Closed Circle (13 page)

As I recounted the incident and Vickers scribbled dutifully away, Hornby's gaze remained fixed on me, one eyebrow raised in dubious deliberation. It was clear he did not believe me, which was ironic, since for once I was telling him nothing but the truth. Perhaps that was what provoked me to conclude on a misleading note. "I can't be sure it was him, of course. There were so many people milling about between us. I could easily have been mistaken."

Hornby grunted. "There's certainly a mistake somewhere."

"Are you still suggesting I met Max yesterday? And posted this letter for him?"

"Are you admitting you did, sir?"

"Of course not. Damn it all, you've Max's own word for it that he regards me as a traitor."

Hornby took the letter back from me and glanced down at it. "Is he right to do so?"

"No."

"Then why should he?"

"I don't know."

"There's no reason at all?"

"None whatsoever." With a jolt, I realized how easily I had been trapped. Hornby's theory was that Max's denunciation of me was designed to obscure my role as his ally. And now I had gone some way to proving the theory correct. "Look, this is absurd. If I'd spoken to Max since Friday night, I'd have urged him to give himself up. He doesn't have any other choice."

"He has the choice of running. But he needs help if he's to stand any chance of pulling it off. A quiet passage across the Channel and the money to pay for it. That sort of help."

Had they followed me to Lombard Street and questioned the cashier? If so, they must have known I had gone away empty-handed. But my possession of a Charnwood Investments cheque would have sown a host of doubts in Hornby's mind more than I could ever hope to allay. "I've told you everything I know, Chief Inspector. I'm not assisting Max in any way."

Vickers sat down in the chair opposite me and fixed me with a sceptical frown while Hornby wandered around the room, glancing at the drab hunting prints which adorned the walls. They seemed to be digesting my remarks, weighing them for sincerity and significance. At last, Vickers said: "It's often a matter of instinct, sir."

"What is?"

"Help. Who you give it to and who you don't. Thick as thieves, the saying goes. And it generally holds true. At both ends of the social scale."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"You and Mr. Wingate were at school together, weren't you?"

"What of it?"

"Winchester, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you '

"Another coincidence!" put in Hornby with sudden force. "They do mount up, don't they?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your car has been found. In Winchester."

"Winchester?"

"Yes. In Kingsgate Street. Which, as I'm sure you're aware, runs past the College where you and your friend spent what they tell me are supposed to be the best days of your life. Well, for the likes of you two, I expect they were."

I leaned back in the chair, overwhelmed by a surfeit of mysteries. Why had Max gone back there, of all places? Why revisit the scenes of our youth? To mourn the friendship he thought I had betrayed? Or to set it aside? "I haven't been back to Winchester since I left it sixteen years ago," I said, slowly and deliberately. "As far as I know, Max hasn't either."

"Seems he has now, sir," said Vickers.

The car had been parked in Kingsgate Street for some time before it attracted any attention," said Hornby, resting his hands on the back of the sergeant's chair and gazing down at me. "Probably since Saturday morning."

"Are you suggesting he drove straight there from Dorking?"

"Presumably. Then back to London by train, I imagine." He frowned. "Unless you have some alternative to put forward."

"Of course I haven't," I snapped, instantly regretting my tone and fearing it would alert them to the lie I had told.

"Well, we'll know more when we go down and take a look at it tomorrow. So far, we just have what the Hampshire police have told us. One abandoned Talbot Saloon bearing the registration number you gave us."

"With bloodstains on the steering-wheel," added Vickers.

"Yes," said Hornby. "We mustn't forget those, must we?"

I studied each of them in turn, defying them as best I could with a show of impassivity. About twenty seconds must have elapsed, though it seemed more like several minutes, before Hornby spoke again.

"I think that's all for now, sir. We'll be on our way." Vickers stood up and they both moved towards the door. I stayed where I was, too exasperated, too utterly confounded, to show them out. "We'll keep you informed of any further developments, naturally."

"Thank you," I murmured.

"One last point," said Hornby, turning back in the doorway. He was tugging at his ear-lobe and I took some comfort from having expected this to happen the mannerism and the theatrical postscript; he was becoming predictable. "Mr. Aubrey Wingate tells me you may shortly be leaving here."

