Death of a Sunday Writer (21 page)

There was no message in her mail-box from The Trog, for which she felt a mild relief. Perhaps, like her, he had simply moved on. But it was nice to be in the house again, to remember what therapy it had once provided, for Longborough improves immediately as you move away from the centre, and though Lucy's house was close to downtown, it stood on a street of solidly-built houses, each decently surrounded with grass, a street lined with big, peaceful trees. And beyond the street, a drive of half an hour through the rolling countryside led to the Kawarthas, the lake country that many Torontonians find beautiful enough to be worth a two-to-three hour drive every weekend to their summer cottages.

It took only an hour of searching through land titles to confirm that the farm now owned by Nora Denton was owned in 1940 by Harold Potter, and instinct told Lucy to leave it there for the moment. She had no doubt that Harold Potter was Brian Potter's uncle, and that his daughter, Nora Denton, was Brian Potter's cousin and now his sole heir, but to get the final document would mean alerting the Dentons. She could do that last. In the meantime, she had another name to check. The news about Brian Potter's death had been brought to the Dentons originally by a Mrs. Tibbles, and Lucy thought she should confirm the original story through this connection if she could. She learned from the secretary of the Longborough Historical Society that the Tibbles had been one of Longborough's leading families before the last war. They were Longborough's
old money,
the family fortune having its roots in buying land cheap and selling it dear to immigrants in the middle of the nineteenth century,
and after that its tentacles reached into lumber, flour, meat, and construction. Sometime in the sixties the family moved to Toronto, much to the regret of Longborough, because the Tibbles had now been rich enough for long enough to have developed a philanthropic streak and regularly donated to a number of worthy causes. But much of the business in Longborough stayed in the family's hands. Old Mr. Tibbles was dead, but his wife was still alive, and her son still looked after the family's interests from Toronto.

Back in Toronto, Lucy reported to Jack Brighton, telephoned the only Tibbles with a Rosedale number, and got an appointment with Mrs. Tibbles that afternoon.

Alice Tibbles lived with a cousin in a house on Roxborough Drive that seemed too big for two old ladies.

“At least everyone seems to think so, but I've lived here for thirty years and it's just big enough so that my grandchildren and their children can stay overnight when they come to town, and I can still walk everywhere including to the liquor store.”

She was a small, soft woman whose perfume you could smell from across the room. She had been pretty in a chocolate-box way, once, and still managed her roundness daintily, down to the little bows on her shoes. Her voice was soft and breathy, like Eve in the garden, but it seemed possible that she was sometimes giving her words a spin. Her remark about the liquor store, for instance, given her age and the probability, growing up where she did, of a mildly prohibitionist background, could be read as a criticism of the kind of thing other people would be grateful for, or as indicating a wish to show what a
wicked old lady she was, or as a statement of fact. It was not possible to be sure. She seemed like an eighty year-old, nicely brought-up Marilyn Monroe.

Her cousin, equally ancient, but still being addressed by her nursery diminutive of “Fluffy,” said, “We are each other's alarm system. If I weren't here, Alice would have to wear a beeper around her neck in case she needed help, as would I.”

Mrs. Tibbles turned her blue eyes full on her cousin, until she was sure she had finished. “Yes,” she breathed. “Awful.”

Fluffy said, “I'll make some tea.”

“Henry will be here soon,” Alice said. She turned to Lucy. “My son,” she explained.

Both ladies were perfectly mobile, and by sitting in hard chairs had minimal difficulty getting up and down. Fluffy, in fact, still managed a little spring as she rose.

When she had disappeared, Lucy raised the topic of the Dentons.

“Tell me again what it is you are doing,” Mrs. Tibbles asked. Lucy explained that she was a private detective hired by an English law firm to enquire into the whereabouts of Brian Potter.

“Oh, my. A detective.”

Again, Lucy could not tell if the wonder in her tone was real or mocking.

Mrs. Tibbles said, “He died, you know, in Quebec. He got ill on the train coming from Halifax, and he died in hospital.”

