Days Without Number (22 page)

'It's true.'

'It can't be. '

'Did you send me the video?'

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'Nothing? '

'At least give me your first name. Then we can--'

'You're lying. It was there.'

'I'm afraid not. '

'It wasn't? It truly wasn't?'

'Like I say, we found nothing. '

'Then they must have . . . Oh God. '

'Who--'

The recording cut out. Wise switched off the machine.

'Do you recognize her voice?' Penrose prompted.

'No,' said Irene.

Anna shrugged. 'Nor me.'

'Sir?' Penrose looked at Basil.

Basil's eyes rolled. Then he grimaced and said, 'I don't think so.'

'Do you want to hear it again?'

'I, er .. .'

'You may as well, Dave.'

Wise played the recording again. When it had finished, Irene said, 'I definitely don't know her.'

'Same here,' said Anna.

There was a moment's pause before Basil added, That goes for me too.'

'Sure?'

Basil nodded. 'Absolutely.'

'I'm afraid we can't help you, Inspector,' said Irene. 'Much as we'd like to.'

'No. Well . . .' Penrose smiled ruefully. 'Thanks for trying.'

After seeing the two policemen out, the Paleologus siblings walked silently back into the drawing room. Irene lit a cigarette and Basil enquired mildly if they wanted more coffee. Anna expressed a marked preference for a very large gin and tonic. Irene concurred. And Basil went along with the majority.

'What a pair,' said Anna after her first sip of gin. 'Let's hope we've seen the last of them.'

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'They've no reason to take this any further,' said Irene.

'Assuming they believed us,' Basil observed.

'Why shouldn't they? We answered their questions truthfully enough.'

'The woman on the tape was Elspeth Hartley. You know that.'

'I know no such thing,'

Basil shrugged. 'Have it your way.'

'What good would it have done to mention her anyway?'

'Oh, none, I admit. It's too late for honesty, even though it may well have been the best policy at the outset. What a tangled web we've woven for ourselves.'

'There's nothing tangled about it. If they really had found a body in the shaft, it might have been different. As it is . . .'

'Who did you think the two people on the video were, Irene?'

'I don't know.'

'Really?'

'Idon't know.' Irene clunked her glass down on the mantelpiece. 'Whatever this is really all about has harmed us enough. Telling tales to the police now can only make matters worse. We need to draw a line under the whole dreadful business. You're not to discuss this with Nick. Is that understood? Let him recover in his own time. I don't know what he and Andrew did or didn't do. And I don't want to know.'

'Amnesia can be a very convenient thing. There seems to be a lot of it about.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean we may not be allowed to draw a line under this. And that we should be prepared for such a contingency.'

'How, exactly?'

Basil made a face. T'm not sure.'

'I want you to promise you'll say nothing to Nick.' Irene stared meaningfully at her brother.

'Won't he assume they'll have shown us the video?'

'Maybe. But let him raise the subject - if he wants to.'

'And if he doesn't?'

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'Then let it lie. It's only for a few days. He's going up to Edinburgh to see Tom. You know he was in no state to explain what happened when Tom was down for Andrew's funeral. Well, he reckons he's equal to it now and God knows they do need to talk. Maybe they can help each other come to terms with the situation.'

'Tom seemed totally withdrawn to me,' said Anna.

'Exactly. So, the visit could be good for both of them. But Nick's still very fragile. I don't want anything to upset him before he goes.'

'Message received and understood,' murmured Basil.

'Good.'

'But remember what the Inspector said. Finding nothing in the shaft is in a sense the most puzzling aspect of the whole affair.'

'You think too much, Basil,' said Anna. 'You really do.'

'Maybe you're right.'

'I am, believe me. Where you're concerned, I'm an expert.'

'Maybe I need a holiday.'

'Don't we all?'

'A complete break.' Basil nodded, as if in contemplation of f

a sun-soaked beach somewhere. 'A change of scene.' |

'Not planning to don the habit again, I hope,' said Irene.

'No, no. Not that.' Basil clinked the ice thoughtfully in his glass. 'Something else altogether.'

