Every Secret Thing (31 page)

In fact, Jenny had never thought that anyone could be as nice as Roger, but while Roger was a sympathising confidant, a shoulder she could lean on, who could cheer her and give good advice, he wasn’t one to intervene between her father and herself – he trod a neutral path.

Deacon, who had less to say, was more inclined to act.

One day, after taking dictation from Spivey, she’d been attacking her typewriter in a black mood when she’d become aware of Deacon, by Regina’s desk, observing her. He’d looked away again, not saying anything, but later on that afternoon she’d had an unexpected summons from her father.

Her father hadn’t been the sort of man to sit at desks. Upstairs, in his wood-panelled office, she’d found him pacing like a restless animal between the two long windows. When she’d entered, he had stopped and turned to face her, strong arms folded. ‘Mr Deacon has asked for assistance, a few hours a week, cataloguing the paintings. Regina can’t do it, she’s buried with work as it is, but we thought, since you’ve only got Spivey to worry about, that you might have the time.’

It had not been exactly a question, but Jenny had answered it anyway, feeling like a prisoner being granted an early parole. ‘Yes, I’d be glad to help.’

And so each week she’d spent a few hours working side by side with Deacon in the storage room, among the artworks, putting numbers on the canvases and writing down the details of each piece. The work was easy, and she knew he hadn’t really needed her at all, to help him. She had told him so, one afternoon.

‘Perhaps not,’ he had said.

‘So why request me, then?’

He’d shrugged, not looking up from the small statue he was numbering, and in his quiet voice he’d made the comment, ‘Mr Spivey’s not an easy man to work for, I’d imagine.’

‘No,’ she’d answered, wondering why he had changed the subject, till she realised that he hadn’t changed it. Then more slowly, with new understanding, she’d said, ‘No, he’s not.’

‘Well, then.’ Glancing up, he’d nodded at the page that she was writing. ‘Just keep on with that. And take your time.’

He hadn’t always kept her working in the storage room. He sometimes took her with him when he went to meet with dealers, or appraise a private painting Reynolds wanted to acquire. ‘A change is as good as a rest,’ he would say, and it was.

To counter Spivey’s protests, Deacon had often remarked to her father how impressed he was with Jenny’s eye for art, and with her eagerness to learn about the subject. It wasn’t true – she hadn’t known a good work from a bad one – but, for Deacon, she had tried.

It had felt good to be rewarded with her father’s warm approval, and his pride. Being able to sit with her father and look at a painting and speak, at least, in the same technical language, had finally given her the kind of connection she’d wanted with him all her life.

She’d had Deacon to thank for that, as she’d had Deacon to thank for the freedom her father increasingly gave her, beginning the night when her father, attacked by a stomach complaint, had told Jenny they wouldn’t be able to go to the theatre. Deacon, silent till then, at the storage-room table, had spoken up out of the blue: ‘I could take her.’

She’d known what her father would answer. He’d never allowed someone else to escort her – only Roger, and Roger was busy that night. She’d been turning away, disappointed, when he’d unexpectedly said, ‘Yes, all right.’

So she’d gone to the play after all, and from that evening on she’d adored Andrew Deacon.

She smiled through the memories, now, sitting with me in the windowless room of her Washington house, while her cigarette, forgotten, burnt to ash between her fingers.

She said, ‘I don’t know why he bothered with me, really. I mean, I was young then, and pretty, and used to men paying attention to me, but Andrew was different. He didn’t want
that
.’ Her smile deepened. ‘I know, because I made a pass at him once. He was a perfect gentleman about it, very polite, but he wasn’t the slightest bit tempted. I ought to have known. He was too much in love with his wife.’

She noticed the state of her cigarette, and reached to gently tamp it out.

‘Amelia, her name was. She died, did you know that? A week or so after my father.’

‘Died how?’ I was curious, wanting to know what the story had been.

‘She was walking, I think, in a park, and a strong wind blew down a great branch from a tree, and it hit her.’

That would have pleased my grandmother, who had wanted Amelia to have an exciting end; nothing too boring.

