Betrayal (54 page)

Back at Tingwall’s office we drank champagne, made a few calls to spread the news and took the congratulations of the firm’s partners before going to lunch at a nearby restaurant. Tingwall and Julia chattered excitedly, but Ginny and I were rather more subdued, too drained of feeling for such straightforward emotions as joy or relief. I drank too much wine and compounded the error with two brandies, so that when we set off for home it was Ginny who had to drive through the gathering dusk.

The cottage was icy. I thumped the boiler to no avail while Ginny answered a steady stream of calls from friends and well-wishers. Finally, at nine, we took the phone off the hook and huddled side by side in front of the fire with a sandwich and a glass of wine.

‘I think back to last winter,’ Ginny murmured reminiscently. ‘I think of everything we had then and how unhappy we were. And then I think of what we have now, and – well, I wouldn’t change all this for anything, not for
anything
. I wouldn’t be anywhere else but in this freezing little dump of a cottage with you. I feel so lucky, Hugh. The luckiest person in the world. Most of all’ – and her voice was rough and low – ‘I feel so terribly lucky to have you.’

‘Darling.’

She pulled back a little and looked into my face. She asked softly, ‘I do have you, don’t I?’

‘Of course.’ I added a smile. ‘Of course you do.’ And something in my heart felt infinitely weary.

‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted, you see. You and me. For us to be happy.’

I put my wine down, then hers, and we wrapped our arms around each other. I saw the future stretching out before us, and it seemed to go on for ever. I saw Hartford growing steadily, I saw us in a pretty house near by, I saw summers in France and, when Hartford didn’t need me any more, I saw us going to live there amid the vineyards: I saw all these things, and none of them could assuage my loneliness.

Ginny moved against me, her lips travelled across my cheek, she opened her soft mouth to mine. Soon we went upstairs to the warmth of our bed and, as Ginny’s passionate body pressed itself against mine, I felt a surge of love, and a chasm of emptiness.

E
NTERING THE
silent house, breathing the musty blend of furniture polish and wood smoke that took me lurching back to my childhood, I thought: This is the last time I will stand here, this is the last time I will feel so close to my past.

The remains of the furniture had been removed during the week, organised, like everything else to do with the sale, by Mary. Two geometric patches of deeper colour marked the spot on the study carpet where Pa’s desk had stood, and ancient scorchmarks long hidden by a well-placed rug fanned out from the grate, from the days when Pa had favoured blazing open fires. The shadowy outlines of pictures lined the stairs, and in my old room the dusty curtains framed unwashed windows clouded with the grime of the long winter.

The bed had gone, the side table too, but, as Mary had forewarned me, everything that neither she nor Ginny had claimed and which was otherwise destined for jumble sales had been stored here, an accumulation of old lamps, rickety chairs and cardboard boxes stacked high with kitchen utensils, chipped china and battered paperbacks: the family detritus of fifty years.

I found my old paintings in a cardboard box half crushed by a pile of
Eagles
dating back to the sixties. The Winsor & Newton watercolours, the set of sable brushes which at fourteen I had saved up for so carefully were not with them however, and, though I hunted desultorily through a few of the neighbouring boxes, I soon realised the search was hopeless. My old lamp with its parchment shade lay on a chair but when I picked it up the top lurched over and I saw that the shade had acquired a second split.

Shutting the door, I carried the paintings down to the car and, after one last look around the hall, locked up the house. Touched by a last bout of nostalgia, I took a wander round the side of the house to the terrace. Dark shadows dotted the flagstones where the flower urns had stood, and one of the flowerbeds showed signs of fresh digging where a plant had been removed. That would be Mary, who was always on the lookout for additions to her garden.

The river was grey under a cold March sky, and an exceptionally high tide had lifted the water almost to the branches of the trees overhanging the opposite bank. Another boat lay at
Ellie Miller
’s mooring, a modern tub with its name displayed garishly down the side.
Ellie
had been taken to Plymouth to be refitted, renamed and, in due course, we hoped, sold. There would be no buyers for her here.

I went down the steps to the middle terrace and on to the lower garden. Under the bare trees the last of the crocuses lay flat like fallen warriors, and in the rough grass the daffodil shoots stood stiff and tall, awaiting their moment.

I glanced up and saw beyond the summerhouse a bowed figure standing among the apple trees, head canted upward in contemplation of something above his head. He had his back to me but as I made my way towards him I recognised the bony head and the bent shoulders under the baggy tweed jacket.

‘Hello there,’ I called.

Old Gordon turned. ‘Mr Hugh!’ he exclaimed amiably.’ ‘Day to you.’ He raised a gnarled hand in salute and gestured on upwards at the trees. ‘Need a good prune. Won’t get much fruit without a good prune.’

‘Aha.’ I inspected the branches dutifully. ‘I’m afraid everything’s been rather neglected.’

