A Death in the Family (19 page)

‘Mother’s driving me absolutely mad about this Ruby Wedding thing,’ she said, picking the cucumber out of her ham and salad sandwich. ‘I do so love cucumber but I really daren’t risk it. Anyway, she’s
still
going on about a grand dinner at The Castle in Taunton – apparently Jocelyn Forsyth’s daughter had her Silver Wedding “do” there and, you know what Mother’s like, she can’t bear to be upstaged by one of her friends.’

‘You’ll have to give in the end,’ I said. ‘She always wins.’

‘No,’ Rosemary said firmly, ‘this time I’m not letting her tell me what to do. I said to Jack, even if it means we have to get
divorced
I’m not going to do it!’

I laughed. ‘And what did Jack say?’

‘Oh you know what he’s like. He just said everything would be fine and went and shut himself in his study. Men!’

‘You’ll think of something,’ I said soothingly. ‘Just book somewhere and present her with a
fait
accompli
.’

‘I suppose so,’ Rosemary said reluctantly, ‘but it’s not what I really want.’

‘What do you want?’

She laughed. ‘That’s it – I don’t know! Something different, I suppose, but I don’t know what. Still, that’s enough of my troubles. How did you get on at the funeral?’

I told her all about it and then I said, ‘I know it
should have been a sort of – what’s the word? – closure, but somehow it wasn’t. I still feel there are all sorts of loose ends.’

‘Well,
you
don’t have to tidy them up.’

‘No, I suppose not, but it’s irritating somehow.’

When I got home I decided to vacuum the sitting room and, as I was moving the furniture, I came across Bernard’s briefcase that I’d put down behind the table. I remembered I’d meant to see what research Bernard had made into Fred’s family, so I unplugged the Hoover, put it away, sat down at the table and opened the briefcase. After shuffling through a lot of stuff I finally found Fred’s family tree and saw that there were indeed some notes paperclipped to it. I read them and then looked carefully at the family tree and decided that there was something there that, although not really a motive for murder, was certainly worth considering. Certainly worth taking up Fred’s invitation to lunch.

Fred suggested Wednesday for lunch so I was able to turn my white lie to Anthea into the truth. He’d suggested we should meet at a country house hotel on the outskirts of Bristol and as I drove through Henbury I was wondering how to introduce the subject I wanted to talk to him about. There seemed no immediately obvious way so I decided to leave it to chance and see how the conversation went.

It was a very pleasant place and Fred was obviously an old and valued customer because we were welcomed with enthusiasm and given the best table – by the window overlooking well-kept parkland that even at this time of the year looked very pleasant.

‘Shall I order for us both?’ Fred asked. ‘I’ve worked my way through the menus here many times and I think I know which are the chef’s special dishes.’

‘That will be lovely,’ I said.

When the waiter, who’d been hovering solicitously as we took our seats, had taken the
order Fred continued, ‘So sorry Estelle couldn’t be here today, but she’s in Antibes opening up the apartment.’ He smiled at my questioning look. ‘I really can’t face an English winter any more and I certainly can’t face an English Christmas and New Year these days.’

‘What about Charlie?’ I asked. ‘Does he join you?’

‘Sometimes, but this year he’s in Los Angeles.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, he’s a theatrical agent now in partnership with his friend Geoffrey Bailey – they have quite a few well-known clients. Charlie’s in LA to fix up a movie deal for one of them.’ He mentioned a popular film actor even I had heard of.

‘Goodness, he has done well!’

‘Well, he’s got his head screwed on – he realised pretty soon that he was never going to make it as an actor, but he had all the contacts and – even if I say it myself – he’s inherited my business sense, so he’s done pretty well. It helped that Jessica has a lot of theatrical friends of course and he met most of them when he was living with her. Mothers do have their uses. Ah, here’s the terrine – I think you’ll enjoy this.’

It was certainly delicious and so was the exquisitely cooked turbot that followed it. All through the meal Fred kept up a flow of interesting conversation and anecdotes about well-known personalities that he seemed to be on friendly terms
with. When the pudding arrived (‘There’s nothing quite like a perfect crème brulée, don’t you agree?’) he began to talk about my mother and father – stories of their younger days – and how much he admired them both.

‘I was much younger than them, of course,’ he said, ‘and really a boring young idiot in many ways, but they always treated me as an equal, in experience and intelligence. I watched you and Jeremy grow up and envied you your parents.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘My mother died when I was quite young so I was more or less left to nurses and housekeepers. I didn’t see much of my father. He was a wonderful man, but he was totally absorbed in the business and wasn’t home much. Then, of course, I was away at school – I enjoyed it really, I’ve always found it easy to make friends. But, of course, it wasn’t the same as family.’

‘Your father,’ I said tentatively, ‘he was very successful, wasn’t he?’