‘It was an awful month, for deaths. Garcia, and my father, and then Andrew’s wife…it absolutely crushed him, when he got the news. He went back to England soon after. I don’t know,’ she said, ‘that he ever recovered from losing Amelia. I mean, he went on with his life, and he travelled a lot, but he never remarried; he never had children. I always thought that was a shame. He’d have made a good father. Look how he took it on his shoulders to watch over me, all these years, as though I were his responsibility. He never missed a birthday, or a Christmas, or—’ She paused, as though acknowledging that all of that was past; that Deacon wouldn’t be there anymore. A match scraped in the silence of the moment as she lit another cigarette. The small flame flared, and danced, and died within one breath. ‘But I’ve gotten off topic,’ she said. ‘You were asking me about the day Manuel Garcia died.’

The first part of the morning had passed quietly; happily, even, with Spivey not there. Jenny had typed a few letters for Roger. The new secretary, Miss Bryce – who wore her hair back in a no-nonsense bun and insisted on being called
Miss
Bryce, no Christian names, thank you – was struggling, still, with Regina’s old workload, and Roger was fussy about how his letters were typed.

He’d been grateful.

‘Thanks, darling,’ he’d said, as he half leant, half sat at the edge of her desk while he proofread the pages. ‘I’ll have a few more, but they won’t be till later. Your father wants me over there this afternoon, to take dictation.’

‘Over there’ was the house where Reynolds was impatiently confined to bed, recovering from surgery. His doctors had wanted to keep him in the hospital, but he had argued, ‘Hospitals are where you go to die,’ and he had said it with such force, with such defiance, that in that moment Jenny had believed that he might truly win the battle with his illness. She’d been told the odds weren’t good. The stomach troubles that had plagued him for the past few months had worsened to the point where he’d had difficulty keeping down his food, and when he’d finally called his doctors in, the verdict had been grim: it was a pancreatic cancer. Not survivable. The surgery might help him live a few more weeks; a month, perhaps, but medically, they could do nothing more.

Jenny hadn’t accepted the news. She’d just begun to get to know her father; she was not prepared to lose him. And besides, it was impossible to think that Ivan Reynolds could be felled by such a little thing as cancer. Even with all the weight loss, and lines plainly drawn on his face by the pain, he looked larger than life; indestructible. That gave her hope.

He’d looked better, she’d thought, when she’d seen him that morning. He’d been sitting up, giving the poor private nurse he had hired proper hell for the strength of his tea.

She warned Roger about this, now. ‘Watch out. He’s more like himself today.’

‘Well, that’s good news, then, isn’t it?’ Gathering his letters, he nodded towards Spivey’s office. ‘Vivian’s not in today, I see.’

‘He’s ill.’

‘Something serious, I hope?’

She smiled. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Ah, well. Bit of a break for you, anyway, having him out of the office.’ He grinned. ‘You can take a long lunch.’

She hadn’t thought of that, but he was right, she could. And so she did, returning well past one o’clock. Miss Bryce was there to meet her at the door, concerned.

Miss Bryce said, in a disapproving whisper, ‘There’s a man in Mr Spivey’s office.’

Jenny shrugged her coat off, frowning. ‘What man?’

‘He didn’t give his name. I told him Mr Spivey wasn’t in, and he should wait for you, but he said never mind, he knew what he was looking for, he’d only take a moment.’

‘Is that so?’ She hung up her coat on its peg, and trained her gaze on Spivey’s door. ‘All right, thank you, Miss Bryce. I’ll take care of it.’

She was braced for a confrontation when she entered Spivey’s office, but the man who stood behind the desk was not a stranger. He glanced up as she came in, and smiled. ‘Miss Saunders. Good. You’re back.’

She relaxed. ‘Mr Cayton-Wood. How can I help you?’

JL Cayton-Wood met Spivey every month, to keep abreast of Reynolds’s oil shipments passing through the harbour. He was a charmer, not the sort of man a woman should take seriously, but he was so handsome that, at times, she could forget.

She said, ‘Miss Bryce said you were looking for something?’

He’d spread out some files from the tray on the desk and was searching through papers. Ships’ manifests mostly, from what she could see.

‘Yes. Mr Spivey was compiling a report for me, on what was shipped last autumn…’

‘Well, you won’t find it there,’ she said, coming around the desk, businesslike. ‘Those are the ships that are on their way now, or already in harbour.’

‘Ah, yes. The
Hernando
.’ He stepped aside, reading the name on the top of the files as she stacked them. ‘That’s the one that was headed for Spain, was it not, just before the embargo? I’m surprised that Mr Reynolds hasn’t already diverted that petroleum somewhere else.’

