The Man Whose Dream Came True (18 page)

‘Was this visit of Mrs Foster’s an unusual occurrence?’ Lands looked puzzled. ‘I don’t quite understand.’

‘Was it the first time she had been to your farm for dinner?’

‘Oh, I see. No, it wasn’t.’

‘She’d been before. Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’ Lands, head down, did not reply. ‘Just once? Half a dozen times? Twenty times?’

Still with his head down Lands said, ‘Three or four.’

‘I can’t hear you.’ That was the judge. Lands looked up, startled.

‘I’m sorry, my lord. I said three or four times.’

‘Always alone,’ Newton said with relish.

‘She came with Eversley once or twice I think.’ Lands waved his white ladylike fingers. ‘These other times, when she came alone, he was away.

‘He was away,’ Newton repeated meaningfully. ‘And then she dined with you. Did you ever go to dinner with her, or with them both?’

‘I – I don’t think so.’

‘These were one way visits.’ Newton looked at the jury. ‘I am not implying anything wrong. It just seemed a little strange to me that she should telephone and invite herself to dinner on this Friday, but if she were a frequent visitor that explains it.’

The judge looked at Newton. ‘Three or four times, the witness said, Mr Newton.’

Newton bowed his head. ‘Three or four times. She had been before at all events. So you were not surprised when she telephoned and said “Can I come to dinner?”’ Suddenly he snapped. ‘Did she telephone?’

Like a rabbit facing a wolf Lands stammered, ‘Yes, on – on Friday morning.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She said–’ he gulped. ‘–there had been some unpleasantness about the man Eversley was employing, and he wanted to see the man alone that evening. Could she come over to me. Something like that.’

‘This wasn’t very convenient. Your housekeeper, Mrs Turner, was out for the evening.’

Lands perked up for a moment. ‘Mrs Twining.’

The correction appeared to enrage Newton. He thundered:

‘Mrs Twining was going out. Why not take Mrs Foster out to dinner?’

Landa stared, dumbfounded. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Surely that would have been easier?’

‘I suppose so. It never occurred to me. Mrs Twining left something, something cold.’

‘And then you had dinner,
tête-à-tête.
What did you talk about?’

Lands put a hand to his head, touched his white streak as though he were touching his forelock. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘She arrived at seven-thirty and left not long before midnight and you can’t remember anything you talked about?’

‘Local things,’ Lands said weakly. ‘And this man, Bain-Truscott. Eversley wasn’t sure whether he would charge the man or not.’

‘And what did Mrs Foster want him to do?’

Lands gathered a little boldness. ‘I don’t remember. I wasn’t much interested.’

It appeared to Mr Hussick that Newton was pressing it a bit hard, and indeed this was Newton’s own feeling. He went on asking questions about the times and about Mrs Twining being fetched from the station, but the effect he had made at first faded a little. Still, he had given Lands a bad quarter of an hour, although it wasn’t of great importance in the long run, and he had encouraged their client. Mr Hussick raised his eyebrows and smiled at Tony, and Tony smiled shyly back.

Mortimer Lands and Genevieve Foster had not really talked to each other since the trial began. They were both staying up in London, she at a hotel, he at the flat of a friend named Jerry Milton. He telephoned her that night when Milton was out.

‘My housekeeper’s been on the phone. Somebody’s been asking questions at the farm. She sent him away.’

‘Yes.’

‘It wasn’t the police, it was somebody else.’

‘No doubt some inquiry agent for the defence.’

‘One’s been round already. I don’t like it, Jenny.’

There was a pause. She said coldly, ‘I told you not to telephone.’

‘I’m worried, I have to see you.’ She said nothing. ‘I could come round. Now.’

‘Don’t be a fool.’

‘I’ve got to see you. I can’t go on if I don’t.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s upsetting for everybody. You don’t think I liked all those questions today, do you?’

Lands had drunk a quarter of a bottle of whisky. Now he half-filled his pony glass. ‘I’ve got to see you.’

‘Very well. Tomorrow night you can take me out to dinner.’

‘I could meet you somewhere quiet, nobody would–’

‘I won’t have anything hole and corner. Call for me here at seven o’clock.’ She put down the receiver.