‘Oh yes. My grandfather built the business up from nothing – engineering, you may remember – and both my father and his younger brother worked for him. But my uncle wasn’t that interested so, when their father died, my father bought him out and he went to New Zealand to keep sheep or some such thing.’

‘I never knew there was a brother,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember him from Bernard’s family tree.’

Fred pushed back his chair and regarded me
quizzically. ‘Oh, you’ve seen that, have you?’

‘He did one for each branch of the family and, actually, when he died, Janet passed his notes and research things on to me.’

‘I see. So you’ve seen the notes?’

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling rather embarrassed now that it had actually come to the point. ‘I looked through all the notes and things. For all the branches of the family,’ I added hastily.

Fred smiled. ‘So you discovered our particular skeleton?’ I hesitated and Fred continued. ‘Oh, come on, you can’t have missed it. My father being born out of wedlock, as they used to say. He was two years old when my grandparents married. Trust Bernard to dig that out!’

‘He seems,’ I said, ‘to have managed to find out something about every branch of the family that they’d have preferred to keep hidden.’

‘Not your branch?’

‘Well, no, as it happens, and not Hilda’s – you know what she’s like, she sent him away with a very sharp warning not to meddle – but practically everyone else.’

‘He really was a nasty little creep.’

‘Did it upset you,’ I asked, ‘finding out like that?’

Fred laughed. ‘Oh, we’d all known for ages, part of the family legend. It’s rather a touching story and quite unusual for that time. My grandmother’s father was a widower, a very eccentric man, and she was his only daughter. He was suffering from
consumption and obviously hadn’t long to live. In those days daughters were expected to live at home and look after their invalid parents and my grandmother was very fond of him, but she was in her thirties when she met my father and not surprisingly they felt that time was going by – but her father wouldn’t agree to their marriage. Even though they promised to live with him and look after him he was adamant about it. I suppose he had a superstitious feeling that if there was an actual ceremony he couldn’t be sure that she’d stay. Stupid, really, but that’s the way he felt. The amazing thing was, he suggested that my grandfather should move into the house and live with my grandmother as if they
were
married.’

‘Good heavens.’

‘I know. I said he was eccentric. Anyway, my father was born – and christened. I suppose that’s the “evidence” Bernard found, and then the later marriage certificate.’

‘Well, yes. What an amazing story. But surely there must have been a terrific scandal – your grandparents living together without being married?’

‘Oh, it was given out that they’d been married, quietly in London, and then, of course, when my great-grandfather finally died, that’s exactly what they did. It was pretty clever of Bernard, tracking
that
down.’

‘He was very thorough.’

‘Yes, he was that. Probably the only acceptable
quality he had. He was a really nasty piece of work – but I expect you’ve discovered that for yourself.’

I nodded. ‘Before all this – all the genealogy business – I’d never seen much of him. We all just thought of him as a terrific bore to be avoided at all cost. But now…’

‘Now you know a bit more?’

‘The awful way he treated Janet and poor Luke and – well, so many things!’

The waiter brought the coffee and I was amused to see that he set the tray down in front of Fred for him to pour out.

‘Oh yes,’ Fred said, pushing down the plunger of the cafetière, ‘he was a genuine twenty-four carat bastard.’ He poured the coffee neatly and passed the jug of cream to me. ‘That’s why I went to his funeral – just to make sure he’d gone.’

‘I’m so glad,’ I said, ‘that he didn’t cause any sort of upset in your family with all his “research”.’

Fred smiled. ‘No – though I can well believe he’d have wanted to. I was glad my father told me all those years ago. It helped, in a way, to understand why he felt compelled to make such a success, why he devoted all his time to the business – I suppose he felt he had something to prove. Ridiculous really, but people do and feel the oddest things. Now
I
have no wish at all to prove anything, and, of course, I’ve never had to. There’s always been a lot of money – even after Jessica’s settlement and getting Charlie started!’

‘Lucky you!’

‘Yes, I have been, haven’t I? And I’ve really enjoyed my life, especially now I’ve got Estelle. I hope you’re happy too, Sheila.’

I smiled. ‘Obviously things have never been the same since Peter died, but in other ways I’ve been very lucky, and, yes, I am happy.’

Fred smiled again. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘And now I’m going to tell you something that will make you even happier.’

‘Really?’

‘The best thing about all Bernard’s digging back into the family tree is the fact that he wasn’t a Prior at all.’

‘What!’

‘Not just not a Prior, but not even English.’

‘No!’

‘His parents couldn’t have children, tried for ages with no luck, so when they were living in France (his father was attached to the Paris branch of his bank for several years) they adopted a baby there. Pretended it was their own.’

‘Really? But how did you know?’

