Original Sin (16 page)

“You can when Innocent House is sold. Once the contracts are exchanged you can raise a million or so. With my shares you’ll have a permanent overall majority. That will
give you absolute power. It’s worth paying for. I’ll stay on in the firm but with fewer shares, or none.”

He said quietly: “It’s certainly worth thinking about, but not now. And I can’t use the money from the sale. That belongs to the partnership. I’ll need it anyway for the relocation and my other plans. But you could raise it. You could raise £350,000. If I can, so can you.”

“Not as easily. Not without a great deal of trouble and delay. And I need it urgently. I need it by the end of the month.”

“What for? What are you going to do?”

“Invest in the antique business with Declan Cartwright. He’s got the chance of buying the business from old Simon: £350,000 for the four-storey freehold property and all stock. It’s a very good price. The old man’s devoted to him and would prefer him to have the business, but he can’t wait to sell. He’s old, he’s sick and he’s in a hurry.”

“Cartwright’s a pretty boy, but at £350,000, isn’t he pricing himself rather high?”

“I’m not a fool. The money isn’t going to be handed over. It will still be my money invested in a joint business. Declan isn’t a fool either. He knows what he’s doing.”

“You’re thinking of marrying him, are you?”

“I may do. Does it surprise you?”

“It does rather.” He added: “I think you’re fonder of him than he is of you. That’s always dangerous.”

“Oh, it’s more equal than you think. He feels as much for me as he’s capable of feeling, and I feel as much for him as I’m capable of feeling. Our capacities for feeling are unequal, that’s all. We both give the other what we have to give.”

“So you propose to buy him?”

“Isn’t that how you and I have always got what we wanted, by buying it? And what about you and Lucinda? Are you so sure
you’re doing the right thing—for you I mean? I’m not worried about her. I’m not deceived by that air of virtuous fragility. She can take care of herself all right. Anyway, her class always do.”

“I mean to marry her.”

“Well you needn’t sound so belligerent over it. No one’s trying to stop you. Incidentally, are you proposing to tell her the truth about yourself—about us? More to the point, are you going to tell her family?”

“I shall answer reasonable questions. So far they haven’t asked any, reasonable or unreasonable. We aren’t in the age, thank God, when fathers are asked for their consent and fiancés have to produce some evidence of moral fitness and financial probity. Anyway, there’s only her brother. He seems to assume I have a house for her to live in and enough money to keep her in reasonable comfort.”

“But you haven’t a house, have you? I can’t see her living in the Barbican flat. Nothing like enough room.”

“I think she rather fancies Hampshire. Anyway, we can discuss that nearer the date of the wedding. I shall keep on the Barbican flat. It’s handy for the office.”

“Well, I hope it works out. Frankly I give Declan and me the better chance of the two. We don’t confuse sex with love. And you may not find this marriage easy to get out of. She’ll probably develop religious scruples about divorce. Anyway divorce is vulgar, messy and expensive. OK, she couldn’t prevent it after two years of separation but they’d be very uncomfortable years. You wouldn’t enjoy public failure.”

“I’m not even married. It’s a bit early to start deciding how I’m going to cope with failure. It won’t fail.”

“Frankly, Gerard, I don’t see what you expect to get out of it, except a beautiful wife eighteen years younger than you.”

“Most people would think that was enough.”

“Only the naïve. It’s a recipe for disaster. You aren’t royal, you don’t have to marry a totally unsuitable virgin just to continue a dynasty. Or is that what this is all about, founding a family? Yes, I believe it is. You’ve turned conventional in middle age. You want a settled life, children.”

“That seems the most sensible reason for marriage. Some might say the only sensible reason.”

“You’ve had enough of playing the field so now you’re looking for a young, beautiful and preferably well-born virgin. Frankly, I think you’d have been better off with Frances.”

“That was never a possibility.”

“It was for her. I can see how it happened, of course. Here’s a virgin of nearly thirty obviously wanting sexual experience and who better to provide it than my clever little brother. But it was a mistake. You’ve made an enemy of James de Witt and you can’t afford that.”

“He’s never spoken to me about it.”

“Of course he hasn’t. That isn’t how James operates. He’s a doer not a talker. A word of advice. Don’t stand too near the balcony of the upper storeys of Innocent House. One violent death in this house is enough.”

He said calmly: “Thank you for the warning, but I’m not sure James de Witt would be the chief suspect. After all, if anything happens to me before I marry and make a new will, you’ll get my shares, my flat and my life-assurance money. You can buy quite a lot of antiques for the best part of two and a half million.”

