Play to the End (34 page)

"Of course you do." He cast me a weary glance. "I'd expect nothing less." With a swirl of his coat, he moved past me and sat down in my chair, facing Delia. "I have to speak to Jenny. Will you tell me where she is?"

"The Spa Hotel, in Tunbridge Wells."

"Not so very far away, then."

"She just needed ... a chance to think."

"Thanks to Toby and me messing her about." Incredibly, Roger sounded genuinely remorseful. "Poor Jenny."

"If I leave a message on her mobile, she'll phone me back."

"No need. I have a better idea." He looked up at me. "It's not much more than thirty miles to Tunbridge Wells. We could be there in less than an hour. That's we as in "you and me", Toby. What about it? You can say your piece to Jenny and I can say mine. You can tell her all about my shady parentage and apparently criminal associations. You can pull out all the stops. Subject to my right of reply. And when we're done, you and I, we'll see which of us she trusts the more. Which of us she really loves."

"I'm not sure that's wise," Delia began. "If '

"Leave this to us." Roger's voice was raised now, his tone dismissive.

He hadn't taken his eyes off me. "What do you say, Toby? It's a fair offer."

So it was, in a way. The very fact that he was making it smacked of desperation, or of deviousness. He had some trick up his sleeve, I felt certain. But he was daring me to believe I could trump it.

"Let's get it all out in the open. Give Jenny the choice. You or me.

Or neither, I suppose. I'll stand by her decision. Will you?"

I could hardly reject the challenge, as Roger had surely calculated. In a sense, I'd been pressing for something of the kind all week. I had to accept. He knew that.

Which meant he was confident of the outcome. It wasn't a fair offer.

It couldn't be. In fact, it was bound to be anything but. Nevertheless

.. . "All right," I said. "I'll go with you."

"Good." Roger stood up. "Let's get going." He moved past me to the door, then stopped and looked back. "Don't forget to bring the cassette and the player, Toby. I'm sure you'll want Jenny to hear what's on the tape."

His sarcasm made it certain that whatever happened in Tunbridge Wells he'd devised some way of coming out on top. All I could do now was cling to the hope that Jenny would see through him at the last. I loaded the cassette back into the machine and put it in my pocket, along with the Beachy Head photograph. Delia glanced at me anxiously, but said nothing. I held her gaze for a moment, then murmured, "We'll speak later," and headed after Roger.

"Don't worry, Delia," he called, as he led the way down the hall. "This is for the best, believe me."

She made no reply and Roger didn't seem to expect one. We reached the front door. He held it open for me and I stepped out. His Porsche was parked on the drive. The house door slammed behind me and Roger fired his remote at the car, which unlocked and flashed a welcome. He walked past me and round to the driver's side, opened the door and slid into the car. He made no comment as I climbed into the passenger seat, merely started the engine and reversed out into the street.

And there, unexpectedly, he stopped. The Porsche idled throatily at the kerb side for several seconds. Then he said, "Hold on," threw the door open and jumped out.

"Where are you The slam of the door cut me short. And the answer to my question was soon apparent. He marched back up the drive of number 15

and rang the bell. He didn't glance once in my direction as he waited for Delia to respond. Then I saw the door open. He stepped inside.

I sat where I was, staring ahead at the wedge of sea visible between the houses. What was he up to? What could I do to out manoeuvre him?

I bludgeoned my mind for answers.

Several minutes passed. It suddenly occurred to me that Roger must have wanted to say something to Delia in my absence, something that would swing her sympathies away from me and towards him. Foolishly, I'd left the field open for him. There was no time to lose. I had to intervene.

Too late. He was already hurrying back down the drive. "What's going on?" I snapped as he flung himself in.

"I just wanted to make sure Delia will keep this morning's events to herself."

"Worried about the trouble Gavin might give you if he found out you're not his brother's son, are you?"

"Not worried. Keen to avoid it. There's a difference."

"And did Delia promise to help you out?"

