Recalled to Life (7 page)

'Meanwhile my father claimed he had been tempted by the fine moonlit night to walk further than he intended. He took no heed of time, except that he heard the stable clock strike midnight not too long after he set out on his perambulations. This clock, incidentally, had - presumably still has - the loudest bell I've heard outside Westminster. Mickledore through long usage was untroubled by it, but weekends of haggard faces over the breakfast table had finally persuaded him to fit a device which switched the chimes off between midnight and eight
A.M.
So, it wasn't till he got back to the house that my father, who never wore a watch on the grounds that
he
made time work for
him
, was able to confirm that it was after one.

'He met Mickledore and Partridge coming out of the billiard room. Mickledore, who'd sent Gilchrist, his butler, to bed after dinner, went off to check the house was secure, while the other two went upstairs together.

'Outside Partridge's bedroom they paused to finish off their conversation. Mickledore appeared at the far end of the same corridor, having ascended the side stairs, and opened the outer door of the gunroom. After a few moments he approached them, looking concerned. The key to the inner door was not in its customary place on the ledge. He had his own personal key, of course, but when he tried to use this, it would not go far enough into the hole to turn, and when he peered through the keyhole, he could see another key already in the lock from the inside.

'The other two went with him to the gunroom to check. Mickledore was right. They could see the key quite clearly. Back along the corridor Jessica Partridge emerged to ask what all the row was, in tones loud enough to rouse my mother. Scott Rampling appeared on his way to bed. Soon they were all gathered outside the gunroom, all except the Westropps. Mickledore went and banged on their door but had to go in through the dressing-room before he could rouse Westropp. It took some time to penetrate his alcoholic torpor, but when he realized his wife was the only person on the guest floor unaccounted for, he flung himself against the gunroom door in a vain effort to break it down. But his efforts must at least have loosened the key in the inner lock, for now when he seized Mickledore's key and thrust it into the hole, he was able to turn it and the door swung slowly open . . .'

The phone shrilled like an owl in a haunted tower. Pascoe, startled as if he too had been dragged from deep sleep, grabbed it, said, 'Hello, this is . . .' and couldn't remember his number.

'Peter, are you all right?' It was Ellie's voice, close and concerned.

'Yes, fine. Hang on.' He switched off the tape. 'Sorry, I was listening to something. How's things? How's your mum? Your dad? Rosie?'

'Rosie's fine. I tried to ring earlier so she could have a talk to you, but I couldn't be bothered to talk to that bloody machine. She's asleep now. If you ever get home early enough, maybe you could ring . . .'

He could sense the effort not to sound reproving.

He said, 'Of course I will, I promise. And your mum, how's she?'

There was a silence. He said, 'Hello? You still there?'

'Yes. She's . . . Oh, Peter, I'm so worried . . .'

'Why? What's happened?'

'Nothing really . . . except . . . Peter, I'm terrified it's all happening again. I thought it was just physical, you know, the strain of looking after Dad, and she's always had these circulatory problems, and the arthritis, and I thought that once things settled down . . . Well, in herself, physically I mean, she doesn't seem too bad . . . but she's started forgetting things . . . she'd forgotten we were coming though we'd just spoken on the phone that morning . . . and this morning I heard her calling Rosie Ellie . . .'

That can happen to anyone,' said Pascoe confidently. 'I've done it myself. As for forgetting things like phone calls, if I don't make a note of everything instantly, that's it, gone for ever.'

The silence again. Then: 'I hope you're right. Maybe I'm over-sensitive because of Dad.'

That's right. Have you seen him?'

'I went today. I'd forgotten how awful it is, looking into a face you know, being looked at by eyes that don't know you ... I came out feeling like ... I don't know . . . like it was all my fault somehow . . .'

'For God's sake! How do you work that out?' demanded Pascoe, dismayed to hear such fragile uncertainty in her voice.

'I don't know . . . using them as an excuse, maybe . . . that's what I've done, isn't it? Saying I thought I should come down here for a few days because I wanted to make sure Mum was coping . . . doing the concerned daughter bit when all I was really looking for was a place to lie low . . . like getting out of something by saying you've got the 'flu, then really getting the 'flu like it was a judgement, only far worse . . . not thinking about her at all really . . .'

'Well, let's think about her now, shall we?' said Pascoe sharply.

Again silence, the longest yet. Her voice was calmer when she finally spoke.

'So I'm doing it again, you reckon? Getting in the spot-light instead of sticking to my bit part. Yes, you could be right.'

'Forget right,' said Pascoe. 'Only in this case, maybe you should just go for best-supporting-actress for a while. Look, why not get your mum to come up here for a while? Or I could steal a couple of days' leave and come down there.'

She thought for a while, then said, 'No. Mum wouldn't come, I know that. Remember I tried to get her away after Dad went into the home and she wouldn't budge. She knows it's hopeless but she thinks she's got to stay close.'

'So, shall I come down?'

'Peter, believe me, I'm tempted, but I don't want to get things all mussed up together. I've used them once as an excuse to get away and I don't want to find I'm using them as an excuse again to step back . . . Look, I know I'm putting this badly but we both know we've reached an edge, OK, so it's dangerous, but at least the view is clear . . . God, even my metaphors are . . . what's the opposite of euphemistic? Look, I'd better go now. I can promise Rosie you'll ring early enough to speak to her, can I?'

'Cross my heart and hope to die,' said Pascoe. 'Take care. Love to your mum. And Rosie. And you.'

