The Perfect Daughter (17 page)

‘Mrs Hergest? We haven't met but…'

I stopped, probably with mouth open and gaping, because what I was saying wasn't true. Or true only in the sense that we'd never been formally introduced. Our eyes, at any rate, had met – just a week ago across a coroner's court in Devon. The mystery woman sitting next to Bill had been Vincent Hergest's wife. Now she was looking at me, hand out, a little smile on her lips, the perfect hostess.

‘Miss Bray, isn't it? Vincent was so glad you could come.'

Her self-possession was total. The big dark eyes gave nothing away. To be fair, she had the advantage. She'd known from the inquest who I was, but I'd had no way of knowing her identity. She put a light hand on my wrist and managed somehow to draw us away from the bald man, so that we couldn't be overheard. There was a rosemary bush beside us, humming with bees. Her voice was low and pleasant.

‘I was so sorry to hear about your cousin's daughter. Vincent was quite devastated.'

‘You knew her?'

My brain was working again, but only slowly. She could have commiserated back in Teignmouth if she'd wanted to. According to Bill she'd driven away so fast that people had to jump for their lives. She nodded, setting the swan feathers quivering.

‘Yes. We met her when Vincent was researching his latest.'

‘Where?'

She looked at me, head on one side.

‘If I tell you, would you try to keep it quiet? Of course, I'd understand if you wanted to talk about it in the family, but we'd rather it didn't get around.'

‘I assume we're talking about something political?'

So Verona had managed to burrow her way in here as well. I wondered how many of Hergest's idealistic schemes had found their way on to the file cards.

‘No, not that.' She moved so close to me that a feather tickled my cheek and murmured, ‘Ju-jitsu.'

‘What?'

I must have yelped because several people looked in our direction. Valerie waved a don't-worry signal at them with her slim white-gloved fingers.

‘There's an academy run by this amazing woman near Oxford Circus.'

‘I know.'

‘Vincent's decided that the girl in his next novel is going to be a ju-jitsu expert. He wants to explore how a love affair develops when a woman is physically and intellectually stronger than a man. Only if word gets round what he's working on, by the time his book comes out half a dozen wretched scribblers will have rushed out
Ju-jitsu Jane
trash and his will look dated, even though he had the idea in the first place.'

She looked at me as if I should understand that this would be one of the world's great tragedies. She was, at a guess, about ten years younger than her husband, but her pride in him seemed more like a mother's than a wife's. There were little lines round her eyes and on her forehead, as if she did a lot of worrying.

‘So you and he met Verona at Edith Garrud's place? When?'

‘It would have been back in February. We were sitting in on some of the classes. I started talking to Verona and knew Vincent would be interested, so I made sure they met. Didn't she tell you about it?'

I said something about not seeing much of Verona. I was still off balance.

‘His central character is a little like her – young, brave, wanting to change the world.'

She must have seen something in my face and misinterpreted it, because she started trying to reassure me.

‘I don't mean that the girl in the book would be your cousin's daughter. Vincent creates, transmutes. You know, a look or a way of speaking from one person, something else from another. It's how he works.'

She made it sound like something holy. Her eyes were on mine, unblinking, almost commanding me to understand.

‘As I said in my note, I think I saw your husband and Verona together at the Buckingham Palace deputation.'

‘Yes, I'm sure you did. He mentioned seeing her there.'

‘Did either of you see much of Verona, apart from the ju-jitsu classes?'

‘Oh yes. We invited her down here for one of our youth weekends.'

‘Was that your idea or hers?'

‘Ours, naturally. It was obvious that she was interested in politics, but a little naïve. From the start, she was asking Vincent almost as many questions as he was asking her.'

‘What sort of questions?'

‘His ideas on world peace, the countries he visited, the people he met. She really was hungry for knowledge.'

‘Yes, I'm sure she was.'

‘Anyway, from time to time we cram this house with young people from all over the place, from as many different countries as possible, from all classes of society. They enjoy themselves together and talk in an entirely informal way about what concerns them and how they see the future.'

‘When was the one Verona came to?'

‘The last weekend in April.'

‘Can you remember who else was there?'

‘We had about twenty people. I've got a list somewhere. I remember there was a young man who'd been imprisoned in St Petersburg, a couple of German pacifists, a rather quiet Sinn Feiner and some Communist musicians from Paris.'

‘Tell me, was there anybody there she seemed particularly interested in?'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘A few days after that weekend she disappeared. I can't find anybody who knows where she was until your husband saw her outside Buckingham Palace. Then she just disappeared again, until I found her in the boathouse.'

‘Are you suggesting that it was something to do with our weekend?'

‘Not directly, but I'm wondering if there was somebody she met there that explains it.'

‘I honestly don't think so.'

‘It's possible that your husband noticed something. I'd like to ask him.'

A bee from the rosemary had settled on her gloved hand. She was looking at it as if she'd never seen one before.

‘Do you really need to talk to Vincent? All this is upsetting for him and he's been working so hard on the book.'

‘Yes. I think I do.'

She opened her lips to ask why, decided against it and wafted her hand gently in the air to make the bee fly.

‘There's a bench in the vegetable garden, near the water tank. If you wait there, I'll get him to come to you.'

She started moving away.

I said, ‘Why did you come to the inquest?'

‘Vincent couldn't go. You know, the press…' She took a step. ‘I'm so sorry for her parents. It must be awful, wondering…' Another step. ‘Please be careful with him. He's so much more sensitive than people think.'

She walked slowly past her guests, up the steps towards the house. I went back to the vegetable garden and found a stone bench between the water tank and rows of carrots. After ten minutes or so there were quick footsteps on the path and Vincent Hergest appeared and sat down beside me.