"I will be, yes."

"You'll be sure to let us have your new address, won't you?"

"Do I need to?" I raised my eyebrows, confident he would understand what I meant.

"Look on it as a matter of courtesy," Hornby replied with a grin. "An Old Wykehamist's strong suit, isn't it?" He paused for a second, then added: "Along with loyalty, of course."

Every aspect of my life seemed now to be badly awry. The police thought I was in league with a murderer. Max had renounced our friendship. My finances were dwindling. And I would shortly not even have a home-from-home to call my own.

I left the flat within an hour of Hornby's departure, nursing a hangover and more unanswered questions than my aching head could bear. A massage and a lengthy sweat at the Hammam Turkish Baths in Jermyn Street cleared my mind, but the questions remained. Where was Max? What did he hope to achieve by playing cat-and-mouse with the police? Had Charnwood told him I was his informant? Was that what he blamed me for?

I went into the bar of the Carlton Hotel and studied my smoke-wreathed reflection in one of its many mirrors over a succession of razor-edged Manhattans. The talk at nearby tables was of the newly formed National Government. Evidently, some sort of coalition had resulted from the comings and goings I had witnessed in Downing Street. But I could only think of Max's face as our eyes met across the crush of onlookers. There was stealth in his expression, and suspicion and something horribly close to hatred. If I could only find him, I would be able to explain everything. But he did not mean me to find him. That much at least was clear. I left and wandered up to the Plaza Cinema, where I sat through half a famous talky called These Charming People wondering all the while if Max was sitting in the dark somewhere behind me. But nobody left when I did. No shadows moved between the street-lamps as I made my way to Berkeley Square, nor hovered near as I paused beneath the trees to smoke a cigarette and watch and wait in vain.

Morning brings resolution, albeit not of a lasting nature. Next day, I scanned the hotel columns of the paper, reckoning I could run to five guineas a week all found without exhausting my funds before some way out of my difficulties presented itself. The Eccleston Hotel, near Victoria station, seemed to fit the bill. By midday, I had booked myself in for the duration. It was not the Ritz, but a clientele of cashiered majors and divorced gentlefolk promised at least a degree of anonymity.

I spent the afternoon trudging round the hotels of the neighbourhood, showing a photograph of Max and me to any porter or concierge who was willing to give it a second glance. It was a snap-shot taken by Dick Babcock at the Surf and Sand Club in Palm Beach in 1925. We were both smiling, as well we might, for those had been happy days. But nobody recognized the face. I am not sure they even realized that the other face belonged to me.

I returned to the flat, defeated and dejected, to collect my belongings. Before leaving, I dutifully telephoned Dorking Police Station to report my new address. I had hoped simply to leave a message, but, to my chagrin, I was put through to Sergeant Vickers.

"Eccleston Hotel, Eccleston Square, SW1. Duly noted, sir. Is there a telephone number?"

"Victoria 8042."

Thank you, sir."

"Well, if you have all that, I'll '

"One thing before you ring off, Mr. Horton. We've finished with your car. For the moment, anyway, although we must insist you notify us if you propose to sell it or take it out of the country. It may be needed as evidence, you understand. Meanwhile, you're free to collect it from the station in Winchester at any time you like."

"From Winchester?"

"Well, we don't operate a chauffeur service, you know, sir."

"No. Of course not."

"Goodbye, sir."

I put the receiver down and remembered walking out of College with Max for the very last time in July 1915, resplendent in our Rifle Corps uniform, strutting like a pair of bantam-cocks, proud of the ringing tone of our boot-studs on the cobbles. Later, we had both agreed we would probably never return, that to go back was always a mistake. But Max had gone back. And so too, it seemed, must I. Winchester lay mellow and unaltered beneath a cloudless sky when I reached it the following morning. But for the day's sudden peak of late summer ripeness, I might have collected the Talbot from the police station and driven straight back to London. I might have, though I doubt it. In the event, it seemed impossible not to divert to the precincts of the College, to park beneath the boundary wall of the Close and to walk down Kingsgate Street, wondering what had brought Max back to this place of high walls and familiar windows with the bloodstains I had just touched fresh on the steering-wheel of the car.

