Choice of Evils (6 page)

‘Delighted,’ Andrew said. ‘Are you coming to pick me up here?’

‘I'll be along in a few minutes.’

Andrew put the telephone down and attended to putting on his shoes. If Simon Amory no longer wanted to go to
The Duchess of Malfi,'
the reason, he thought, was fairly obvious. Amory and Magda Braile had certainly once been lovers, but had parted with venom on both sides. She had done her best the evening before to enrage him, and he had reacted with the bitter anger that she had tried to evoke. Andrew found it very difficult to imagine the woman who had made that scene with Amory in the part of the Duchess. Was she enough of an actress to assume the tragic dignity that the role required? Or was it yester day that she had been acting? In any case, Andrew
thought, he would probably go to the play that evening.

He was waiting in the lounge downstairs when Peter arrived in his Mercedes. He was looking bright and cheerful and like Andrew, claimed to have slept well. They set off down the short roadway that took them on to the esplanade. The people who strolled along it, sat in the little shelters along the way, or in some cases were pushed along in wheelchairs, were nearly all elderly, taking their holidays in the pleasant quiet when the pressure of the season was over. The little waves, breaking on the beach, made a soft slurring sound as they spread coils of surf over the pebbles. There was the wonderful freshness in the air that comes only close to the sea.

Andrew and Peter walked the length of the esplanade, reaching the bridge that crossed the little river at the end of it, and began to climb the cliff that rose beyond it. Andrew was inclined to take it slowly, while Peter, without thinking, was soon some way ahead of him. Then he stood still and waited for Andrew to catch up with him.

‘I haven't told you,’ he said, as Andrew, a little out of breath, reached the point where he was waiting, 'Something a bit odd happened last night. I don't know what to think of it.’

‘That reminds me,’ Andrew said, ‘did you find that young woman there when you got home?’

‘That's what I was going to tell you about,’ Peter said as they continued up the cliff side. ‘We got back to Amory's place without any sign of her, then Amory dropped me off at the front door and drove the car on to the garage. You know, that sort of wing that sticks out from the side of the house that looks like stables. I suppose it was stables once, but now it's garages. Well, he drove off to them, and as soon as he did so, that woman, Rachel Rayne, came out of the little summerhouse in the garden. Did you notice it yesterday?’

‘Vaguely,’ Andrew said. ‘It's in a clump of hollies, isn't it?’

‘That's right. It's where Amory works. It's really a very pleasant little place, made all of wood, with just a desk and a chair in it and a bookcase and a sofa on which I suppose he can go to sleep when inspiration fails. And there's a rather handsome rug on the floor, which I sup-pose is Persian, though I don't know much about that sort of thing. Amory was in there when I came out this morning. I gathered the rule is that when he's in there no one must disturb him. Anyway, yesterday evening, as I was waiting for him to come back from the garage and let me into the house, Rachel suddenly came out of the summer-house and ran, really ran, as fast as she could, as if some-thing terribly important depended on it, to the back of the house, where there's a door into the garden. It was obvious she didn't want to be seen. There was no light on in the summerhouse, though I'd a feeling that there had been when we first turned in at the gate. And when Amory and I got into the house she was sitting in one of the easy chairs in the drawing-room, looking as if she'd been waiting there for us patiently for a good while. So what had she been up to, do you think?’

‘Did you tell her you'd seen her?’ Andrew asked.

‘Of course not. I didn't want to get involved in whatever she might have been doing.’

‘And you haven't told Amory either about seeing her?’

‘No.’

‘What did she say about having disappeared from the Pegasus without telling anyone she wanted to walk home?’

‘Oh, she apologized. Said she was halfway home before it occurred to her she ought to have told Amory what she was going to do, but anyway he was so surrounded by people she probably couldn't have got through to him. And she decided on getting away and walking home
because crowds always got on her nerves and she'd the beginning of a headache. An awfully unconvincing head-ache, it seemed to me. But as I said, what do you think she was up to?’

They were near the top of the cliff where the ground levelled off and a path ran near to the edge of it. The sea looked a long way below them.

‘Except that she wanted to have a good look round Amory's study when he was safely out of the way, I've no idea,’ Andrew said. ‘We can't tell if she was looking for something special or just wanting to take a look at how genius organizes itself. It just might have something to do with her sister.’