“Do you remember the name of the hospital?”

“Of course. Trois-Rivieres.”

Lucy had now done everything she could. No doubt a copy of the death certificate could be procured from Trois-
Rivieres. Fluffy brought in tea and poured for everyone, and then, making conversation, Lucy asked, “Were you the official Longborough person for looking after these evacuees when they arrived?”

“Yes.” She gave the word a roundness and emphasis as if she had selected it from a hundred alternatives. “But that wasn't why I went to the Denton farm. I think I felt sorry for them, and wanted to say so.”

“What happened to Brian's other things? There was a list of enclosures, a watch, his wallet, things like that.”

“I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps they never left the hospital. All I got was a letter.”

“Made out by the hospital?”

“Yes. They hadn't been able to find Brian's mother, you see, so they asked me to find the relative he was going to.”

“Why you? Why did they approach you?”

“They had tried to get to the Potters directly, but for some reason the postmaster in Longborough sent it back, so they tried me. My son was on the ship, you see, and a sort of friend of Brian's. He went to the hospital to help them interpret, because he'd been to France for his holidays, and Brian couldn't speak any French. I got a telegram saying that Henry would be on the next day's train. Brian died very quickly. I did know who the Potters were, of course, so they asked me. Yes. That's how it was.”

Lucy said, “Could your son confirm the death?”

“Oh, he will. He's coming by soon. You can talk to him. I've warned him you will be here.”

Now they had run out of business until the son arrived. Mrs. Tibbles said, “Tell us about your work, Mrs. Brenner. Is it very dangerous?” Again she looked with wide blue eyes at Fluffy, and again she might
simply have been politely including Fluffy in the conversation, or signalling to her cousin that she was about to send Lucy up. The little smile would have been equally suitable for both.

But, within a few sentences, they were talking not about Lucy's work, but about Longborough, comparing the Longborough Lucy had found when she fled Kingston with the one that Alice and Fluffy had left behind. “We still have a cottage on Stoney Lake,” Alice said, “But I haven't been up for several years.”

At six, there was the noise of someone letting themselves in, and Fluffy put the tea-tray together. “You won't need me,” she said, and left.

Standing in the doorway, waiting to be introduced, was a lightly-built man of about sixty with fair hair turning grey and a pleasant expression that seemed to have survived from his boyhood.

“My son, Henry,” Mrs. Tibbles said. “Mrs. Brenner, the detective.”

He shook hands with Lucy, kissed his mother, and moved to the side board. “Let me get us a drink.”

Lucy thought of saying no, but for no good reason, and when Mrs Tibbles said, “It is six o'clock,” accepted that as a good reason for saying yes.

“Mother drinks gin, but I want scotch,” Henry said. “What about you?”

Lucy said, “What I would really like is a rye and ginger.”

“I'll join you,” Tibbles said promptly. “Haven't had a drink of rye for years.”

Smooth, thought Lucy.

“I was raised on it,” Mrs. Tibbles said. “But the bubbles give me heartburn now.”

Don't overdo it, Lucy thought. But however much she held the remark up to the light of day, she could find nothing in it but a desire to make her feel comfortable, and she relaxed.

When everyone had a drink, Tibbles said, “Mother tells me you want to know about Brian Potter.”

“I think I know all I need now, thanks. You were with him.”

“We struck up a bit of a friendship, right from the train journey going up to Liverpool from London, and on the ship. It was a shock when he died. Have you ever seen anyone die of meningitis?”

Lucy shook her head.

“I imagine they can relieve it now, the pain, I mean, with drugs, but they didn't seem able to then.”

“Where is he buried?”

“In the protestant cemetery at Trois-Rivieres. I went back once, a long time after, to see the grave and arrange a headstone.”

“It's good of you to see me, and there's no need to prolong this. It must have been a sad shock to his uncle.”

Mrs. Tibbles said, “I thought so, that's why I went to see him when the letter came. Have you seen the farm? Oh, yes, you said so.” There was a long silence, then Lucy said, “Have you seen the farm since? Lately?”