‘I’d imagine he’s had other things on his mind.’

‘Yes, of course. Do forgive me. How is he? I heard he had surgery.’

‘Yes. He’s recovering well, thank you.’ She checked the drawers of Spivey’s desk and came up empty. ‘I don’t know where else to look for that report. I know I haven’t typed one, so it wouldn’t be in our front office. If you like, I could call Mr Spivey at home.’

‘No, don’t bother the poor man. I’ll make do without.’

‘But—’

‘It’s not that important.’

Which didn’t explain why he’d come here in person to look for it, Jenny thought, but she said nothing.

Garcia was in the front office when they came out, having a word with Miss Bryce. He looked taken aback to see
Cayton-Wood
there, but the two men exchanged civil greetings. Then Jenny introduced Miss Bryce to Cayton-Wood, who chatted some few minutes before putting on his hat.

Garcia watched him leave, and frowned, and with a curt, ‘You will excuse me,’ to the ladies, went out after him.

Jenny sat back at her desk. Through the window, she watched the little pantomime unfolding; saw Garcia call to Cayton-Wood, and stop him on the sidewalk; saw the two men talking, Cayton-Wood’s face shielded by his hat, Garcia’s guarded.

‘What a very charming man,’ Miss Bryce said.

‘Yes,’ said Jenny, watching still. Garcia was alone, now, on the sidewalk. Cayton-Wood was walking off. The Spaniard stood a moment, head bent, then he turned and came inside. The office door swung open. Closed.

Garcia paused, his head still down, and told Miss Bryce, ‘I do not wish to be disturbed.’

And then he went into his office, and he shut the door.

The tape in my recorder whirred through to its end, and clicked. I changed it over, trying not to make much noise, but Jenny Augustine seemed not to mind the interruption. In the room the lamps seemed very bright all of a sudden, as she shifted in her chair so she no longer faced her own reflection in the glass front of the bookcase opposite.

Quietly, she said, ‘He shot himself. At two-fifteen, exactly. I was looking at the clock. I’d never heard a gun go off before – I thought a gas pipe had exploded. So I went to see.’

She let her eyes close for a moment, as though closing them could wipe the memory from her mind. It didn’t.

She could hear the others coming up behind her, but she couldn’t seem to look away from the horrific scene. Someone’s hands closed gently round her shoulders; turned her; drew her close against a man’s starched shirtfront. ‘It’s all right,’ said Deacon, in his quiet voice. ‘It’s over. No, don’t look.’

Miss Bryce, behind them, looked, and screamed, a shrill, unnerving sound in that small space. She might have gone hysterical if Deacon hadn’t taken charge.

‘Miss Bryce,’ he told her firmly, ‘could you please call Mr Selkirk down.’

He had to say it twice before she heard him. Then she nodded, gathering her wits. A woman like Miss Bryce could cope with any crisis if she had a task to do.

‘And when you’ve done that,’ Deacon said, ‘please put the kettle on, for tea. I think we’ll all be needing some.’

He would have sent Jenny off too, but she stayed. She’d had a bad shock, and she wanted the comfort of Deacon’s calm strength. But she stood to one side of the door, where he told her to stand, out of view of the room and the damage inside, while he went in and took a closer look.

She’d thought Roger would be with her father by now, but he hadn’t left yet. He came running. ‘What’s happened? Miss Bryce said that…God.’ He stopped dead, at the door to the office. ‘Oh, God.’ He raised a stricken face to Deacon. ‘I just saw him at lunch. He was fine. Why on earth…?’

‘Jenny, dear,’ Deacon said, coming out of the room, ‘was there anyone with him, this afternoon?’

‘No.’ She was shaking. She folded her arms, but she couldn’t control it. ‘No, he was alone. He stepped outside to have a word with Mr Cayton-Wood a while ago, but only for a moment; after that he didn’t want to be disturbed. But there was no one else here with him. I’d have seen them coming in.’

‘Well, that settles that,’ said Roger. ‘And besides, it looks as though he’s left a note.’

‘Yes, to his wife. There was this, as well,’ Deacon said, taking another long envelope out of his pocket. He gave it to Roger. ‘It’s for Mr Reynolds.’

‘Oughtn’t we to leave that where it was, till the police have been?’

But Deacon’s eyes insisted. ‘Better you deliver it yourself, I think. We wouldn’t want it getting…lost.’