"Her lips are sealed." He slipped the car into gear and started away in a burst of acceleration that carried us round the corner and along Clifton Terrace to the junction with Dyke Road, where he turned left and headed north.

By the time we'd reached Seven Dials and turned east towards Preston Circus, the silence between us had become heavy with tension. I broke it as defiantly as I could. "However you spin it, Jenny isn't going to believe you, Roger. Do you realize that?"

"You reckon not?"

"I've known her a lot longer than you have."

"True. But have you known her better?"

"I love her. I've always loved her."

"Tell me why."

"What?"

"Tell me why you love her." The traffic was moving slowly ahead of us, through the lights under the railway bridges behind Brighton station.

"I'd really like to know."

"I.. . er ..."

"Not a fluent start, is it, Toby? "I, er." I suppose you actors need lines to be written for you before you sound convincing. You see, I don't think you do love her. Not in the way I do. I think you only want her back to prove you haven't ruined the most important relationship in your life."

"A man like you is incapable of understanding love," I fired back at him. "That's why I can't explain it to you."

"I preferred the umming and erring. At least they were honest. I told you when we first met that I love Jenny because she makes me a better person than I can ever be without her. I told you that because it's true."

"This "better person" is the man who held me captive last night and tried to frame me for assault."

"You forced me into that."

"Did I really? No doubt I forced you into hounding Denis Maple to his death as well'

"I wasn't to know he had a heart condition. His death was unfortunate."

"Unfortunate? Is that the best you can come up with?"

"It was Sobotka's doing, not mine."

"But Sobotka was working for you."

"He's been useful to me, certainly."

"Like when he kidnapped Derek Oswin, you mean?" The traffic had eased and we were speeding along Viaduct Road now, past the very door of number 77.

"You're wrong about that, Toby. I called Sobotka off after Maple died.

He didn't go near Oswin. Nor did I."

"You'll be telling me next he didn't break into the Sea Air and steal my tapes."

"I would, if I thought it'd do any good. I've no idea what tapes you're talking about."

"You met Sobotka at Devil's Dyke car park Thursday morning. You were seen there by Ian Maple. So much for calling Sobotka off the day before."

"Ian Maple? Who's he?"

"You can drop the pretence with me, Roger. It's pointless."

"Sobotka's under arrest, Toby. He's facing a lengthy prison sentence for drugs trafficking. Doubtless he's doing everything he can to chalk up some points in his favour. Pinning something on me would win him a whole load of points. So, if he could lead the police to where you seem to think I'm holding Derek Oswin, he would. But he can't. Because I have no more idea where Oswin is than you have."

We'd joined the Lewes Road and passed the turning that formerly led to Colbonite. Roger was driving faster as the traffic thinned on the dual carriage way out through the suburbs.

"You're the one who's been cosying up to Oswin this past week, not me,"

he continued. "You're the one who knows how his picky little mind works. So, it shouldn't really be beyond you to figure out why he's done a runner. Or where to."

Could it be true? Had Derek vanished of his own accord? Had he faked his own abduction? I began to think about the scene at his house: the evidence of a struggle; the carefully scattered clues. It could have been stage-managed. Even the 'commotion' the neighbour had heard on Wednesday night could have been the work of one clever, calculating, painstaking man.

"Want to know what I think, Toby? I think Oswin's been pulling your strings all week. A twitch here, a twitch there. And off you've gone, causing me more trouble than he ever could."

"No. It's his manuscript you're worried about. It's what he says in it about Colbonite. That's why you removed the original from Viaduct Road and stole the copy I'd sent to my agent."

"Run past me how I managed that last bit, given that I didn't know you had it to send. I don't even know who your agent is. Or care."

"Jenny could have told you."

"Well, we can check that with her, can't we?"

"Derek can't have .. . done it all himself." The words died in my throat as the implications of such a possibility ramified in my mind.

