Hand In Glove Part 22

"So am I."

"Then what-"

Another kiss silenced her. "Then it doesn't matter, does it?" he murmured. "We'll keep Frank Griffith's secret. You and I. Together."

"Together?"

"Don't you want to take one of those emotional risks we were talking about?"

"Yes." She lowered her head against his shoulder. "I do."

CHAPTER.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

At seven o'clock the following morning, Derek telephoned Fithyan & Co. and recorded an apology for his absence on the answering machine. Any risk of having to explain himself to David Fithyan was thereby avoided, or at any rate postponed. Two hours later, he was in Llandovery, seeking directions to Hendre Gorfelen. By half past nine, he was driving along the curving hillside track towards the farm. Within a few minutes, he had arrived.

He stopped the car in front of the house and wound down the window. He could hear a distant bleat of lambs and, closer to hand, a susurrous movement of tree-tops in the breeze, but no sound to suggest Frank Griffith was nearby. He climbed from the car and looked around, relieved no dog had yet hurled itself from a barn. None of the windows of the house were open. This, and the fact that anybody inside would have heard him arrive, convinced Derek n.o.body was at home. Nevertheless, he walked up to the door and knocked. There was no response.

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127.

He retraced his steps to the car and sat back in the driving seat.

Although Griffith might be away for some time, he would eventually return, whereas to scour the hills in search of him carried no guarantee of success. There was nothing for it, then, but to sit tight.

Derek sighed and closed the window. Idly, he reached across to the glove compartment and took out his copy of Tristram Abberley: A Critical Biography. In the index, Griffith, Frank warranted just one entry. Derek turned to it and ran his eye down the page until he came to Griffith's name.

When Abberley died, semi-conscious and probably too delirious to be in much pain, in the early hours of Sunday 27th March, a sergeant from his own platoon, Frank Griffith, was loyally in attendance. It was the same man who, shortly after the poet's perfunctory funeral in Tarragona Cemetery, delivered his papers to the British Consul for onward transmission to his widow. It was a simple and no doubt unconsidered act, yet, had Griffith not carried it out, the whole corpus of Abberley's Spanish poetry might easily have been lost.

As it was, the belief commonly held for many years after Abberley's death, that he had written no poems at all whilst in Spain, was shown to be a fallacy when, in 1952- A sudden rap on the gla.s.s reverberated in Derek's ear. He started so violently that the book slipped from his grasp. When he turned, it was to see a face staring in at him, a lined and expressionless face which, even though Maurice Abberley's description had been second-hand, he recognized instantly.

"Good morning," he ventured, as he wound down the window.

"Frank Griffith?"

"And you would be?"

"Derek Fairfax." He opened the door an inch or so, which was all Griffith's position made possible. "Let me . . . er . . . introduce myself."

Now, late enough to have made some kind of point, Griffith stepped back, allowing Derek to climb out. "You may have heard of my brother, Colin Fairfax." He grinned uneasily. "Also known as Fairfax-Vane."

"You're right. I may have." There was nothing in Griffith's gaze to encourage communication of any kind, let alone discourse. "What do you want?"

128.

R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

"I understand . . . Well, that is . . . Perhaps we could discuss this indoors."

"We could not." He glanced into the car and Derek wondered if he could see what he had been reading.

"I'm told you have some letters, Mr Griffith, sent to Beatrix Abberley from Spain in the 'thirties by her brother, the poet Tristram Abberley."

"Told by whom?"

"I . . . I'd rather not say."

"Then maybe I'd rather not answer your questions."

"I'm here to appeal to you on my brother's behalf. I wouldn't be prying-or even curious-but for the position he's in. He may go to prison for something he didn't do. Perhaps for a long time. He's not a young man. I-"

A touch of Griffith's stick on Derek's shoulder silenced him. "If the letters you referred to existed-if I had them-what difference could they possibly make to whether your brother is convicted or not?"

"I don't know. But Beatrix Abberley was anxious to make sure they didn't fall into the wrong hands, wasn't she? If we could find out why-"

"What would you say if I told you I'd burned the letters-with-out reading them?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

Griffith's eyebrows twitched up, his first facial reaction of any kind. "I can't help your brother, Mr Fairfax."

"Can't or won't?"

"Is there a difference?"

"I think so. All I'm asking you to do is show me the letters-or tell me what they contain that could make his sister a target for murder."

"You're asking more than you know."

"You admit you know what's in them, then?"

"I admit nothing."

"Are you prepared to stand idly by and let an innocent man be sent to prison?"

Griffith did not reply. Instead, he wedged his stick in the handle of the car door and pushed it wide open. "This is my farm. I'd like you to leave it."

H A N D I N G L O V E.

129.

"Mr Griffith-"

"Leave me alone!" His voice was raised to a sudden bellow. A dog barked and loped into view round the end of the car. "That's all I ask." His tone had reverted to normal now. He turned and signalled the dog to sit, then looked back at Derek. "There's nothing for you here, Mr Fairfax. Not a thing."

