Fault Line - Retail (25 page)

I saw her walk out of the hotel and look around. I didn’t wave or shout. I waited for her to see me, as she soon did. She walked towards me, pushing back her hair as the gentle breeze wafted a few strands across her face. I remembered running my own fingers through her hair, the memory sharp and painful. She was wearing a yellow dress I hadn’t seen before. A gift from Roger, perhaps? It seemed sickeningly probable.

She put on her sunglasses as she reached the steps and started up them. The low sun was bright, true enough. But I knew the glasses weren’t to shield her eyes so much as her soul. Already, she was hiding from me.

‘This is … a surprise,’ she said nervously, stopping a couple of steps below me.

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘How did you find me?’ Her voice was tight, her mouth compressed.

‘How did you find Roger?’

‘It’s not … what you think, Jonathan. Roger and I—’

‘He’s sleeping on the couch, is he? Like the perfect gentleman he is. Like the drongo you said he was.’ I moved down towards her. She flinched. What did she think I was going to do – hit her? Maybe that would have helped both of us. But it wasn’t going to happen. ‘Tell me what it is if it isn’t what I think, Vivien. Tell me that.’

‘I needed to get away. I needed to … clear my head. Roger’s
switching
to History of Art next term. I knew he was spending the summer in Italy preparing for it. I had a standing invitation to join him. When I decided I couldn’t come back to Capri, I …’

‘Ran into Roger’s welcoming arms?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘You’re right. I don’t.’

‘If only you’d come with me.’ She sounded genuinely regretful. ‘If only you’d done as I asked.’

‘You mean it could be you and me in a suite at the Hassler instead of you and Roger?’

‘You and me somewhere. Together. You turned your back on that.’

‘I had to warn Francis, Vivien. I couldn’t just let Strake do his worst.’

‘So, you did warn him, did you?’

‘Yes.’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘I wish you hadn’t. I asked you not to. I pleaded with you not to. Can’t you see what this will mean for me, Jonathan? If you loved me—’

‘I do love you, Vivien. That’s the worst of it.’

‘No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have let me in for all the trouble this is going to cause.’

‘It’s not going to cause you any trouble, actually.’

‘Of course it is. Don’t make it worse by being obtuse.’ Guilt and anger were simmering within her. Somehow, we both felt betrayed. ‘My family will never allow me to forget what I’ve done. It’s all right for you. You can walk away from them.
I
can’t.’

‘Your family know nothing about it.’

‘They soon will. Uncle Francis will—’

‘Uncle Francis is dead.’

Her mouth opened and closed slowly in silent shock. Then she gasped and steadied herself against the parapet. ‘
What?
’

‘A heart attack. Two days ago.’

‘After you …’

‘After I told him about Strake, yes. And after he killed Strake.’

Silence again. Shock and bewilderment. Then: ‘He killed Strake?’

‘Tracked him to a hotel in Naples and shot him. I followed him. I saw the body. Strake’s dead. Francis got clean away with it. But the effort was too much for him.’

‘Oh God.’ The scale of the tragedy was dawning on her. She took off her sunglasses and stared at me. ‘This … This is awful.’

‘Yes. We set something terrible in motion, didn’t we, Vivien? We truly did.’

‘What does Luisa think happened?’

‘I’m not sure. She and Paolo and I are all keeping secrets from each other. But she won’t say anything that might lead the police to connect Francis with Strake’s death. Nor will Paolo. You can be sure of that. So, you’re in the clear.’

‘What did Strake have on Uncle Francis?’

I could have told her then. Maybe I should have told her then. But I couldn’t forgive her for running out on me and letting the loathsome Roger back into her life. I couldn’t forgive her for not being the person I so wanted her to be. ‘I don’t know what Strake had,’ I said. ‘But Francis killed him for it. He wasn’t willing to give in to blackmail.’

‘Does Mother know yet?’

‘Yes. I spoke to Greville. He’s travelling to Capri with your mother and your great-aunt. They might already have arrived, for all I know. You should join them as soon as you can.’

‘Will you come back with me?’

‘What do you think?’

She reached for my hand, but I snatched it away: an instinctive reaction I couldn’t deny and she couldn’t mistake. She wanted me to be her ally again. Her eyes were soft and imploring. She wanted my help. She needed my help. But finding her with Roger had forced me to confront the flaw in her character I’d happily ignored while we were lovers. She cared too much about her dead brother – and their dead father – ever to give enough of herself to me. I could never be central to her life. Neither could Roger, of course, or any other man alive. But that didn’t help. That didn’t solve anything.

