The Islanders (32 page)

I decided it was time I caught up with Chaster’s novels, so I read them all, slowly and carefully, in the order in which he had written them.

They were not, I must say, the kind of fiction I normally like to read. I prefer a strong storyline, a range of interesting and successful characters, a colourful or exciting background. I like adventures, intrigues, brave deeds. Chas’s novels seemed to me to be about losers or failures: no one could succeed at anything in his stories, doubts were constantly expressed, the language was understated or ironic, everyone went in for perplexing actions that took them nowhere. As for the background, all the books seemed to be set on Piqay, and in the town in which I lived, but I found it hard to recognize the places I knew. One book even contained a mention of the street where my house was, but almost every detail was wrong.

One of the novels did briefly interest me, because it described a violent death that had taken place in a theatre. My attention focused sharply, but it soon became clear that this novel was much the same as all the others. If there were any clues in it about what had happened to Chaster in the past, I missed them all.

I was glad to finish reading his books but I felt my conscience was now clearer. At least I knew what he had written, even if within a day or two I could remember hardly any details about them.

I had almost forgotten about Caurer and her disruptive impact on Chaster, when unexpectedly she burst back in on his life.

The background to it was the execution of a mentally subnormal young man, for a murder he was alleged to have committed. This had happened several years before.

I had not taken any special interest in what happened, although I did remember the controversy that surrounded his execution. Capital punishment is not common in the Archipelago, but there are several islands where it is still carried out. It’s a subject that always causes heated argument. I am personally against the idea of state-sponsored killing and always have been, so whenever I hear the news that another hanging or guillotining has taken place I get a sick feeling in my stomach, wish that it had not happened, but try to console myself with the thought that due process must have taken place and all appeals would have been exhaustively heard.

In this respect, the guillotining of Sington was little different from others. I knew from news reports that the evidence was overwhelmingly against him, that he had made a full confession, that he showed no remorse, and that on his island group the law and its remedy were clear. Beyond that, I knew few details.

Caurer, a famous liberal reformer and campaigning writer, had for some reason taken it upon herself to re-open the case and investigate whether Sington had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Her conclusion, unsurprisingly, was that he had.

I saw her book on the subject discussed in the press and felt interested and pleased that this might persuade more people to my point of view. But because of Caurer’s brief but disruptive impact on my brother’s life, I could no longer treat anything by or about her with complete neutrality.

One day, not long after her book had been published, Chaster turned up at my house. It had been more than a year since we had seen each other, but by that time separations of several months at a time were not unusual. He did not stay long.

‘Have you seen this?’ he said loudly, holding aloft a hardback book with a pale cover. ‘Why has she done this to me?’

He tossed the book towards me but as I tried to catch it, and failed, he was already heading back towards the street.

I picked up the book from the floor, and saw what it was.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

‘Read it, and you will. I can’t believe I fell for that woman. I should have realized what she was up to, coming to my place that time. All those questions about the job I had in the theatre. Had I seen anything that happened? Did I know anything? I thought she was different from the others but I was a damned fool and besotted. I was taken in by her.’

‘Let me read it,’ I said, already sensing that the book contained information about my brother. ‘Does it damage you in any way?’

‘Just read the thing then throw it away. I never want to see it again.’

After he had stormed out I sat down immediately and read the book from beginning to end. It was not particularly long and was written in a terse, attractive style that I found readable and unusually compelling.

Caurer told the story of the killing that had led ultimately to the execution of Kerith Sington. She went into a great deal of background detail about the victim, a theatre performer called Commis, and also about the theatre where Commis’s death had occurred.

Her skill in reconstructing the scene was remarkable. She followed the policier investigation carefully, referring back to original statements and interviews wherever they were available. Then she moved on to the story of Kerith Sington, how he had become involved, how a certain amount of circumstantial evidence incriminated him.

In the longest chapter in the book Caurer went into Sington’s childhood and psychological background, and the kind of deprived and socially chaotic world in which he lived. She produced several examples of other, less serious offences in which he had been involved, how he had been secretive about them at first, then bragged to impress his friends. After she had analysed his alleged confession in detail, the reader could have been left in no doubt that Sington had been wrongly accused. She certainly convinced this reader that an innocent man had died for a murder he had not committed.

Nothing, to this point, had any relevance to my brother, or so it seemed. But in her final chapter Caurer tried to answer the question: if Sington was not the murderer of Commis, who was?

She examined the lives and backgrounds of other people who had been near the scene of the crime at the time. There was the manager of the theatre, the directors of the company which owned the theatre, several performing artistes, the technical and backstage crew, some itinerant manual workers, townspeople, visitors, members of the audience on the night when the killing took place.

And – ‘a young man, employed on a part-time basis as a general assistant backstage.’ No name was mentioned. Later the young man was brought into the story again. Shortly before the death, ‘he had been involved in a violent street scuffle with the murdered man, but according to witnesses in the street it had appeared to be a misunderstanding and the two men parted amicably.’ And again: ‘the young man had applied for the job under an assumed name, a fact which greatly interested the investigating officers. Furthermore, he left the island in mysterious circumstances, and at a time no one was able to be sure about. These two facts made him the number one suspect, at least for a time.’