Claudia was at the door when he spoke again, coolly and without looking up from his paper.

“By the way, the office menace has struck again.”

Claudia turned and said sharply: “What do you mean? How? When?”

“This afternoon, at twelve-thirty to be precise. Someone sent a fax from here to Better Books in Cambridge cancelling Carling’s signing. She arrived to find the advertisements taken down, the table and chair removed, the hopefuls turned away and most of the books relegated to the back office. Apparently she was incandescent with rage. I rather wish I’d been there to see it.”

“Christ! When did you learn this?”

“Her agent, Velma Pitt-Cowley, rang me at two forty-five when I got back from lunch. She’d been trying to reach me since one-thirty. Carling telephoned her from the shop.”

“And you’ve kept quiet about it until now?”

“I’ve had more important things to do this afternoon than swan round the office asking people for alibis. Anyway, that’s your job, but I shouldn’t make too much of it. I’ve a good idea this time who was responsible. It’s of small importance anyway.”

Claudia said grimly: “Not to Esmé Carling. You can dislike her, despise her or pity her but don’t underestimate her. She could prove a more dangerous enemy than you imagine.”

The upstairs room at the Connaught Arms off Waterloo Road was crowded. Matt Bayliss, the licensee, had no doubt about the success of the poetry reading. Already by nine o’clock the bar takings were well up for a Thursday night. The small upstairs room was normally used for lunches—there was little demand for hot dinners at the Connaught Arms—but was also available for the occasional function and it was his brother, who worked for an arts organization, who had persuaded him to cater for the Thursday night event. The plan was for a number of published poets to read their works interposed with readings by any amateurs who cared to take part. A fee of £1 a head had been charged and Matt had set up a cash wine bar at the back of the room. He had no idea that poetry was so popular or that so many of his regulars had ambitions to express themselves in verse. The initial sale of tickets had been satisfactory but there was a steady stream of late arrivals, and people from the bar, hearing of the entertainment overhead, were making their way up the narrow staircase, tankards in hand.

Colin’s enthusiasms were varied and fashionable: Black Art, Women’s Art, Gay Art, Commonwealth Art, Accessible Art, Innovative Art, Art for the People. This event was billed as Poetry for the People. Matt’s personal interest was in beer for the people, but he had seen no reason why the two enthusiasms should not be profitably combined. Colin’s ambition was to make the Connaught Arms a recognized centre for contemporary verse–speaking and a public platform for new poets. Matt, watching his relief barman busily opening bottles of Californian red, discovered in himself an unexpected interest in contemporary culture. He came up from the saloon bar from time to time to sample the entertainment. The verses were to him largely incomprehensible; certainly very few either rhymed or had a discernible metre, which was his definition of poetry; but all were enthusiastically applauded. As most of the amateur poets and the audience smoked, the stagnant air was heavy with the fumes of beer and tobacco.

The advertised star of the evening was Gabriel Dauntsey. He had asked to go on early but most of the poets before him had overstepped their time limits, the amateurs in particular not being susceptible to Colin’s muttered hints, and it was nearly 9.30 before Dauntsey made his slow way to the rostrum. He was listened to in a respectful silence and loudly applauded, but Matt guessed that his poems of a war which, for the great majority of those present, was now history, had little relevance to their current preoccupations. Afterwards Colin had pushed his way through the throng to reach him.

“Do you really have to leave? A few of us are thinking of going out for a meal afterwards.”

“I’m sorry, it will be too late for me. Where can I get a taxi?”

“Matt here could ring, but you’ll probably get one quicker by walking to Waterloo Road.”

He had slipped away almost unnoticed and unthanked, leaving Matt feeling that somehow they had done badly by the old man.

He was hardly out of the door when an elderly couple came up to him at the bar. The man said: “Has Gabriel Dauntsey gone? My wife has a first edition of his poems which she’d love him to sign. We can’t see him anywhere upstairs.”

Matt said: “Have you got a car?”

“Parked about three blocks away. It’s the nearest we could get.”

“Well he’s only just left. He’s on foot. If you hurry you could catch him up. You’ll probably miss him if you wait to go for the car.”

Hurriedly they left, the woman, book in hand, eager-eyed.

Within three minutes they were back. Across the bar Matt could see them coming in through the door, supporting Gabriel Dauntsey between them. He was holding a bloodstained handkerchief to his brow. Matt made his way across to them.

“What’s happened?”

The woman, obviously shaken, said: “He’s been mugged. Three men, two black and one white. They were bending over him, but ran off when they saw us. They got his wallet, though.”