‘But she's been dead for years,’ Peter said.

‘Yes, but the sort of thing I was thinking of…’ Andrew hesitated. ‘Well, suppose Rachel thought her sister had given Amory something which she felt really belonged to her, and she wanted to get hold of it. No, don't take any notice of that. I'm just saying the first thing that's come into my head. Almost certainly totally wrong. But that reminds me, I was thinking last night I really must get hold of a copy of this book of Amory's.’

There was a thoughtful, faraway look on Peter's face.

‘D'you think she could have stolen something from Amory's desk?’ he asked. 'Some paper, possibly, or even some oddment of jewellery that had come to her sister perhaps from their mother and which, as you said, she felt belonged to her. She didn't
look
as if she'd stolen anything when we found her in the house. I mean, she didn't look excited, or furtive, or scared, or anything.’ He paused. ‘Do you think I ought to tell Amory about having seen her come out of the summerhouse?’

‘That's up to you,’ Andrew said, ‘but I'd be inclined to stick to your first feeling that you didn't want to get involved. It isn't as if you know Amory particularly well,
or owe him anything. Now, about this book, d'you think I can get it at Todhunter'S?’

‘Oh, certainly/ Peter said. ‘Her window was full of copies yesterday, wasn't it?’

'So it was. Well, I'll go there when we get back and pick one up. It looks to me as if I've been missing something.’

‘Yes, it's good, it really is. It makes me feel I'd like to get to know Amory better, but it isn't easy. I have this funny feeling that he doesn't like me, so why did he invite me down? Perhaps the fact is that he doesn't much like anyone. Yet the book doesn't give you that feeling at all. It's pretty grim in parts, but at the same time there's a sort of - well, you could almost call it tenderness in it. I'll be interested to know what you think of it when you've read it.’

They walked on for some time and when they reached a point where the cliff path began to drop, leading down to a small cove that nestled in a curve of the cliffs, they turned back and presently, after descending the slope that they had climbed some time before, made their way to the shopping mall and Mina Todhunter's shop.

If she was at home, she did not appear. A younger woman served them, telling them that it was surprising how many people had been into the shop that morning to buy Simon Amory's book. She said she supposed that it was because of the show the evening before, then looking at Peter with sudden surprise, asked him if he had not been one of the writers on the platform. He admitted that he had been, and she then assured him that she believed she had read everything that he had ever written. He tried not to look as pleased as he certainly felt, and when she thrust a copy of one of his books at him and asked him eagerly to autograph it for her, he did it casually, as if it were something that he was doing every day.

‘Were you at the Pegasus last night?’ he asked as he handed it back to her.

‘Oh yes, I'm a regular member of the Literary Society,’ she said. ‘I wouldn't miss anything they put on. I'm going to
The Duchess of Malfi
too, tonight. I'm so looking forward to it. Really, the festival's been a great success.’

Andrew had been roaming round the shop, looking at what they had in stock.

‘Miss Todhunter's had quite a revival, hasn't she?’ he said. ‘I'd very nearly forgotten her myself.’

Peter laughed. 'She doesn't write for people like you, I imagine. And now that I'm grown up you've no need to read her.’

‘Well, naturally we always have a supply of her works here,’ the young woman said, ‘and during the holiday season, when people come here with their children, we sell quite a lot. And it isn't like the old days. If only they'd put some of her stories on television, I'm sure they'd have been a great success and probably be very popular still. But of course she's practically given up writing. She says she's too old and doesn't understand what young things want nowadays. I try to persuade her that's nonsense and that she could be as successful as ever if she'd only try, but she only laughs. She says why should she keep on working hard when she's got plenty of money. She only keeps the shop going because it's an interest for her.’

A door behind the counter opened just then and Rachel Rayne came out. She was in a dark brown trouser-suit with a brightly coloured scarf round her neck and had a shoulder bag slung from one shoulder. She looked startled to see Andrew and Peter there, and for a moment seemed uncertain as to whether or not she was glad to encounter them, then decided to give them a pleasant smile and to say that it was interesting to see how publicity really worked.

