Death of a Friend (25 page)

‘We all want you to stay – you know that, don’t you?’

Richmond had intercepted Nev as he strolled aimlessly away from Nina’s grave, apparently headed for the orchard up the hill from the house. Now he walked alongside him. ‘You shouldn’t feel in the way or anything.’

Nev ran a long-fingered hand through his limp hair, which was no longer tied back in its ponytail. From the back he looked sexless, hermaphrodite, a figure designed to confuse. ‘I don’t know,’ he said feebly. ‘I’m no good at all this. I thought with you and Martha and Alexis, they’d barely notice if I was here or not.’

‘You’re their father,’ said Richmond irritably. ‘What did you expect?’

‘I expected to stay for a bit, make sure they’d got all they needed, make my peace with Nina – and be off again.’ He looked out at the dips and rises of the crumpled Devon landscape and shook his head. ‘I can’t stay here – it’s too enclosed, too insular. I remember my father calling it
pusillanimous
. I must be more like him that I thought, because I can see exactly what he meant. Small-minded, stuck in the past – oh, hell, I’m sorry Richmond. I don’t expect you to see it like that. I’m the one with the problem.’

‘You and your sons,’ Richmond reminded him sternly. ‘If you leave them now, I doubt if they’ll ever forgive you. Or Nina.’

‘What’s it got to do with Nina?’

Richmond scratched his head. ‘I don’t suppose anybody told you what Hugh said at the funeral?’ Nev shook his head. ‘He said she was a pretty useless mother, and he made a list of the things she did that annoyed him. One of them was neglecting you so you went off abroad all the time. What I’m saying, I suppose, is that they’ve idolised you to the point where nothing you do is really your fault. Martha tells me it’s quite common. They daren’t even
think
bad things about you in case it makes you disappear again.’

‘Thanks very much,’ said Nev gloomily. ‘You’re
telling me I’ve got to stay here then, are you? Until Clem’s eighteen?’

‘That would be the idea, yes. But I imagine they’d settle for a guaranteed six months to start with. You know,’ he continued, leading their footsteps to an even more remote corner of the orchard and glancing down at the house as if to check they weren’t being overheard, ‘Martha and I would have been happy to raise them as our own. And so would Charlie and Alexis. I heard Charlie say to them, the day after Nina died, that they could always rely on him; that he’d be honoured to stand in for you, whenever you were away.’

‘
Honoured
? Pompous bastard,’ Nev laughed bitterly. ‘And what did the boys say to that?’

‘Clem seemed rather pleased, I thought. But Hugh took a step back, very stiff, and said he already had a perfectly adequate father, thank you very much. I was surprised, to be honest. They both seemed fond enough of Charlie when he was around, though Martha tells me I’m blind and deaf to how anyone’s feeling, most of the time. Anyway, I suppose it was bad timing on Charlie’s part, talking like that when they’d just lost their mother.’

‘Kids are lousy judges of character,’ Nev said ruefully. ‘Charlie would have made a far better dad to them than I’m ever going to.’

Richmond snorted in wordless agreement.

‘They’ve got my ma of course,’ Nev continued, after a pause. ‘She adores them. Clem looks a lot like my dad, which helps. She’d never admit it, but she did love the silly old sod. Pity he pegged out when he did.’

‘You would never guess,’ Richmond remarked. ‘She seems entirely self-sufficient to me.’

‘She knew it would happen; I guess she’d prepared herself. He was sixty when I was born. I only knew him as an old man.’

Richmond had never known Sir Reginald Nesbitt. He seemed to have been forgotten by everyone except his much younger widow, in the years since his death. His knighthood was a reward for being involved in some vague capacity with the Queen’s horses. Richmond seldom remembered that Hermione was officially Lady Nesbitt.

‘Anyway,’ said Nev, ‘thanks for the reassurance that my being here isn’t a problem. To be honest, I never thought it was. But I appreciate the hospitality – if that’s the right word.’

Richmond’s smile was sour. ‘This is your home,’ he said. ‘When it comes right down to it, I’ve got no bigger claim to live here than you have. We’re both appendages to the real owners.’

‘Except that in my case I’m the appendage of a dead owner. That might make a difference.’
Nev’s words echoed the same sourness and the men exchanged a look that acknowledged their shared status.

‘I don’t expect it does,’ said Richmond.