The man looked round for a vacant chair and settled Dauntsey into it. “We’d better ring the police and an ambulance.”

Dauntsey’s voice was stronger than Matt had expected. “No, no. I’m all right. I don’t want either. It’s only a graze where I fell.”

Matt looked at him, undecided. He seemed more shaken than hurt. And what was the point of ringing the police? They didn’t have a chance of catching the muggers and this would only be one more minor crime to add to their statistics of crimes reported but unsolved. Matt, while a strong supporter
of the police, preferred on the whole not to see them too frequently in his bar.

The woman looked at her husband then said firmly: “We have to pass St. Thomas’s Hospital. We’ll take him to the casualty department. That would be the wisest plan.”

Dauntsey, apparently, was to have no say in the matter.

They want to get rid of the responsibility as soon as possible, thought Matt, and he didn’t blame them. After they had left he made his way upstairs to check on the supply of wine and noticed on a table by the door a pile of slim volumes. He felt a spurt of pity for Gabriel Dauntsey. The poor devil hadn’t even waited to sign his books. But perhaps that was just as well. It would have been embarrassing for everyone if he hadn’t made a sale.

On the following morning, Friday 15 October, Blackie awoke to a weight of apprehension. Her first conscious thought was dread of the day and what might lie ahead. She put on her dressing gown and went down to make the morning tea, wondering whether to wake Joan with the complaint that she had a headache, that she didn’t think she’d go into the office today, asking Joan to telephone later with her regrets and promises to be back on Monday. She thrust the temptation aside. Monday would come only too quickly, bringing with it an even heavier weight of anxiety. And not to appear today would look suspicious. Everyone knew that she didn’t take days off, that she was never ill. She must go in to work as if this was just an ordinary day.

She could eat no breakfast. Even the thought of eggs and bacon made her nauseous and the first spoonful of cereal clogged her mouth. At the station she bought her usual
Daily Telegraph
but clutched it unopened during the journey, staring out at the flashing kaleidoscope of the Kent suburbs with unseeing eyes.

The launch was five minutes late starting off from Charing Cross pier. Mr. de Witt, usually so punctual, came running down the ramp just as Fred Bowling was deciding that he had to cast off.

Mr. de Witt said briefly, “Sorry everyone, I overslept. Good of you to wait. I thought I’d have to take the second boat.”

They were all there now, the usual first boatload: Mr. de Witt, herself, Maggie FitzGerald and Amy Holden from publicity, Mr. Elton from rights and Ken from the warehouse. Blackie took her usual seat in the prow. She would have liked to have removed herself to the stern and sit alone, but that too might have looked suspicious. It seemed that she was abnormally conscious of her every word and action, as if she were already under interrogation. She heard James de Witt tell the others that Miss Frances had rung him late the previous night to tell him that Mr. Dauntsey had been mugged. It had happened after his poetry reading. He had been quickly found by two people who had been at the pub and who had taken him to the casualty department at St. Thomas’s Hospital. He had suffered more from shock than from the mugging and was all right now. Blackie didn’t comment. This was just one more minor mishap, one more piece of bad luck. It seemed unimportant compared to the dragging weight of her own anxiety.

Usually she enjoyed the river trip. She had done it now for over twenty-five years and it had never lost its fascination. But today all the familiar landmarks seemed no more than stage-posts on the journey to disaster: the elegant ironwork of Blackfriars Railway Bridge; Southwark Bridge with the steps on Southwark Causeway from which Christopher Wren was rowed across the river when he supervised the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral; London Bridge where once the heads of traitors were displayed on spikes at either end; Traitor’s Gate,
green with algae and weed; Dead Man’s Hole under Tower Bridge where, by tradition, the ashes of the dead were scattered outside the city boundaries; Tower Bridge itself, the white and pale blue of the high walkway with its gleaming gold-tipped badge; HMS
Belfast
in its Atlantic colours. She saw them all with uncaring eyes. She told herself that this anxiety was ridiculous and unnecessary. She had only one small cause for guilt which perhaps, after all, wasn’t really so important or so blameworthy. She had only to keep her nerve and all would be well. But her anxiety, which now amounted to active fear, grew stronger with every minute which brought her closer to Innocent House and it seemed to her that her mood infected the rest of the group. Mr. de Witt usually sat in silence, often reading, on the river journey, but the girls were usually cheerful chatterers. This morning all of them fell into silence as the launch slowly rocked to its usual mooring ring to the right of the steps.