Hand in Glove (20 page)

R O B E R T G O D D A R D

The torch had fallen to his left, the tin had slipped from his grasp. As he tried to rise, he was dazzled by the brilliance of some more powerful torch than his own, then his head was jerked aside by a gloved hand. There was a movement above him, a stumble, an oath, a stooping form faintly discernible, black moving against black, an arcing flash of light, then a scrape of metal on stone. Whoever he was, he wanted the tin and what he must know was inside. And now he had found it.

Frank propped himself up on one elbow and saw the man crouching a few yards away, with something clutched against his chest. It was happening too fast for him to intervene. It was happening and he was losing what he should never have preserved. Cursing his age and his indecision, he began to struggle to his feet. “Stop!” he bellowed.

“Stop, damn you!”

Suddenly he was blind, assailed by white glaring light. He could see nothing and hear less. He tried to turn, to escape for the moment he needed to understand where he and the man and the door were in relation to each other. But it was too late. After all the moments he had frittered away since the letter arrived, another was too much to ask. He knew that. It was the only thing he did know.

Something struck him in the chest with such force that he was thrown backwards off his feet. There was a falling plunging instant, too brief for him to form a single thought beyond the burning shame of his stupidity. Then he hit the wall. And broke through into oblivion.

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ONE

Madrigueras,

29th July 1937

Dear Sis,

Well, I did it, didn’t I? It’s what you suspected I was going to do all along, I know, even though you never said so. But we don’t need to speak in order to communicate, do we? Not you and I. We understand each other. We always have and we always will. Even if sometimes we don’t like what we understand.

The Writers’ Congress was a bigger farce than I’d anticipated, which is saying something. The usual caravanserai of windbags and wineskins swapping insults and exhortations, gesturing with clenched fists and feeble minds. If I hadn’t been planning to enlist when I came out, I think their intellectual posturings would have convinced me I should. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to leave them to it and make the only gesture that means a damn thing in this tortured country. I should have volunteered for the International Brigade last autumn. Would have, but for Mary and the boy. Well, better late than never, I suppose.

I won’t pretend this outfit isn’t amateurish and inefficient.

I certainly won’t claim I’m being adequately trained or am likely to find myself properly armed and equipped when the 138

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time comes to fight. But that isn’t the point, is it? The point is simply to do something—anything—rather than sit idly by and let the Fascists do as they please. All the reasoning—all the temporizing—in the world won’t stop them. Maybe nothing will. I don’t give a lot for our chances and that’s a fact. But at least we have a chance—a fighting chance. It’s the only kind that really matters.

I know what you’ll be thinking. I know because I often think it myself. Am I trying to live—or die—up to Lionel’s example? Am I trying to prove a point to those who reckon I’m just another high-sounding nothing? Well, maybe. Maybe and why the hell not? I’m not Byron or Brooke or Cornford. Not yet, anyway. If I end up being killed out here, it will be a kind of immortality, judging by their examples, but then poets ought to die in battles rather than bathchairs in my opinion!

What do you say to that, Sis? After all, your opinion’s worth more than mine. It always has been, ever since you first planted the idea in my mind. When was that, do you remember? Nine years ago, or ten? A long time, anyway. Too long, some would say, to be living a lie. And I’d agree with them.

Even though the lie has often seemed more like the truth than those burrs to the spirit we call facts. It can’t continue. I know that. But how to end it? How and when? Perhaps by coming here I’m trying to run away from the answer. You wouldn’t have run, I know. You’d have consented to whatever I decided. But you’re stronger than me and you haven’t had to carry this pretence as I have all this time, like an invisible ball and chain round my feet, pulling me back, weighing me down, reminding me that every accolade is hollow, every triumph a defeat in disguise. How apt that my poetic début should have been entitled
Blindfold,
since a blindfold is what my readers have unwittingly worn over the years. I wonder if it will ever be removed.

The boy is the problem, Sis. Maurice Tristram Abberley.

Just four months old and already I feel he’s reproaching me.

Friends, lovers, critics, poets and the whole great gullible reading public were fair game. Even Mary’s starry-eyed trusting nature doesn’t seem to have troubled my conscience. Not half as much, anyway, as having a son who will one day grow to be a man and want to know the truth about his father.

