A Murder in Mayfair (14 page)

She laughed openly.

“University? Me? Oh dear, that wouldn't suit me at all. I'm not at all bright like that.”

“Colin is right,” insisted Susan. “To be frank, you'll need some interest when—”

“When he's gone. Don't mind saying it. To tell you the truth I've thought about that. I dread not having him here to nurse. It gives me something to occupy myself with, sad though it is.”

“But you'll need something,” I insisted. “And something you could start now, here at home, would be ideal.”

“It's nice of you to be so concerned,” Mabel said, perhaps a bit surprised. “I'll think about it. But you know to me it's as if my life is almost over. Doesn't seem any point in taking courses or things like that.”

I sensed it was her generation speaking, as well as her particular situation. It was a sad leave-taking, imbued with a sense of a life prematurely ended—not her husband's, but her own. She was an outgoing woman, but her life had been reduced to four walls.

As we walked to the car I said:

“Bingo!”

“Modified bingo,” Susan corrected me.

“In what sense modified?”

“You're jumping to conclusions as usual. There's nothing to prove you weren't adopted in Milton—nothing to prove they
didn't move to South Yorkshire
precisely
because adoption rules were less rigorous there. They do vary from area to area, you know. Or practice does, at any rate.”

“They arrived there with me,” I pointed out. “Can you imagine them being told a baby would be handed over to them the moment they crossed the boundaries of Milton?”

“Now you're being facetious.”

“No I'm not. And can you imagine anyone being allowed to adopt who had epilepsy? That's quite true, by the way. Dad did have a very mild form of it, though it was never a problem, so I hadn't thought of it before.”

“It's possible. You could have been fostered out first, and then adopted later when it was clear the fostering was going well.”

“You are a cold water merchant.”

“Cold water? Colin, are you somehow drunk with the notoriety of being the child of a noble murderer? It's not a background everyone would want for themselves.”

“I'm drunk with the fascination of finding out who I am. I'm just wondering what the next step ought to be.”

But it was some time before I could work out what that step should be, and how it should be taken. Because that evening I received the first of the phone calls.

W
e separated after getting back from Southampton because Susan said she had something on that evening. I wanted to ask her what it was, but that would have been to court a rebuff. When I dropped her off at her flat we said we'd be in touch in the next few days, and I drove off with a slightly bruised feeling which I knew had no basis in reason.

There is a Chinese takeaway close to my flat, and I collected a chicken and cashews and a fried rice, and I kept it warm in the oven while I had a long bath. Mature reflection in the glorious water convinced me that I should be feeling grateful to Susan for finding Mrs. Pinnock and for undertaking the questioning of her. But somehow mature reflection never really gets the better of bruised feelings. I had to make a conscious effort to simply block the silly hurt feelings from my mind and think about something else. It was with some satisfaction that I could review the conversation with Mrs. Pinnock, because it was now clear that my parents had been declared—ridiculously—unsuitable candidates to adopt a child. It was also obvious that they'd kept my existence a secret from their cousins until the second Christmas after their move so that there could be no awkward questions
made about my mother's pregnancy, or lack of one. And they'd made doubly sure they need answer no questions by virtually cutting off all connections with the Southampton Pinnocks—a most uncharacteristic proceeding.

The call came after ten o'clock, when I had finished my Chinese and the glass of wine I had had with it, and was drinking coffee. The compact disc I was playing was Bryn Terfel doing numbers from the great American musicals—I was in a period of preferring relaxing music at night. I silenced the great, rich voice and went to the phone without a twinge of foreboding.

“Colin Pinnock here.”

There was a click, and then:

“Who do you think you're—” the well-known ridiculous little ditty, followed by raucous laughter which formed a rhythm and a tune but one quite different from the ditty. I kept the receiver to my ear, in the hope that something would be said. Instead there was just another click, and then silence.

Was someone waiting at the other end for me to say something? I decided that, if so, it was best to disappoint them. I poured myself another cup of coffee, then on reflection awarded myself a stiff brandy to go with it.

