Sins of the Fathers (13 page)

The sink was crammed with dirty crocks, potato peelings, tea leaves, wet paper, but the Crillings were long past middle-class concealment of squalor.

"You could do with a few days off, I should think," he said loudly. "Get this place in some sort of order."

She had begun to laugh. "You know, you're not so bad-looking on the other side of a smoke-screen."

"Been ill, have you?" He was looking at the empty pill bottles, the one that was half full and the syringe. "Nerves, I daresay."

She stopped laughing. "They're hers."

Burden read labels, saying nothing.

"She has them for her asthma. They're all the same." As he put out his hand to find the hypodermic she seized his wrist. "You've no business to turn things over. That amounts to searching and for searching you need a warrant."

"True," said Burden placidly. He followed her back to the living room and jumped when she shouted at him:

"You never answered my question about the clergyman."

"He's come here because he knows Painter's daughter," said Burden guardedly.

She went white and he thought she looked like her mother.

"Painter that killed the old woman?"

Burden nodded.

"That's funny," she said. "I'd like to see her again. He had a queer feeling she was changing the subject, and yet her remark was not inconsequential. She turned her eyes towards the garden. But it wasn't, he thought, the nettles, the brambles and the mean wire fence she could see. "I used to go over to the coach house and play with her," she said. "Mother never knew. She said Tess wasn't my class. I couldn't understand that. I thought, how can she have a class if she doesn't go to school?" She reached up and gave the birdcage a vicious push. "Mother was always with the old woman—talk, talk, talk, I'll never forget it—and she used to send me into the garden to play. There wasn't anything to play with and one day I saw Tessie, mucking about with a heap of sand ... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Am I?"

"Does she know about her father?" Burden nodded. "Poor kid. What does she do for a living?"

"She's some kind of a student."

"
Student?
My God, I was a student once." She had begun to tremble. The long worm of ash broke from her cigarette and scattered down the pink flounces. Looking down at it, she flicked uselessly at old stains and burn marks. The movement suggested the uncontrollable jerking of chorea. She swung round on him, her hate and despair striking him like a flame. "What are you trying to do to me?" she shouted. "Get out! Get out!"
 

When he had gone she grabbed a torn sheet from a stack of unironed linen and flung it over the birdcage. The sudden movement and the gust of breeze it had caused fluttered the thing her mother called a negligee but that she had never feared until it touched her own skin. Why the hell did he have to come here and rake it all up again? Perhaps a drink would help. True, it hadn't done so the other day ... There never was a drink in this house, anyway.

Newspapers, old letters and unpaid bills, empty cigarette packets and a couple of old laddered stockings tumbled out when she opened the cupboard door. She rummaged in the back among dusty vases, Christmas wrapping paper, playing cards with dogeared corners. One vase had an encouraging shape. She pulled it out and found it was the cherry brandy Uncle had given her mother for her birthday. Filthy, sweet cherry brandy ... She squatted on the floor among the debris and poured some of it into a grimy glass. In a minute she felt a lot better, almost well enough to get dressed and do something about the bloody job. Now she had begun she might as well finish the bottle—it was wonderful how little it took to do the trick provided you started on an empty stomach.

The neck of the bottle rattled against the glass. She was concentrating on keeping her hand steady, not watching the liquid level rise and rise until it overbrimmed, spilt and streamed over the spread pink flounces.

Red everywhere. Good thing we're not houseproud, she thought, and then she looked down at herself, at red on pale pink ... Her fingers tore at the nylon until they were red and sticky too. O God, God! She trampled on it, shuddering as if it were slimy, alive, and threw herself on the sofa.

...You had nothing pretty on now, nothing to show to Tessie. She used to worry in case you got yourself dirty and one day when Mummy was indoors with Granny Rose and the man they called Roger she took you upstairs to see Auntie Rene and Uncle Bert, and Auntie Rene made you put an old apron on over your frock.

