Death of a Sunday Writer (22 page)

He held up a hand, cutting her off. “Hello, yeah. That's good. Great. She'll be there. Yeah. I'll let you speak to her.” He handed over the phone. “They want your Visa number.”

When she had finished, Brighton said. “Do me a favour? Bring me back some of those, like, chocolate walnut whorls. I think they're Rowntree's. My Dad used to bring them back for us when we were kids. You can't get them here.”

Lucy was about to say that she was sure she had seen them on sale in Toronto, then stopped herself. Who knew what Jack's father might have been up to when he said he was going abroad? “I'll scour London,” she said.

In the next six hours, Lucy planned and prepared a trip to England, something that she would have allocated six months to under ordinary Longborough circumstances.

At first, when she listed what she had to do to be ready, she saw that the expedition was impossible, and then, slowly, she delisted everything inessential and
asked Nina about the rest. As she had suspected, Nina had all the answers.

“Get some money out of the machine and change a hundred dollars at the airport. Take some more to change there. How much? A day? Two hundred. Pay for your hotel and everything else with your card. Put together the outfit you want to wear in England; pack it; wear slacks and a sweater and sneakers on the plane; change in the washroom at Heathrow; take a book you've already read, an old favourite, to read on the plane. That's it. Have a good time.”

Happily, Lucy had a valid passport, continually renewed since her only trip abroad, to Bermuda, before she was married. It, along with her heavy raincoat, was in Longborough. The return trip to Longborough took four hours, and when she got back to Toronto she had time only to put a notice on her door, saying when she would be back, and buy some underwear before she had to leave for the airport.

Lucy had only a vague notion of what flying was like these days. She was astonished at the lack of fuss and the absence of lineups, and was delighted on the plane to find that the stewardess in charge of her section was older than she was, and called her “dear”, as if Lucy were already in England. She had a martini, and two glasses of red wine with her dinner, which, contrary to what everyone had always said, she found tasty and ingeniously laid-out, and then she had a B and B afterwards. On land, she knew she would have felt slightly skunked, and she did not know that the altitude was supposed to intensify the effect of the alchohol: her head seemed clear as a bell, so much so that
she made no attempt to sleep, and watched the movie, a Harrison Ford adventure. After that, she looked at her book for a while, and then the sky lightened and the kindly old stewardess brought her breakfast, which consisted of a bran muffin, a tiny croissant, and a sticky bun, all very cold, a little foil-covered beaker of orange juice, and tea. “Not very brilliant, love,” the stewardess said about the breakfast, “But it'll hold you until you get on dry land.” Lucy left the plane feeling that she had spent eight hours in a cinema where an extravagently coloured movie played on a wrap-around screen.

After Customs, Lucy learned from the British Rail desk that she should take the bus to Reading and the train to Oxford. From there, she would be able to get a bus to Whitney and change there, probably, for Clanfield. “Can't be sure,” the clerk said. “These local services aren't too brilliant sometimes, but I think that's your best bet.”

Lucy went out to wait under the grey sky for the bus to Reading, due in twenty minutes. It was now three o'clock in the morning, Toronto time, and she dozed gently, leaning against the sign post, like a horse.

At Reading, the driver shook her awake. “Don't want to go back to Heathrow, do we?” he asked. “Where are you going? Oxford? Through that door and across to the platform on the far side. Oh no, they've changed it. No Entry. That's brilliant, isn't it? Better ask inside.”

“Brilliant,” used pejoratively, seemed to be the adjective of choice in England that year.

She asked just in time to get to the right platform as an Oxford train pulled in. Seated, she had the clever idea of enquiring loudly, of anyone who cared to be looking, if this was the Oxford train. Four other passengers agreed that it was, and she got
another twenty minutes sleep before they shook her awake at Oxford.

At Oxford, instead of the cold drizzle that she hoped for to freshen her up, the air was thick and used up, and by the time she found the right bus at Gloucester Green her feet weren't lifting high enough to get up the steps. “Whitney,” she said to the driver, sitting across from him, and fell into a deep sleep. She woke up to find the bus stopped, all eyes upon her, and the driver saying, “If she were a few years younger I'd've said drugs, but I think she's just had a few.” Seeing her eyes open, he shouted “Whitney” at her and grinned around the bus as if Lucy were a foreigner.