The call, I have to admit, unnerved me and more so on reflection than at the time. You answer the phone expecting to hear a voice—cheery, questioning, angry, whatever. Instead of which I'd been played to, and played to in a way that was clearly meant to get at me. The ridiculousness of the recordings only added to the unnerving quality of the call. What kind of person was it whose idea of tormenting someone demanded that it include such a strong vein of the ridiculous?

I thought I recognized not just the first but also the second part of the tape. The first was the signature tune of
Dad's Army,
sung by Bud Flannigan:

Who do you think you're kidding, Mr. Hitler,
When you say Old England's through?

The old sixties comedy series was currently being rerun on Saturday nights, and the tune could simply have been taped from the television. “Who do you think you're” was not quite the same thing as “Who do you think you are?” but it was doubtless the nearest my persecutor could get. The laughter was more difficult, but I suspected it came from an old twenties or thirties record called
The Laughing Policeman,
which my father sometimes mentioned and imitated—it was a popular joke of the time. Who on earth would have a copy today? A collector of old 78s?

The next day, just before my car called for me, I was rung up again, and the same tape was played. This time I was ready. I had by the phone my own little recording apparatus—one I use if I get an idea or a memory of something that needs doing when I don't have a pencil or paper handy. I switched it on before taking up the receiver and I recorded the ridiculous little song and the laughter. Armed with the tape I told my driver to take me first to the Houses of Parliament and I lodged the tape with the police office there. Whether they were impressed or faintly contemptuous I did not wait to find out.

But as I settled into my chauffeur-driven car one answer did occur to me as to why all the little persecutions had such a strong vein of the ridiculous. It was precisely so that no one other than the person they were aimed at would take them seriously. Did that, I wondered, tell me something about what they were leading up to?

That evening I rang Frieda Brewer, the research assistant whose name and number Elmore Hasselbank had given me. The voice that answered was rich, mature, and intelligent. A
woman of strong opinions, I surmised, and a rack of arguments to support them.

“Oh, Mr. Pinnock. Yes, Mr. Hasselbank said you might be ringing, and in fact I rather hoped that you would. I've had my file out on the case, and been through it.”

“Did anything occur to you, going back to it?”

There was a second's hesitation.

“To be honest I've been through it several times since we did the original article, so I wasn't coming fresh to it and there weren't likely to be any surprises, or things that we'd missed. So I can't say anything new struck me.”

“Do I take it the case interests you, apart from being employed on it?”

“Yes.” The voice was definite, unembarrassed. “Decidedly so. A whole series of questions occur to one: why he did it, where he went, if he's still alive. They say everyone has a book in him or her—which usually means some dreary autobiography, I imagine. I do sometimes wonder if the Revill case isn't my book.”

“If you were starting to write it now, what would you want to do again, or what would you try to do that you didn't manage to do for the article?”

She thought. A careful, thorough woman.

“The housekeeper, if she's still alive. Hasselbank insisted on approaching her himself, but I always thought that was a mistake. She could be the sort of stiff person who automatically distrusts an American voice—she's the right generation. Then the family, of course, though I wouldn't expect any joy from them. I in their shoes wouldn't want the thing raked up again every few years. . . . But would you mind telling me what you've done yourself?”

I felt I would rather not tell her, because I didn't altogether like the sound of that book she thought she had in her. But it
would have been absurd to employ her as researcher yet to leave her in the dark about what I'd found out. She would not be able to ask herself the right questions or set herself on the right path if she had only a partial knowledge. So I told her in strict confidence about the postcard, about my suspicions concerning my own birth, about my parents' move from Southampton to Milton, about the nanny's pregnancy, about my visit to Matthew Martindale. Though she questioned me very closely about that, she agreed that the memories of a five-year-old child were not likely to be very germane.

“So you think I should start with Mrs. Selena Gould?” I asked, when I had brought her up to date.

“Yes.” The rich and confident voice hesitated. “I wonder—just slap me down if I'm putting myself forward too much—but I
wonder
if she wouldn't be more likely to talk to a woman.”