When Jerry Milton returned an hour later he found Mortie Lands half cut and lachrymose with it. They had been friends at Oxford and had seen a good deal of each other since then. Jerry, who was an executive in a statistical research company, disliked drunks, but he tried to be patient.

‘It’s ghastly the whole thing, I do see that, but after all you’ve given evidence now, it’s over.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Mortie said. His hair was mussed up, and he was sprawled all over the sofa. Jerry privately thought it was a bit much – the whisky glass had left marks on a pretty little rosewood table – but Mortie had always been a little on the hysterical side. Now he said, bleary eyed, ‘It’s terrible. That poor young man.’

‘Jones? He’s just a dirty crook. And a murderer. You’re too soft-hearted, Mortie, that’s your trouble. Come on, you’d better get to bed.’

With the help of his arm Mortie rose, then staggered and knocked over a Victorian glass table lamp which broke into a dozen pieces. It was really too much to be borne, and Jerry told him so pretty sharply. Mortie began to weep.

‘You’re all against me,’ he said through sobs. ‘She is too. I can’t bear it, I can’t go on.’

There was only one thing to do, and Jerry did it. He hauled the insensible disgusting lump into the bedroom and deposited him on top of the bed.

In the morning Mortie was apologetic, and he looked so haunted, so much like death warmed up, that Jerry didn’t have the heart to say anything more.

Dimmock sneezed when he got out of bed and again while he was shaving. By the time he got downstairs there could be no doubt that he had a cold. He could not have faced fish if it had been offered to him, and his breakfast was one piece of toast and marmalade and two cups of watery coffee. ‘I could eat some bacon and eggs if I hadn’t this pain in my pegs,’ he thought, and it was true that his teeth did ache. When he set out in the car it was still raining, heavy solid stuff that came steadily down. As he drove out of town he felt distinctly ill. He did not think that there was much point in going to see the motor launch or in visiting Sarah Russell, but it did not occur to him that he might say this to the Chief. He had never yet failed to carry out the assignments given to him in every detail.

The day had begun badly with his cold, and it continued badly. He was misdirected to the place where the launch had been tied up, and when he found the place the boat was no longer there. He called at a house nearby and learned that the
Daisy Mae
had been removed by the police to the yard of a local boat builder named Clynes. It was eleven-thirty when he found the boatyard, most of the morning gone. Clynes received Dimmock in his office. He was a thin lugubrious man.

‘Police have been over her,’ he said. ‘What you want to look at her for?’

Why did he want to look at her? Dimmock had no idea. ‘It’s part of an investigation I’m carrying out for somebody interested in the–’ He stopped and sneezed. ‘–defence.’

Clynes was concerned. ‘That’s a nasty cold you’ve got. You could do with a cup of tea.’

As he drank the scalding liquid Dimmock was conscious of his wet disgusting clothes, which seemed to have lost their shape. His trousers hung round his legs like pieces of cardboard.

‘Know anything about boats?’ Dimmock shook his head. ‘No more did they. Bought her from me, Foster did, just because his wife wanted it. Like buying a kid a toy. Not but what she learned a bit. How to start the engine.’ He laughed, and Dimmock realised that this was a joke. ‘Now she wants me to sell the boat for her.’

‘What sort of man was Foster?’ He asked it to keep the conversation going, not because he was interested.

‘Thought the sun shone out of her backside. Bloody old fool if you ask me. I’ve seen her sort before, out for what they can get. Gold diggers, we used to call ’em.’ Clynes finished his tea. ‘Interested in cricket?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ Hopefully, like a man excusing himself, he said, ‘My son plays.’

‘Local cricket club. I’m the president. Like to take some?’ He pushed a book of raffle tickets across the table. Dimmock bought the whole book, twenty at a shilling each. He would charge them to expenses, but suppose he won a prize what would he do then?

Clynes did not show satisfaction, but Dimmock knew that he was pleased. ‘Right then, let’s go and have a look at her, shall we?’

He put on an oilskin and then squelched across the yard with the rain pouring down. Dimmock quite distinctly felt mud surge up round his left sock.