‘Not too late, if it’s done quick.’ He nodded and hummed a little. ‘Mrs Bennett – she’s keen on her fruit. Likes makin’ apple pies, she does. Does ’em for the fete.’ He chortled, ‘Dozens o’ the blessed things.’ ‘Ahh.’ The Bennetts, who had lived on the other side of the village for some years, were the new owners of Dittisham House. ‘You’ll be working here then? I thought you were retired, Gordon.’

‘Ah, yes and no, yes and no. Still do bits and pieces. Can’t risk the prunin’ meself, o’ course. I’d be no sooner up a ladder than sailin’ off it again.’ He cackled at the thought, showing a fine set of false teeth. ‘But I don’ mind a bit o’ diggin’ and weedin’. Keeps me goin’.’

‘You’re feeling pretty fit then?’

‘Can’ complain, Mr Hugh. Can’ complain at all.

Good to be back on me feet again, I can tell yer.’

‘I, er . . . I’d heard you hadn’t been too well.’

He made an exaggerated grimace. ‘Bad winter. Bad. Rheumatics. Heart.
Angina
. Felt somethin’ terrible.
Terrible
.’ He blew out his sunken cheeks at the memory, before brightening suddenly. ‘But I’m all set now.’

‘I’m so glad.’

The old man’s face puckered again, and he cast me a troubled glance. ‘Sorry about the court business, Mr Hugh.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Gordon. Really.’

‘They kept askin’, the police. Never stopped askin’. Dates, times. Dates, times. On and on. What a palaver.’ He rolled his drooping eyes and jerked a clawed hand in a gesture of disbelief. ‘Then they got me makin’ this statement. Puttin’ me name to it. And all the time I thought maybe I was helpin’ out, yer see. Thought I was doin’ good. An’ then, next thing I know, they says they want me in court, and, I tell you, Mr Hugh, if I’d ’a’ realised . . .’

‘I understand, Gordon, really.’

‘I didn’ know I was sayin’ things against Mrs Hugh. They never told me that.’

‘No, I’m sure they didn’t.’

‘If I’d ’a’ known, well . . . I’d ’a’ kept me mouth shut.’

‘But you couldn’t have known. Honestly – we didn’t blame you, Gordon. Not for a moment.’

He was lost in his reminiscences again. ‘They kept sayin’ ter me – just say it like you said it before, in the statement. But comes to it, comes to the day, an’ I couldn’ get a darn’ thing straight in me head. I was feelin’ so bad with me heart. Been bad for weeks. Between you and me, Mr Hugh, thought I was on the way out. Thought me number was well and truly up.’

‘Gordon, don’t worry about it. After all, everything worked out fine in the end.’

He grunted, ‘Gets so you can’t be sure of anythin’.’

Nodding solemnly, I contemplated the truth of that remark. I looked up at the trees. ‘Hope you get a good harvest.’

‘Better, hadn’ I? All those pies to fill!’ The cadaverous face split into a quiet grin.

‘Take care, Gordon.’

He laughed, ‘That’s one thing you may be sure of, Mr Hugh.’

I drove away at a crawl while my thoughts circled restlessly, stirring up long-suppressed ideas that I had almost persuaded myself to forget, converging on a single unhappy notion which proceeded to worry at me like a cracked tooth. Absorbing the idea, allowing it houseroom, it seemed to me that truth was a terribly overrated objective, that in going after it you ended up not with the hoped-for sense of resolution but with yet another bout of turmoil and unhappiness.

But there was one thing more unsettling than an unhappy truth, and that was the kind of uncertainty which was eating away at me now. Accelerating to the next junction, I took the turning for Furze Lodge.

The house was open. No one answered my calls and I wandered from room to room until, coming into the kitchen, I spotted David through the window, digging a hole in the lawn.

Coming closer, I saw it was a long shallow trench.

‘Drainage?’ I asked.

He spun around, looking startled, and flashed me a reproachful look. Calming down just as rapidly, he offered, ‘Electricity cable.’

‘Floodlighting?’

‘Mary wants a summerhouse in the far corner there, and maybe one day a swimming pool, though I think they’re a total waste of time myself.’ In a movement that was almost violent, he plunged the spade into the ground and shovelled some earth. ‘How’s Ginny?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘And the new house?’

‘Oh, dust and mess. We’re camping at the builders’ convenience – you know.’

‘And Hartford?’

‘Fingers crossed, going better than I ever dared hope.’

David said drily, ‘That must please Howard no end.’

He shifted a few more feet of earth before resting on his spade. ‘I should have hired a digger.’

‘I’d help if . . .’ I gestured as though for a second spade.

David swung his gaze on me and I could see that he was in a prickly mood. ‘So what brings you here after all this time? I was beginning to think the Cold War had set in.’