Eventually, in Clanfield, Lucy walked across to The Plough and ordered a ham sandwich and coffee, took them into the lounge and sank with them into the most comfortable armchair she had ever experienced in her whole life. The landlord woke her up at two, and she drank another cup of coffee and asked directions to the school. “Didn't anyone tell you it's ten miles from here?” he asked, not unkindly.

“I didn't know anyone to ask.”

He shook his head. “Brilliant,” he said. “You stay there for a few minutes. I'll call you a taxi to take you to the school. All right? What're you up to, then? Visiting your grandson, are you?”

Lucy went into the lavatory and tried to recover her own image from the ancient grey face that stared back at her. In the end she settled for a wash and the look of someone, not much older than she, who had led a very hard life.

The taxi driver dropped her at the gate — “bit difficult turning round inside,” he said — and she tottered up
the drive to the front door, where a man in overalls listened to her story and directed her to the office of the school secretary. Here, a small fat woman with a sarcastic face and an accent so exquisite that Lucy thought she was doing it for effect — all of her words were manufactured in a tiny space behind her teeth and ejected from between nearly-closed lips — proved to be very willing to investigate Lucy's problem. Later, Lucy suspected that she looked as if she were at the end of a life-long quest, conducted without food, water or sleep, and that must have helped to arouse sympathy, or simply moved people to respond quickly to get her off the premises before she needed medical assistance.

“A family connection, is it? A distant cousin, you think? Tibbles? About 1940?” It took no time at all. The secretary, Miss Dunn, turned to a highly polished oak cabinet behind her, like an old library index, pulled out a drawer, and flicked her thumb through it, shaking her head. “I would have remembered him from other searches,” she said. “No. No boy named Tibbles has ever been enrolled at Clanfield. You can trust this file, Miss Brenner. Is there anything else I can do for you? You have come a long way.”

Lucy opened her purse and pulled out a copy of the picture in the Longborough Examiner. “Can you tell me if this boy ever went to Clanfield? About 1940?”

“The caption says he is Brian Potter,” the secretary pointed out. Before Lucy could stop her she had flicked through her file again. “No. No Brian Potter, either. Rotten luck.”

“That caption's wrong.”

The secretary thought about this.” Then it might be more difficult. I mean, unless you knew him, you could
easily compare him to all the faces in the group pictures and not see any resemblance, or, just as likely, see a resemblance to half a dozen boys. It's not a very good picture, is it, Miss Brenner? Miss Brenner!” Lucy opened her eyes. “I was thinking,” she said.

“Yes. Could you leave the picture with me. There's an old lady in the village who used to help with the washing and she claims she remembers every boy who was ever at the school. I'll ask her.”

“Would you? Yes. I've got an extra copy.”

“Your address?”

Lucy produced one of the cards that Jack Brighton had supplied her with.

“I thought you said you were a distant relative?” Lucy said, “You misheard. I'm enquiring on behalf of a distant relative. Sorry.”

“I see. Well, I'll ask Mrs. Perry, anyway.”

The taxi took her back to The Plough to wait for her bus. It was five o'clock and Lucy sat on the bench outside the inn, planning how best to use her time. Her list of possible outings the day before had included Harrod's, a walk round Oxford, and going to a play in London. A figure appeared in front of her, the host of The Plough.

“Find your grandson?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Now what?”

“I'm waiting for a bus to Whitney.”

“Another hour and a half, I'm afraid.”

Lucy gave up. “Brilliant,” she said. She looked across at the obviously well-managed inn. “Do you rent rooms?” she asked.

“I think we could find you one.” He picked up her little bag. “Will you want dinner?”

“Not yet. But eventually. I think I'll take a little nap. Could you call me at seven, say?”

So she napped until seven, ate a good dinner, sat in the lounge with her Agatha Christie for half an hour afterwards, then went back to bed and slept for ten hours. In the morning, she travelled back to Heathrow, promising the passing scenery that she would be back.

