Play to the End (38 page)

I nodded. "You can say that again."

"I've been trying to raise you on your mobile."

"I .. . mislaid it."

"Where are you off to now?"

"The taxi rank in East Street."

"Can I walk with you?"

"Sure."

We set off and reached the end of Madeira Place before another word was spoken, the right thing to say proving equally elusive for both of us.

"I'm sorry .. . not to have been in touch," I said as we rounded the corner into St. James's Street.

"Don't worry about that. At the time, we were all pretty narked, but

.. . well, from what the police tell me, the circumstances were about as extenuating as they come."

"I gather you coped without me."

"I went on for you."

"Yes." I winced at the thought of Brian stumbling through my part, script in hand. "I suppose you had to."

"It's been a while since I did any acting, I know, but ... I quite enjoyed it, as a matter of fact."

"I've never experienced someone going on with the book. I can't believe it's enjoyable, though."

"Well, actually

"What?"

"By last night, I was word perfect. I'd already boned up on the part, you see. With Denis gone and you .. . behaving erratically .. . I ..

."

We were crossing the Old Steine as Brian mentioned Denis, no more than fifteen yards from the fountain where I'd found him dead on Tuesday night. I kept my eyes fixed on the middle distance, straight ahead.

"You saw it coming, did you, Brian?"

"Not .. . what happened. Of course not. I mean .. ."

"It's all right. I understand. How did Leo react to news of my absence?"

"Ballistically. But he doesn't know the reason yet. When he does ..

."

"He'll soften. But not enough to hire me again in a hurry."

"I wouldn't say that."

"You don't need to."

"Look, Toby, you've been through a terrible experience. I don't want to add to your woes. I'll make sure Leo appreciates that you missed the last three performances through no fault of your own."

"Thanks."

"When are you going back to London?"

"Later today."

"Probably wise. I haven't heard from the press, local or national, so I'm guessing they haven't tied you in with yesterday's events yet. But they will. It'll be easier to lie low in London than here. Unless you're going on somewhere else, of course."

"I haven't thought that far ahead."

"Most of us are catching the eleven fifty up to Victoria, if you want to '

"There are things I have to do first, Brian." I stopped at the corner of East Street and signalled to the driver of the only taxi on the rank. "I doubt you'll see me on the eleven fifty."

"How's Jenny taken all this?"

"I don't know. That's one of the things I have to do."

There was no sign of the press out at Wickhurst Manor either, which was a blessing. I had the taxi driver, a mercifully tight-lipped bloke, drop me at the end of the lane leading to Stonestaples Wood as an additional precaution and approached the firmly closed gates on foot.

At first, there was no response to the intercom button. But I persisted, reckoning there was close to no chance that Jenny would be anywhere but at home. If Wickhurst Manor could properly be regarded as her home any more, that is.

Eventually, there was a response. I recognized the voice as Fiona's.

"Yes?" She was probably expecting the press. She sounded as if she meant to see off whoever it might be in short order.

"It's me, Fiona. Toby."

There was a brief silence. I thought I heard a sigh. "You shouldn't have come here, Toby."

"I have to see Jenny."

"That's really not a good idea."

"Let me in, Fiona. Please."

"I ... don't think I can."

"For God's sake ..."

"You should have phoned first."

"I'll go into Fulking if you like and phone from the call box for an appointment."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Then, let me in."

"No."

"Fiona '

"Sorry, Toby. I have to put Jenny first. Phone later. Maybe tonight.

Or tomorrow. But not now."

She switched off the intercom and I was left staring at the grille, rooks cawing around me in the trees, a fine drizzle filming the steel plate set in the pillar in front of me. I pushed the button again.

There was no answer.

I stepped back and surveyed the gates. It looked as if someone younger and fitter than me could climb them.

But they weren't about to try. I was.

Fiona opened the front door of Wickhurst Manor five minutes or so later with the weary look of someone who knows what they're going to see. A sororial resemblance to Jenny has never extended in her case to a fondness for me. She's always regarded actors as suspect by definition unstable, unreliable and essentially undesirable.