‘My mother knew Bernard’s mother quite well, knew her before she was married, actually, so she heard all about it. They wanted it kept quiet – I can’t think why, but there you are – and so my mother never told anyone, except my father of course. He told me, years later, when I was grown up. He mentioned it quite casually, I can’t
remember in what connection, but he obviously didn’t think it was any big deal. I suppose he wasn’t that interested.’

‘Did Bernard know?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘But no one else?’

‘He was very keen to keep it a secret. I think he felt it diminished him in some way – weird!’

‘So Janet never knew?’

‘Good heavens, no. I did consider telling her after Bernard died, but then I thought, what’s the point? Do feel free, though, to tell anyone you like.’

I laughed. ‘I must say I would be tempted!’

As I drove back along the motorway I played with the idea of spreading the news – it would certainly give a certain grim satisfaction to Veronica and others that Bernard had injured – but I decided that only my cousin Hilda would appreciate the full irony of the situation, so she would be the only one I would tell, apart, that is, from Michael, Thea and Rosemary, who I tell everything.

It was beginning to get dark by the time I got home (the evenings were drawing in) but I felt I had to let the animals out since they’d been in all day. Tris did his usual tour of the garden, announcing his presence to any animal marauder by short barks, but he came in quite quickly, eager for supper. Foss, however, vanished completely and even an hour later still hadn’t come back. I wandered round the garden in the dark calling him
and rattling the tin his treats are kept in, but to no avail. He does this sometimes, a punishment for being shut up all day, and I suppose I ought to be used to it by now, but if you’re silly about animals you never do get used to it, and so I got a snack (I really didn’t need much supper after that large lunch) and sat by the television, eating it without any appetite, getting up at frequent intervals to see if he’d come back and calling again, though with little hope. Finally, after another hour, when I was washing up my plate and glass, Tris, who’d accompanied me into the kitchen in case there was the chance of more food, looked at the back door and gave a little whine. And, of course, when I opened the door, Foss strolled nonchalantly in (‘Have you been calling me?’) and stood beside his dish expecting me to feed him, and I thought how furious I’d have been if a person had treated me that way, but there I was, overwhelmed with relief, putting food in his dish and saying stupid things like, ‘You came in!
Good
boy!’ After all that I was only fit for an early night and a soothing read of
Pillars of the House
.

Denzil phoned the next morning about measuring up the stairs for the new carpet.

‘I can fit you in this afternoon, if you like, Mrs Malory. I could do you on my way home, about five-fifteen, if that’s all right.’

He didn’t take long to do the measuring, even
hampered by Foss, who considers the stairs his own particular domain and sat resolutely on each stair, obstructing Denzil as he worked his way down, and when it was finished he said that yes a cup of tea would be very nice thank you. So we sat in the kitchen and he told me about how his girlfriend wanted them to go to Crete for a holiday but he was saving up for a new bike.

‘What sort have you got?’ I asked.

‘It’s a 750 Kawasaki.’

‘Oh, my son had one of those, though his was only a 400. He loved it and hated getting rid of it, but he really did need a car.’

‘That’s what Denise wants me to get,’ Denzil said, sighing heavily. ‘She says she’s sick of being out in all weathers on the back of the bike.’

‘But you still want another bike? What sort – a Harley?’

‘No.’ Denzil considered the point carefully. ‘Your Harley’s a marvellous bike, and so’s your big BMW, but, no, the bike I want is something really special.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s a Laverda, an Italian job. There’s not many of
those
about. You’d feel pretty special riding one of them! And,’ he went on warming to his theme, ‘perfect for the roads down here, the way it performs on the bends – you could get from here to Bridgwater in half an hour!’

‘A Laverda,’ I said. ‘I believe I know someone who has one of those.’

‘Really? Not local is he?’

‘No, he lives in Bristol.’

‘I thought he wouldn’t be local – I’d know if he was. Like I said, they’re pretty rare. That’s why I was so surprised to see one that night.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was a dreadful night, wind and rain and I was late, so I took the back road to Dunster and I don’t know if you know it, there’s a sort of lay-by just before you get to the lane that runs up to where those holiday cottages are. Anyway, as I went by I saw this Laverda parked there. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d have stopped and had a proper look, but, like I said, I was late and I had to get on. Funny thing, though, seeing it there, just like that.’

‘When was this? Do you remember?’

‘It was the 23
^rd
of last month – semi-final of the skittles tournament, that’s where I was going.’

‘What time would that have been?’

‘Oh,’ he thought for a moment, ‘it would have been just after a quarter to nine. Yes, that’s it, I needed to be at The Red Lion at Dunster by nine – I’m in the skittles team and I was in the last session – and I was running late. Like I said, if it hadn’t been for that I’d have stopped and had a good look at that Laverda.’ He looked at me enquiringly and I felt obliged to make some excuse for my cross-questioning.