That immediately struck me as a possibility, if she was old and maybe straightlaced.

“You'd be willing to do it yourself?” I asked her.

“Yes, I would. There'd be another advantage in that, because I could use any story I liked as an excuse for talking to her and there would be no damaging fallout for you. I do hope we can meet sometime, but officially there's no connection between us. That would leave me freer.”

“That sounds like altogether a good idea,” I said.

“By the way, Mr. Pinnock, I cost.” There was no trace of apology in her voice—more, in fact, a touch of pride. “I'll certainly keep the bill down, due to my own interest in the matter, but, nevertheless, I cost. It's how I make my living.”

“Understood.”

“When—if—I've talked to the woman I'll prepare a written report. That's always best, though I try not to make them too dry. Then when you've gone through it and thought about it, that's when perhaps we should meet.”

She obviously knew her job and was experienced enough to know the best procedures so I said that was a perfectly satisfactory arrangement. When I heard about Mrs. Selena Gould, about ten days later when I returned from the party conference, it was in the form of a written report, which was waiting for me on my doormat.

REPORT OF A MEETING WITH SELENA GOULD AT THE CHALFONT NURSING HOME, BOURNEMOUTH,
SEPTEMBER 14, 1997

I thought the best plan was to make my visit to the home a general one, rather than a visit to one particular inmate (or guest as they are called there). That way a refusal to talk at all was much less likely. I, therefore, rang the owner/manageress in advance, claiming to be head of a team from the Department of Social Security in London, investigating nursing home care for the elderly. I said that somebody—it could be me, it could be one of my team—would be calling on September 14 to interview all their residents. My manner was very Civil Service, and the owner accepted my story completely. I knew from my earlier research with Mr. Hasselbank that this was a nursing home with only eight patients, and I guessed some would be virtually uninterviewable, which turned out to be the case. Mrs. Walden, the owner and matron-figure, insisted on introducing me to everyone herself, so that they were not confused or frightened by a new face. When I had finished with my fourth patient, from whom no intelligible word could be got, Mrs. Walden came to get me and take me to the fifth interviewee.

“I'll take you to Mrs. Gould next. She'll be a real treat
after poor Clarrie. She's eighty-three, but she's got all her wits about her and she's had an interesting life.”

“Oh, that's good. Has she been here long?”

“Eight years. Bad arthritis. But she's had her moments, has Selena: housekeeper to the rich and the aristocratic. She's
quite
a lady herself. Knows what she wants and insists on getting it Oh yes, everything has to be just so for her, and she'll instruct you how it's to be done. But she's a sweet person . . . Mrs. Gould, this is the visitor I told you about.”

My first impression of Mrs. Gould was that “sweet” was not the word I would have used—but then it was probably an all-purpose word used in the home for all its female inmates, a desperately dated hangover from the days when “sweet” was exactly what a woman was expected to be. Reserved, dignified, serene, were some of the terms that came to my mind first to describe her. She was beautifully and suitably dressed—probably
not
for my visit, I decided, but as a habit—and she sat in her upright armchair in a posture as straight as her arthritis would permit.

Mrs. Walden slid out of the room, to await a call on the buzzer that was set close to the hand of all the patients. I won't go into the first part of my talk with Selena Gould, the talk that was the necessary pretext for what I had really come for. I don't think that if I had really come for the facts about this nursing home Mrs. Gould would have been the one to give them to me. “These people are my friends, I've been here so long,” she said. She was a model of tact and diplomacy, of the ambiguous or unrevealing answer. I realized this was going to present difficulties when—if—we moved on to the meaty part of the interview,
and I determined if possible to have a conversation with her rather than a question and answer session, which might have put her back up. I was sure that if there had arisen any sense of conflict, I would have been the one who would have been worsened. She, after all, was the one who could simply declare the conversation at an end. I report this to explain the fact that to stimulate natural conversation I had to tell one or two lies, which in the normal course of events I try to avoid.