Dying to Tell (36 page)

"We're grateful."

"I don't want your gratitude. It's no use to me. Going after Rupe got me and others into a lot of trouble. He's not the only one to have been murdered. There have been five other deaths, Win. Five. Just think about that. Five lives ended. Plus Rupe's. I don't blame you. Rupe did the damage. But why? Why did he go after Townley? He was trying to blackmail the man. That's how he came to be murdered. But why! What was it really all about?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Peter Dalton. It goes back to him, doesn't it?"

"Peter?" gasped Mil.

"Control yourself," said Win. "Brew the tea."

"Forget the tea," I said. "Just tell me."

"This can't have anything to do with.. ."

"I think you know it has. Dalton died in August 'sixty-three. Officially, he committed suicide. But he was more likely murdered by Townley. Maybe for money. Train Robbery money. Howard told the police he saw a holdall full of fivers at Wilderness Farm a few days before Dalton's death." I looked up at Mil. "You knew Peter Dalton pretty well, didn't you, Mil?"

She gaped at me helplessly. No tea was brewing. But memories were stirring memories and secrets. "It was Mum's fault," she murmured.

"Your mother?"

"If she hadn't told Rupert '

"That's enough," snapped Win. "Don't say another word."

"But Win '

"Be quiet." Win was on her feet now, staring at her sister. "You'll not blame my mother for anything." (My mother, I

noticed, though she was Mil's too, of course.) "Hers wasn't the fault, was it?"

"No, Win. I'm sorry." Mil wiped away her tears with a dishcloth that had been drying on the range. "It's just ... so hard. To lose Rupert .. . when I was never able to ..."

"Never able to what?" I prompted.

"I think you should go upstairs, Mil," said Win, quietly but firmly. "I can explain what needs to be explained."

"But.. ."

"Go on."

Mil looked at me, then at her sister. "Now Rupert's gone," she murmured, 'maybe we should .. ."

"I'll tell him, Mil. You go. It'll only upset you more to hear it said."

Mil bowed her head, absent-mindedly replaced the dishcloth on the range, then moved slowly to the door that Win was holding open for her, breathing heavily as she went. Just as she was about to leave the room, she stopped and turned to me. "I'm sorry, Lance," she said, sounding as if she truly was, 'for any trouble I've brought you."

"That's all right, dear," said Win. "You can leave this to Lancelot and me."

Mil nodded dolefully and left. Win waited until she saw her sister climbing the stairs I could hear her plodding steps from where I was sitting then closed the door, stooped to a low cupboard and got out a dusty, quarter-full bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky. She poured us a couple of fingers each in grimy glasses and sat back down at the table.

"Rupert tried to blackmail Townley, you say?"

"There was a lot to blackmail him with."

"More than the Train Robbery?"

That wasn't the half of it."

"Did Rupert take on more than he could manage?"

"He couldn't manage Townley, that's for sure."

"And Townley killed him?"

"Not personally. But .. . effectively, yes."

"Has finding this out put you in danger, Lancelot?"

"You could say so, yeh."

"I'm sorry for that."

"Me too. So, how about giving me the meagre satisfaction of knowing why Rupe was so determined to have a go at Townley?"

"I fear Mil was right. If Mother hadn't left that letter for him, none of this would have happened. If I'd known what she'd done .. ."

"What letter was this?"

"She lodged it with the solicitor, to be handed to Rupert after her death."

"What was in it?"

The family secret. And a shameful one it was. Rupert was Mil's son, Lancelot."

"What?" I gaped at her in astonishment.

"There it is. I've said it. Yes. My brother Rupert was born to my sister."

"You're not serious."

"It's true. My mother thought he had a right to know and feared we would never tell him. So, she decided to ensure that after her death ... the secret would be revealed to him."

"How did he react?"

"Like you, he could hardly believe it. But he had to. There were harsh words. Mil took to her bed. I feared for her sanity. Rupert... But there, I couldn't blame him. It was a terrible thing for him to learn. He's never set foot in this house since."

"I don't understand. How was this kept secret originally?"

