Come to Grief

Chapter 9

In the morning, when I’d failed yet again to get an answer from Kevin Mills, I shunted by subway across central London and emerged not far from Companies House at 55 City Road, E.C.

Companies House, often my friend, contained the records of all public and private limited companies active in England, including the audited annual balance sheets, investment capital, fixed assets and the names of major shareholders and the directors of the boards.

Topline Foods, I soon learned, was an old company recently taken over by a few new big investors and a bustling new management. The chief shareholder and managing director was listed as Owen Cliff Yorkshire. There were fifteen non-executive directors, of whom one was Lord Tilepit.

The premises at which business was carried out were located at Frodsham, Cheshire. The registered office was at the same address.

The product of the company was foodstuffs for animals.

After Topline I looked up Village Pump Newspapers (they’d dropped the ‘Village’ in about 1900, but retained the idea of a central meeting place for gossip) and found interesting items, and after Village Pump Newspapers I looked up the TV company that aired Ellis’s sports program, but found no sign of Tilepit or Owen Yorkshire in its operations.

I traveled home (safely) and phoned Archie, who was, his wife reported, at work.

‘Can I reach him at work?’ I asked.

‘Oh, no, Sid. He wouldn’t like it. I’ll give him a message when he gets back.’

Please try later.

I tried Kevin Mills later and this time nearly got my eardrums perforated. ‘At last!’

‘I’ve tried you a dozen times,’ I said.

‘I’ve been in an old people’s home.’

‘Well, bully for you.’

‘A nurse hastened three harpies into the hereafter.’

‘Poor old sods.’

‘If you’re in Pont Square,’ he said, ‘can I call round and see you? I’m in my car not far away.’

‘I thought I was The Pump’s number one all-time shit.’

‘Yeah. Can I come?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Great.’ He clicked off before I could change my mind and he was at my door in less than ten minutes.

‘This is nice,’ he said appreciatively, looking around my sitting room. ‘Not what I expected.’

There was a Sheraton writing desk and buttoned brocade chairs and a couple of modem exotic wood inlaid tables by Mark Boddington. The overall colors were grayish-blue, soft and restful. The only brash intruder was an ancient slot machine that worked on tokens.

Kevin Mills made straight towards it, as most visitors did. I always left a few tokens haphazardly on the floor, with a bowl of them nearby on a table. Kevin picked a token from the carpet, fed it into the slot and pulled the handle. The wheels clattered and clunked. He got two cherries and a lemon. He picked up another token and tried again.

‘What wins the jackpot?’ he asked, achieving an orange, a demon and a banana.

‘Three horses with jockeys jumping fences.’

He looked at me sharply.

‘It used to be the bells,’ I said. ‘That was boring, so I changed it.’

‘And do the three horses ever come up?’

I nodded. ‘You get a fountain of tokens all over the floor.’

The machine was addictive. It was my equivalent of the psychiatrist’s couch. Kevin played throughout our conversation but the nearest he came was two horses and a pear.

‘The trial has started, Sid,’ he said, ‘so give us the scoop.’

‘The trial’s only technically started. I can’t tell you a thing. When the adjournment’s over, you can go to court and listen.’

‘That’s not exclusive,’ he complained.

‘You know damned well I can’t tell you.’

‘I gave you the story to begin with.’

‘I sought you out,’ I said. ‘Why did The Pump stop helping the colt owners and shaft me instead?’

He concentrated hard on the machine. Two bananas and a blackberry.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Policy.’

‘Whose policy?’

‘The public wants demolition, they gobble up spite.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Look, Sid, we get the word from on high. And don’t ask who on high, I don’t know. I don’t like it. None of us likes it. But we have the choice: go along with overall policy or go somewhere else where we feel more in tune. And do you know where that gets you? I work for The Pump because it’s a good paper with, on the whole, fair comment. OK, so reputations topple. Like I said, that’s what Mrs Public wants. Now and then we get a request, such as “lean hard on Sid Halley.” I did it without qualms, as you’d clammed up on me.’

He looked all the time at the machine, playing fast.

‘And India Cathcart?’ I asked.

He pulled the lever and waited until two lemons and a jumping horse came to rest in a row.

‘India…’ he said slowly. ‘For some reason she didn’t want to trash you. She said she’d enjoyed her dinner with you and you were quiet and kind. Kind! I ask you! Her editor had to squeeze the poison out of her drop by drop for that first long piece. In the end he wrote most of her page himself. She was furious the next day when she read it, but it was out on the streets by then and she couldn’t do anything about it.’

I was more pleased than I would have expected, but I wasn’t going to let Kevin see it. I said, ‘What about the continued stab wounds almost every week?’

