Camellia (50 page)

'Down here on business?' she asked, looking suspiciously at his worn leather jacket.

'Sort of,' he said. 'I'm actually trying to find a garage. I've got a bit of trouble with my car. Someone told me to go to a place called Easton's – do you know it?'

'You've got a Mercedes then?' she said, her eyes suddenly brighter.

Nick didn't know quite how to reply. 'That isn't all he repairs is it?'

She laughed. 'Easton's is a car showroom, not a garage. Jack Easton only sells Mercedes.'

The next morning Nick understood why the barmaid had been so amused. It was clearly years since Jack Easton held a spanner in his hands. Five brand new Mercedes were displayed inside his sparkling showroom. Even the second-hand ones out on the forecourt were only two or three years old, and all in top condition.

'Lovely isn't she?' A middle-aged man in a sharp grey suit pounced on Nick as he paused to look at a silver-grey coupe. 'What are you driving at the moment, sir?'

Nick glanced sideways at the salesman. He couldn't be Jack, what little hair he had was fair. 'An ancient MG,' he said. 'To be honest I daren't even dream of a car like this. Actually I came to see Mr Easton.'

'Do you have an appointment with him.' The salesman lost his smile.

'Er, no,' Nick wished he'd thought before plunging in. 'Could you ask him if he would see me for a minute or two? I'm only in Littlehampton for today and it is urgent.'

'Your name, sir?' The man looked Nick up and down.

'Osbourne. That won't mean anything to him, just say I'm calling about a mutual friend.'

The salesman disappeared through a door at the back of the showrooms. He was gone some five minutes and came back in frowning.

'If you're selling something my life won't be worth living,' he said tersely. 'Go on up the stairs. The door at the end of the corridor.'

Nick knocked firmly on the door, then opened it.

Nick had expected Jack Easton to be something of a rough diamond, but he was taken aback all the same. His hair was not just red, but more like a flaming torch, and he was stockily built with a thick neck and a broken front tooth. His conservative grey suit and striped tie didn't seem to fit him at all.

Jack Easton leaned back in his chair, insolently tucking his hands behind his head and looked Nick up and down. 'Mutual friends eh? If that means you know someone in the tyre or distributor business then you'd better push off.'

1 promise you I'm not selling anything. It's a private matter.' Nick held out his hand, even though the man hadn't got up from his chair. 'Nick Osbourne.'

Jack Easton ignored the hand.

'When I said we had mutual friends I don't even know if you were real friends exactly, but I'm hoping it may lead me to her daughter.'

The man burst into raucous laughter. 'That's about as clear as the oil in an engine,' he snorted. 'You'll have to do better than that.'

'Bonny Norton,' Nick said quickly before he lost his nerve.

His face tightened, his laughter cut short. He jerked up from a lounging position to sit bolt upright and folded his arms on his desk.

'Bonny's been dead for several years,' Nick quickly added, seeing he'd touched a raw nerve. 'Like I said it's her daughter I'm concerned with. Camellia.'

'Who are you?' Easton's eyes narrowed menacingly, as if he thought Nick was a private detective.

Nick was suddenly frightened. He had a feeling this man was quite capable of booting him through the window. 'I'm sorry. I haven't started out with this too well. You see I'm casting about in the dark. Two years ago a girl who said her name was Amelia Corbett came to work for my father. It has recently transpired that her name was really Camellia Norton and she had evidence that she was my half-sister. But before my father and I could talk to her further about this, she disappeared.'

'What's this got to do with me?' He relaxed marginally.

'Because the evidence she had was in letters written to her mother from three different men. My father Magnus was one of them. You were another.'

There was no movement in his expression or stance, yet he seemed to swell up in his chair.

'Look, Mr Easton. I haven't come here to make trouble or to dig up history. I've read your letters and I know how it was for you. My only interest is in finding Mel, and the only way I can do it is by backtracking.'

The man looked at Nick for a moment, his expression chillingly hostile.

'Why the hell do you want to find her?' he said eventually. 'If your father was involved with Bonny Norton he must know what a scheming little liar she was. Her kid belonged to John Norton.'

'I'd love that to be proved true,' Nick said. 'I don't want Mel for a sister.'