“A month ago. Henry drove me to Longborough to see an old friend and we came home past the Denton place.”

“How did it look to you?”

“About the same as it looked in 1940.”

Lucy had a desire to share with Alice her disgust at the Dentons' life-style, but she did not know if such talk would be welcome, so she thanked them both again,
swallowed her rye and made to leave. Before she could, however, Tibbles had a fresh drink for her. “You owe us a story,” he said, smiling. “Who wants to know about Brian at this date? Not his mother, surely. She abandoned him fifty years ago.”

“Sent him to Canada, you mean?”

“Abandoned him,” Tibbles said firmly. “And told him so. A little chat in the railway station in London, when she told him to try and be a good boy and make a life with his uncle, because she was going to have to go away and might not be there after the war. Abandoned him.”

“Well it's because of her that I'm here. She died recently, and made some provision for Brian in her will.” Lucy swigged her drink. “Left him the lot.”

“Very much?” Tibbles asked.

“I don't know.”

“What a pity,” Alice breathed. “What happens now?”

“It goes to the nearest relatives, I guess.”

“But they couldn't find any other relatives when they wanted to send the letter in 1940, except the Potters, of course.”

“So it goes to Nora Denton, I guess.”

“Oh, my.”

Lucy stood up. “Would you mind giving me a written account of Brian's death?” she asked.

“I'll send it to your office,” Henry said.

“So there you are, Jack. Fax those English lawyers that a signed witness's statement is forthcoming, and that Nora Denton was his cousin. That should do it.”

Three days later, before Tibbles' statement arrived, Brighton showed Lucy a fax saying that the name of the hospital had enabled the English lawyers to get a death certificate and now they were sure the courts would accept Nora Denton as the rightful heir.

At the same time, still pushing Johnny out of her mind, and curious to know if anything had been made of this sad story at the time, Lucy drove back to Longborough and looked through the files of the
Examiner
for 1940 and came across the story, complete with a picture of the dead boy, a picture that bothered her so much that with Jack Brighton's consent, after she had explained the problem, she faxed the English lawyers to see if Mrs. Potter still had a picture of her son when she died. She got back a copy of a snapshot taken during the first year of the war. Now, for
the first time since she had read Trimble's diary, she had something which took up all her attention.

She knew how casually the
Examiner
might have been edited in 1940, how easy it still was for even Canada's national newspaper to put the wrong name on a picture, and she considered what she should do. She remembered Henry Tibbles saying he had been at school in England, and the name of the school, Clanfield, and she composed a query to a detective agency in London, England, asking about Tibbles and requesting any pictures taken around 1940, and persuaded the Examiner to make her a copy of the newspaper picture of Brian Potter to send with it. Before she sent it off, she showed the letter to Jack Brighton.

He said, “It'd be cheaper and quicker to go yourself.”

“To England?”

“Sure. You have anything else on? There's a guy named Comstock trying to track you down, by the way. What's that all about?”

“He's trying to sell me a horse. Don't tell him anything. How long will it take me to go to England and back? A week?”

“You could go tonight, get there in the morning, go down to this village, find out what you want to know, and catch the plane back tomorrow afternoon. Or stay overnight. Come back on Wednesday.”

The idea made her gulp, but Brighton was looking at her as he had the first day when he had offered her the Longborough job, daring her, and it was a perfect way of dwelling less on her misery. “I'll stay the night,” she said. “Do a little shopping at Harrod's. Come back in time to follow Mrs. Ago.”

“Atagirl.”

“But I thought you had to book months in advance, or pay thousands of dollars.”

“There are ways.” Brighton held up a finger and pulled out the telephone book. He dialled a number, then said, “I'm looking for a ticket to London on any plane tonight, come back any plane on Wednesday. Family emergency. Funeral. Sure.” He tucked the phone under his ear, and said, to Lucy, “What are you going to do when you find out that the paper got some pictures mixed up? No big deal.”

But Lucy had had time to think. She smiled. “That is not going to happen.”