The Will To Live (5 page)

Reverend Bristow was the hero of the hour as he turned out to be a trained first aider as well as a vicar. He told Lancelot to pinch his nose and sent Lydia to the kitchen for ice to soothe both Lancelot’s face and the Frenchman’s hand – which, the vicar assured everyone, was bruised, not broken.

Major Huwes-Guffing stood wielding a poker, looking ready to use it if violence erupted once more.

Lancelot, meanwhile, was completely and utterly bemused. His nose had rapidly swollen to twice its normal size and now looked more like a duck’s bill than a hawk’s beak. He stared at the Frenchman, mumbling through the ice pack which was clamped to his face, “Whad on eard did you do dad for?”

“You marry my sister!” The Frenchman’s fury was instantly re-ignited. He started to get to his feet but Major Huwes-Guffing raised the poker and he sat back down.

“Who?” Lancelot asked incredulously.

“My sister! Camille!”

“Who?”

“Do not play the fool with me! You marry her!”

Lancelot looked baffled. “I doan underdand… You wand me do marry her? Why? Is she pregnand? Look, I can see you mighd wand a chap to do the decent ding bud I can assure you id wasn’d me. I’ve never med anyone called Camille.”

“You have! Since three month. You marry her. You go on honeymoon. And she die.” Tears began to roll down the Frenchman’s cheeks.

“On
honeymoon
? Whad rodden luck! I’m sorry … whad’s your name?”

“Toulouse.”

“Doulouse, old man, you’ve got de wrong chap, believe me.”

“You are not Lancelot Strudwick?”

“No. Well, yes, I am. Bud I can assure you I didn’d marry your sisder.” Lancelot’s eyes darted over to Julian and he added darkly, “Or indeed, anyone.”

Interestingly, Julian flushed scarlet and stared at the floor.

“You marry her!” screamed Toulouse. His voice was cracked with grief.

“I assure you I didn’d.”

“You did!”

“Can you prove id?” demanded Lancelot, his chin thrusting out provocatively despite the blood.

“Not yet,” sobbed the Frenchman. “But I will! I will find – how you say? – evidence!”

Lancelot was beginning to lose patience. “For heaven’s sake! I’ve never med de woman, cross my heart and hope do die.” Insultingly flippant, he drew a finger across his throat to emphasize his point, which did nothing to improve the Frenchman’s temper. For a good ten minutes the battle raged on. It was like a playground argument –
Did! Didn’d! Did! Didn’d!
The guests’ heads snapped from side to side as if they were watching a tennis match. Toulouse carried on accusing Lancelot of marrying his sister. Lancelot carried on denying all knowledge of her. Neither could win. They had reached deadlock.

It was the strangest thing. I had no doubt at all that the Frenchman was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And Lancelot was as smooth and slippery as an eel – I didn’t like him at all. But I’d have bet all the mess in Eton that he wasn’t lying either.

IT
was Jennifer who brought the drawing-room debate to an end. Putting her hand on the Frenchman’s arm, she said gently, “Look, I’m terribly sorry about your sister, really I am. It’s a tragic, tragic loss. But it’s quite obvious to me that my cousin did not marry her.”

Toulouse barked in disbelief but Jennifer raised her hand. “I would like to point out,” she continued, still polite but getting chilly, “that this is a private function to which you have not been invited. I must ask you to leave.”

“You tell him, cuz,” drawled Lydia.

The vicar cleared his throat. “Actually, Mrs Thomas,” he said, “there may be a small problem with that.”

“Whatever do you mean?” asked Jennifer.

“I’m afraid the river has burst its banks. The roads are flooded. The man is marooned here. We all are.”

Reverend Bristow had spoken quietly but the people close by had heard him. The news travelled quickly from mouth to mouth and soon there was an alarmed hubbub.

It was entertaining watching the reactions of the guests. They’d all observed the Toulouse–Lancelot spat with avid but detached interest – as if it had been an episode of a TV soap or a stage play. But now they were involved in something that affected them directly, they were horrified. The Frenchman was more or less forgotten. Jennifer ordered him to Sit! and Stay! on a chair by the door and he, looking as alarmed as everyone else by the vicar’s news, obeyed her. Jennifer then asked Gethin to watch over him, and Toulouse was left perching like a toddler on the naughty chair.