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The truth for the moment is that I’m doing my bit for Spain, for which read the lost cause of socialist brotherhood, and am proud of what I’m doing. Fear, anger, frustration and disillusionment are no doubt queuing up outside even as I write these words, but they haven’t battered down the door yet and, when they do, I can be sure of facing them without feeling like an impostor.

Don’t worry too much about your little brother. Spare any sympathy you have for Mary, who deserves more of it than I do. I shall probably be back sooner than I expect, shame-faced and resentful at the premature end of my preposterous adventure. You can tell me then what a fool I’ve been. Or maybe
I’ll
tell
you
.

I’ll write again as soon as I can.

Much love,

Tristram.

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TWO

Charlotte’s drowsy impression was that the doorbell had been ringing for some time when she finally woke. It was just after seven o’clock according to her alarm clock and therefore too early even for the postman. Clambering from bed and struggling into a dressing-gown, she crossed to the window and parted the curtains, peering out through the gap to see who her caller could possibly be.

It was Frank Griffith. She recognized his Land Rover, parked in the drive, even before she saw him standing below, stabbing impatiently at the bell-push. For an instant, the incongruity of seeing him there overwhelmed her reactions. Then she pulled back the curtains, raised the window and leaned out.

“Frank!”

His head jerked up. As it did so, a white patch of bandaging became visible beneath the rim of his hat, along with a pale smear of 140

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grey stubble on his chin. He looked weary and unkempt. There was a glimmer of something akin to desperation in his eyes.

“What . . . What on earth are you doing here?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Of course not.”

He took a long deep breath, as if to calm himself, then said: “Can I come in?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you inside.”

“Very well. Can you wait while I put some clothes on?”

“I’ll wait.”

She opened the front door to him a few minutes later. At closer quarters, he looked even more ragged and distraught, with dark shadows beneath his eyes and a sheen of perspiration on his face. He had removed his hat and was holding it awkwardly, crumpled in his hands.

The bandage encircled his head and was stained brown with dried blood behind his right ear.

“What’s happened to you?” she asked.

“Not an accident.”

“Then . . . what?”

“You said we could talk inside.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. Come in.”

She stood back and he stepped past her into the hall. As he did so, the thought struck her that he must have started from Hendre Gorfelen well before dawn to have arrived so early.

“Would you like . . . some tea . . . or coffee?”

“Water, if you can spare some.” There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice, but his tone had unquestionably altered since their last meeting. Some of the layers of suspicion had been restored and she could not understand why.

“Come into the kitchen.” She led the way and poured him some water, which he gulped down in three swallows. “Tell me what this is about, Frank. Please.”

“The letters have been stolen.”

“What letters?”

Anger flashed across his face for an instant, then he set his glass down and said: “I didn’t destroy them. You knew that all along.

Didn’t you?”

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“Suspected, yes. Or hoped. But . . . you say they’ve been stolen?”

“I had a visit from Derek Fairfax yesterday.”

“Fairfax? How did he—” As Frank glanced reproachfully at her, she broke off. “I didn’t tell him anything. As God’s my witness.”

He stared at her for a moment, then said: “Fairfax made me realize how foolhardy it was to keep the letters. Last night, I went to fetch them from their hiding-place in the barn. I was going to burn them, as I should have done the day they arrived. But somebody was waiting for me.”

“Who?”

“I never saw their face. They took me by surprise. Threw me against the wall.” He pointed to the bandage round his head. “I must have been knocked out for a few seconds. When I came to, they’d gone. And so had the letters.”

“Oh, God.” Charlotte put her hand to her mouth, struggling to come to terms with what Frank had said. Tristram’s letters existed after all. And were important enough for somebody to resort to violence in attempting to steal them. As perhaps they had before. Looking at Frank, she saw it was not mistrust that had overtaken him, but shame.

Then she noticed the bloodstain on the bandage again. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“No.”

“You must. You may be concussed. At the very least, you should have the wound—”

“There’s no time for that!” he shouted, so loudly that Charlotte fell instantly silent. Then, seeing her shocked reaction, he added:

“I’m sorry. I drove straight here after cleaning myself up.”