Nobody at High Copse had bothered about it being Good Friday. Martha doubted whether the boys had much idea of what it signified, or even knew that it was the appropriate day on which to eat hot cross buns, since they were now available in the shops all the year round. The wholesale abandonment of Christian teaching in both the comprehensive and the primary school seemed to have happened more by inertia than from any American-style disconnection between Church and State. Morning assembly had grown too unwieldy to conduct properly any more, the timetable too crowded to permit a lengthy gathering with a hymn and a reading and a short homily from the Head. Martha found this obscurely offensive, but Nina had been dismissive when she expressed her misgivings. She saw no problem in the fact that her sons barely knew a single hymn and had virtually no knowledge of the contents of the Bible.

‘A good thing too,’ she had laughed. ‘They can pick it up for themselves later if they’re interested. I can’t see that all that indoctrination ever did us any good.’

Martha had struggled to explain. ‘It’s not just indoctrination,’ she’d argued. ‘It’s culturally impoverishing if they don’t know about Balaam’s ass and the miraculous draught of fishes, the burning bush and the fall of the walls of Jericho. They won’t get the allusions to all sorts of things. It’s like losing a great area of common knowledge. Like being brain damaged.’ Her passion had surprised them both.

But Nina had merely shrugged. ‘There’s not much we can do about it. Personally, I’d be happy for them to grow up as pagans, knowing all they can about the natural environment. That’s where kids these days are dysfunctional. Most of them barely know that milk comes from cows or whether a thrush is a bird or a piece of a car engine.’

The boys did, at any rate, have a sound awareness of Easter eggs. They were confident of receiving one large contribution each from Martha, Alexis and Nev and an even larger one from Hermione. Martha had caught snatches of their discussion as to where they should keep the chocolate safe from marauding dogs, ruefully recollecting the year when one of the collies had consumed four whole eggs one Easter morning, and been lavishly sick as a result.

Martha was in an odd mood on this particular Good Friday, a day when you had to work hard
not to entertain thoughts of death and cruelty, regardless of your Christian credentials. If two of the best-loved people in your life had just died prematurely, you stood no chance of remaining positive. The police hunt for Charlie’s killer seemed to be happening invisibly, if it was happening at all. Alexis had become silent and withdrawn. Richmond was being maddeningly hearty and the boys were inscrutable. Martha felt lonely and frustrated and aware of a growing sense of foreboding.

When Lilah Beardon phoned in the late afternoon and told her that Bill Gratton had died, Martha’s first reaction was one of sardonic amusement. ‘He chose a great day for it,’ she said.

Lilah’s inarticulate gasp of shocked surprise partially restored Martha to her senses. ‘I’ll tell Alexis,’ she said weakly. ‘She knew Hannah and Bill much better than I did.’

People were slowly assembling at High Copse, in the expectation of a meal of some kind, at about half past five. Without pausing to assess who was within earshot, Martha blurted out: ‘Lilah phoned. She says Bill Gratton’s dead.’

‘Bill?’ said Alexis with a frown. ‘You mean Charlie’s dad?’

Richmond muttered, ‘That’s the third one, then,’ with something like relief.

Nev, walking into the room hand in hand with
Clem, looked round at the faces. ‘What’s up?’ he demanded.

Nobody answered him at first. Then Martha remembered how close he had been to Charlie, how Hermione had been best friend to Charlie’s mother, Bill’s wife. Nev might have more feelings for Bill than any of them. She spoke haltingly. ‘Bill Gratton died today. He had another stroke, they think. I don’t know any details.’

‘Another Quaker bites the dust,’ said Alexis harshly. ‘They must be wondering what they did to deserve all this.’ Then her face softened. ‘Poor Hannah. She must be totally flattened. Somebody should be looking after her.’ She paused. ‘But who, I wonder?’

Nev still hadn’t said anything. When Martha looked at him again she saw bewilderment and pain on his face, and a more intense pain on Clem’s small features. ‘Nev!’ she said sharply. ‘You’re crushing his hand.’

Quickly the man dropped his son’s fingers. ‘Why didn’t you say?’ he asked. The little boy shook his head and forced a smile.

‘It’s okay,’ he said stoically.

‘It’s a holocaust,’ said Nev. ‘Or a madhouse. I can’t cope with it. I don’t belong here.’ He looked wildly round at the faces watching him. As his eyes circled the room, he caught sight of his elder son in the doorway, watching him from
the shadows. ‘Hugh!’ he gasped, as if guilty – or afraid.