"Before Mil began to show, Mother took her away to Bournemouth. We told people Mother was expecting and needed special treatment on account of her age and that Mil had gone to keep her company. They came straight back after Rupert's birth and registered him here as Mother's child. Illegitimacy then was a real scandal. Not like now. Mil would have been out of a job. Shunned. And if she was to marry ... She was only nineteen. It seemed best to arrange it as we did. I won't say I opposed it, because I didn't. It worried Father, though. Whether he'd have allowed us to go through with it if he'd lived .. . I'm not sure."

"Did he kill himself because of this, Win?"

"Nobody knows what happened. It wouldn't have helped to think of his death as anything other than an accident."

"He was depressed at the time, though, because of what was being planned?"

"Yes. He thought it was wrong. What's happened since makes me think we should have listened to him. But Mother and I ... overrode him."

"Who was Rupe's father, then? Peter Dalton?"

Win nodded. "Mother named him in her letter. Rupert made lots of enquiries about him after reading it. He dug it all up. There were times he was here, in Street, when we didn't know. People at the Post Office would say they'd seen him. But we hadn't. I think he was .. . investigating."

"And his investigations revealed that his real father was murdered by Stephen Townley."

Win nodded again. "If Rupert's father had been alive and willing to marry Mil when she admitted she was with child, it would all have been different."

"But he wasn't."

"No."

"And Rupe held Townley to blame for that."

"He must have done, yes."

"The man he went after .. . was his father's murderer."

I thought about that for a moment and felt sorry for Rupe for the first time since setting off in search of him. The woman he'd always thought of as his sister was actually his mother. And the people he'd always thought of as his parents were actually his grandparents. No wonder Rupe had wanted to take revenge for the guilt-riddled chaos of his family relationships. And there was Townley, waiting in his past, a deserving target for whatever revenge he could contrive. Which, thanks to Townley's dark dealings, amounted to quite something.

"Rupe had a photograph of Townley, taken by Howard. How did he get hold of that, Win?"

"Howard must have given it to him. We drummed it into Howard to keep quiet about what he reckoned he'd seen that summer for fear he'd blurt out something about Mil and Peter. But somewhere along the line he may have told his tale to Rupert. They were that close when Rupert was a boy."

"Rupe never breathed a word to me about it."

"Probably because he didn't believe it. He always did his best to protect his brother."

That was certainly true. Rupe never wanted people to think Howard was crazy or at any rate crazier than he really was. The Train Robbery story must have struck Rupe as a madness too far. Until that posthumous letter from his mother well, the woman he'd regarded as his mother prompted him to take another look. But how had he been able to take it further? How had he got started on Townley's trail? "Would the letter your mother left for Rupe have told him anything about Townley, Win?"

"I never read it. How can I say? All she would have known about him, from Mil, was that he was an American friend Peter made during his time in the Army. She knew precious little about Peter, come to that. There wasn't much she could tell Rupert about his father beyond his name. Mil had nothing of his. Except.. ." Win frowned. (It would be more accurate to say her frown deepened, since there was always the making of one on her face.)

"What?"

"Mil has a small china cat that sits on her bedside table. Peter gave it to her. Mother wanted to get rid of it, but Mil was so attached to it that Mother relented in the end. Whether she mentioned it in her letter I don't know. I can't see why she would have. It's just Mil's silly old Japanese cat."

"Japanese?"

"A good-luck charm from Japan, yes."

"Peter Dalton had been to Japan?"

"At some point, I suppose."

To visit a friend. Yes, it had to be. That was the connection. Mrs. Alder probably had referred to it in her letter. Even so, Rupe wouldn't have made much of the reference at first. Then Eurybia sent him to Tokyo, where he had the opportunity and inclination to look for traces of Dalton's friend. Bingo! At the Golden Rickshaw, haunt of a certain brand of American military man circa 1960, he chanced on another photograph of

Townley. From that moment on there was no turning back for him. Just as now there was no coming back.

"Is it important, Lancelot?"

The cat? No more than anything else. Just one clue among several. Rupe put them together very cleverly. His only miscalculation was thinking he could handle Townley. He's not alone in that."

"Is Townley threatening you?"

