The Silver Falcon (33 page)

He stared at her; his eyes narrowed and suddenly went wide. Then to her astonishment he laughed.

‘Good Christ,' he said. ‘You think I murdered that poor old woman!'

‘Please trust me,' she begged. ‘I won't tell anybody. I just want to help you. Tell me, darling – tell me the truth –'

He didn't speak for a moment. He finished the whisky. ‘Tell you I did it? Say I had some kind of brainstorm and beat old Mrs Jennings to death? Is that what you want me to say?'

He picked up the empty glass again and held it in both hands, staring into it. His voice was low.

‘And if it was true,' he said. ‘If I admitted it – what would you do, Isabel?'

‘Take you back to the States with me,' she said. ‘Get the best doctors – anything in the world.…'

‘Well,' he said at last. ‘You do love me don't you – that's something, anyway.'

She looked at him. ‘Richard – please –'

‘It so happens,' he said, ‘that after the Claremont, where I was playing backgammon in front of a room full of people, I went on to Tramps, where I got very drunk and started swinging a chair at the manager when he asked me to go home. That I know because I got a bill for the damage yesterday and a nice little note saying they hoped I would resign my membership. I didn't actually have time to kill anyone last Monday.'

She couldn't believe it; she stared at him, and she couldn't find words. ‘I have the bill and the letter on me,' he said. He put them in front of her, and beckoned the waiter. ‘Go on,' he said. ‘Read them.'

‘Richard,' Isabel said at last. ‘Oh God, what have I done?'

‘Proved that I should have told you the truth a long time ago,' he said. He leaned across and took her hand. ‘So that's why you ran away on Sunday – you thought I'd killed Mrs Jennings. And you've been staying here trying to figure out how to get me doctored up and cured.…' He shook his head. ‘Like I said, you really do love me, don't you?'

She nodded. ‘I don't know what to say to you,' Isabel said at last. ‘Except to ask you to forgive me.'

His expression was grave. ‘I think I can manage that,' he said. ‘Tell me, darling, how did you work this out – who put this lovely idea into your mind?'

‘I'm not sure,' she said. ‘Andrew kept hinting … he kept saying you were dangerous, that I had to be careful – Mrs Jennings told me you went all over the house, into every room – the police said whoever killed her knew his way about. You disappeared that night, nobody could find you – your hand was opened up again and you couldn't remember where you'd been – oh darling, it all seems so flimsy and ridiculous when I put it into words –'

‘So Andrew started it,' he said. ‘That figures. Let's take it point by point. You were shown a medical file in Paris, saying I had a history of mental illness – right? Potentially dangerous –' Isabel nodded. She felt shamed and numb. ‘So the doubt was there. And that bastard played on it. We'll come to him in a minute. Sure I went through every room in Coolbridge. I was planning to buy it for you as a wedding present. I'd already cabled the owners in South Africa. As for my hand – swinging the chair around at Tramps opened that up; I bled over their carpet and they're billing me for that too.'

‘I don't understand,' Isabel said. ‘Why would Andrew try to make me think it was you? Even if you were ill, it was years ago.…'

‘For the same reason he and my father got me shut up,' Richard said quietly. ‘To protect themselves. To make sure nobody would believe me if I told the truth.' He took out two cigarettes and lit them, handing one to Isabel.

‘My mother took an overdose, that's true. I was out the night it happened, but she'd left a note for me in my room. She'd decided to leave Charles. She'd been contacted by my real father. His wife was dead and he was in the States. She tried to tell Charles, and there was a terrible scene. He threatened to kill the other man. She could never stand up to him, and she just went to pieces, I guess. She asked me to forgive her for what she was going to do.' Isabel said nothing; his hand was gripping hers so tightly that it hurt.

‘When I went into her room she was still alive,' he said. ‘I ran down, yelling for Charles. He was in the study with Andrew. They were sitting there, drinking. I'll never forget it. He got in front of the telephone and wouldn't let me call an ambulance. He looked me in the eye, and told me she was dead. And I knew what they were doing. They were leaving her there to die. I went berserk. I hadn't a chance against the two of them. Andrew jabbed me full of dope. There was nothing I could do, Isabel. They timed it just right. She died on her way to the hospital. Next morning I walked into Freemont police headquarters and accused them both of murder.'