'Why? Afraid you might have to share out the family fortunes?'

'I wish it was as simple as that, Mr Easton. You see I'd fallen in love with her. It was only when I tried to tell her this that she admitted who she was. Then she ran away.'

To Nick's surprise Easton's insolent expression suddenly vanished. He slumped back into his chair. 'Oh God,' he said weakly. 'That damn woman. Even after she's dead she's still stirring up trouble.'

'That's exactly what my father said.' Nick moved tentatively towards him. He didn't quite dare sit down. 'But I have to find out the truth and I must find Mel. I thought you might know something that would help.'

Easton rubbed his face with his hands. 'I'm not her father,' he said at length. 'You can see that for yourself. A blonde and redhead don't make kids with hair as dark as hers.'

'You've seen her then?' Nick's heart leapt. 'When? Just recently?'

'Yup, I saw her,' Easton admitted. 'But it won't help you. It was well over two years ago. She came in here out of the blue, just like you have. I gave her thirty quid and told her to piss off.'

Nick was stunned.

'What, no anger?' Easton stood up. 'You public schoolboys are all the same. You never lose your stiff upper lip, not even when you should be sticking your fist in someone's face.'

'I doubt I could make much impression on yours,' Nick replied angrily. 'Besides I can imagine what Bonny put you through – it must have been a great shock, being confronted with her daughter.'

'How would you know?' Scorn twisted Jack's features.

'Because my father loved her and he's told me all about her. He was a married man too remember.'

'Then why is he such a damn fool to believe the kid is his?' Jack raised his voice. 'She married Norton. I saw the wedding photographs, Camellia looks just like him.'

Nick felt a surge of hope. 'Apparently Norton's blood group was wrong. But then that's no evidence that either my father or you were responsible. Once I find Mel maybe she and Dad can have further blood tests.'

'Do that.' Jack sat back down on his seat with a bump, as if he'd run out of steam. 'Look, I'm sorry, I'm not handling this very well, anymore than I did when the girl came to me. I was covering my back that day and I'm doing it again now. Sit down won't you.'

The man's sudden honesty was heartening, and Nick was glad finally to be offered a seat. 'I'm no threat to you,' he said. 'I came here to try and clear up a few mysteries. You don't know me from Adam and there's no reason why you should trust me.'

'I know a man I can trust from the set of his face,' Easton growled. 'It's guilt that's bothering me. I knew that girl had been through some sort of hell the day she came in here – but I just didn't want to get involved.'

Nick leaned forward in his seat. 'What did she say to make you think that?'

'Nothing. I just felt it. It was the tolerant way she spoke about things. People only get like that by going through the mill'

Nick nodded. Easton was as perceptive as his father. It seemed Bonny went for a certain type. 'Didn't she tell you about her friends, where she'd come from, anything.'

'I just wanted her out of here,' Easton said quickly. 'All the time she was here I kept thinking Ginny would find out. I mean I don't get many young girls in here, people talk. But we talked a bit about Bonny and me when we were kids. She was desperate to know more about her mother.'

Over a glass of whisky Nick heard everything Easton could remember that he'd told Camellia – about Lydia Wynter dying and why he hadn't informed Bonny.

They discussed at around the same time the fact that Bonny had approached Jack and Magnus about Camellia.

'Why would she do that?' Nick asked. 'It doesn't make sense.'

'Attention I guess,' Easton sighed. 'She was always making things up so that people noticed her. I didn't get to the bottom of it though. She phoned me at the garage a couple of times, as well as writing, and she seemed very agitated. She said once that she was afraid her life was about to fall apart. I asked her all the usual things, like whether her old man was having an affair with someone, whether they were short of money? But it wasn't anything like that.'

'Strange!' Nick frowned.

'Tricky is the word I'd use to describe her,' Easton pulled a face. 'She must have known from Lydia that I was struggling to make ends meet in those days. If I'd had this place then it would have made more sense. But that's all long ago, over and done with. What's oddest to me is that she eventually drowned herself. I couldn't see her jumping in a river if the hounds of hell were after her. To be honest that's played on my mind a lot since Camellia told me. I even went down to Rye to look at all the old newspapers and check it out.'