I turned in through War Memorial Gate. This had in my time commemorated the College dead of the Boer War, but I was vaguely aware that those who had fallen in the Great War were now recorded in a cloister just beyond. I had read something about an appeal to finance its construction in the pages of The Wykehamist, a journal which had pursued Max and me by post across many years and several continents. Needless to say, I had not contributed a penny, but clearly others had been more generous, for I found myself in a grandly conceived and expensively executed quadrangle of flints and flagstones, twin-pillared stone arches running round an immaculately kept garden, with a cross at its centre, while, along the inner walls of the cloister were arrayed on plaques the names of several hundred dead Wykehamists, year by year, regiment by regiment.

I began to follow the entrance year headings towards 1910, wondering just how many of my contemporaries would be listed there. But, before I had passed 1900, a figure rounded the northwest corner of the cloister: a slim elegant young woman in a black suit, her eyes shaded by the brim of a matching hat; it was Diana.

We pulled up at the sight of each other, then she raised a hand and smiled in recognition. "Hello, Guy."

I walked forward to join her in a sun-filled archway, struck more than ever by her exceptional beauty, which jewel-less mourning seemed only to enhance. "This is.. . What brings you here, Diana?"

"What brings you?"

"I came to collect the car. The police have finished with it."

"I suppose you could say I came for the same reason. Chief Inspector Hornby told me they'd found it here and I wanted to .. ." She shook her head. "Well, I suppose I thought it might help me to appreciate Max's state of mind if I retraced his steps."

"And has it?"

"No."

"Me neither."

She sighed and glanced up at the dazzling sky. "You know about the letter, of course?"

"Yes."

"He thinks we betrayed him, you and I. I suppose I did, in a sense, by yielding to Papa's wishes. But .. ." She looked directly at me. "Betrayal is too strong a word, isn't it?"

"I think it is, yes."

"And what does he blame you for?"

"I..." Deception is cumulative, one lie breeding a dozen others and those a dozen each in turn. Diana's question marked another stage in the ever more complicated process. "I really have no idea. I thought I understood Max. It seems I was wrong."

"If you don't, who can? You share so much with him. Most of both your pasts."

"Yes. Starting here."

"It's such a beautiful place." She glanced around. "Yet so empty."

"Only for a few more weeks. Once Short-Half begins I smiled at her evident puzzlement. "Sorry. That's what Wykehamists call the autumn term. Let's walk through to Meads." I smiled again. "The school field."

A wrought-iron gate led us from the eastern side of the cloister directly into Meads, green and verdant beyond my recollection,

the plane trees motionless as sentinels, the memories pressing in upon me of days far less idyllic than those conjured up by the scene before us.

"I wish I could have come here with Max," said Diana softly. "In happier circumstances."

"I wish you could, too."

We walked slowly on towards School Court for a few minutes in silence, then Diana said: "Papa's to be buried on Friday. Will you come?"

"If you'd like me to. I had the impression .. . when I spoke to your aunt on the telephone

"Pay no attention to what Aunt Vita says. I would value your attendance as a friend."

Then I'll be there."

"Thank you She stopped and held my hand briefly in hers, gazing at me with an earnestness I found intimidating and, yes, let it be said, somehow enticing. "I think we may both need the support of a friend in the times ahead. Max has turned his back on me. You won't do the same, will you, Guy?"

"No. Don't worry. You can rely on me."

We spent several hours in Winchester, exploring the College and Cathedral Close and strolling by the river. Over tea at the George Hotel, Diana reminisced about her father. I found myself talking about Max and our schooldays in a similar vein, as if I no more expected to see and speak to him again than I did Fabian Charnwood. It was strange and bewildering and oddly easy. Diana's beauty, her trusting nature, seemed almost to compel confidence. I held back, of course, veiling my thoughts, but there was a contagion of frankness in the air which I had to steel myself to resist. Was this the birth of a friendship? Of course not. But, if Diana had said she hoped it was, I would not have demurred. To Max, I knew, it would have seemed altogether different -and treacherous into the bargain. "There's no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman," he had often said. And he was right.