Rattling the Bones (36 page)
‘Jessica,’ repeated Edna. ‘That’s a nice name. I like that.’
I crept away.
I did go and see Culpeper. I took Ganesh with me for moral support but to be honest there was an element of wanting him to see that extraordinary house. I didn’t just go to hear Culpeper’s thanks; I owed him a sort of apology. Actually I felt pretty embarrassed and sad.
‘Becky and Adam are your grandchildren,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you would really have preferred I’d found out none of this. It must distress you more than any of us could possibly understand. I really am so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault, my dear.’ Culpeper smiled at me and then raised his thin shoulders in a shrug. ‘If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine, all of it. I fell in love with a sixteen-year-old innocent, when I was married and couldn’t be free, and was too selfish to walk away immediately and not let things get out of hand. I ruined Edna’s life. I destroyed my wife’s trust in me. I set up the situation which Adam tried to resolve in his own wrong-headed way. Becky was under the influence of her brother. She’s always been of a malleable character. Wrong-headedness seems a trait in our family.’
He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and gazed from his window down the length of his beautiful garden. ‘You might even say I cost that unfortunate young man his life.’
‘No!’ I interrupted. ‘You’re not responsible for anything that happened to Duane Gardner.’
He turned back to me. ‘Well, even so, I don’t intend to fail Edna again. Thank you for coming to see me.’ He held out his thin, blue-veined hand. ‘It has been very nice to meet you, Mr Patel.’
‘He still wants to believe in his granddaughter,’ said Ganesh as we made our way downstairs. He shook his head. ‘It’s incredible after what she tried to do.’
‘You haven’t met her,’ I said. ‘I have. I hope she gets a woman judge and a nearly all-woman jury. I wouldn’t trust a set of men not to buy the “influenced” theory.’
‘Now, now . . .’ said Ganesh.
‘Still,’ I added, ‘in a funny sort of way Culpeper probably
needs
to believe at least one of his grandchildren wouldn’t cheerfully bump him off. Whatever happens, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Becky eventually worked her way back into his good books, if there’s time and he doesn’t drop off the twig too early. I don’t know about Adam. I don’t think he’ll be forgiven quite so easily.’
Alice met us at the bottom of the stairs and shook our hands. ‘It was a good job you came along that night, after all,’ she said to me graciously.
‘Glad we could save him,’ I replied, biting back the observation that a fat lot of help she’d been, turning up when it was all over.
‘Poor old bloke,’ observed Ganesh with a sigh as we walked out through the opened security gate. ‘Shut up with all those memories making him feel like shit and thinking he’s responsible for everyone’s bad deeds.’
‘He’s got Jessica,’ I said, ‘and with luck he’ll get Edna back again. He’s got a chance to put some things right. It’s not often anyone gets that, a second chance.’
Ganesh and I, with Bonnie at our heels, climbed Primrose Hill again later that day to take in the sunset.
‘
Indices?
’ I asked Ganesh. ‘Who the heck ever says
indices
?’
‘The plural of index is indices.’ Ganesh is like me, obstinate. He never wants to give way.
‘Who cares? No one ever
says
it. They say indexes.’
‘Then they’re wrong. The plural of index is indices, it’s Latin.’
‘No, it isn’t. I looked it up in a dictionary. OK, yes, it
is
from the Latin and there
is
a plural indices, but it isn’t used for books. That’s indexes. The plural indices is only used when the word “index” is being used in one of its other senses.’
‘The Latin language was around long before that dictionary was printed. If Julius Caesar said indices, then it’s still indices.’
‘Nobody goes round talking in Latin any more.’
‘What’s the plural of addendum?’ demanded Ganesh, changing tack.
‘Addenda,’ I admitted.
‘And what’s the plural of erratum?’
‘Give over, Ganesh. I know it’s errata. Have you been reading one of those reference books again? What are you trying for? Brain of Britain?’
‘So the plural of index is indices.’ Ganesh wasn’t sidetracked. ‘You don’t say “erratums” or “addendums”. Why say “indexes”?’
‘Because that’s what people
do
. It’s called usage.’
That’s the nice thing about old friendship. You can wrangle for hours about nothing and it doesn’t matter a jot.
‘
Jot
is from the Greek,’ said Ganesh.
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