'Peter, Christ, I'm a selfish cow, this has been all about me and I've not asked anything about you, how you're coping, what you're eating, all the wifely things. You're not living off those dreadful pies at the Black Bull, are you? You'll end up like Fat Andy. Incidentally, I see they've released that poor woman your mob fitted up nearly thirty years ago.
Plus ca change
and all that.'

'Plus
c
a change
,' echoed Pascoe. 'I'll prepare answers to satisfy your wifely curiosities next time. After I've finished eating this pie. Good night, love.'

He put the phone down. His mind was wriggling with thoughts like an angler's bait tin. He poured a long Scotch and took it out into the garden where he watched scallopedged clouds drift across the evening sky like thought bubbles in some divine cartoon, but he couldn't read the message.

Old troubles, other people's troubles, were better than this.

He went back inside, ran the cassette back a little, and started listening once more.

SEVEN

'It is extraordinary to me .. . that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is ever in the way.'

'. . . and the door swung slowly open.

'Westropp had clearly feared the worst and the worst was what he found. His wife lay sprawled beside a fallen stool with a gaping hole in her ribcage. In front of her on the table was a shotgun. Properly speaking this table was a workbench, fitted with a vice. Mickledore liked to fill his own cartridges, do his own repairs. The others scarcely had time to register that a loop of wire had been passed through the trigger guard of the gun with its loose ends locked tight in the jaws of the vice before Mickledore had manhandled Westropp out of the room.

'"Noddy, get the women out of here. Scott, take care of James. Tom, you come with me."

'And drawing Partridge after him, he went back into the gunroom and closed the door.

'We have a first-hand account of what took place then from Lord Partridge's memoirs.
In A Pear Tree
, published last month.

'The dislodged key was lying on the floor. Mickledore stooped to pick it up. Partridge went to the workbench. On it lay a scrap of paper with a note scrawled on it in Pamela Westropp's unmistakable hand.

'It read: . . .
it's no good - I can't take it - I'd rather destroy everything.

'The following exchange then took place.

P
ARTRIDGE
: Oh God, what a dreadful business.

M
ICKLEDORE
: Yes. Time for maximum discretion,
I
think. You know what the Press can make of an accident like this.

P
ARTRIDGE
: Accident? How can you call it an accident when . . .

M
ICKLEDORE: (
taking the note from him and putting it in his pocket)
Because accidents are merely tragic, while suicides are scandalous, and we must protect James and his family, and I mean all of his family, from any hint of scandal.

P
ARTRIDGE
: But I am a Minister of the Crown . . .

M
ICKLEDORE
: Exactly. And you've not been having such a good press lately, have you? Neither your Party nor the Palace will thank you for dumping another scandal on their doorstep. Look, I'm not suggesting anything truly illegal, just a little tidying up. You've seen nothing in here except a dead woman, right? Now you push off and do some phoning, you know the right people. Say Pam's been found dead, an accident you think, but you recommend maximum discretion. I'll take care of things in here. Go on. Get a move on. You know it's best.

'And off went Partridge. He claims he rang a colleague in London to ask for advice and the advice he received was to contact the police immediately, which was what he did. By the time Detective-Superintendent Tallantire arrived, the loop of wire had vanished like the note.

'We may never know just how much pressure was put on Tallantire to tread warily. What we do know from his evidence at the trial is that he discounted the accident theory almost immediately. The gun was in perfect working order and it was physically almost impossible to contrive a situation in which Pamela could have fired it by accident as it lay across the workbench with its muzzle pressed against her chest. Then a sharp-eyed forensic man drew his attention to a slight scratch across the trigger and he himself found in the bench drawer a loop of wire with corrugations in its loose ends exactly matching the teeth of the vice.

'Now he concentrated all his attention on Mickledore and Partridge. The others could get away with being vague about what they actually saw in their brief glimpse into the gunroom, but these two had been in there for some time.

'Tallantire applied pressure and Partridge quickly broke. The recent scandals had not performed the miracle of curing politicians of lying, but they were alert as they'd never been before to the perils of being caught in a lie. So he showed a modest confusion, apologized for an error of judgement and told the truth. Mickledore showed no confusion, made no apology, but freely admitted his attempts to make the death look accidental and suggested that a patriot and a gentleman could have done no other.

'Tallantire ignored the slur and asked for the note. A brief comparison with other examples of her writing convinced him it was in her hand.

'A lesser man, faced with a body in a locked room, a suicide note, a device for firing a shotgun with its muzzle pressed against the chest, plus any amount of testimony to the dead woman's unnaturally agitated state of mind that evening, might easily have bowed out at this stage, probably congratulating himself on his skill in so soon detecting an upper class attempt to close ranks and pervert the course of justice.

'But not Tallantire. It is not clear at what point he became genuinely suspicious. Lord Partridge suggests that initially Tallantire's refusal to accept the obvious was due to no more than one of those instant mutual antipathies that spring up between people. He theorizes that Mickledore saw Tallantire as a plodding boor without an original thought in his head, and that the latter regarded the former as an upper class twit who imagined that his background and breeding put him above the law.

'If this theory is right, then Mickledore's was the larger error. And he compounded it by trying to pressurize the police into doing their work with maximum speed and minimum inconvenience to his household and guests.

'Only a fool tries to hurry a mule or a Yorkshireman.

'Tallantire dug his heels in and insisted on interviewing in detail every adult in the Hall.

'The guests, all of whom had rooms along the same corridor, gave him very little. James Westropp, Jessica Partridge and my mother had all gone quickly to sleep. The two women recollected hearing the midnight chimes, but Westropp had been too fatigued for even that noise to penetrate his slumbers. Downstairs, Partridge and Mickledore had played billiards equally undisturbed, while Rampling had been chatting to America and my father had been strolling the grounds.