"Couldn't you just for once have taken my advice?" she snapped, pursing her lips irritably.

"It didn't sound like advice."

"That's because you weren't listening properly."

"Can I come in?"

"What have you done to your leg?" She glanced down at my left ankle.

There was a V-shaped tear just above the hem of my trousers where I'd snagged them on the spike at the top of one of the gate pales. When I looked down myself, I saw there was blood seeping through the hole.

Fiona gave a heavy sigh. "Come into the kitchen. And keep your voice down. Jenny's asleep. I'd like her to stay that way."

I followed her into the hall and round to the large north-facing kitchen at the back of the house. Its windows looked out onto the lawn I'd crossed under cover of dusk on Friday afternoon. My last visit to Wickhurst Manor felt far more distant to me than it really was, almost from a different age.

"Sit down there," said Fiona, pointing to a chair by the kitchen table as she closed the door behind us. "And roll up your trouser leg."

For the next few minutes, she busied herself with soap, water, Dettol and sticking plaster in a fashion I guessed her two sons would easily recognize, repeating phrases like "Such a very stupid thing to do' under her breath as she cleaned me up. The dog wandered in from the scullery, regarded us mournfully, and wandered back out.

Then Fiona pronounced the job done and turned briskly to more serious matters.

"You shouldn't have come, Toby, you really shouldn't. Have you any idea how big a shock this has been to Jenny?"

"Yesterday didn't exactly pan out as I'd expected either."

"But you haven't lost a fiance, have you? Or a close friend. Delia's death seems to have affected her almost as deeply as Roger's. And it's hard for her at the moment not to blame you for both."

"Me?"

"She loved Roger, Toby. Learning he was capable of murder doesn't alter that overnight."

"More than capable. Guilty."

"Yes. I know. He was a monster. A bigger one than I ever suspected.

But, let's face it, if you hadn't '

The door sprang open and Jenny walked into the room. She was in a dressing-gown and slippers, her hair scraped back, her face pale, almost grey, but for the moist redness round her bloodshot eyes. She'd been crying and was clearly still on the verge of tears. And she was trembling, her fingers shaking as she smoothed the collar of her robe, her lips quivering as she looked at me and tried to speak.

Fiona and I both stood up. Fiona moved towards her. But Jenny held up a hand, signalling that she needed a little distance, a little space in which to compose herself.

"I thought you were sleeping," said Fiona.

"I heard the door," Jenny responded after a few seconds' delay, like someone communicating via an interpreter. "And Toby's voice."

"I had to come," I said, willing Jenny to hold my gaze over her sister's shoulder.

"I suppose you did."

"Can we talk?"

"Would you be able ... to drive Toby back into Brighton, Fiona?"

"Of course," Fiona replied.

"Good. Just.. . give us a few minutes .. . would you?"

"OK. I .. ." Fiona glanced round at me, then back at Jenny. "OK."

She slipped out of the room then, closing the door gently behind her. I heard myself swallow nervously in the silence that followed. Then the dog pattered back into the room and ambled to Jenny's side, where he nosed at her hand.

"He misses his master," she said neutrally, almost observation ally

"How are you '

"Don't. Please don't." Her voice cracked. She took a deep breath.

Then another. "Just listen to me, Toby. Please. The police told me everything. I know it all. What Roger did to his father. Both his fathers. And to Delia. And to Derek Oswin. What he tried to do to you as well. I never ... saw that side of him. It seems I never .. .

grasped his true nature. I've been a fool. An utter fool. Maybe I should thank you for forcing me to understand that."

"I never meant it to turn out like this."

"Of course not. Who would? But if you'd waited till I got back ... If you'd only .. . bided your time .. . nobody need have died yesterday, need they? That's what I can't help thinking, you see. Delia, Derek Oswin, Roger. They'd all be alive. With plenty to face up to, it's true. With a great deal to answer for, in Roger's case. But they'd be alive. Living and breathing. However dreadful it would be, at least we could talk about it, Roger and I. At least She stifled a sob. "I blame myself. For involving you. For letting you .. . back into my life. I should have known better. I really should. You kill everything you touch."