‘I’m going home, Vivien. And you’re going to Capri. That’s how it is.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’

‘Yes, it does. We’re going in opposite directions.’

‘You said you loved me.’

‘I do. But you’ve never said you love me. And if you said it now, I wouldn’t be able to believe you.’

‘I’m sorry … about Roger. I …’

‘This has nothing to do with Roger. It doesn’t have much to do with you and me, either. It’s all about your family. Which, as you pointed out, I can walk away from. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Goodbye, Vivien.’

I moved past her then, walked hurriedly down the steps and turned smartly right at the bottom, heading for the entrance to Spagna Metro station. I didn’t look back to see if Vivien was watching me. Part of me yearned still to be standing beside her. But somehow I knew I had to leave. There’d be too much to pretend if I didn’t, too much to forgive and far too much to forget. I had to go. I had to save myself.

Sitting in the cavernous waiting-room that evening at Termini station, with a seat-only ticket for the sleeper to Milan in my pocket, I suspected that if Vivien walked in and asked me to reconsider, I would. I’d go with her to Capri. I’d go with her anywhere. Why not, when she was beautiful and I was penniless and the drunk who’d fallen asleep just along the bench from me smelt of decay and despair? It wouldn’t have been a hard choice.

But she didn’t walk in. The much harder choice I’d already made was the one I was stuck with. The sleeper arrived. And I climbed aboard.

Self-pity and regret weren’t the only feelings I woke to when sallow dawn light seeped through the dirty train window next morning. My neck was stiff and my head was aching. And I knew another decision had to be taken before I left Italy. The letter Luisa had written to the SS in November 1943 was still in my bag. ‘
Give it to Margherita
,’ Francis had said. ‘
She deserves to know
.’ Yes. She did. I could send it to her anonymously and let the consequences take
their
course. She’d recognize her old friend’s handwriting. She’d know who ‘
una patriota
’ was. She’d know the truth at last. The only thing she wouldn’t know was who’d sent the letter to her. But if I waited to post it until I was back in England, there was a risk she’d guess it had come from me. I’d have preferred to delay – to wait until Francis’s funeral was over and his family had dispersed. But I couldn’t afford to. Maybe the notoriously slow Italian postal service would do the delaying for me.

I bought a stamp and an envelope from a
tabaccheria
at Milano Centrale, addressed the envelope carefully in block capitals, put the letter inside and sealed it, then tracked down the post box and stood staring at it for fully five minutes before I lost patience with my own faint-heartedness and thrust the envelope into the slot.

It was done. It was on its way. And so was I.

TWENTY-ONE

THE DRABNESS OF
life in St Austell predictably plunged me into depression. My world was drained of colour and pleasure. I think Mum and Dad were worried I’d been taking mind-altering drugs. It was as useless as it would have been foolhardy to tell them the truth. News of Francis Wren’s death had trickled through to his old home town, but neither my parents nor anyone else – not even Pete Newlove, with his taste for conspiracies – thought anything sinister lay behind it.

I latched on to some old schoolfriends I hadn’t seen a lot of since we’d left the grammar, drank so much I finished a couple of evenings throwing up and behaved badly enough to get chucked out of a disco at the Lido Club. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

I pulled myself together to some degree when I started my summer job at Cornish China Clays. I’d sat up the previous night, sober for once, watching
Apollo XI
land on the Moon. The wonder of the event punctured my self-absorption. It thrilled me, just when I’d convinced myself I could never be thrilled again.

My first day at CCC was also Greville Lashley’s first day back from his trip to Capri. He tracked me down and invited me to lunch at the White Hart on Wednesday. ‘We have lots to talk about,’ he ominously remarked.

According to Pete, Lashley’s seat on the board of CCC and his job title of logistics director didn’t mean he had a long-term future in the organization. ‘They’ll ease him out sooner or later. Just you
wait
and see.’ I had no idea whether he was right or wrong and I didn’t much care. I couldn’t see how the internal politics of CCC concerned me in any way.