‘I guess she goes along with the policy. Like I said, she has to eat.’

‘Is it George Godbar’s policy?’

‘The big white chief himself? Yes, you could say the editor of the paper has the final say.’

‘And Lord Tilepit?’

He gave me an amused glance. Two pears and a lemon. ‘He’s not a hands-on proprietor of the old school. Not a Beaverbrook or a Harmsworth. We hardly know he’s alive.’

‘Does he give the overall policy to George Godbar?’

‘Probably.’ A horse, a demon and some cherries. ‘Why do I get the idea that you are interviewing me, instead of the other way round?’

‘I cannot imagine. What do you know about Owen Cliff Yorkshire?’

‘Bugger all. Who is he?’

‘Quite likely a friend of Lord Tilepit.’

‘Sid,’ he protested, ‘I do my job. Rapes, murders, little old ladies smothered in their sleep. I do not chew off the fingernails of my paycheck.’

He banged the slot machine frustratedly. ‘The bloody thing hates me.’

‘It has no soul,’ I said. I fed in a stray token myself with my plastic fingers and pulled the handle. Three horses. Fountains of love. Life’s little irony.

Kevin Mills took his paunch, his mustache and his disgusted disgruntlement off to his word processor, and I again phoned Norman as John Paul Jones.

‘My colleagues now think John Paul Jones is a snitch,’ he said.

‘Fine.’

‘What is it this time?’

‘Do you still have any of those horse nuts I collected from Betty Bracken’s field, and those others we took from the Land-Rover?’

‘Yes, we do. And as you know, they’re identical in composition.’

‘Then could you find out if they were manufactured by Topline Foods Limited, of Frodsham in Cheshire?’

After a short silence he said cautiously, ‘It could be done, but is it necessary?’

‘If you could let me have some of the nuts I could do it myself.’

‘I can’t let you have any. They are bagged and counted.’

‘Shit.’ And I could so easily have kept some in my own pocket. Careless. Couldn’t be helped.

‘Why does it matter where they came from?’ Norman asked.

‘Um… You know you told me you thought there might be a heavyweight somewhere behind the scenes? Well, I’ve been asked to find out.’

‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘Who asked you?’

‘Can’t tell you. Client confidentiality and all that.’

‘Is it Archie Kirk?’

‘Not so far as I know.’

‘Huh!’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘I’ll go this far. If you get me some authenticated Topline nuts I’ll see if I can run a check on them to find out if they match the ones we have. That’s the best I can do, and that’s stretching it, and you wouldn’t have a prayer if you hadn’t been the designer of our whole prosecution — and you can not quote me on that.’

‘I’m truly grateful. I’ll get some Topline nuts, but they probably won’t match the ones you have.’

‘Why not?’

‘The grains — the balance of ingredients — will have changed since those were manufactured. Every batch must have its own profile, so to speak.’

He well knew what I meant, as an analysis of ingredients could reveal their origins as reliably as grooves on a bullet.

‘What interests you in Topline Foods?’ Norman asked.

‘My client.’

‘Bugger your client. Tell me.’ I didn’t answer and he sighed heavily. ‘All right. You can’t tell me now. I hate amateur detectives. I’ve got you a strip off that dirty Northampton material. At least, it’s promised for later today. What are you going to do about it, and have you cracked Ellis Quint’s alibi yet?’

‘You’re brilliant,’ I said. ‘Where can I meet you? And no, I haven’t cracked the alibi.’

‘Try harder.’

‘I’m only an amateur.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Come to the lake at five o’clock. I’m picking up the boat to take it home for winter storage. OK?’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘See you.’

I phoned the hospital in Canterbury. Rachel, the ward sister told me, was ‘resting comfortably.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘She’s no worse than yesterday, Mr Halley. When can you return?’

‘Sometime soon.’

‘Good.’

I spent the afternoon exchanging my old vulnerable analog mobile cellular telephone for a digital mobile receiving eight splintered transmissions that would baffle even the Thames Valley stalwarts, let alone The Pump.

From my apartment I then phoned Miss Richardson of Northamptonshire, who said vehemently that no, I certainly might not call on her again. Ginnie and Gordon Quint were her dear friends and it was unthinkable that Ellis could harm horses, and I was foul and wicked even to think it. Ginnie had told her about it. Ginnie had been very distressed. It was all my fault that she had killed herself.

I persevered with two questions, however, and did get answers of sorts.

‘Did your vet say how long he thought the foot had been off when the colt was found at seven o’clock?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Could you give me his name and phone number?’

‘No.’