The boat was just about what he had expected. Clynes jumped in and Dimmock followed him more circumspectly, stumbling a little so that Clynes’ hand had to support him. The boat builder pointed out features. ‘Evinrude motor, pull starter on it easy to work. Steering wheel. Oars to use if the motor packs up. Nice little cabin, sleeps two if they’re not over six foot, calor gas cooker, even a baby fridge. And that’s it. She’s a pleasure boat, not for serious sailors.’

‘If you were taking it away from the place where it was tied up and didn’t want to make a noise, you’d use the oars.’

‘Of course.’

Dimmock poked about. There was nothing to see. ‘I suppose the police searched it thoroughly.’

Clynes stroked his chin. ‘They took a look. Not a long one. Didn’t expect to find anything, you won’t either.’

Dimmock went into the cabin, got down on the floor, peered under the two bunks, even put his hand under, more for the sake of appearances than anything else. Nothing. Half a dozen paperback novels stood on a small ledge above the bunk, and he read the titles idly. A small kettle was on the cooker and in an access of idiocy, disturbed by the figure of Clynes in the doorway watching, he lifted the lid. Bits of kettle fur rattled about inside.

‘What you looking for, poison?’ Clynes guffawed slightly. Dimmock responded with a wan smile. He was reluctant to go out again into the rain, but it had to be done. Outside again he squatted down and heard the bones crack in his knees. I shall be lucky if I don’t get pneumonia, he thought. There was a little water in the bottom of the boat but to take the ache out of his knees he knelt down.

Something was attached to one of the rowlocks, if that was what you called the things in which you put the oars. You could not see it when you knelt, but he could feel something at the bottom of the rowlock. He called to Clynes, who came and bent down beside him. Dimmock gently removed the thing, a tiny piece of fabric. It was about two inches one way by an inch the other. One side was check, the other a muddy brown. It was made from some rubberised material.

‘You saw me find it. I didn’t put it there.’

Clynes nodded. ‘We haven’t cleaned her out yet. If we had done we’d have found that bit of stuff. Thrown it away most like.’

‘I didn’t put it there.’

‘Course you bloody didn’t. Think it’s important?’

The discovery seemed to have changed Clynes’ view of Dimmock. His stare held something approaching respect. It was unlikely that the fabric was of any importance at all, but Dimmock shrugged. He felt the heavy dampness of his topcoat.

They squelched away.

‘Might be a bit of mackintosh. Just what you could do with.’ Clynes guffawed. ‘Come in. I’ll give you a tot of rum.’

They returned to the office. Dimmock drank the rum and wrote out a brief statement about the way in which he had found the bit of fabric. Clynes signed it as witness. Dimmock was a man who believed in the value of routine.

With the statement in his pocket he got into his car, removed his soaking hat and coat and drove away. It was good to have the wet things off, but there was no heater in the car and within five minutes he began to shiver.

‘Today’s the big one then,’ one of the prison officers said to him in the van that morning. ‘You want to look all bright and shining, doesn’t he, Bill?’ The other man said that was right, get into that box and show ’em, good turn-out, bags of swank, rather as if he were going on parade in the army. One of them offered him a little pocket mirror so that he could adjust the knot of his tie. They were very friendly chaps. He had tried once or twice to tell them what his defence was, what had really happened, but they always cut him short and said that it was not their business.

He had expected to be nervous, but once he had taken the oath swearing to tell the truth (and after all he was going to do just that) and had begun to answer Newton’s questions, he did not feel nervous at all. And a quick look at the jury – Bill the prison officer had told him that it was a good thing to look at them sometimes as long as you didn’t overdo it – showed him that they were paying attention. Blue Rinse had abandoned her nails and was looking at him with her lips slightly parted, Pretty But Fatuous was evidently attentive, oh yes he had them on the alert as he rode the gentle swell of the questions, answering them rapidly and with firmness in a consciously clear voice. He was rather pleased with the way in which he disposed of the
name
business. Why had he called himself Bain-Truscott?

He hesitated just a moment, permitting himself just a hint of his smile. ‘Snobbery, I have to admit. I did it to impress people.’

‘There was no other reason?’

Firmness at this, smile vanishing. ‘None at all.’

It had been raining most of the morning, but now suddenly for a quarter of an hour the sun shone through the window, casting a lean knife shadow across the Court which moved slowly in the direction of the man in the box, away from the barristers in their wigs and gowns. There were one or two moments of drama, like the one when Newton asked if he had ever met the dead man.

