The Black Mountains (63 page)

“You let her go?” Ted said. “Without finding out why she'd come?”

“Oh, Ted,” Charlotte spread her hands helplessly. “Don't you think I've blamed myself a hundred times for what happened? But you must understand how it was. I was upset … I didn't know what I was doing. I thought you'd been killed, and …” She broke off, pressing her hands to her face. “ Look, I'm sorry, son, I should have told you, but I didn't want you to think …”

“Think what?”

“That she'd … done away with herself when she head you'd been killed.” She turned away from him. “That's what I keep tormenting myself with, you see, that if I hadn't told her you were dead … Oh, Ted, I wouldn't have had this happen for anything in the world; and now …”

“Oh, Mam.” He was no longer angry at her, but all the more certain of what he had to do. “ You can stop blaming yourself. I don't think she took her life intentionally. Not Becky. She was too religious for that—and she'd never have given up that easily. I think there was far more to it than that.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Slowly Ted related to her what Marjorie had told him. As he spoke, his anger mounted again, and the need for revenge boiled up in him.

“I'm going to Bristol,” he said. “There'll be a bus, won't there?”

“Yes, but …”

“I'm going to see that bastard Thorne. And I'm going to smash his bloody face in.”

“Ted, wait a minute … stop … think!”

“I've thought enough. It's time now for a bit of action.” He gesticulated at the kettle. “Have that on the boil when I get back, Mam. I shall probably need it.”

He went out. Helplessly Charlotte watched from the doorway as he passed out of sight along the rank. She was shaking now, terrified of what he might do. Perhaps if she went with him … But that wouldn't do any good. He'd never let her. But he needed somebody with him, somebody to stop him from doing something stupid …

Jack. Jack was the one, of course. He was already in Bristol, and if she could get hold of him, perhaps he could meet Ted off the bus and talk to him. If he'd listen to anyone, he'd listen to Jack. But how was she going to get in touch with him? She couldn't send a telegram, there wouldn't be any way to explain what she wanted, and it might not reach him in time. The answer was to telephone—there would sure to be a telephone at the university—but Charlotte had never used a telephone in her life.

She stood for a moment with her hand over her mouth, thinking. There was an ‘attended call office' in the centre of town, but she didn't know how it worked. Perhaps if she ran up the hill to Captain Fish's, they would let her telephone from there. Come to think of it, Dolly could get through for her. She knew how to use the contraption. Since it had been installed she used it to ring through orders to the shops.

Yes, that was the thing to do. And without further delay, she went.

RUPERT THORNE'S office in Bristol looked out across a pleasant, tree-lined square, and from the sash window he was able to watch the motors and the horse-drawn wagons visiting the other premises in the square.

On that summer afternoon, he stood at his window, hands in pockets, gazing out idly as he toyed with a delicate problem of litigation on behalf of one of his clients. But his concentration was momentarily broken when he saw a figure walking urgently towards his offices. He noted the jaunty cap and cheaply cut suit and half-turned away with distaste. What was King James'Square coming to that people of that type could patronize it? If it was slipping down the social scale, he would have to mention to his senior partners that he thought it was time they looked for new, more exclusive, premises.

Since qualifying as a solicitor, Rupert Thorne had been moderately successful. He had been absorbed into the firm where he had taken his articles, and although he was not much liked, the other partners had found him useful for taking the brunt of the cases they did not want.

No matter was too trivial for Rupert if the client had sufficient social standing, and many was the time he had burnt the midnight oil in an effort to find a loop-hole that might serve the purpose of some greedy, overbearing bully or his rich and spoiled lady. By a curiously clever juggling act, Rupert managed to combine an overweening desire for social advancement with a streak that was almost cruel in its ruthlessness, and he somehow managed to command a respect that was a constant surprise to those who knew him.

Rupert had married soon after the end of the war, and with typical craftiness he had chosen a wife who could help him further his career—the daughter of a much-respected accountant in the city. Unfortunately, she was not the prettiest of girls, and when Rupert was alone and a little the worse for port wine, he sometimes found himself comparing her with his image of a frightened horse—all nose and long teeth. Occasionally he even thought of Becky Church with genuine regret. But he accepted that in this life it was just not possible to have everything. And on the whole, he could not grumble at the way things had turned out.

