Gently with Love (7 page)

‘He would certainly have reason to be angry.’

‘He would go through the roof.’

‘Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to suspect the truth.’

Verna lapsed into another fertile silence.

‘Of course, he may work out where she went,’ I prodded. ‘It only calls for a little common sense. I don’t suppose she had much money. She needed somewhere to stay for – how long? A year?’

Verna gasped. ‘You don’t think he’ll guess?’

‘Earle isn’t exactly a born detective. But it wouldn’t surprise me if one of these days he began to think in terms of Scotland.’

‘He doesn’t know the address!’

‘That may put him off. Though a determined investigator could find it.’

‘But it’s utterly remote – the back of beyond.’

‘If it is on the phone it is on record.’

I heard sounds at the other end suggestive of Verna’s taking a fresh middle. I could picture her sitting on the phone seat in the study at Blockford, her eyes determined and her mouth tight.

‘Now look here, George. This could be serious. I think you’d better have another talk with Earle. You’ve got to convince him that it’s all over and that Anne is never, never going to marry him. It’s unfortunate, but it’s irrevocable. It’s just no use his waiting around. After all, he’s young, he can soon get over it, and there are plenty more fish in the sea.’

‘Suppose he doesn’t listen to me.’

‘He’s got to listen to you. Otherwise he’ll be causing a great deal of unhappiness. If he really does love Anne he’ll remember that and do the right thing. But you must convince him that now she’ll never marry him and that it would be best for him to go back to Canada. That would be ideal for both of them, and it’s what he always wanted to do.

‘It would tidy things up.’

‘There’s no need to be cynical. You must see that it’s the only answer. While he hangs around here he’s going to make trouble and perhaps have another go at poor Nigel.’

There she had a point.

‘Well, I have talked to him,’ I conceded. ‘And I think I’ve persuaded him to go home for a break. I dare say he will come back seeing things clearer. He’s feeling very down in the mouth just now.’

‘Of course I’m sorry for Earle and all that.’

‘The bottom did rather drop out of his world.’

‘All the same, he has taken it badly, and it will be a relief when he goes home for good.’

I hung up and dropped into an easy chair and lit my pipe and cogitated. I felt that my theory was proved but it didn’t make me happy. I thought of Anne and of that traumatic moment when she had stepped out of the doctor’s surgery. I could hear the words that she had just heard and that now were pounding in her brain. She had done it. Her life was in ruins. There wasn’t any way out. Abortion? Passing it off? They weren’t the ways of Anne Mackenzie. And nobody she could tell. Not Verna or Alex. Not me. She had had to face it alone. There was nothing left for her except to run. But where could she go? With very little money and so much need for support and protection? If only Colin had been alive, the one person who would always have taken her part! Alas, she could no longer go to him, but there remained the people who had loved him, who were most like him, most like her: who might receive her just because she was Colin’s. So she had written that bitter letter though the tears were almost blinding her, had somehow kept up her front with Verna, and in the morning slipped away. Beside her grief Earle’s seemed half-selfish: all the consolation was his: all the alternatives were open to him. Anne just had a broken heart.

I remained some while sitting and smoking and gazing at the watercolour that had never been given. Then I went to my desk and switched on the light. I opened a pad and made notes.

T
HE NEXT DAY
was Wednesday. In the evening I did something that I confess to doing very rarely: I switched on the television and sat down to watch the Wednesday Play.

There is an anaemia about television drama that I am told is intrinsic. I once discussed the point with a playwright who happens also to be a dramatic critic. He averred that the weakness lay in the medium, which he described as essentially a branch of journalism; when you wrote a script for TV you were pouring your talent into a bottomless well. A successful theatre play lives. It is a creative act of substance. It is printed and remembered and revived and reassessed. But play scripts written for television vanish into nothingness the moment they are performed, and those who write them are inhibited by awareness of this expendability. The only TV drama worth watching, my friend concluded, was that written originally for other media, or at least based on literary work that could provide an independent inspiration.