The waiter approached, asking if they needed any more to drink. A famous television personality walked past their table, a phallic cigar in his mouth.

‘You can guess how much sympathy I got. They called up Beaumont and Charles came down with Andrew and they explained I'd blown a fuse when I found my mother dead. I was driven to Graneways nursing home in a police car. And I went wild. It was exactly what they wanted; Andrew got two doctors he knew to examine me, and I played right into his hands. I accused him and Charles of murder, I threatened to kill them, I was violent as hell. Andrew's friends signed the certificates and I found myself in a padded room. I was nine months in that place.'

‘Oh my God,' Isabel whispered. He wasn't over-dramatizing; his voice was calm, unemotional. But the words were making pictures in her imagination; that charming, panelled study at Beaumont, so closely associated with Charles – she had often remembered him there, sitting in his favourite leather chair. She wondered if he was sitting in it that night, when he deliberately left his wife to die. The big bedroom with its magnificent views over the paddocks, where he had been nursed and comforted right to the end. Richard's mother had died there too, but alone and by murderous design. And the lies, the conspiracy of lies surrounding Richard. She shuddered, and Richard felt the tremor.

‘If it hadn't been for my Duckett grandmother,' he said, ‘I'd never have gotten out. But she hated Charles and she got a court order releasing me. By that time I knew I had to play it very cool. I didn't repeat the accusation. I made sure I was calm and reasonable, because I knew damned well that nobody would believe me if I tried to tell the truth. Not even her. And Charles knew it too. They had a medical file on me and I'd been nine months in a mental home. He didn't fight my grandmother; she took me away and I lived with her for a year. Then she died, and I took off for Europe. There was nothing I could do, Isabel. They'd killed my mother and gotten away with it. And they'd discredited me for ever. But even so, Charles took precautions. He didn't hide what had happened. He made sure everyone knew what I'd told the police, and the whole neighbourhood was just so sorry for him. First his wife and then a son like me. It all helped the noble image; and he loved that. What he didn't like was the publicity I gave him. It wasn't much of a revenge but I took it. I smeared his name in every newspaper in the States. He knew why. But I was out of his reach and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Of course he had to make sure you didn't get anywhere near me.'

‘The same for Andrew too,' she said slowly. ‘How could I have lived with Charles for three years and actually loved him – without really knowing him at all.…'

‘Because he'd convinced himself of his own legend,' Richard said quietly. ‘He was an old man, and he'd won all the battles. He could afford to live up to the hero image. He probably loved you in his own way because you were a part of it. And you know something, darling? That really used to rile me – the thought of you loving him. It doesn't any more. I've lived with hate for too long. I'm sick of hating him. I came back to Beaumont because I was curious to see you and because I wanted to stand over him and gloat. He was dying of cancer and he wasn't going to see his Falcon win the Derby. And I made up my mind he wasn't going to win from the grave if I could help it. I didn't want the horse to run; I didn't want him to have his place in racing history because I knew it meant so goddamned much to him. And then I fell in love with you, and things started getting back into proportion. I saw what I was doing didn't make sense. You can't frustrate the dead. Any more than you can raise them. I'd never loved any woman except my mother until I met you. That wasn't easy to face. I'd made a shrine to her in my mind and all of a sudden the image was fading. You'd taken her place. Do me a favour, Isabel. Take off that ring of his.'

She looked down at the diamond on her hand. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘I will. I'll never wear it again.'

‘Try this instead. I bought it when you were staying at Lambourn. It was going to be my surprise for you on Sunday.'

It was a simple ring, set in gold. Two hearts, a ruby and an emerald, surrounded by small diamonds. It was exquisitely made by a nineteenth-century craftsman.

‘I hope you like it,' he said. ‘It seemed your style. Now that you know I don't go round killing people, when are you going to marry me? After the Derby?'