Meanwhile panic swept through the crowd and didn’t abate, despite Lydia’s loud announcement that “Coldean Manor has more than enough rooms to accommodate everyone should an overnight stay prove necessary.” The concept of being stranded seemed to strike terror into everyone’s hearts. Having experienced the horrors of the Bathroom from Antarctica I could understand why.

Hastily people consulted iPhones and BlackBerrys. Their groans confirmed what the vicar had said. In fact, it was worse than he’d thought. Not only had the river burst its banks, but part of the bridge had been swept away and all the surrounding roads were underwater. We were cut off from the outside world for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t just the Frenchman who was stuck here: everyone was. Including me and Graham. I borrowed his mobile and called Mum to explain the situation. I didn’t mention the body in the graveyard – she’d have gone ballistic. Besides, that seemed to be the least of our problems just then.

The food, which had appeared to be so plentiful for a light lunch, was going to have to do fifty-plus people for tea as well. And breakfast. And possibly meals beyond that, depending on how long the flood lasted.

Jennifer seemed to have the same thought because she sent me and Graham off to the kitchen to fetch Sally. Soon the two women were covering food with clingfilm and Graham and I were carrying it back to the fridge so some sort of rationing system could be organized.

We were so busy that none of us paid any attention to Lawrence. It was only when Marmaduke woke up – he’d been fast asleep on his great-uncle throughout the strange-Frenchman-punches-Lancelot-on-nose drama – that anyone looked at him.

When Marmaduke began to stir, Jennifer thrust her roll of clingfilm at me and rushed towards him. Crooning motherly things, she picked her baby gently off her uncle’s chest.

But the old man’s fingers, which had been resting on Marmaduke’s back, were caught in his christening frock. As she lifted her baby onto her hip, her uncle’s hand came too. She looked at him expectantly but he made no effort to disentangle himself. The vague smile was still fixed on Lawrence Strudwick’s lips, but his ice-blue eyes were closed.

In the middle of the drawing-room, in the middle of the party, with fifty guests milling about him and a baby sleeping in his arms, the old man had quietly passed away.

When Jennifer screamed, everyone turned to stare at her. Yet Graham and I were the only ones to go to her rescue. It’s not that we like dealing with dead bodies, you understand, it’s just that we’ve sort of become used to them. The rest of the guests froze to the spot as they registered what had happened. So it was me and Graham who disentangled Lawrence Strudwick’s dead fingers from the frothy white lace of Marmaduke’s frock. Which meant we both had a good, close-up look at his right hand.

It smelt of expensive soap and hand lotion – it was obvious it had been well scrubbed. But no amount of washing would have been able to disguise the fact that his nails were cracked and marbled with traces of deeply embedded grime. The kind of grime that might have accumulated over years of living rough on the streets. And the scrubbing had been unable to entirely wash away the black smudge across his palm.

I nudged Graham and his eyebrows contracted into a thoughtful frown. I knew he was wondering the same as me.

Could that stain have been made by a crumpled sheet of newspaper?

LANCELOT
, Julian and the pancake-loving Canadian guy carried Lawrence’s body up to his bedroom so it was out of sight. But what with the floods and the prospect of being stuck overnight at Coldean Manor, and now the most senior member of the Strudwick family dropping dead in the middle of it, a bit of a damper had been put on the party.

With the vicar’s help, Lydia was managing to maintain a stiff upper lip, but Jennifer was clearly very upset. Gethin stood rubbing his wife’s back but it wasn’t helping much and Jennifer’s freely flowing tears were dripping onto Marmaduke’s bald head. The baby looked puzzled. He was having a weird day, I guessed, and was probably wondering why grown-ups kept dolloping water on him.

While the guests stood huddled in anxious groups, checking the latest weather reports on their iPhones and discussing the parlous state of Coldean Manor’s plumbing and the inadequate heating system, Graham and I sneaked into a quiet corner for a catch-up.

“Let’s begin at the beginning,” I said softly. “Do we agree both men died of natural causes? Or do we think either of them could have been murdered?”

Graham considered. “Lawrence Strudwick was generally assumed to be at death’s door. And it looks like James had been living on the streets for years, possibly drinking heavily. Given the weather conditions I think we can safely assume he died of natural causes too.”