My Wednesday Play fell into neither category. It was called
The Glass Interval
. It was about a West Indian youth with a bored expression and a girl who spoke with a Brummie accent. They met on a see-saw in a children’s playground. They seemed to have very little to say to each other. They gazed at each other unsmilingly and when they did speak seemed to be sharing one set of lines between them. I suppose this conveyed their sense of togetherness. They left the see-saw when a policeman approached. They wandered with a slow, balletic gait through mean streets and a demolition site, and sat earnestly regarding each other over cups of tea in a workmen’s cafe. Then they strolled into a studio where an artist was painting. The artist was strangely and immediately struck by them. He was effusive. He could perceive between them, as I could not, a Glass Interval. He offered them fruit and wine and begged to be allowed to paint them, then and there. They gazed at each other. They were plainly offended. They strolled out of the studio. I switched off.

And so (as no doubt you will have guessed) I made the distant acquaintance of Nigel Fortuny, unloved by Alex, detested by Earle, but not entirely written off by Verna. He played the artist. The part was a poor one, and Fortuny could offer little to improve it. As an actor he rested on his good looks and a trim, athletic presence. He was an awkward mover, at least on set, and given to the frenetic use of gesture; he delivered his lines with a monotonous attack that had almost an air of bullying. But he was handsome. He had a Roman nose, which was something that Earle hadn’t mentioned, and a strong, obstinate jawline and straight, manly brows. For looks I’m afraid he left Earle in the shade. It was easy to see why women fell for him. It was not difficult to understand why Anne had turned to him after a hectic quarrel with Earle. Fortuny was a sweetie; by gathering him in she was soothing her injured
amour propre
. For that she hadn’t needed a paragon of virtue but a handsome brute for whom other women would envy her. She may not have intended an affair, but I imagined that Fortuny would be difficult to resist. He was thirty-five. He was a practised seducer and probably an exciting performer in bed. So Anne had fallen; and that casual union had evoked a havoc out of all proportion. Whatever happy ending Verna might be dreaming of I knew was vain after seeing the man. Fortuny was nobody’s husband, Fortuny could rate no respect from Anne. If Anne was as sensible as I supposed her, she would take care that she never saw Fortuny again. Fortuny was an episode in women’s lives: he would never be a principal actor.

I asked Mrs Jarvis her opinion of him.

‘Oh, he’s lovely,’ she replied. ‘My Linda got his autograph up at the TV Centre. He made her go all over queer.’

‘Would you like him for a son-in-law?’

‘Go on with you. Why should he look at the likes of us?’

‘He might fancy Linda.’

‘Linda’s a good girl. She knows better than to lark with his sort.’

Which I took to prove my point. Mrs Jarvis can usually see the end of her nose.

E
ARLE NEGLECTED TO
get in touch with me when he returned from his trip to Canada and on two later occasions when I rang Verna my ring was not answered. She was, I learned afterwards, visiting her mother, but I was discouraged from trying again, and contented myself with the reflection that I knew most of what there was to be known. The mystery was over, and my interest in the affair subsided. I was not, after all, very closely acquainted with the people who were involved. I doubted whether Verna regarded me highly, Alex viewed me with indifference, Anne had cut herself off and Earle had lost his taste for policemen. Anne I regretted. I had been too fond of Colin not to be moved by her misfortunes; but even Anne I had met only twice, however deep an impression she had made on me. And meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, I was finding my own affairs absorbing. In all, I felt I could contain my impatience until the course of events brought me news.

But the course of events was tardy. Christmas passed and I had heard nothing. At Easter I spent a few memorable days in Paris in the company I most desired. Then, at the beginning of June, some time fell due to me as compensation for extra duties, and since Brenda was unable to get away I planned to spend it on a visit to my sister and her husband in Somerset. I returned home early on the Wednesday to pack, and arranged with Mrs Jarvis to have breakfast next morning at seven. I rang Brenda and was about to retire when I was called back to the phone.

‘George? Verna. I must speak to you.’

My first reaction was relief. When you are a policeman a late phone call is usually a prelude to lost sleep.

‘Verna. How are you?’

‘Skip the compliments. Something really ghastly has happened. You’ll probably read it in the papers tomorrow and you’re the only person I know who can help.’