‘I was just picking up some stuff from Dittisham. I thought I’d pop in.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow and waited for me to tell him something nearer the truth.

‘I wanted to ask you something,’ I confessed. ‘I wanted to ask if Old Gordon was a patient of yours.’

‘Of course.’ He gave a small snort. ‘How else do you think I fixed him? And to answer your next question, it was a mixture of codeine, antihistamine and a tranquilliser called thioridazine. Guaranteed to addle the brain in the right doses.’ He snapped irritably, ‘And you don’t need to look so bloody disapproving. It wasn’t going to kill him. He’s perfectly all right now.’

There is an instant after a truth is confirmed when, though you’ve known what was coming, the facts still seem bald and shocking.

David growled, ‘Besides, his memory had been dodgy for years. He’d probably got the whole thing wrong anyway. The wrong day, the wrong person – who knows? So it wasn’t as if I was perpetrating a great miscarriage of justice, was it?’

I didn’t say anything.

David cast me a scathing look. ‘You didn’t realise?’ he asked, working himself up into some kind of fury.

‘I half guessed. When I saw him at the court . . .’

‘Come on, you must have known! I’d promised, hadn’t I?’

‘Promised?’

‘I said I’d help.’ He repeated almost crossly:
‘I said I’d help
. You must have realised!’

‘I suppose I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to . . .’ I shrugged, ‘deal with it. But now . . . well, I can only say thank you.
God
– that’s totally inadequate, isn’t it? What I mean is – I’ll never be able to thank you enough, David. Never.’

‘Stuff your gratitude, Hugh,’ David said with sudden vehemence. ‘I may be an adulterer and a liar and a few other things besides, but I wasn’t going to let Ginny go to prison for something she didn’t do. Even
I
thought that was a bit much. You know – something I might
just
have difficulty in living with for the rest of my life. I may be a shit, but not
that
much of a shit.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said quietly. ‘I know what really happened. Mary told me.’

I had caught him by surprise. He stared at me in dismay or alarm or both. ‘What did Mary tell you?’

‘Oh . . .’ I still found it hard to say. ‘That she saw Ginny go out to the boat and talk to Sylvie and go aboard and—’ I cut myself short with a sharp gesture.

‘She said
that?
My God.’ He shook his head incredulously. ‘God.’ He gave an unsteady laugh that was suddenly quite devoid of assurance. ‘You should know better than to believe anything that Mary tells you.’

I felt a momentary disconnection from the conversation, as though it were happening at some other time in my own past or future. ‘She’d seen Ginny,’ I argued hoarsely. ‘She must have. She described what she was wearing. She . . .’ But I was silenced by the look on David’s face.

‘You poor sod,’ he murmured pityingly. ‘You thought . . . all this time . . .’

Doubts roared through my mind. I felt a tug in my chest, a sudden heat, followed by the first stirrings of a fearsome anger. ‘What the hell are you saying?’

‘Hugh – I’m saying that Mary was lying.’

‘She never saw Ginny?’

‘She never saw Ginny,’ he sighed. ‘Not then anyway. Ginny arrived a lot later. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’ He sounded genuinely shaken. ‘When was this? When did Mary tell you this? Were you about to go to the police? Was that what it was? She’d have done anything, I’m afraid, to stop you doing that. Was it the police?’

I didn’t trust myself to speak.

‘I’m really sorry, Hugh.’ He raised both shoulders in an exaggerated appeal for understanding.

‘
You bastard!
She was protecting
you!
’ I exploded at last.

He flinched, he was halfway to making a contrite face when my anger burst over me in a hot wave and I lunged for him. Grabbing him by his shirt, I twisted it tight under his chin. ‘You bastard!
You bastard!
’ My rage was huge and ugly and inconsolable. I was overcome by the lust for revenge. I wanted to inflict the most terrible pain and suffering on him, as he had done on me, and at that moment no punishment could possibly have been too terrible. I pushed my fists higher and higher under his chin, driving his head back until he was forced to twist away. As he straightened up, I aimed a punch at his face but my swing was wild and hopelessly wide and, seeing it coming, he lashed out with an arm and deflected my blow. I came in with a weak left hook but he ducked under that and my fist swished uselessly through the air. In my rage and frustration, I became more cunning. I dropped my arms to my sides as if in surrender and the moment he relaxed I sent a sharp little jab into his stomach which doubled him over. As his head came up for air I splayed my feet, dug in my heels, and put all my weight into a low upward swing that whistled up under his chin. Even before my knuckles made contact I knew it was going to be a powerful blow. There was a loud crack, the impact sent a sharp jabbing pain into my hand, David cried out and jerked back before falling slowly onto one knee. Clasping a hand to his chin, panting hard, he looked up at me with what might have been a plea for truce, but if he thought I was finished he had another think coming.