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PART TWO

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nicholas Paleologus stepped out of the door of the Old Ferry Inn into a chill, grey, salt-tanged morning. He heaved his bag on to his shoulder and gazed up at the twin spans of the Tamar Bridges. The road bridge was busy with workmen and traffic, headlamps and floodlights blurring in the murk, but the rail bridge was empty and silent. He breathed deeply, wondering if the palpitations would start again. But they stayed away. He was calm and in control.

Three weeks had passed since Andrew's death. For the first of those weeks Nick had no coherent memory to draw on at all. His recollections - of people and places and incidents were a jumble, as detached from sequential reality as the weirdest of dreams. He knew it all now: what had happened and when in the cavalcade of consequences. He could even have given a reasonable account of his own collapse and slow recovery in the wake of that sickening, disabling moment when he had seen and heard his brother die. Yet still it lacked for him the actuality of first-hand experience. It was all at one remove from him and he from it, as if he had witnessed it from inside someone else's head.

The drugs were partly to blame for that, of course, or to thank, since the condition was both a curse and a blessing. It had certainly kept the police off Nick's back until he had been 189

able to assemble a version of events that did not involve admitting he had helped Andrew dump a body in Hamilton's Shaft. The irony was that he had pleaded memory loss for the period prior to the accident merely as a delaying tactic. There had been no danger of his forgetting the night he and Andrew had tipped a tarpaulined bundle into the black mouth of a disused mine shaft. Nick had assumed a moment of reckoning for it was bound to come in the end. But it never had, for the most astonishing of reasons: when the police had gone to look, the body had vanished.

Nick could share his astonishment with no-one. Nor could he point out to the police that the voice on the tape belonged to Elspeth Hartley. If he did, and if they found her, she might swear the two figures seen in the video were his brother and him. She would only be telling the truth, after all, which would be a first of sorts. But what would he say then? How would he explain what they had done?

He turned and headed up Albert Road towards the railway station. His car stood gathering grime and guano in the yard behind the Old Ferry. Its bumper was crumpled and one set of lights smashed as a result of being rear-ended in a minor adjunct of the major collision that had claimed Andrew's life. The vehicle was still driveable, but not by Nick. His nerves 1

had been shredded far more drastically than his memory.

He very clearly remembered driving down to Saltash five weeks before, comfortable in the assumption that he would be staying only for a couple of days. Now, at last, he was leaving, at dawn, on foot, with much lost and nothing gained: his father and brother dead, a family sundered, a carefully composed life carelessly dismantled. As he had said goodbye to Irene over breakfast, he had sensed one of the bitterest of those losses: trust. Nick was sure the police must have shown her, and Anna and Basil, the video and played them the tape. But nothing had been said; not a word. They had obviously claimed not to know the voice, otherwise the police would have been back on to him. But all had been silence from that quarter. Nor had they said what they must have'realized: 190

a

that he had assisted Andrew in covertly disposing of something which, if not a body, looked as if it might very well be one. There had only been solicitous enquiries about his health amidst a welter of reticence. Yes, there had been a lot of reticence: a whole conspiracy's worth of it.

There were a few people gathered at the station, waiting for the train to take them into Plymouth for the working day. Some were smoking or reading newspapers. These few moments on the platform at Saltash were part of their fixed routine. Nick did not know whether to envy or pity them, because for him routine was something he had as much difficulty recalling as envisaging. The doctor had signed him off work until the end of March. He was supposed to use the period to reduce his drug dosage and ease his way back to stability and normality. That was not exactly what he had in mind, though. He had already halved his pill intake without suffering a recurrence of the panic attacks and he planned to halve it again. What he needed was to be sure of himself, confident that his state of mind was his own, not some pharmacological ideal of moderation. It was time to reclaim his life.

The train came in and the passengers shuffled aboard. They trundled over Brunei's bridge and on by way of the commuter halts to Plymouth. Nick picked up a discarded Western Morning News and read it aimlessly through, noticing little until one small article seized his attention. Foot-and-mouth disease had been detected at an abattoir in Essex; there were fears it might be the tip of an iceberg. He suddenly imagined Andrew's anxious reaction to the news, forgetting, for one split-second, that Andrew was no longer around to react to anything. Tears welled in Nick's eyes. He dropped the paper and took several deep breaths to calm himself. The neighbouring farmer had taken over Carwether on a peppercorn rent, pending a decision from Tom about selling the place. But it was a foregone conclusion, of course. Now Andrew had gone, Carwether would go too. His struggle with the land was over.