Then this paragraph: ‘The policier authorities later established the true identity of this young man. Although he was then unknown, he later became a world-renowned writer of novels, a man of unquestioned integrity and honesty who is entitled to remain anonymous. Moreover, once his real identity became known, investigations were taken to his home island, where a conclusive alibi was established.’

There was no other mention of this young man, either directly or by implication. Of course I realized he was Chaster: the story about a violent scuffle in the street certainly had a ring of truth to it. At that age Chas had always been quick to ball his fists and strike an aggressive pose, and as a teenager he had involved himself in arguments in Piqay Town several times, and been beaten up for his trouble.

Caurer ended her book with the statement that although it was impossible for her to identify the real killer of Commis, the central truth remained unchallenged: that Kerith Sington had been wrongly accused, convicted and executed.

At first, I was not sure how I should react to this book. Chaster was not named. Nothing in it implicated him in anything illegal, and the identification of him was so vague that the ‘true identity’ could have been one of several people – Chaster was by no means the only world-renowned novelist of his, or my, approximate age.

When he threw Caurer’s book at me, though, he had clearly been upset, which made me wonder if there was more to know or tell than there appeared. Perhaps he was concerned that Caurer had revealed enough clues for other people to follow up. Surely there would be an interest in trying to identify who this mysterious young man had been?

I assumed that his anger against her was more or less the same as mine: that he realized now that she had gone directly to his house, not to seduce him or in any other way inveigle herself into his life, but simply to ask some questions, while she researched her book on Commis’s death.

The fact that he had fallen for her so completely had probably helped her cause on the day, and was a matter of indifference to her afterwards.

As had become my habit for many years, I decided to say nothing to Chas, nor to ask him any questions about the book. I continued to feel angry with Caurer on his behalf.

A few weeks later, I was amazed to receive a card from Chaster, inviting Hísar and myself to the house for drinks one evening. It was totally unprecedented. I had not been near the old house for several years, so if nothing else I was curious to see it again.

When the day came, Chaster greeted us with great friendliness and apparent good cheer, introduced us to the other friends he had invited, and made us welcome not only with generous quantities of drink but a superb meal too.

I couldn’t help noticing that a copy of Caurer’s book was standing prominently on one of the bookshelves, its cover facing out. Later, I spotted another copy, less obviously on show, in a neat pile of books stacked on a reading table in one corner.

When I could I took Chaster aside and asked him outright what had happened to change his mind about her.

He said, simply, ‘I love her, Woll.’

‘Still? After all this?’

‘More than ever. Nothing has changed since the day I met her. I think about Esla every day. I hope and plan to see her. I imagine that every letter that arrives, every email, every telephone call, will be from her. She is an inspiration to me, the woman I most admire and love. I shall never meet another like her. I live my life for her, I write every word for her.’

‘But you were so angry with her about the book.’

‘I was hasty. I thought she had betrayed me, but I realized later that in fact the opposite was true. She protected me, Woll.’

‘So this means – do you have any plans to see her again?’

‘All I know is that one day she will come back here to see me.’

Tragically, he was right.

Only three weeks after this evening meeting at the house, Chaster went down with an attack of pneumonia. He fought for life and the hospital did everything possible to save him, but he died in terrible discomfort a few days later.

Of course there was a funeral and following his instructions, whispered to me from his hospital bed, and later found in a sealed letter addressed to me in his study, Caurer was to be invited to be present.

She was then well into her sixties but she was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She said hardly anything to the other people who were there, and always stood alone. I could not stop looking at her. I began at last to understand much that until then I had not.

We returned to the house after the funeral ceremony, and everyone had a few drinks. As the guests started to depart, Hísar and I stood formally by the main door to give our thanks and say our farewells.

When Caurer’s turn came I felt overcome with a strange but powerful sense of wanting to hold her, embrace her, possess her in some way, however briefly. I did not want to lose sight of her, let her away from me. I was finally understanding the charismatic effect on which so many people had remarked, over the years and in so many different contexts.

She thanked us politely for our hospitality. I held out a hand to shake hers. She did not respond.

She said, ‘He told me a lot about you, Wolter. I am pleased to meet you at last.’

Her voice had the unmistakable and always attractive burr of the Quietude islands, that picturesque but remote group far to the south.

I said, fumbling for adequate words, ‘I’m sure Chaster would have been pleased to know that you were here today.’

‘He certainly did know I would be here. This is the day when I should tell you that Chaster and I were in love for many years, although we only ever met once, years ago. He is the only person I ever allowed to use my given name.’

‘He always called you Esla.’

‘Indeed, but now no one ever will again.’

I noticed then that her right hand, which I had tried to take, had a reddish-brown smear across the fingers and palm and that she was holding it slightly away from her body. Hísar had noticed it too.

‘Have you cut yourself, Madame Caurer?’ she said. ‘Let me have a look. We have a trained nurse here, so we could have it cleaned and dressed for you.’

‘No, it’s not a cut, but thank you.’ She moved her hand back, further away from us. ‘I hurt myself, that’s all.’

Then she left, stepping across the gravel drive to the car that had brought her, which drove away slowly towards the town.

Wolter Kammeston died thirteen months after his brother. He was survived by his wife of fifty-two years, Hísar, and two adult sons. His funeral was a private ceremony at the local crematorium, the only guests being family and close friends.