Uncle Bert and Roger. They were the only men you knew apart from Daddy who was always ill—"ailing" Mummy called it. Uncle Bert was rough and big and once when you came upstairs quietly you heard him shouting at Auntie Rene and then you saw him hit her. But he was kind to you and he called you Lizzie. Roger never called you anything. How could he when he never spoke to you, but looked at you as if he hated you?

It was in the Autumn that Mummy said you ought to have a party frock. Funny really, because there weren't any parties to go to, but Mummy said you could wear it on Christmas day. Pink it was, three layers of pale pink net over a pink petticoat, and it was the most beautiful dress you had ever seen in your life...

Elizabeth Crilling knew that once it had begun it would go on and on. Only one thing could stop it now. Keeping her eyes from the pink thing, all spattered with red, she stumbled out into the kitchen to find her temporary salvation.
 

Irene Kershaw's voice on the telephone sounded cold and distant. "Your Charlie seems to have had a bit of a tiff with Tessie, Mr. Archery. I don't know what it's all about, but I'm sure it can't be her fault. She worships the ground he treads on."

"They're old enough to know what they're doing," said Archery insincerely.

"She's coming home tomorrow and she must be upset if she's cutting the last days of term. All the people round here keep asking when the wedding is and I just don't know what to say. It puts me in a very awkward position."

Respectability, always respectability.

"Did you ring me up about something special, Mr. Archery, or was it just for a chat?"

"I wondered if you'd mind giving me your husband's business number?"

"If you two think you can go together," she said more warmly, "and have a go at patching things up, that would suit me down to the ground. I really can't contemplate the idea of my Tess being—well, thrown over." Archery did not answer. "The number's Uplands 62234," she said.

Kershaw had an extension of his own and a bright cockney secretary.

"I want to write to Painter's commanding officer," Archery said when the civilities had been exchanged.

Kershaw seemed to hesitate, then said in his usual eager, vital voice, "Don't know the bloke's name, but it was the Duke of Babraham's Light Infantry he was in. Third Battalion. The War Office'll tell you."

"The defence didn't call him at the trial, but it might help me if he could give Painter a good character."

"If. I wonder why the defence didn't call him, Mr. Archery?"

The War Office was helpful. The Third Battalion had been commanded by a Colonel Cosmo Plashet. He was an old man now and living in retirement in Westmorland. Archery made several attempts to write to Colonel Plashet. The final letter was not what he would have wished, but it would have to do. After lunch he went out to post it.

He strolled up towards the Post Office. Time hung heavy on his hands and he had no notion what to do next. Tomorrow Charles would come, full of ideas and extravagant plans, but comforting, an assistant. Or, knowing Charles, a director. He badly needed someone to direct him. Police work is for policemen, he thought, experts who are trained and have all the means for detection at their disposal.

Then he saw her. She was coming out of the florist's next door to the Post Office and her arms were full of white roses. They matched and mingled with the white pattern on her black dress so that you could not tell which were real and which a mere design on silk.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Archery," said Imogen Ide.

Until now he had hardly noticed the beauty of the day, the intense blue of the sky, the glory of perfect holiday weather. She smiled.

"Would you be very kind and open the car door for me?"

He jumped to do her bidding like a boy. The poodle, Dog, was sitting on the passenger seat and when Archery touched the door, he growled and showed his teeth.

"Don't be such a fool," she said to the dog and dumped him on the back seat. "I'm taking these up to Forby cemetery. My husband's ancestors have a sort of vault there. Very feudal. He's in town so I said I'd do it. It's an interesting old church. Have you seen much of the country round here yet?"

"Very little, I'm afraid."

"Perhaps you don't care for clerestories and fonts and that sort of thing."

"Quite the contrary, I assure you. I'll get the car and go over to Forby tonight if you think it's worth seeing."

"Why not come now?"