I hesitated. ‘Is it Earle again?’

‘My God. Yes it is.’

‘Another upset with Fortuny?’

‘It’s more than that. Earle’s killed him.’

I had been standing by the desk, impatient to hang up and get to bed. Now I sat down rather suddenly and took a firmer grip on the phone.

‘Would you mind repeating that?’

‘I said Earle’s killed him. He went for him again and did him in.’

‘When?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘But there’s been no word of this at the Yard.’

Verna made exasperated noises. ‘It didn’t happen in London, stupid. It was at Kyleness. Alex has just rung me. Earle is in custody at Dornoch.’

‘In Scotland, you mean?’

‘Yes, in Scotland! Of course, Anne was staying with Colin’s family. She had the baby there, that’s what it is about. Why else do you think Earle went for him?’

‘But what was Fortuny doing at Kyleness?’

‘Never mind that! It’s a long story. Listen, George, we’ve got to help them. That damned little fool is still in love with Earle.’

‘Exactly how can we help them?’

‘You’ve got to go up there. You’ve got to take over the case. Earle didn’t mean to kill him, it’s manslaughter. I should think you could get him off altogether.’

‘Do you know the cause of death?’

‘He threw him over a cliff. I believe there’s some nonsense about a knife.’

‘A knife!’

‘That’s why you’ve got to go there. The knife is a plant. You’ve got to prove it.’

I leaned back in my chair and sighed. ‘Verna, you’d better face the facts. If what you tell me is true there is no question of manslaughter, and if Fortuny was stabbed the knife can’t be a plant.’

‘But you don’t know that until you get up there.’

‘Nor is there any question of my going up there. I am an officer in the Metropolitan Police Force and my writ doesn’t run outside the area.’

‘That’s rubbish.’

‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

‘You’re at the Yard and you go anywhere.’

‘Only on assignment in England and Wales. Across Carter Bar I would just be a nuisance.’

‘Oh
God
.’ She made other noises. ‘George, you know you’re just putting me off. I don’t know the protocol and I don’t care. They’ll listen to you all right if you go up there.’

‘They wouldn’t and I wouldn’t blame them. What Earle seems to need is a lawyer.’

‘With you breathing down their necks they’d have to go easy on him.’

‘They would probably arrest me too. For obstruction.’

She paused to take second wind but then she came back strongly. ‘George, whatever you say you can’t just wash your hands of this. You were Colin’s great friend. And you are Earle’s friend too. And then there’s Anne. You know she loves him. How do you think she is feeling now? With this trumped-up charge against him, and him eating his heart out in a cell in Dornoch?’

‘The way you tell it it isn’t a trumped-up charge.’

‘You know very well what I mean. And you, the one person who could help them, sitting on the sidelines and talking protocol. It isn’t good enough. It isn’t like the man whom Colin told me so much about. He said I could always go to you in a jam and that’s what I’m doing, George. It’s up to you.’

Though the subject was so grave I couldn’t resist a little smile. There was something so engaging in the naivety of Verna’s tactics. But of course she was right. I couldn’t turn my back if the affair was half as serious as she represented it. I could be of no use in an official capacity but I was a friend who knew the ropes; and Verna had struck the right chord when she harped on Colin and drew a picture of Anne’s distress. Also I was free to act. Geoffrey and Bridget I would be seeing in a few weeks anyway, and the relatives of policemen learn never to be surprised at a last-minute change of plan. I could go: but what I really needed to know was how far I could believe in Verna’s story. It was shocking, but was it entirely true? I felt I must have independent confirmation.

‘Look, I’ll run over to Blockford in the morning. Then you can put me in the picture.’

‘That’s a waste of time. We’ve got to get up there. I can tell you on the way.’

‘You intend to come with me?’

‘Naturally. It’s a hundred miles from Inverness. I don’t drive and there are no proper buses. You’re the only way I can get there.’

‘Verna, you do have your facts straight?’

‘George, just try to get here early.’

I made a face at the stuffed pike. ‘Very well, then.’

‘We can be in Inverness by evening.’