Mortal Remains (16 page)

‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘I don’t think it does.’

Marlow frowned.

‘You go in for this kind of thing, don’t you? Sorting things out.’

‘It’s worked out that way, once or twice.’

‘Well, I was shocked about Lomax. Our differences were only academic. Stimulating, really, you know.’

Patrick did.

‘I’ll miss him. And he’s a loss to scholarship. He wasn’t a depressive. Or if he was, it was a new thing. You can’t tell, these days. Lucy Amberley may know about that aspect.’

‘I’d better get up there,’ Patrick said.

‘If you don’t find her, she lives in Berkshire – Hungerford, that’s the place.’

‘Ah, good. If I don’t find her up on Parnassus,’ said Patrick, ‘I’ll look for her in Berkshire.’

Lucy Amberley would have to descend by the Sacred Way and emerge through the main entrance of the sanctuary if she were to rejoin the party from the
Persephone
at their coaches. She would be describing the same route as Vera Hastings, some distance behind. Patrick paid yet another entrance fee and walked fairly rapidly up the first part of the ascent. It would have taken Lucy some time to reach the stadium from the town and it was reasonable to assume she would rest there for a while; the rest of the party had been in the museum for about three-quarters of an hour.

It might be easy to overlook her: smallish, fairish, forty-ish. Why had he never thought that Felix might have a mistress? Now he came to think about it, it was obvious. He and Gwenda had gone their separate ways years before; he must have needed someone; everyone did, though not everyone found what they needed. Patrick was glad that Felix had succeeded, and hoped that he would like the lady.

But perhaps she wasn’t Felix’s mistress. Marlow might have been mistaken.

He stopped frequently as he climbed and looked around for a smallish woman in a lavender dress. The colour caught his eye in the theatre, right up among the highest tiered seats.

He climbed aloft to find the wearer was Japanese. Patrick moved away. There were a number of Japanese sightseers climbing about among the rocks and the dried-up grasses and withered flowers. Most women seemed to be wearing brightly printed fabrics, or white dresses; Marlow had seemed a little vague about Lucy’s dress, though not the colour of her eyes. He was not the sort of man to notice female attire in detail; it would have been wise to have asked one of the women in the group to confirm the description, but it was too late to think of that now.

Patrick came to the stadium. It was very quiet up here; above, the peaks of the Great Ones brooded over the valley. A few people were seated around the vast area of the arena, scene of so many past triumphs. In those days the air must have been full of shrill cries; here the original Charioteer had driven round in glory to the plaudits of the crowd.

Patrick walked along one side of the amphitheatre looking for a lavender dress. What would be the best approach when he found Lucy Amberley? Should he at once reveal the reason for his interest, or should he merely try to pick her up? It wasn’t so outrageous; he would soon be forty-ish himself, he thought glumly.

He soon realised that in fact there were quite a lot of people in the stadium, some seated, some strolling around, some stationary, standing on the great blocks of stone taking photographs. It was only because the area was so vast that they seemed few. He saw several solitary ladies. One was a beefy girl in tight-packed jeans, bra-less under her clinging cotton sweater; she wore huge dark glasses and had tangled curls reaching half-way down her back. Another was elderly, seventy at a guess, with plimsolled feet and panama hat, the guide to Delphi in German in her hand. Various others were scattered about but most people were in pairs or groups. He had not seen Vera Hastings as he came up: by now she was probably reviving herself in the
taverna
below.

He turned to look back at the entrance and saw a distant, solitary figure leaving the arena. Against the light, he could not distinguish the colour she wore, but some instinct told him that this was his quarry; he hastened in pursuit.

On the whole, except when the tourist coaches toot their horns impatiently to summon wayward passengers, people do not move at speed along the winding paths of Parnassus, so he soon caught up with her. Back view, he saw the straw hat, a plain bluey-mauve cotton dress, and rather good legs. He strolled along behind her. She was proceeding slowly, delving in her bag for something. Then she blew her nose, quite hard. It was unexpected in this setting; the dry heat had a dehydrating effect on all bodily functions. Either she had a summer cold, or she was weeping.