‘What’s he talking about?’ Hugh asked Martha calmly. ‘Why’s everyone looking so peculiar?’

‘Charlie’s father died,’ Martha told him. ‘Nev used to know him, when he was little. He was quite old and had a stroke. It’s very sad for poor Hannah, everything happening at once like this.’

‘Oh. Right,’ said Hugh carelessly. ‘Is supper ready yet?’

Nev laughed harshly. ‘That’s right, son, keep things in proportion. Little monster.’

Simultaneously, Martha and Alexis protested and moved towards the boy, as if to prevent him from hearing the words. But Hugh showed no sign of distress at the comment. He simply gazed dispassionately at his father for a moment and then went to the sink to wash his hands. Martha, still preoccupied with echoes of Good Friday and the New Testament stories, couldn’t suppress a snort at the gesture. Hugh made rather a good Pontius Pilate, she thought.

Val’s voice was shaking as she passed on the news of Bill’s death to Polly that evening. Alexis had called, wondering whether the Quaker grapevine might have got there first. Evidently, it had not. ‘Will somebody from the Meeting look after Hannah?’ she wanted to know. Val had made
some vague assurance and curtailed the call.

Her nervousness now was as much to do with the rift between herself and Polly as with the import of the news. In some ways she was glad to have an unimpeachable excuse to make the call.

‘It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy,’ Polly responded. ‘I know these things are meant to go in threes, but who’s to say it’ll stop at Bill?’ Val could hear from the tone that Polly too was glad the phone call had been made.

‘Steady on!’ she protested. ‘Don’t go all superstitious on me. All that’s happened is that there’s been one accident, one violent death and one old man with a stroke. If I’ve got it right, that tall detective chap was actually
there
when Bill died … And he was there when Nina died, as well. Heavens!’ She was suddenly almost hysterical. ‘You don’t think
he’s
behind them all, do you?’

‘Don’t be silly. Calm down and tell me the whole thing from the beginning.’

‘I don’t know the whole story. It’s been passed down a long line like Chinese whispers. There’s a girl called Lilah, who knows Martha Cattermole – Nina’s sister …’

‘Yes, yes, I know who Lilah is.’

‘Good. Well Lilah phoned Alexis, thinking she’d want to know, because of Charlie, and
because she was fond of Hannah and Bill. Apparently Charlie’s brother Frank was involved. Although that part’s the most confused of all. There was some trouble centred on Frank and the police were called.’

Polly’s voice rose. ‘But what should we
do
about it?’

‘Poll, just listen a minute. There’s more going on here than either of us fully understands. Lilah warned Alexis and Martha that we should all tread very carefully. There’s something behind the scenes that isn’t for public consumption. There are veiled hints and long silences. I suppose there’s some nasty truth yet to come out – there has to be, seeing that Charlie was murdered. Meanwhile, we have to think about Bill and Hannah. I don’t know how many people from Meeting will have heard about it. It only happened this morning.’

‘We can’t do very much today, surely?’

‘I s’pose not.’

‘Tomorrow, then?’ There was a breathy pause, then, ‘Val? Can I come round?’ The little-girl voice was both irritating and seductive. Val felt a familiar twitch in her groin. She knew that in the end Polly would overcome her hesitancy and there would be an explosive union. It had been inevitable all along, despite Val’s energetic denials to Den. The game had begun two long
years ago, and there was no longer much choice about seeing it through to the final whistle.

‘All right, come round,’ she said, as the twitch turned into a steady throb.

Den had not told Lilah the precise nature of Hannah’s revelation when he phoned her just before the afternoon milking. ‘You might want to give them a call at High Copse,’ he suggested. ‘I don’t want them to hear it from me.’

She hadn’t asked for an explanation, but he had added something vague about treading on sensitivities. He was being as diplomatic as he knew how, where Lilah was concerned. She had reproached him, more than once, with being unnecessarily reticent about police matters, arguing that it couldn’t all be confidential. ‘Anyway, I won’t tell anybody,’ she insisted. ‘Couples shouldn’t have secrets.’

‘It’s not “having secrets” – not the way you mean. It’s being professional. You’ve got to be mature enough to live with that.’

She hadn’t liked that, and ever since he’d done his best to make up for it. The subject recurred almost every week. ‘I can cope with the dark stuff, you know,’ she said. ‘I know more about life and death than you do. I’ve seen as much of them both as you have.’