he walked purposefully away from the entrance to the hotel. His foot made a stone shoot. She heard it scuttle on the cobbles and saw him follow it, aim, and kick it away, hard.

She went down the hallway to the bathroom and washed, then dressed as herself and packed her things. When it was the proper morning she went down and paid the bill and took Felicity's “costume” back to the dress agency and paid for keeping it the extra day. The woman there asked if she'd had “fun.” Philomena smiled ruefully and lied that she had. She set off to find Jonathan.

Anthony returned to his home. When he entered, his father was preparing to leave. As usual it was uncomfortable between them. Perceval Dore immediately deduced from Anthony's appearance that he was just now coming in from a night out. His instinct was to express his disapproval but he'd privately decided that he would try a completely different tack with his surviving son. He would try to not criticize him, and to treat him as a friend.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, father.”

“Had breakfast?”

“Yes, thank you.”

There followed a few moments of awkwardness before both moved on. That was all they could find to say to each other.

Anthony climbed up to his apartment within the house, entered his lounge, moved a set of drawers and lifted a loose floorboard. He reached down into the floor cavity and came up with a small tin, which he unlocked. He took out an oil cloth and unrolled it and he unfolded some tissue and there
lay his special things: his French pornographic postcards, his photograph of his mother, the letter she wrote to him on receiving his letter—also in the box—in which he'd pleaded to be brought home from school. He read, as if he hadn't himself written it, it was by another boy he once knew, that at school he was “miserable,” subjected to “cruelty.” A sharp pain entered his chest. He stopped reading his letter to his mother and instead re-read her reply. “Things are always difficult when you enter a new world but they invariably improve” … “Best not to show your feelings” … “I shan't let on to your father that you're not coping—you know how disappointed—” … “endurance is a virtue, also stoicism, determination; these are the qualities that make us so great” … “mustn't be miserable, you are from a great family, a great country, a great Empire” … “when you look back these will be the happiest days of your life.”

Anthony put the special things and the feelings away and performed the sequence with the box in reverse until the room was exactly how it had been when he'd entered it. He sat on his day bed and took out from his jacket the letter he'd stolen from Philomena's room when there alone. He read it through twice, feeling envious that he had never in his life either received or sent such a letter. He slid it in between the leaves of the Bible that his mother gave him when they packed him off to school. He thought back to when he'd searched Daniel Case's possessions for the IOUs. He'd discovered them in an envelope intended for “Philomena,” with an address. Anthony stood and looked in the mirror and
practiced saying out loud: “I am an innocent man,” making his gaze stay fixed on himself.

At Jonathan's apartment block the concierge telephoned up to him. When Philomena arrived at his door he was anxiously waiting.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” he said.

When they were in the kitchen she took a deep swallow. This was going to be terrible but it had to be done. She sat one side of the table and indicated he should sit the other. She cleared her throat and asked if it was possible that when Jonathan made his allegation he was so very upset that it affected his judgment. That stopped him dead in his tracks.

“What's happened since you got in that taxi?”

“I've had a conversation with Anthony Dore.”

“How did that come about since you left here?”

“He found me in my hotel.”

“How the hell did he do that?”

“I don't know. It doesn't matter, does it? He came to my room—”

“To your room?”

Jonathan was out of his seat, leaning over the table toward her. She didn't back away, looked him steadily in the eye even though her heart was racing.

“He said he knew I was Philomena Bligh and that he'd guessed what I'd been up to and he wanted his chance to put his side of the story.”

“And now you doubt me?” Jonathan struck his chest hard with the heel of his hand. His anger was terrifying.

“I think you genuinely believe your story and I'm glad you told it to me and you're right, damned if you did, damned if you didn't—”

“Damned right!”

Philomena gathered herself to say the next thing.

“But we must stop.”

A look of horror crossed Jonathan's face. Disbelief. “You—” he began.

Philomena pursed her lips, ready for a tirade. It didn't come. Jonathan fell back into his seat. His mouth moved, faint traces of words, glimpses of his thoughts. He blinked rapidly, his head moving like a bird's, left and right. My God, thought Philomena, what had she done? She should have just gone home and let him gradually realize over time that the pursuit of Anthony Dore was over.

“You're being deliberately cold,” accused Jonathan, his voice low in the back of his throat.

“I'm not being cold, I'm being normal. Anthony Dore's threatening legal proceedings.”

“Let him; he'd have to be in the dock.”

“But he'd win, wouldn't he? He'd continue to deny there ever was a card game and that would be that. You'd lose your career. Would there be damages? He could sue you for damages, and costs and whatever. You'd be finished.” She knew this made sense; she was returning to him his own logic. Was she getting through to him? He still looked stunned. “Jonathan,
we have to find lives worth living for ourselves, and in order to do so we should only pursue those ambitions that are achievable, and proving that Anthony Dore murdered Dan isn't one of those.”

“Setting all that fine rhetoric aside,” said Jonathan, “did you believe Dore?” Now he looked at her. Dark gray shades had appeared under his eyes, themselves pools of sadness.

“That doesn't matter,” she said, her heart aching. “What matters is what we can do.”