She began to move faster, blundering down the steep path; two people brushed against her, coming up: Elsie and George. Patrick had to stop to speak to them. George’s dark, alert face wore an eager look; they had been in the sanctuary for hours. Here was a man who had expected wonders and found that they exceeded all his dreams; Patrick curbed his impatience while they talked. Then the Loukases went on and he continued his descent. By this time, Lucy Amberley had disappeared; she might have wandered from the main path but at least he now knew whom he sought.

He soon saw her under a tree looking down towards the theatre. She was sitting on a stone and tears were pouring silently down her face. Patrick felt himself to be a gross intruder on her grief; he halted, ready to retreat, but he dislodged a stone on the path and she heard him. She started, turned her head away and began mopping operations with her handkerchief.

Patrick hesitated, but he had already disturbed her, so he plunged.

‘Mrs Amberley—I’m sorry—but I knew Felix Lomax,’ he said.

At first, she did not respond. Then she turned and looked at him blankly.

‘I met Giles Marlow just now. He said you were a friend of Felix’s. So was I. My name is Grant. Patrick Grant. We were colleagues.’

She repeated his name.

‘Oh yes. Felix spoke of you,’ she said.

‘Shall I go away?’ He could not bear to see her distress.

‘No—no. It’s all right. I’m being idiotic,’ she said.

He sat down at a little distance from her on the low wall and looked in a different direction, while she regained her self-control. Then he heard her voice.

‘You see, I just don’t understand it. It was such a cruel way to die.’

She sounded calmer, so Patrick turned to face her.

‘I don’t understand it either,’ he said. ‘I wondered why he went to Crete.’

‘So do I,’ she said.

‘He didn’t tell you?’

‘No. He just left a note – he didn’t even say goodbye. He hoped to rejoin us in a few days, when we got back from Turkey. At least by the time we came here, I’d expected.’

Patrick looked round at the towering mountains above them, the steep-sided valley below with the silvered olive trees and the greener pines. She had been here with Felix. An immense pity for her grief filled him.

‘I’ve given myself away. The situation must be obvious to you, Dr Grant,’ she said. ‘Not that it matters now.’

‘I’d no idea,’ he said, inadequately.

She shrugged, and managed a smile.

‘We’d been moderately discreet,’ she said. ‘But that was over. He’d decided to end that charade of a marriage. We’d hoped to get Gwenda to agree to a divorce. But anyway he could have got one eventually.’

‘Did Gwenda know?’

‘Yes. He told her before he came away.’

‘How did she react?’

‘With bitterness.’ Lucy twisted a piece of dried-up grass between her fingers. She had shapely hands. ‘An uncle of Felix’s died in March and left him a lot of money.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Why should you? It was rather a surprise to Felix.’

‘Why didn’t you do it before? Marry, I mean, or at least get together?’

‘He wanted to wait till his daughter was settled. And I have two sons. They’re more or less adult now. Odd as it may seem, we didn’t want to set all the young ones a bad example.’

At least she wouldn’t be totally bereft, if she had two sons. Patrick had tried not to stare at her, but he was curious. In a way she did look ordinary, as Marlow had implied, but her face was marred by her weeping. Her eyes were lovely, though; huge, and of a deep, unusual blue, just like her dress. There was a total lack of affectation about her that was enabling her to get through this unconventional meeting without embarrassment.

‘How good that Felix met you,’ said Patrick, simply, and then, ‘how did it happen?’

‘On one of the cruises. Four years ago.’

It had been easy for them both, aboard the
Persephone.
The next year, she had joined the cruise again. Then Felix had gone on two cruises a year, and so had she.

‘It was idyllic, really, in this sort of setting. It couldn’t last, I suppose,’ she said.

They had spent more and more time together at home. Her cottage in Hungerford was easily reached from Oxford. Had Gwenda known about it before Felix told her?

Talking was doing Lucy good. She must have been putting up a brave front aboard the
Persephone.

‘What about some coffee, or a drink? You need something,’ Patrick said. ‘Shall we go to the
taverna
down the road?’

‘But I’m taking up your time.’

‘You’re not. I’m delighted that we met.’ Should he tell her why he was here? No – or anyway, not yet. ‘I’m staying in Delphi. I’ve plenty of time,’ he said.