I didn’t tell Pete or anyone else on the payroll I’d been to Capri with Vivien. It would have raised a lot of questions I’d have found hard to answer. Most of the staff weren’t much interested in the problems of the Wren family anyway. Walter Wren & Co. were history now. But not the kind of history anyone wanted to study.

Pete claimed to know exactly how much CCC had paid for the company: £475,000. Why Lashley would want to go on working after grabbing the lion’s share of that he couldn’t understand. Neither could I. And I didn’t expect to find out over lunch at the White Hart. But then I wasn’t sure what to expect from the encounter at all. A simple thank you for tracking Vivien down in Rome was my best hope.

Lashley didn’t deal much in simplicity, of course, as I was reminded before my first sip of gin and tonic. ‘Francis’s funeral went off as well as such things can. All the better for your absence, Jonathan, I have to say. You showed admirable common sense in not returning to Capri. You have an old head on young shoulders. It’s a valuable asset. One I’m not about to ignore. Discretion and good judgement. They’re what I look for in people. They’re what I see in you.’

‘That’s very flattering of you, sir.’

‘Not at all. Flattery’s a waste of time. I don’t need to stroke your ego. You can do that for yourself. Cheers.’ He raised his glass and drank. I followed suit. ‘A week at the Villa Orchis would have left me with a good deal to ponder, even without the news that greeted me back here in St Austell.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll come to that in a moment.’ What news, I wondered, could he possibly be referring to? ‘I won’t intrude into your relationship with my stepdaughter. It’s none of my business. As I understand it, the Normington fellow left the scene, but has now re-entered it, much to your chagrin, no doubt.’

‘Well, I—’

‘You bear it well. Better than many a man would. Muriel
approves
of him. I mention that just so you know. There’s a touch of the snob in my wife. No point denying it. Titles impress her.’

‘Titles?’

‘Well, he’s the
Honourable
Roger Normington, isn’t he? Son and heir of Viscount Horncastle. One day he’ll own half of Lincolnshire. Or a quarter. Or whatever it is. Hell of a lot of acres, though, that’s certain. You have met him, I take it?’

‘Yes.’ I swallowed hard. ‘I have.’

‘Enough said, then. More than enough. Let’s get back to poor old Francis. Luisa’s Italian, of course. Tears and wailing are to be expected, though I gather he’d been under the doc on account of his heart for years, so it shouldn’t really have come as a surprise. Still, it was my impression there was a little more to it than met the eye. What was Francis doing in Naples that day? I asked, but no one could tell me. In fact, the question seemed to make them nervous. Verdelli, in particular.’

‘Who?’

‘Paolo Verdelli. The butler, chauffeur, general factotum, or whatever the hell he is.’ To my surprise, I realized this was the first time I’d heard Paolo’s surname. ‘About as forthcoming as a clam. I didn’t warm to him, to put it mildly, and the feeling was evidently mutual. What did you make of him?’

‘I … didn’t have a lot to do with him.’

‘Very wise. He’s a bit too close to Luisa for comfort, if you know what I mean. But that’s her affair, possibly literally.’ He paused to light a cigarette. He offered me one and I accepted. Then he went on: ‘So, can you shed any light on Francis’s trip to Naples, Jonathan?’

‘Er … no. No, I can’t.’

‘But you knew he’d gone?’

‘No. Not exactly. I …’ I did some swift thinking. ‘I went out early that day.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Very early. By the time I got back, he was in hospital and Luisa was on her way to see him.’

‘You don’t think Francis had a mistress tucked away in Naples, do you?’

‘I suppose he might have done. I couldn’t really say. I doubt it, though.’

‘Me too. And he definitely didn’t have an appointment with his cardiologist. Or his lawyer. Or even his dentist.’ Lashley smiled. ‘I checked all three.’

‘Really?’

‘It pays to check, I find. Check everything. That way you avoid unpleasant surprises. Well,
most
unpleasant surprises, at any rate. But not all. No, not quite all, I’m afraid. Which brings us to someone you and I have discussed before: Gordon Strake.’

‘Strake?’ It was vital I acted dumb now. I’d hoped Lashley wouldn’t have heard about Strake’s murder. No one else in St Austell had. (Well, Pete Newlove hadn’t, which I took as a good indicator.) ‘What about him?’

‘You don’t know?’ There was something almost teasing about the tilt of Lashley’s head and the breadth of his smile as he gazed at me through a veil of cigarette smoke. ‘Strake’s dead, Jonathan.’