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They reached Plymouth with ten minutes to spare before the London train was due. Nick made his way slowly across to the platform and waited, staring vacantly into space. He wondered if he should drop into the bookstall and buy something to read on the journey, but he knew he would be unable to concentrate on whatever he chose. There was no refuge to be found in fiction. And he no longer craved refuge anyway. He was done with that.

'Good morning, Nick.' A familiar voice sliced through his thoughts. He turned to find Basil standing next to him, dressed as if for hiking, in cagoule and walking boots, with a bulging rucksack on his back. 'Surprised to see me?'

'You could say that, yes.'

'Irene told me which train you'd be catching.'

'Are you catching it too? You surely didn't pack a rucksack just to see me off.'

'I'm going on holiday. I thought we could travel to London together.'

'Holiday? This is the first I've heard of it.'

'Anna didn't take me seriously until I packed this morning. Couldn't believe her luck, I suppose.'

'Where are you going?'

Basil's reply was drowned out by the Tannoy announcement of their train. Nick thought he heard him name a destination, but could not quite believe he had heard correctly.

'What?' he shouted above the recital of West Country station stops.

Then the recital abruptly ceased. And he heard Basil's answer, clear as a bell.

'Why are you going to Venice?'

Nick managed with some difficulty to delay asking the question until they had settled in their seats and the train had pulled out of the station. Strictly speaking, the question was unnecessary. There was one very obvious reason for going to Venice. And a guided tour of the Doge's Palace was not it.

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'Well?'

'I think we're in the quiet coach, Nick. Have you turned off your mobile?'

'What are you up to, Basil?'

'Nothing hole-in-the-corner, I do assure you. After all, I could easily have caught another train, couldn't I?'

'In that case, why not just come out with it?'

'Because Irene has told me to tread carefully where you're concerned. She didn't exactly say "Handle Nick like Dresden china", but it's what she meant. As for Venice, my interest in Byzantine history can never be slaked. I've been meaning for a long time to immerse myself in a study of the treasures the Venetians looted from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. This--'

'Demetrius Paleologus.' Nick's mention of their mysterious cousin was no more than a murmur, but it sufficed to halt Basil's peroration in its tracks.

'Ah.' Basil smiled. 'Memory not so very fallible after all, Nick?'

'What do you hope to achieve?'

'An understanding of the Venetian address system, to begin with. Houses are numbered by sestiere, providing no clue as to their precise location. San Polo three one five-o, to cite an example, could be anywhere within the sestiere of San Polo, one of the six the city comprises. Fortunately, there is a directory available, the Indicatore Anagrafico, which--'

'Why are you doing this?'

'To explain that, I need to tell you a story. But first, I think, I'd like you to tell me a story.'

'What about?'

'This trip of yours to Scotland. This . . . northern progress. What precisely is it in aid of?'

'You already know. I owe Tom a better explanation of what happened to Andrew than I was able to give him when he was down for the funeral.'

'And is a better explanation ... a complete explanation?'

'As complete as I'm capable of.'

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'Really? You don't happen to have brought any cards with you, do you?'

'No. Why?'

'I think it's time we put them on the table. You've seen the video, Nick. So have I. You've also heard the tape. Well, so have I. Irene and Anna are all for letting sleeping dogs lie. But I fear they're failing to guard against the day when the dog wakes and comes snapping at their heels. Sorry. Too many metaphors. But I trust the point is made.'

'I'm not sure it is.'

'Then let me be specific. I've been packing up some of Dad's possessions for disposal. Books, clothes, bric�brac, that kind of thing. Don't worry. Nothing's gone yet. Irene and Anna merely thought it prudent to separate the decent stuff from the obvious rubbish and delegated the task to me, as one with time on his hands. Naturally, they didn't like to bother you with the details and I'd be happy to spare you them myself, but for' - Basil lowered his voice - 'a discovery I made in the cellar.'