"Not exactly. Let's just say I've lived to regret making his acquaintance. But at least I have lived."

"Are you back to stay now, then?"

I smiled. "Fraid not. Got to keep moving."

She didn't ask why. Maybe she realized this uncharacteristic wanderlust on my part had something to do with her family -and the position they'd put me in. If so, it wasn't a point she wanted to dwell on. "Have you seen your parents?"

"Not yet. I thought I'd go round there now."

"Please give them my regards."

"Will do." I glanced up as the clock began to strike nine -the strong, unhurried strikes of a Victorian farmhouse timepiece, probably bought by Win's grandparents, maybe even her great-grandparents, way back in the Alders' landlocked past. (Rupe had pulled off quite a first for the family by getting his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.) "I'd better be on my way. They go to bed early these days."

Win saw me to the door. Howard didn't stir from his chair in front of the television as I passed the sitting room. There was no sign of Mil. I glanced up the stairs, half-expecting to see her watching me from the landing. But she wasn't there.

"It's stopped raining," said Win as I stepped out into the cool, damp air.

"So it has."

"Goodbye, Lancelot." (Good night wouldn't really have covered it. We both knew that.)

I heard the door close behind me as I turned away. And it seemed to me that a lot else closed in that moment.

Which only goes to show how you shouldn't take the way things seem on trust. I barged my way back through the sodden barrier of rhododendrons, turned into the lane and pulled up sharply.

A man was standing directly in front of me a broadly built figure, rain coated his face deep in shadow. I had an instant impression of immobility as if he'd been waiting for me.

"Hi, Lance."

I recognized his voice, but at first doubted my own recognition. It couldn't be him. Not here. It just couldn't be. "Gus?"

"Got it in one."

"What the bloody hell

"Am I doing here? Good question."

"Is Toshi with you?"

"No. Toshi has no idea where I am. I'd checked out of the Arundel by the time he got back there."

"But.. ."

"I followed you here, Lance."

"You .. . followed me?"

That's right."

"I don't..."

"Parminter's not my real name."

"It isn't?"

"No. Nor's Ventress. But that's the name you'll know me by."

If central Somerset had suddenly developed seismic instability and a fissure had opened in the earth beneath my feet, I think I'd have been rather less surprised than I was by the realization that Yamazawa's laid-back drinking buddy from New Jersey, Gus Parminter, was actually ... a hired assassin.

"Let's take a walk along the lane. We need to talk, you and me. It looks private enough hereabouts. And like the lady said .. . it's stopped raining." Gus laid a large, firm hand on my shoulder and turned me round. We started walking, slowly.

"You're .. . Ventress?" I asked, struggling to get the words out.

"Yup."

"Ledgister hired you ... to kill Hashimoto?"

"He did. Then Townley hired me ... to kill Ledgister."

"You planted the bomb?"

"And set it off. Yuh. Neat work, if I say so myself. I reckoned Yamazawa was bound to lead me to you. And therefore to Ledgister. Townley's instructions were clear. Terminate Ledgister and that low-life he'd taken up with Madron. Plus destroy the letter. Three birds with one stone. Not bad, hey?"

If he was expecting a compliment he'd come to the wrong man. But why had he come to me at all? "What do you want?"

"I want to tell you something very important, Lance. For once, that phrase "a matter of life and death" really is appropriate. You see, Townley's instructions didn't finish at Ledgister, Madron and the letter. He wants a clean slate. He wants to rule out any possibility of another Rupe Alder disturbing his retirement. He wants the thread Rupe followed cut at the source and wound in. Which means, I'm awful sorry to say .. ."

We stopped. Staring at him in the pallid gleam of one of Hopper Lane's very few street-lamps, his face patched by the shadows of the overhanging trees, I hadn't a doubt not the slightest as to what he meant. "You've come here to kill me, haven't you?"

He nodded. "Plus the Alders. The brother and the two sisters."

"Oh my God."

"A more pious response to the imminence of death than some manage, Lance. I'll give you that. But consider: why am I telling you this? You surely don't think I gave Ledgister any notice of his demise. And you know I didn't give Hashimoto any."

I swallowed hard. "Why, then?"