'Did you find anything? I was intending to go there next.'

Easton shook his head. 'Maybe you'll have more luck than me though. I mean I couldn't go to the police and show any interest openly. You can if you're looking for Camellia.'

Nick got up. 'I'd better push off,' he said. 'Thanks for seeing me. Can I leave you my phone number just in case she contacts you again?' He took an Oaklands card from his pocket and left it on the desk.

'Of course.' Easton stood up. He paused for a second then grasped Nick's hand.

Their eyes locked in silent understanding, then Easton thumped Nick's shoulder.

'I hope it all works out for you,' he said gruffly. 'I liked Camellia, despite her mother. I like you too, Nick. Let me know the outcome?'

Chapter Nineteen

Sergeant Bert Simmonds approached the Mermaid Inn from the back entrance and paused to brush snowflakes from his sheepskin coat, glancing around to see if anyone fitted the description the library had given him that afternoon. He had been told the man was a typical journalist: young, well spoken, with untidy blond hair, and a brown leather jacket.

The Mermaid, standing near the top of Rye's most famous cobbled street, had once been Bert's favourite watering hole. It hadn't changed much since the fifteenth century: black beams hewn from old ships' timbers, ancient wooden settles and huge carved fireplaces big enough to roast an ox. Bert still had great affection for the place, but in recent years the old inn had become too much of a tourist attraction for his liking. Although Bert welcomed the prosperity visitors brought to the town, when he had a pint he liked his drinking companions to be unsophisticated, ordinary folk. These days the Mermaid seemed to be full of Americans with booming voices, or worse still Hooray Henrys down from London in their sports cars.

The snow storm which had started that afternoon had deterred any locals from coming out. It looked as if the few people in the bar were all guests at the inn. There was an elegant-looking couple sitting at the bar, and a lone male just inside the door – but he was at least forty and too well heeled to be the journalist. Two couples sat hugging the fire, but he could hear their American accents from across the room.

Bert was just about to move on when he spotted a young man tucked right up in the corner, half hidden by the side of the wooden settle, studying some notes in a shorthand pad. He wore a chunky navy-blue sweater, not a leather jacket, but Bert knew the chances of there being two such handsome strangers in town in January were very slim.

Bert walked straight up to him and smiled. 'Can I get you another pint?' he asked, picking up the empty glass.

The young man looked startled at such generosity from a total stranger.

'I'm Sergeant Simmonds from the local police,' Bert explained. 'I heard you were making some inquiries and I'd like to talk to you about them, if you don't mind.'

The other man leapt up, holding out his hand. 'Nick Osbourne,' he said. 'But let me get the drinks?'

Bert demurred and ordered two pints of bitter.

'Who told you I was making inquiries?' Nick asked once the sergeant had returned with the drinks. Nick thought he should have guessed this man was a policeman, even out of uniform. He was around forty-five, and heavily built, with a strong face, unwavering blue eyes and fair hair cut uncompromisingly short. His voice was pleasant; surprisingly soft for such a big man, with a rustic Sussex burr.

'Let's just say I have my sources,' Bert replied with a friendly smile. 'Now suppose you tell me why you're interested in this drowning?'

Nick was taken aback. He had arrived in Rye soon after two and gone straight to the Library. He had sensed a little hostility when he asked to look at the local newspapers from July 1965 onwards, but he had put that down to laziness on the part of the women at the desk.

'Is it a crime in Rye to dig into the past?' he asked, keeping his voice light. The two couples in front of the fire got up and left, presumably to have dinner in the dining room. Nick had eaten a couple of sandwiches earlier, as the menu here was too expensive for him. 'Or was there something unusual about Bonny Norton's death that you don't want people finding out?'

'Let's move closer to the fire,' Bert suggested. They were almost alone in the bar now. Apart from themselves, there was just the lone male and the barman, and they were now deep in conversation.

'That's better,' he sighed once they'd taken more comfortable seats in front of the blaze. He pulled out his cigarettes, offering one to Nick. 'I'll be honest with you. Here in Rye we are all sick of sensationalistic journalists dredging up that old story. Leave us be for goodness sake.'