He had meant her to ask him. He knew it and he was ashamed. Yet what was there to be ashamed about? In a way he was on holiday and holiday acquaintances were quickly made. He had met her husband and it was only by chance her husband was not with her now. In that case he would have accepted without a qualm. Besides, in these days there was no harm in a man going on a little excursion with a woman. How many times had he picked up Miss Baylis in Thringford village and driven her into Colchester to do her shopping? Imogen Ide was much farther removed from him in age than Miss Baylis. She couldn't be more than thirty. He was old enough to be her father. Suddenly he wished he hadn't thought of that, for it put things in an unpleasant perspective.

"It's very good of you," he said. "I'd like to."

She was a good driver. For once he didn't mind being driven, didn't wish he was at the wheel. It was a beautiful car, a silver Lancia Flavia, and it purred along the winding roads. All was still and they passed only two other cars. The meadows were rich green or pale yellow where they had been shorn of hay, and between them and a dark ridge of woodland ran a glittering brown stream.

"That's the Kingsbrook," she said, "the same one that passes under the High Street. Isn't it strange? Man can do almost anything, move mountains, create seas, irrigate deserts, but he can't prevent the flow of water. He can dam it, channel it, pass it through pipes, make bridges over it..." He watched her, remembering with wonder that she had been a photographic model. Her lips were parted and the breeze blew her hair. "But still it springs from the earth and finds its way to the sea."

He said nothing and hoped she could sense if not see his nod. They were coming into a village. A dozen or so cottages and a couple of big houses surrounded a sprawling green; there was a little inn and through a mass of dark green foliage Archery could see the outlines of the church.

The entrance to the churchyard was by way of a kissing gate. He followed Imogen Ide and he carried the roses. The place was shady and cool but not well-tended and some of the older gravestones had tumbled over on their backs into the tangle of nettles and briars.

"This way," she said, taking the left hand path. "You mustn't go widdershins around a church. It's supposed to be unlucky."

Yews and ilexes bordered the path. Underfoot it was sandy, yet green with moss and the delicate tufts of arenaria. The church was very old and built of rough-hewn oaken logs. Its beauty lay in its antiquity.

"It's one of the oldest wooden churches in the country."

"There's one like it in my county," said Archery. "At Greensted. I believe it's ninth century."

"This one's Nine something. Would you like to see the leper squint?"

They knelt down side by side and, bending forward, he peered through the small triangular gap at the base of the log wall. Although it was not the first of its kind he had seen, it pained him to think of the outcast, the unclean, who came to this tiny grille and listening to the Mass, received on his tongue the bread that some believe is the body of God. It made him think of Tess, herself an outcast, condemned like the leper to an undeserved disease. Within he could see a little stone aisle, wooden pews and a pulpit carved with saints' faces. He shivered and he felt her shiver beside him.

They were very close together under the yew boughs. He had a strange feeling that they were quite alone in the world and that they had been brought here for the working out of some destiny. He lifted his eyes, and turning to her, met hers. He expected her to smile but instead her face was grave, yet full of wonder and a kind of fear. He felt in himself, without analysing it, the emotion he saw in her eyes. The scent of the roses was intoxicating, fresh and unbearably sweet.

Then he got to his feet quickly, a little quelled by the stiffness of his knees. For a moment he had fell like a boy; his body betrayed him as bodies always do.

She said rather brightly, "Have a look inside while I put these flowers on the grave. I won't be long."

He went softly up the aisle and stood before the altar. Anyone watching him might have taken him for an atheist, so cool and appraising was his glance. Back again to look at the unassuming little font, the inscriptions on wall plaques. He put two half-crowns in the box and signed his name in the visitors' book. His hand was shaking so badly that the signature looked like that of an old man.

When he came out once more into the churchyard she was nowhere to be seen. The lettering on the older stones had been obliterated by lime and weather. He walked into the new part, reading the last messages of relatives to their dead.

As he came to the end of the path where the hedge was and on the other side of the hedge a meadow, a name that seemed familiar caught his eye. Grace, John Grace. He reflected, searching his mind. It was not a common name and until quite recently he had associated it only with the great cricketer. Of course—a boy had lain dying in the road and that death and that boy's request had reminded Wexford of another, similar tragedy. Wexford had told him about it in the court. "Must be all of twenty years..."