"What about my brother?"

"Exactly. Your brother. Not mine."

"You fought in the Spanish Civil War, didn't you? Wasn't that for universal brotherhood?"

"Some thought so. Some still do. I don't."

"Isn't there anything-"

"No. There isn't. I paid my dues a long time ago. I'm not paying any more. Get into your car. Drive back to your own world. Leave me in mine."

Griffith's gaze reached Derek as if he truly was peering out at a world he had renounced. His mouth was set in a firm line. He was breathing quickly but steadily. His shoulders were braced. His determination not to yield-not to reveal any part of the secret he had promised to keep-was palpable. And Derek realized in that instant that against it he was helpless.

"Goodbye, Mr Fairfax."

CHAPTER.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

It had been a morning of departures at Swans' Meadow: Maurice, soon after dawn, bound for New York; Emerson, somewhat later, travelling to Oxford for the day; Ursula, later still, destined for an appointment with her beautician in Maidenhead; and lastly Charlotte, setting off back to Tunbridge Wells shortly before noon.

Only Samantha was there to see her off and she did not supply a cheerful farewell. Charlotte found her consuming a laggardly breakfast, downcast and deshabille, in the lounge.

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R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

"Not dressed yet, Sam? Your mother will not approve."

"She doesn't approve of very much at the moment, does she? Why should I be the exception?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Haven't you noticed the p.r.i.c.kly atmosphere round here? Mum and Dad have been stalking each other for days like two alley-cats who can't decide to strike first."

"You're imagining it."

"No. You're just too dazzled to have noticed."

"Dazzled? By what?"

"By who, you mean. Did he take you somewhere swish last night?"

Charlotte leaned close to Samantha's ear and whispered: "Mind your own business."

Samantha blushed, then giggled. "I'm sorry, Charlie. You're right.

What's it got to do with me? Emerson's a gorgeous guy. I wish you luck."

"Thank you," said Charlotte with a sarcastic curtsy.

"But tell me, do you know what's gnawing at Mum and Dad?

Something is."

Charlotte could easily have guessed. Perhaps Ursula had told Maurice what was really in Beatrix's letter. Or perhaps she had not.

Either way, the fact of it could not be wished away. How they coped with that knowledge was their affair. One Charlotte was too preoccupied to concern herself with. "I really don't know what you're talking about, Sam. And now I must be going."

Derek reached Tunbridge Wells in the middle of the afternoon. He was tired and dispirited, filled with a sense of his own inadequacy. To go home was as unthinkable as a late appearance at Fithyan & Co.

He was a fugitive lacking direction as well as purpose. And so, with a kind of logic he thought Colin might applaud, he found himself at the Treasure Trove, repository for much else that was worthless and unwanted.

He let himself in with the key Colin had given him and gazed around at the dust that had settled on every horizontal surface. The place had always been somewhat down-at-heel. Now the stale air of neglect was there to compound the effect. The gilt-framed hunting scenes; the Hogarth prints; the antique maps; the horse-bra.s.ses; the H A N D I N G L O V E.

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bust of Cicero; the grandfather clock; the stuffed bear; the elephant's foot; the chaise-longue; the cheval-gla.s.s; the pine chest; the spa.r.s.ely filled cabinet of Tunbridge Ware: all bore the same grey blur in testimony to their owner's absence.

Derek leaned back against a table and surveyed the scene. Beyond the window, no pa.s.sers-by paused to peer into the shadowy interior.

The Treasure Trove was closed and was not expected to open. Tomorrow, Colin Fairfax-Vane, proprietor, would be committed for trial on charges he could not hope to rebut. Tomorrow, the hollowness of his last pretence would be exposed. And his brother would watch it happen. There was nothing else he could do. Nothing, at all events, that a stuffed bear and a dead Roman could not match.

Charlotte had only been back at Ockham House a few minutes when the doorbell rang. Answering it, she found a girl standing on the step with an enormous bouquet of flowers: lilies, dahlias, carnations and chrysanthemums, riotously coloured and scented in a haze of gyp-sophila.

"Miss Ladram?"

"Yes. But there must be-"

"For you." The girl lowered the bundle into Charlotte's arms.

"There's a note attached." She smiled and turned to go, leaving Charlotte to close the door and carry the flowers to the kitchen before she could spare a hand to open the tiny envelope pinned to the cello-phane.

There was nothing on the card save Emerson's Christian name, signed with a flourish. But there did not need to be. Leaning back against the sink, Charlotte could fill her lungs with the heady aroma of a future she had never till these last few weeks antic.i.p.ated. Out of Beatrix's death might come her happiness. And the possibility dis-pelled all sense of irony, let alone of doubt. She raised the card to her lips and kissed it.

CHAPTER.