That afternoon, however, he was thinking not of Rebecca, but of the pert little stenographer who had started working for the firm, delighted that most of the boring male clerks had been replaced by ladies since the war. The stenographer looked as if she might give a man the pleasure his wife did not.

A smile curved his thick lips as he turned away from the window, reaching regretfully for the file he should be working on. It wasn't a day for work. It was a day for going for a nice motor-car ride with a pretty girl and a well-stocked picnic hamper. The sort of day …

A tap on the door interrupted his thoughts and there she was—the stenographer.

“Mr Thorne …”

“Ah, come in, Miss … ah …”

“There's a gentleman to see you Mr Thorne. He doesn't have an appointment, but he says it is most urgent …”

“Ask his name and tell him to wait …” He broke off in surprise as the door was flung open and a man entered the room—the same man he just had seen crossing the square. “ Just a moment!” he demanded. “Where do you think you are going?”

Ted faced him across the desk. “I've come to see you. My name is Ted Hall.”

“Ted Hall!” Recognition flashed across his flaccid features. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the girl. “ Well, you'd better come in, I suppose. What do you want?”

“To talk to you about Becky.”

A nerve jumped in Rupert's cheek. “Becky,” he repeated woodenly.

“Yes. I want to know why she died.”

“Now how should I know?” Rupert blustered.

“Because I think you were the cause of it!” Ted flung at him.

Rupert was brick-red now. “That's a serious accusation, Hall.”

“It's a serious matter. What did you give her, eh?” Ted demanded. “What was it her father was asking about at her funeral—and the doctor wanted to know about too? Was it …”

He was interrupted by a commotion on the stairs outside, footsteps, and the stenographer's voice raised in protest. Then the door opened again, and to his surprise Jack came into the room.

“What are you doing here?” Ted asked, startled, and Rupert Thorne seized his opportunity.

“Get out of my office, the pair of you! I have no wish to talk to either of you! And if you don't leave at once, my girl will call the police …”

“The police, is it?” Ted went around the desk to him, pushing Jack aside. “ Oh, I'd like to see you call the police, I would. If you call the police, there's a thing or two
I
should like to say to them, and after that, they'll be asking you some very awkward questions!”

The colour drained from Rupert's face. For a moment he stared at Ted, his eyes bright with fear and hatred, then he stabbed the air with a trembling finger. “ Don't you threaten me! If you stir up trouble, it'll be Becky who will suffer. I shall tell them what she was really like—crazy for a man, any man—throwing herself at whoever came her way until she got what was coming to her. And then begging me for something to get rid of her bastard. I should never have helped her. I should have left her to rot …”

At that point, Ted hit him. His fist connected square with his jaw. “ You bastard!” he spat at him, and would have hit him again if Jack had not intervened, catching at his arm.

“Ted, no!”

Rupert Thorne sat down heavily in his padded chair, one hand coming up to caress his bruised jaw bone, and his eyes, wide and shocked, stared at Ted strangely.

“Leave him!” Jack said again.

Ted jerked his arm free, a tremor running through his body. Then he leaned forward so that he towered over the hunched figure of Rupert.

“I hope you rot in hell, you filthy bastard!” he said.

Then he swung round and marched out of the office, with Jack following, past the fluttering stenographer, down the stairs, and out into the undisturbed peace of King James' Square.

SERGEANT EYLES came knocking at the front door of number eleven, Greenslade Terrace, soon after Charlotte had cleared away the breakfast things next morning.

Bluff and unsmiling he stood there on the path, waiting while she fetched Ted to the door. He knew the Halls, had known them for years, and didn't like what he had to do.

Ted, who had slept the clock round, came downstairs at his mother's insistent calling.

“Morning, Sergeant. You'd better come in. Mam says you want a word with me.”

The sergeant stepped into the doorway, his bulk shutting out the morning sunshine.