‘I can't tell you how sorry I was to hear about it.'

The words were conventional enough, but he seemed genuinely disturbed. His fingers were kneading away at his kneecaps, doing no good to the cream-coloured linen.

‘How did you hear?'

‘The place in Chelsea where she used to live. I hadn't seen her for some time so I went round there. The fellow with the red beard told me. I should have written, I suppose, to you or somebody. But I didn't know what to…'

Probably a literary first. If only the bore up by the sundial could have heard it – Vincent Hergest admitting he didn't know what to write. He sighed and shook his head. ‘Valerie tells me you want to know about the weekend she was here.'

‘Yes, mostly whether she seemed particularly interested in any of your other guests.'

‘You haven't been to one of our weekends, or you'd know. Everybody's interested in everybody. You should see – no, you should
feel
this place when we have our young people here. They're making connections that are going to change the world, I really believe that. How can you think of waging war on people, whether it's class war or war between countries, when you've swum with them and had pillow fights with them, and sat up half the night talking music and books and politics?'

You could tell he was on a favourite theme, trying to cheer himself up by talking about it.

‘Did Verona talk much about herself?'

‘No. She did more listening than talking, as far as I remember.'

‘Not just at that weekend, at other times. Your wife said you were interested in her for your book.'

‘Aspects of her, yes. A young woman from a conventional background, seeing the wrongs of the world for the first time, wanting to put them right in one great heroic charge.'

‘So she told you about her background?'

He stared at his rows of carrots. ‘She said her father was a doctor in Devon.'

‘I'm afraid she lied about that.'

He darted up, grabbed a carrot by its ferny top and pulled it out of the ground. ‘Yes, I know. Valerie told me from the inquest. Naval officer, isn't he?'

‘Yes.'

He sat down, still holding his carrot. ‘Perhaps she was ashamed to admit it, poor girl, meeting pacifists and so on.'

‘Why did you want Valerie to go to the inquest?'

He looked at me. The blue eyes had a glaze of tears over them.

‘I wanted to know what had happened.'

‘For the book?'

He stared at me for a moment, mouth open, as if I'd hit him unfairly.

Then, ‘What sort of a monster do you think I am? Do you think I have no feelings, just because I'm a writer? A young woman hangs herself and I'm only interested for my book?'

He hurled the carrot away. It went skittering through the air like a vegetable comet, trailing green, landed somewhere among the marrow plants. ‘Carrot fly, damn them.'

‘I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I'm afraid there was something more important she deceived you about. All of us in fact.'

He stared. ‘What?'

‘I'm very much afraid Verona was a government spy.'

He rocked back on the seat as if I'd hit him. ‘No! What do you mean? I don't believe it!'

I told him as much as he needed to know. I had to, not just for him but for the assorted people she'd met through him. At first he was angry, trying to interrupt, but when I got to the room with the filing cabinets and the map his head went down in his hands. From what seemed like a long way off, the band he'd hired was playing something from
The Dollar Princess.

He said through his fingers, ‘I was beginning to be afraid there was something. When Valerie told me about her father being a commodore I was afraid there was something. But this…'

I waited. When he looked up at last his eyes were damp and the muscles round his mouth were quivering.

‘They must have wanted to get me very badly. Sending her where they knew I'd meet her.'

It's one of the funny things about being spied on – knowing you're being watched is like appearing on stage all the time and however much people may hate that, nobody will admit to having just a walk-on part.

‘You might not have been the main target.'

‘Why else would they go to all this trouble?'

‘You know a lot of people the War Office might think of as potential enemies.'

‘For God's sake, we create our own enemies out of our fears and weaknesses.'

‘It's a good quote, but I'm not sure it would convince the men in the Secret Service Bureau.'

‘Is that who she was working for?'

‘I don't know who exactly. People with money and resources behind them, that's certain. They must have been pleased when you invited her down here.'

He brushed a cream linen cuff over his eyes.

‘I still can't believe this.'

‘Didn't you wonder about all those questions she was asking?'

‘Why should I?' He shook his head, honestly puzzled. He expected people to be interested in him. ‘Do you … do you think that might be why she killed herself? Because she was ashamed of what she was doing?'

‘If she did kill herself.'

‘But the inquest…'

‘The jury didn't have much choice. They didn't know anything about this.'

‘You could have told them.'

‘I didn't know then either.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Find out. Which is why I want to know whether she took a particular interest in anybody on your weekend.'

‘They're not like that – none of them.'

‘Can you be sure of that?'

‘I don't think I'll be sure of anything ever again.' He sat there for some time, staring at the dirt on his fingers. ‘I'll get Valerie to send the list to you. I expect she's still got it.' He sounded subdued now, reality breaking in.

‘Was it Verona at that Buckingham Palace deputation on the twenty-first?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did she say anything about where she'd been?'

‘No. We came across each other in the crowd and I said we'd better get out of the way of the police horses. I helped her over the railings by the Memorial.'

‘And afterwards?'

‘We got separated. I never saw her again.'

‘It's a pity. That's the first we know of anybody seeing her for nineteen days. Did you ever know her to inject morphine?'

‘No, definitely not. I'd have stopped her.'

‘So that surprised you from the inquest?'

‘Everything surprises me. I just don't know where I am.'

Little boy lost. I felt sorry for him, but wondered if he ever stopped listening to the sound of his own voice.

‘If anything occurs to you about what she was doing in those missing days, you will let me know, won't you?'

He nodded, head bent.

‘Vincent are you there?'

Valerie's soft but carrying voice came floating down the garden, then she was with us in a flutter of white and green.