‘Whenever you like,' she said quietly. ‘What about Andrew – Isn't there anything you can do –'

‘No. Forget about him,' Richard said. ‘He's failed, and he'll find out soon enough. He'll creep back to the States and maybe he won't sleep too well for a while. To hell with him. To hell with everything about Beaumont and Charles and everyone but ourselves.'

Isabel had moved into the flat with Richard. When they went to bed, she found herself too nervous to respond to him properly. The shock of what she had discovered was taking toll; Richard sensed it and made no demands upon her.

She went over what Richard had told her, again and again, in the early hours while he slept. Murder, coldly premeditated on a helpless woman, motivated by insane pride and jealousy. Charles wouldn't let her go, because it would damage his image, reduce him in status before his admiring world at Freemont. And Andrew had helped him kill her. The good friend, the family doctor; always advising her in his slow way on how to do this and that in the way her husband liked it.…

She shivered physically, remembering. He was dominated by Charles, mesmerized by his money and his power. And then to certify Richard! Nine months in a mental home. He had spoken of a padded room. And his necessity to suppress the truth, in order to achieve his freedom; unable even to confide in his own grandmother, because his credibility had been destroyed. She found herself in tears. Andrew had spread the poison well. She had actually believed the man she loved was guilty of an atrocious murder, and fled from him in terror of her own life. Even when the police questioned her, the doubt was in the depth of her mind, suppressed but growing, that the maniac they talked about was really Richard Schriber. And whoever it was, some madman with a lust to kill, still wandered undetected.…

Richard woke to find the bed empty, and instantly he leaped out and went to look for her. He found Isabel in the kitchen, sitting at the table drinking coffee.

‘I couldn't sleep,' she said. ‘I'm sorry, darling, my mind is going round and round. I didn't mean to wake you.'

Richard put his arm around her.

‘It's not surprising,' he said gently. ‘Drinking that stuff won't help – people take it to keep awake – I'll make you some milk.'

They didn't talk, he sat smoking and watching her while she sipped the hot drink. ‘It's just been a bit too much for you, all at once,' he said.

‘I started thinking about the murder at Coolbridge,' Isabel said. ‘They haven't found that man yet. I'm just being hysterical, I suppose, but it really got on my nerves, lying there in the dark; and thinking about your mother and what happened to you.'

‘Don't think about it,' Richard said firmly. ‘I told you, darling, it's all over. Charles is dead, Andrew is just a paper tiger now you know the truth – let the past lie. We've got everything to look forward to; forget what happened. And don't worry about that business at Coolbridge. It was a madman, and they'll get him. You must put that right out of your mind. Promise me?'

‘I'll try,' she said.

He kissed her. ‘Come back to bed,' he said. ‘You'll be asleep in a few minutes. We'll stay quiet here for the next couple of days, give you time to settle down. After all, you'd better get used to living with me properly.'

On the evening of the second day they telephoned Nigel Foster, and Isabel spoke to Tim. ‘Everything has been sorted out,' she said. ‘I can't explain over the phone, but I'm going to marry Richard.' There was a long pause, and Ryan said nothing. ‘Tim? Listen, I promise to tell you the whole story. After the Derby, yes. Tell Nigel, will you – Oh, all right, wait a minute.' She turned to Richard. ‘They're giving the Falcon his work over a mile and a quarter on Saturday. Nigel wants us to come down – there's a party in the evening.'

‘That's fine,' he said. ‘Tell Tim to book us into the hotel on Friday night if Sally can't put us up. I know those early-morning work-outs in the middle of the night!'

‘What time is he going out?' Isabel asked, watching Richard. She nodded at him and smiled. ‘Around seven in the morning – yes, yes I was going to ask – tell Sally thanks, we'd love to stay. See you on Friday.'

She came and put her arms round Richard. ‘I couldn't get you near a racing stable a few weeks ago. You sounded almost enthusiastic just now.'

‘I'm a changed man,' Richard said lightly. ‘Changed, note, not reformed. As far as I'm concerned, you own the Falcon and I want him to win as much as you do. You're looking better, you know that? You've got your colour back. I was worried about you the last two days.'