“From what I've been told, you went to Bristol yesterday afternoon, to the office of a solicitor, a Mr Rupert Thorne.”

Ted groaned. The bugger had actually had the gall to go to the police about it, then, just because he'd taken a swing at him.

“Yes, Sergeant, I was there. But if he's making accusations, there's a thing or two I'd like looked into myself. If he says …”

“Hang about, hang about!” the sergeant interrupted. “ Mr Thorne isn't saying anything.”

“Oh!” Ted was nonplussed. “Then what …”

The sergeant rolled his lips together slowly until little globules of saliva appeared.

“Mr Thorne's saying nothing,” he said at last, “ because he's dead.”

“Dead? Rupert Thorne?” Ted repeated, his expression more puzzled than shocked.

“That's right, dead,” the sergeant repeated. “And from what I can make of it, you caused his death by striking him in the face, Ted. I shall have to ask you to come along down to the police station with me—right away if you please.”

Ted stood silent, too stunned to argue, but Charlotte, who had overheard, came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

“What's this? What's going on, Sergeant?”

“A man is dead, Mrs Hall,” the sergeant told her, grim-faced. “Your Ted is believed to have caused his death. That's murder. And unless I'm much mistaken, that's what he'll be charged with. Now come on, young feller-me-lad, let's get going.”

“Wait!” Charlotte caught at his sleeve. “Are you going to keep him there?”

“Not for long, I shouldn't think. He'll be detained until our inquiries are complete, then he'll be released on bail I shouldn't wonder, until the quarter sessions or assizes. Now, if you're ready, young Hall …”

He stepped back out into the sunshine, and Charlotte could only watch helplessly as a subdued and shaken Ted was led away down the hill.

Sergeant Eyles was wrong. There was no bail for Ted. After he had been up before the magistrates to be charged, he was taken off in the Black Maria to Stack Norton Prison, ten miles away.

There would be a post-mortem straight away, and the inquest would be opened for purposes of identification only. But after that it could be weeks, or even months, before the workings of justice lurched their way through a resumed inquest to an assize or quarter session. And until that happened, they were going to keep Ted locked up between weekly court appearances, as Charlotte was told when she called at the police station for the fourth time in two days.

“Best thing you can do for him is fix him up with a solicitor,” Sergeant Eyles advised in his slow drawl.

“I see. Well, p'raps we should.”

They had discussed it last night, sitting around the kitchen table in a family council of war, and Jack, who had come home immediately when he had heard the news, had said much the same thing.

“Look, Mam, he's got to have a solicitor. Somebody to look after his interests.”

“I admit I'm beat when it comes to something like this,” James said. “But you've had a good education, Jack. You're well up with it all.”

“Not with anything to do with the law, Dad,” Jack told him. “This is a serious thing. It's not like going to court for getting rowdy after a few too many on a Saturday night. It's murder he's charged with. If you ask me, he ought to have somebody there even when they open the inquest, to make sure everything's done as it should be.”

They sat in silence for a moment or two, digesting it. Then James asked, “ What's it going to cost?”

“Oh, never mind the money!” Charlotte said impatiently. “Our Jack's right. We shall have to ask Mr Clarence. He can give us advice, and if somebody has to go along to the court, he can go. That'll save our Jack getting involved.”

“But, Mam, I am involved,” Jack put in. “I think you should get Mr Clarence in, of course I do, and the sooner the better, but that's not going to let me out. I was there. I saw what happened. They'll want me to give evidence to the coroner, at any rate. They told me that when they took my statement.”

“Well, of course you'll want to get up and say what happened, whether they want you to or not,” James put in. “It's a good job you were there, Jack.”

Charlotte said nothing. Privately, she was not sure she agreed, and in the last twenty-four hours she had found herself regretting that she had summoned Jack to the scene. Being involved in something like this wouldn't do him any good at all, either at college or when he came to look for a job. As far as helping Ted, she couldn't see that Jack's evidence was either here or there. For surely anyone with a grain of sense must know there had been some kind of mistake. Ted was slightly built; Rupert Thorne had been a bull of a man. It was madness to say Ted could have killed him with one blow.