There was more to consider than his apparent abduction. There were the stolen tapes, returned with a threatening message in which only his voice featured. And there was the missing manuscript, the damage it might do Colborn rendered tantalizingly un quantifiable I hated Colborn because Jenny preferred him to me. It was as simple as that.

And Derek knew it. The question was: had he exploited my hatred to serve his own?

"Do you know what the biggest irony is in all this, Toby? It's the fact that none of the digging for dirt you've done would have mattered if Sobotka hadn't gone and got his collar felt. He's been useful. But not useful enough to justify the risk he's exposed me to. I can't afford to have the police sniffing round my business affairs. They might catch a few iffy aromas. Chances are I can fend them off. But not if you feed your suspicions into the works. I have a horrible feeling that would give their investigation more momentum than I can soak up."

"I'm surprised you think you have anything to worry about," I said bitterly. And it was true. I was surprised.

"That's because you don't know what's likely to emerge. Maybe Oswin does. I'm not sure. Either way, it's time I put you in the picture."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it's time I told you the truth."

"You must be joking. You tell me the truth?"

"It's up to you whether you believe it, of course. But I think you will."

"I doubt it."

"Wait and see."

He paused for a moment, concentrating on the flow of traffic as he joined the A27, eased the Porsche into the outside lane and took her swiftly up beyond the speed limit as we headed east towards Lewes. Then he resumed, his tone of voice bizarrely relaxed.

"You and Jenny would still be together if you hadn't lost your son.

Let's be honest, now. You would be. Peter's death was too big a blow for you to bear. You blamed yourselves and each other. And the blame drove you apart. Most of all, though, the loss did that. The grief.

The pain. The having him and then the not having him."

"If you're expecting me to thank you for your six penn' orth of psychological platitudes, then '

"I'm making a point, Toby. Bear with me. If I'd died aged four and a half, do you think my parents would have parted? I don't. In fact, I suspect they'd have drawn closer together. Back together. Because I wasn't theirs. Not wholly. I wasn't their son. I was twenty-eight when Mother told me who my real father was. Twenty-eight. I thought I knew exactly who and what I was. Then she took it away from me. She had some idea that I needed to understand her. She was egotistical to the last. Suicide's a pretty selfish act, don't you think?"

"Depends what leads to it."

"In my mother's case, the realization that I wasn't going to forgive her. Driving off Beachy Head, where she'd staged so many calculatedly indiscreet assignations with Kenneth Oswin, was her way of making me feel guilty for not stopping her. It was her last mistake. I didn't blame myself for what she'd done. I blamed her."

"But you never told your father that you knew the truth."

"My legal father, you mean? No."

"So there was never any chance he might blame you."

"Ha. You reckon that's why I said nothing to him, do you? Nice try, Toby. But wide of the mark. I said nothing because he said nothing. I wanted to be as real a son to him as I could be. And I believed he wanted the same."

"Didn't he?"

"Not strongly enough, as it transpired. He hankered after Mother. More and more as he aged. I didn't know about the medium until I was sent the tape. If I had, I'd have put a stop to it. As it was, I had to deal with the consequences as best I could."

"What consequences?"

"His abrupt change of heart. His U-turn on the question of compensation for Colbonite workers suffering from cancers supposedly caused by exposure to a chloro-aniline curing agent we used in the dyeing shop. Suddenly, he was all for giving them every penny he had.

And every penny I stood to inherit from him. The seance was a set-up.

I'm sure of it. The medium was probably one of our former employees, or the relative of one. "Whatever wrongs you've done, it's not too late to put them right." Remember that line? Money's what she was talking about. A commodity that doesn't count for much in the spirit world."

"You don't believe the medium was in touch with your mother, then?"

"Of course I don't. It was a scam. But a clever one, I admit. Father swallowed it whole. He suddenly saw a way to assuage the guilt he felt for not saving Mother from herself by throwing money around in a fit of late-life generosity. I tried to talk him out of it, but his mind was made up."