“Did you see Lawrence’s hand?”

“Yes. It looked like printers’ ink on the palm.”

“And we saw the old tramp holding a sheet of newspaper, remember?”

Graham nodded. “We did. But plenty of people read newspapers – it may have no significance.”

“But did you notice Lawrence’s fingernails?”

“I can’t say I did.” Graham raised an eyebrow and waited for me to say more.

“They were cracked. Filthy. The dirt was so deeply ingrained that it couldn’t be washed off – like it had been there for years.”

“As if
he’d
been living on the streets, you mean?”

“Yes. Which is odd. Because the man in the graveyard’s fingernails were super clean – manicured almost. And his hands were white, like he hadn’t been outside in weeks.” I paused for a moment. “I know it sounds daft but do you reckon they swapped clothes?”

Graham’s eyes widened. “You surely don’t believe that James pretended to be Lawrence? Or that Lawrence dressed up as a tramp? Their children would have noticed! Someone would have said something.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? The minute Lawrence appeared at the top of the staircase they should have spotted it wasn’t him. But think about it, Graham! Lawrence was ill. ‘No visitors’, remember? Jennifer said Lydia wouldn’t even let Lancelot up to his room. So when was the last time any of them actually saw him? In any case, people look different when they’re really sick – they lose weight and stuff. If any of them thought his appearance had changed, they might just have put it down to that.”

“But Lydia lives here. He’s her father. She would have noticed a switch.”

“I’m not so sure.” Images of the old folks’ home my great-gran had been in suddenly flashed through my mind. The residents all sitting in the lounge, in their own little worlds. Lonely. Ignored. Families didn’t seem to visit much, and when they did, they always hurried away as soon as possible. And the staff. Brightly optimistic. Talking loudly about the weather. As if the elderly were all deaf and stupid. “When he came down the stairs this morning Lydia talked
at
him, not
to
him. So did Jennifer. Neither of them looked at him – not properly. Suppose Lawrence and James were both ill and a bit fuzzy in the head? They were brothers; their faces were really similar. No one looks closely at old people, especially if they seem to be a bit senile. None of the guests spoke to him when he was sitting in that chair by the fire with Marmaduke. He was just there, in the background. It could easily have been James, not Lawrence.”

“Why on earth would they exchange identities, though? It’s bizarre.”

“No more bizarre than James turning up in the first place. He’d been away for more than twenty years – why come back now?”

“To die: the vicar could be right,” said Graham. “If James knew he was terminally ill, he might have wanted to make peace with his children.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed. “But where does that bit of newspaper fit in? He was waving it about, wasn’t he? It must have meant something to him. Something important.”

Graham frowned. “Maybe there was an article about the family in it, or … I know! There could have been something about Marmaduke’s birth. It’s what these people do – announce their births, marriages and deaths in
The Times
. Hatches, matches and dispatches – that’s what the journalists call it.”

“OK,” I said, trying to reconstruct what might have happened. “So James is a tramp. He’s what – sleeping on a park bench?”

Graham took the idea. “Very likely – and stuffing his coat with old newspapers. They’re a very good insulator against the cold.”

“And by chance he happens to see the announcement of Marmaduke’s birth. He realizes he’s a grandad. He suspects his time is running out so he decides to return home to see his grandson… Yes, that fits.” I re-ran the events of the morning. “So he goes up the drive – nearly gets flattened by your mum – arrives at the manor and talks to the man in the dark suit. Who was he? None of the family wore a suit like that to the church.”

Graham shrugged. “Maybe he changed it before the service?”

“OK, that would make sense. Jennifer and Lydia changed their clothes – I guess maybe the men did too. James can’t have said who he was, and Mr Dark Suit wouldn’t have recognized him because of that big hat. So James gets given some money and is shooed away. But he doubles back and comes in through a side door or something. Then what? Maybe he wants to find his brother – borrow some clean clothes before he meets his children again. He must know the way to Lawrence’s room. What does he find when he opens the door? Lawrence is bedridden. An invalid. Suppose he’s asleep when James shows up? People sleep a lot when they’re ill, don’t they?”

Graham nodded so I continued. “James could have gone in, seen his brother dozing, then helped himself to some clean clothes from the wardrobe.”