‘I'm told they've had one of their busiest mornings for years,’ she said. ‘I see you've been buying Simon's book. Professor.’

Peter replied for Andrew. ‘Yes, I don't think he liked the feeling of being one of the very few people who hadn't read it. Now what about a coffee, Rachel? I've discovered there's quite a nice place just round the corner from here.’

‘That's a good idea,’ she said. 'Thank you.’

‘Andrew?’ Peter said.

Andrew hesitated, uncertain as to whether his company would really be welcome to the two younger people, but Peter took hold of him by the elbow and said, ‘Oh, come on. You've nothing else to do. Let's go.’

So Andrew walked along with Peter and Rachel to the coffee shop that Peter had discovered at some time since his arrival in Gallmouth, a small place with a row of tables covered in shiny plastic, and a counter with a coffee machine on it and plates of Danish pastries. Peter gave the order for the coffee and the three of them sat down at one of the tables. Rachel seemed to be in a thoughtful mood and did not respond to Peter's chatter about the evening before. Andrew wondered if she had any suspicion that Peter had seen her emerging from the summer-house and diving into the house by the garden door.

Suddenly she said, ‘Professor, could I ask you for some advice?’

‘Oh Lord,’ he said, ‘if there's a thing I don't like doing, it's giving advice.’

‘But I've got to talk to someone,’ she said. T thought I'd try Mina, but she just gave me a brush-off. I'm so bloody ignorant about such a lot of things, that's the trouble. In the old days I nearly always asked my sister what to do when I was in a muddle, she was so practical. You'd never have thought it to look at her, she seemed such a vague, gentle person, but she was really extraordinarily wide awake and sensible.’

‘Yet she died intestate, didn't she?’ Peter said. 'That doesn't sound very practical.’

She gave a start, staring at him with wide, bewildered eyes.

‘Intestate?’ she said. ‘What on earth makes you think so?’

'Something Clarke said yesterday evening in the bar, after you'd vanished in the crowd,’ Peter replied. ‘Didn't you know it?’

She did not answer at once, then she said, ‘No, I didn't.’

‘Well, since I gathered she'd nothing much to leave, I don't suppose it made much difference,’ Peter said. ‘And in any case, I suppose she'd have left what she had to Simon.’

‘Intestate,’ she said, as if she were experimenting with the word. ‘Intestate - really? What was it Edward Clarke said?’

‘Oh, we'd got talking somehow about making wills,’ Peter said. 'There's something about it in the book Simon's writing now, and Clarke said he'd come to him to find out from him, being a solicitor, how it really worked. Then Clarke said Simon really ought to know more about it than he did, because his wife died intestate.’

Rachel was still staring at him, her gaze intent.

‘You're sure of this, are you, Peter?’ she said in a curiously excited way.

‘I'm sure of what Clarke told me last night,’ Peter said.

'She died intestate,’ she muttered, as if she were still trying to come to terms with the word. ‘And I didn't know.’

‘But would it have made much difference to you?’ Peter asked. ‘Wasn't it true that she'd nothing much to leave?’

‘Oh, yes, absolutely true,’ she said. ‘A few thousand, left to her by an aunt, and that, as you said, naturally went to Simon. But if it had been more …’ She gave a strange little laugh. ‘I'm sorry, it's taken me so by surprise.’

‘D'you think, if she'd made a will, she'd have left those
few thousand to you?’ Peter asked. ‘D'you feel Simon ought to have done something about it?’

‘Oh no, no, why should he?’ She picked up her shoulder bag, which she had put down on the table. ‘You'll forgive me if I don't stay, won't you? I've just thought of some-thing I ought to be doing.’

She got up and hurried out, leaving her coffee undrunk.

‘Now what do you make of that?’ Peter asked, staring after her.

‘Perhaps the truth is that her sister had a lot to leave,’ Andrew said, ‘and she's got some idea that she can get some of it out of Simon.’

‘But he only got rich after he started writing,’ Peter said.

‘And the little I know about intestacy,’ Andrew said, ‘which I picked up when a friend of mine died and I had to help to sort things out, is that the first two hundred thousand or thereabouts goes automatically to the spouse, and anything over that gets divided equally among the children, and if there isn't a spouse and there aren't any children, then it gets divided equally among the several relatives.’