Grief and anger and a measure of shame were mixed in what she'd said. I knew that. The one victim she hadn't mentioned our son had been added implicitly to the list. Fiona was right. I'd come too soon. And Jenny was right too. I

hadn't known when to bide my time. I never had. There was nothing I could say in answer to the charge. I stared at her with a tenderness I couldn't express. I forgave her. For not forgiving me.

"I can't think about the future now," she went on. "There's just .. .

too much to contemplate. John Delia's husband is distraught. The police will be back. And the press will be onto the case. It's all

... horrible. Too horrible for words. That's why I can't bear there to be any between us, Toby. Words, I mean. I just .. . can't do it."

She pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes and looked at me. "Please go. We'll talk. Of course we will. We'll have to. But not here. Not now. Not .. . any time soon. You understand?"

I didn't speak. I didn't even nod. But she took some fractional narrowing of my gaze as a kind of confirmation. I didn't agree. I didn't accept. Yet, nevertheless ... I understood.

"Please go."

Nothing was said during the drive into Brighton. Fiona, never one to waste her words, didn't bother to point out how big a mistake my visit to Wickhurst Manor had been. It was as she'd tried to warn me it would be. It was too soon. And it was probably too late as well.

"Shall I wait outside while you pick up your luggage, then run you up to the station?" Fiona asked as we headed down Grand Parade towards the Sea Air. She'd broken her lengthy silence, I noticed, only for the most practical of reasons.

"Thanks," I replied. Then I remembered what the numbing anguish of my parting from Jenny had blotted out. I wasn't yet free to go even if I wanted to. "Actually, no. Drop me at the hospital. There's someone I have to see."

Ian Maple was in a room of his own, off a ward deep in the rabbit warren of the Royal Sussex. His right leg wasn't in a plaster cast, as I'd expected. Instead, the section between the knee and the ankle was held fast in an armature of wires and pins. That apart which was a lot to disregard he looked well. And his greeting was somewhat warmer than I'd expected.

"I wondered if I'd see you before you left," he said by way of lightly ironic opener.

"I must have caused you a lot of anxiety by holding out on the police,"

I responded, lowering myself onto a bedside chair. "I am sorry."

"I guessed you had good reason."

"I thought I did, certainly."

"I'm not sure they ever seriously thought I was in business with Sobotka, anyway. They just couldn't see the big picture, that's all."

"They see it now."

"Yeah. Three dead, including Roger Colborn." Ian shook his head. "I wanted to make someone pay for what happened to Denis. But this ... is too much."

"Jenny blames me for the way it's turned out."

"You didn't force Colborn to murder his aunt. Or Derek Oswin. You couldn't have predicted how the guy would react under pressure."

"No. But I'll tell you something, Ian. I was determined to find out."

"And now you have."

"Yes." I looked past him. "Now I have." My gaze wandered to his braced and cradled leg. "What do the doctors say about that?"

"That it'll mend. Slowly. I might need another operation. I'll definitely need a lot of physiotherapy. I'll be off work ... for months." What was his work? I realized I'd never bothered to ask.

"I'll have to go to Denis's funeral in a wheelchair."

"When will it be?"

"Thursday. Golders Green Crematorium."

"I'll see you there."

"Yeah. Time enough to worry about the future after that, hey?"

"Oh yes." I nodded. "Plenty of time."

I headed down to Marine Parade after leaving the hospital and walked slowly west towards Madeira Place through the cold, dank morning. The sea and the sky were two merged planes of grey, the horizon as murkily indefinable as the future. The pier, where I met Jenny a week ago, loomed ahead of me, just as our meeting, and the foolish hopes I'd vested in it, faded behind me into the past. It was time to leave. But I had nowhere to go.