‘Never.’ Very firm, head up showing the clean line of the chin. Sunlight was strong on his face.

‘But you talked to a man who called himself by that name.’

‘I did.’

‘He was an impostor?’

‘I understand that now.’

‘Do you know now who that man was?’

‘It was Mortimer Lands.’

Later he admitted that he had agreed to take part in disposing of what he believed to be Foster’s body.

‘Are you ashamed of your conduct?’

Low voiced, but still firm. ‘I am.’

‘Can you explain what made you do it?’

He would have liked to look at Jenny, to search her out with his eyes, but she was not in Court. He stared boldly at the jury instead. ‘I was infatuated with Mrs Foster. I thought she was in love with me.’

They went through the tale of the drive in the car, the burden dropped out of the motor launch. ‘At the time you believed this to be Foster’s body.’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you think now?’

‘It must have been some kind of dummy already prepared.’

‘I don’t want there to be any mistake about this. You were prepared to play your part in this wretched enterprise?’

‘I was.’

‘You are not trying to deny that?’

‘No.’

‘Can you think of any word that would fit your conduct?’ He said again that he was ashamed. ‘When did you first learn that you had been taking part in a masquerade, that the whole thing was a sham?’

‘When the detective at the airport showed me a picture of the real Eversley Foster.’

Newton repetitiously made the thing clear. ‘This was a man you had never seen in your life?’

‘That is so.’

‘And you had no part whatever in his death?’

‘Absolutely none.’

After his evidence in chief was completed the Court adjourned for lunch. Tony felt that he had done well and had impressed the jury. He ate a good meal. The prison officer with him watched him with surprise.

At just about this time Dimmock, fifty miles away, discovered the piece of fabric.

The line of defence had been fairly clear after the cross-examination of Mrs Foster, but still it seemed hardly credible, Hardy’s junior Gordon Baker said to him over their chump chops and pints of bitter that such a line should be seriously advanced. Hardy smiled faintly, with the air of superiority that made him so irritating, and said that if his client insisted on the story then Newton was stuck with it.

‘Yes, but I mean there are limits.’ Hardy looked at him interrogatively. ‘They must have given him a hint of what he was in for.’

Hardy had eaten half of his chop. He looked at the rest of it and pushed away his plate. ‘And if they did?’

‘Well then, surely–’ Baker was at a loss how to go on.

Hardy delivered himself of one of those apothegms that made him very little loved. ‘A counsel is no better than his client. Especially,’ he added with the faintest gleam of a smile like sun on ice in winter, ‘When the counsel is Newton.’

After Jerry Milton had gone to work Mortimer Lands felt terrible. He thought of ringing Jenny at her hotel, but he knew that she would not want to speak to him. He felt physically unable to go to Court again, although he was still worried about the man who had called at the farm. Just after midday he thought that it might do him good to go out. This proved to be a mistake. He went into a pub and felt impelled to start a discussion about the case in which he maintained that Jones might be innocent. Fortunately he did not reveal his identity, but when he left the pub he had had too much to drink and nothing to eat.

He went back to the flat and fell asleep. On waking he still felt terrible.

Genevieve Foster woke early, had her usual breakfast of orange juice and Melba toast, and then went shopping. Or rather, she went into shops and looked at clothes. She did not buy anything because she thought that it was too soon after Eversley’s death for that to be wise. She had already decided that when it was all over she would not marry Mortimer. She was not worried about him, because after all he could say nothing about her which did not implicate himself, but he was a weak man and she found weakness unsympathetic. When the case was over she would tell Mortimer that what had been between them was over too and go away for a time, perhaps to one of those Greek islands that people talked about.

Looking at the round immature body of an assistant in one shop, and at the girl’s equally round soft face she felt the stirrings of desire, and wondered if she were basically a Lesbian. Perhaps on the Greek island there would be a chance to find out. When she came out of the shop she took a taxi and had lunch in a salad bar. Then she took another taxi to the Old Bailey and was in Court when Hardy rose to begin his cross-examination. As Tony entered the box again she was struck by his good looks, as she had been when she first saw him. It was a pity that he was such a fool.