‘You’re very kind.’

He wasn’t. He was anxious to get her into a condition where she could stand more questions.

They walked on down the mountain-side together.

‘No wonder Apollo chose this place,’ said Patrick.

‘It’s dramatic, isn’t it? It’s easy to shut one’s eyes and be carried backwards in time. That old oracle must have been rather a witch-like female.’

‘Mm. Full of dope, do you think?’ asked Patrick.

‘Maybe. Anyway the priests interpreted her mutterings. They could have alleged she said anything.’

Some gardeners were at work on the Stoa of the Athenians, chipping away with trowels like those masons use, triangular and pointed. The black-clad women had scarves wound round their heads, wimple-like; they bent low, working slowly in the sunlight, dislodging flowering weeds from the crevices between the stones. One led a laden donkey away.

‘They must have been using trowels like that here for centuries,’ said Lucy.

‘Yes.’ Patrick looked at the women. How patiently they toiled; no modern weedkillers were used here.

‘When do you have to be back at the ship?’ he asked.

‘Oh, not for ages. Four o’clock. There’s another party at Ossios Loukas. I said I’d get a taxi back to Itea.’

They walked down the road and crossed over to the
taverna
on the corner. Below it, the path led first to the gymnasium and then on down to the Tholos. It was cool here, under the shaded roof. Lucy asked for a long, cold drink. She must be tired; she had walked a considerable distance since leaving the coach. Patrick ordered lemonade for both of them.

When their drinks had arrived, and after she had sipped some of hers, he said:

‘I found Felix’s body.’

She did not start or exclaim. She merely looked at him in silence. After a few seconds she said:

‘The papers didn’t mention that. Tell me about it.’

He regarded her gravely. She was quite composed now. The big blue eyes returned his gaze steadily. She had a right to know.

He told her, leaving out the distressing details of Felix’s condition after several days submerged.

‘I’m glad it was you, and not a stranger,’ she said, when he had finished, and he began to wish he had done more: offered to cope with Felix’s papers and seen his body safely on to the plane. ‘Do you think it was an accident?’ she added. ‘The police did, I know.’

He parried this.

‘Do you?’

‘I don’t know what to think. He hated heights.’

‘Yes. But he came here – to Delphi—’

‘He was all right in this sort of place, as long as he didn’t look directly over a precipice. He didn’t like standing high up above the theatre, for example, but he didn’t have to.’ She laughed, a little wryly. ‘He was always the one who stayed below and declaimed something from the stage for everyone else to listen to, above.’

‘You can’t imagine him walking on a cliff top?’

‘Not willingly.’

Patrick plunged.

‘You don’t think he committed suicide, do you?’

‘No. Not for a minute,’ she said, at once. ‘He would never do that.’

Now that he had met Lucy Amberley, any lingering doubts Patrick might have had about that had gone. Felix had a lot to live for. And he hadn’t had a heart attack; his death was caused by drowning.

‘But—what else could explain it?’ she said.

He did not answer.

‘Someone—might have pushed him?’ She could hardly utter it.

‘I don’t know. I don’t see how they got him up on the top of the cliff in the first place. And who would want to do it?’ Patrick said. ‘But why did he go to Crete? If we knew that, we might be able to find out more.’

Lucy was shaken by the new idea but she made an effort to absorb it calmly.

‘I asked, in the ship,’ she said. ‘You know – if he’d mentioned anything to anyone. We’d all flown out that morning. Then he’d taken a party on a quick tour round Venice. I went aboard and got settled in – I’d been on Felix’s lightning tours before – a sprint round the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s, then the Bridge of Sighs.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘We intended to spend a week there after the cruise.’

‘He must have had a message,’ said Patrick. ‘Someone must have cabled him.’

‘They thought that, on board. But there was no trace of any cable. They’d have known, in the ship. Everyone thought he must have been sent for from home.’

Gwenda: had she wired him to meet her? But why in Crete? He’d inherited money and planned to leave her.

‘Had he made a will recently?’Patrick demanded.

Lucy looked shocked.

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ she said. Then she realised what he was thinking. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Never.’