“Because you thought I’d arranged the theft?”

Their eyes met and contended for a moment. Then he said: “No.

But I thought you must have told somebody—or led them to believe—that I still had the letters.” As soon as the words were out, Charlotte flushed and looked away, wincing at the thought of how her stupidity could have led to this. “It seems I was right,” said Frank.

“No . . . That is . . . I told Derek Fairfax nothing.”

“Who did, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maurice?”

“Impossible. Besides . . .”

“McKitrick?”

“No. He wouldn’t. They don’t even—” She looked back at Frank, 142

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insisting to herself that she must remain calm and logical. “I told Maurice and Emerson what you’d told me. It’s possible they didn’t believe you’d destroyed the letters. I didn’t myself. As for Derek Fairfax, I’ve no idea how he heard about them.”

“From one of you three.”

“I suppose so. It just doesn’t seem . . .” She shook her head. “Whoever told him, I find it hard to imagine he attacked you.”

“So do I. But somebody did. Somebody who wanted those letters very badly. Fairfax because he thought they might help his brother.

McKitrick because he couldn’t stand to be denied the insight they might give him into Tristram Abberley’s mind.”

“What insight would they give him?”

“One that would wreck his carefully worked out—” Frank stopped abruptly, mouth open, staring straight ahead.

“You read them, then?” Charlotte stepped closer. “What was in them, Frank? What was it Beatrix went to such lengths to hide?”

He looked at her. For a moment, she was sure he meant to tell her.

Then his jaw set in a determined line. “All I want to know is how to find Fairfax and McKitrick.”

“I can’t help you if I don’t understand.”

“What makes you think I understand? If I did, I’d have taken Beatrix at her word and burned . . . burned . . .” The sentence stumbled to a halt and Frank leaned back heavily against the work-top behind him. He had suddenly grown pale. His hand, as he raised it to his temple, was shaking.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t . . . don’t quite . . .” He shook his head and blinked several times. “I’m sorry. I felt dizzy for a moment. But . . . it’s passed now.”

“You need medical attention. Let me drive you to the hospital.”

“No. I have to—” He took a step across the room, then pulled up and bent his head forward, grimacing as if in pain. It was as he began to sway on his feet that Charlotte hurried across to support him.

“You’re going to the hospital. Now.”

“I can’t . . . can’t . . .” The grimace faded. He raised his head and seemed to recover some of his colour. But still he was unsteady, his arm trembling as Charlotte held it. “Oh, God, I wish I was younger.”

“Please let me take you to the hospital, Frank. All this can wait until you’re feeling better.”

“Can it?”

“It’ll have to.”

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She could see the outward signs of his inner turmoil: the twitchings of his face, the darting of his eyes. But she could also sense the sudden weakness that was eroding his resolution. “All right,” he murmured. “Have it your way.”

Charlotte led him out through the door. As they moved slowly down the hall, he shook his head several times and once said “Sorry”

for no particular reason. Charlotte did not reply. She had the impression there was no need, that Frank Griffith’s apology was directed not at her, but at somebody else altogether, somebody who was no longer alive to receive it.

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THREE

Colin Fairfax’s second appearance before the Hastings magistrates was, if anything, more perfunctory than his first. He spoke just once, to confirm his own name. But for his position in the dock, he might otherwise have seemed uninvolved in the proceedings, a mere disgruntled observer of what was in reality another vital stage in his devourement by the law. He resembled the victim of some giant python, swallowed whole and helpless, conscious of his predicament yet aware that his every act of resistance only bears him further down to where the digestive juices wait.

Glancing across at him, Derek reflected on how quickly and easily he had forgotten all he had suffered at this man’s hands over the years. The lies, frauds and deceptions. The ingratitude, mockery and condescension. They did not matter now. They had vanished and taken with them the bluff and bluster beneath which Colin Neville Fairfax, defendant, was simply one more weak and squirming human unable to comprehend his fate. As well as being, of course, Derek’s only brother.

The charges were read. The Crown’s solicitor requested committal, which Albion Dredge did not oppose. A bundle of statements was handed over. Reference was made to seventeen exhibits, namely the stolen items of Tunbridge Ware, which were standing on a side-table.

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