In Toronto, she reported to Jack Brighton the next morning. He had a message for her already, a fax from Miss Dunn. Old Mrs. Perry had positively identified the picture in the Longborough Examiner as one J.(Jim) Lacey, a Clanfield boy who had gone out to Canada in 1940, after his parents were killed in the blitz.

“What does that tell you?” Brighton asked.

“I'm not sure, but I think I have to have a chat with Mrs. Tibbles. There's no rush. I want to work it out first.”

The procrastination was almost over, but there was one more lead to follow before she made up her mind that there was no other explanation. Lucy talked next to Cowan the bookmaker. As far as she knew, Cowan had simply been involved in settling a bet of $50,000, but there was the possibility that having satisfied some kind of gambler's code by paying off the bet, Cowan had then decided to recover the money. In which case, there might be some risk in approaching him, but it had to be done.

She found him at home in the Ulysses Diner. After he had allowed her to sit down and sent the protective waiter away, Lucy started right in. “I've come across my cousin's diary,” she said. “There was a bet. On a race on the seventh of June. A horse called Sly Peek won at ten to one. My cousin had five thousand on it.”

“Trimble bet five thousand?” He spoke each word softly, wonderingly, giving each the same emphasis, as though reciting numbers. “Not with me.”

“The diary says so. And it says you paid off.”

Cowan leaned forward, interested. “Does it really?”

“Yes, it does. But the money has disappeared.”

“I'm not surprised.” Cowan giggled briefly.

“Why would you be? You were the only one who knew he actually had it.”

Cowan examined his fingernails. Not having protested immediately, he could now take his own time. “May I have it all again?” he asked. “Just to be sure I know what I've done.” Only slightly unnerved by Cowan's calm, Lucy went through the scam again.

“So therefore I took it back?” Cowan asked.

“That's what I think.”

“I wouldn't do that.”

“You might, if you found out that the race was fixed.”

“Did I find that out?”

“The diary doesn't say so. But I think you might have realised.”

Cowan nodded to the waiter who was watching by the bar, and received another cup of coffee. “Mrs. Brenner, how was the race fixed?”

Lucy drew out the photocopy of the race result and handed it to him. “The favourite was Desk Lamp. According to the diary, my cousin was in a conspiracy to
make sure Desk Lamp won, but David and, I think, Johnny Comstock, double-crossed the others and made sure Sly Peek won. David had bet five thousand on Sly Peek.”

“With me?”

Lucy nodded. She consulted her copy of the diary. “You didn't lay it off, because you learned that the trainer of Sly Peek was betting on Desk Lamp, so you thought David was being conned. But David was doing the conning.”

“And how did they fix the race?” Cowan's attitude was that of a man hearing marvels.

“Drugs. David got hold of some drugs that would not show up in tests, one to slow down Sly Peek, the other to speed up Desk Lamp.”

“How many people were involved? David would need help.”

“MacGovern, David, Johnny Comstock and someone called Nolan.”

“Ah, Nolan,” Cowan said, as if there was some sense emerging.

“They all thought they were part of a swindle to make Desk Lamp win, but David switched the drugs, crossing everybody, including you because of what you thought he was up to. But you paid up.”

“Honour among thieves, eh?” Cowan took a bullet-shaped white plastic cylinder from an inside pocket and jammed it into a nostril, inhaling deeply. He turned to a blank page in his notebook. “I want to get this all down,” he said. “I may write my own memoirs some day.”

“Mr. Cowan, I don't know what you find to enjoy in all this, but don't pretend you don't know all about it. The bet, I mean.”

Cowan ignored this. “How did the double-cross work? Tell me again. Slow, so I can get it down.”

Lucy went through it once more.

“I see. And I paid up? And you think I may have tried to get my money back.”

“Probably, yes. After David died. You were the only one who knew he had it.”

Cowan looked at his notes, and at the printout of the race. “I have to go back to work,” he said. “But this bears thinking about. Would you do me a favour? Would you trust me? There's something here I don't quite understand. I wish you'd leave it with me for a day or two.”