As I had over the years accumulated a whole shelfful of area telephone directories, it was not so difficult via the Northamptonshire Yellow Pages to find and talk to Miss Richardson’s vet. He would, he said, have been helpful if he could. All he could with confidence say was that neither the colt’s leg nor the severed foot had shown signs of recent bleeding. Miss Richardson herself had insisted he put the colt out of his misery immediately, and, as it was also his own judgment, he had done so.

He had been unable to suggest to the police any particular time for the attack; earlier rather than later was as far as he could go. The wound had been clean: one chop. The vet said he was surprised a yearling would have stood still long enough for shears to be applied. Yes, he confirmed, the colt had been lightly shod, and yes, there had been horse nuts scattered around, but Miss Richardson often gave her horses nuts as a supplement to grass.

He’d been helpful, but no help.

After that I had to decide how to get to the lake, as the normal taken-for-granted act of driving now had complications. I had a knob fixed on the steering wheel of my Mercedes which gave me a good grip for one- (right)handed operation. With my left, unfeeling hand I shifted the automatic-gear lever.

I experimentally flexed and clenched my right hand. Sharp protests. Boring. With irritation I resorted to ibuprofen and drove to the lake wishing Chico were around to do it.

Norman had winched his boat halfway onto its trailer. Big, competent and observant, he watched my slow emergence to upright and frowned.

‘What hurts?’ he asked.

‘Self-esteem.’

He laughed. ‘Give me a hand with the boat, will you? Pull when I lift.’

I looked at the job and said briefly that I couldn’t.

‘You only need one hand for pulling.’

I told him unemotionally that Gordon Quint had aimed for my head and done lesser but inconvenient damage. ‘I’m telling you, in case he tries again and succeeds. He was slightly out of his mind over Ginnie.’

Norman predictably said I should make an official complaint.

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is unofficial, and ends right here.’

He went off to fetch a friend to help him with the boat, and then busied himself with wrapping and stowing his powerful outboard engine.

I said, ‘What first gave you the feeling that there was some heavyweight meandering behind the scenes?’

‘First?’ He went on working while he thought. ‘It’s months ago. I talked it over with Archie. I expect it was because one minute I was putting together an ordinary case — even if Ellis Quint’s fame made it newsworthy — and the next I was being leaned on by the superintendent to find some reason to drop it, and when I showed him the strength of the evidence, he said the Chief Constable was unhappy, and the reason for the Chief Constable’s unhappiness was always the same, which was political pressure from outside.’

‘What sort of political?’

Norman shrugged. ‘Not party politics especially. A pressure group. Lobbying. A bargain struck somewhere, along the lines of “get the Quint prosecution aborted and such-and-such a good thing will come your way!” ’

‘But not a direct cash advantage?’

‘Sid!’

‘Well, sorry.’

‘I should frigging well hope so.’ He wrapped thick twine around the shrouded engine. ‘I’m not asking cash for a strip of rag from Northamptonshire.’

‘I grovel,’ I said.

He grinned. ‘That’ll be the day.’ He climbed into his boat and secured various bits of equipment against movement en route.

‘No one has entirely given in to the pressure,’ he pointed out. ‘The case against Ellis Quint has not been dropped. True, it’s now in a ropy state. You yourself have been relentlessly discredited to the point where you’re almost a liability to the prosecution, and even though that’s brutally unfair, it’s a fact.’

‘Mm.’

In effect, I thought, I’d been commissioned by Davis Tatum to find out who had campaigned to defeat me. It wasn’t the first time I’d faced campaigns to enforce my inactivity, but it was the first time I’d been offered a fee to save myself. To save myself, in this instance, meant to defeat Ellis Quint: so I was being paid for that, in the first place. And for what else?

Norman backed his car up to the boat trailer and hitched them together. Then he leaned through the open front passenger window of the car, unlocked the glove compartment there and drew out and handed to me a plastic bag.

‘One strip of dirty rag,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Cost to you, six grovels before breakfast for a week.’

I took the bag gratefully. Inside, the filthy strip, about three inches wide, had been loosely folded until it was several layers thick.

‘It’s about a meter long,’ Norman said. ‘It was all they would let me have. I had to sign for it.’

‘Good.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Clean it, for a start.’

Norman said doubtfully, ‘It’s got some sort of pattern in it but there wasn’t any printing on the whole wrapping. Nothing to say where it came from. No garden center name, or anything.’

‘I don’t have high hopes,’ I said, ‘but frankly, just now every straw’s worth clutching.’

Norman stood with his legs apart and his hands on his hips. He looked a pillar of every possible police strength but what he was actually feeling turned out to be indecision.

‘How far can I trust you?’ he asked.

‘For silence?’

He nodded.

‘I thought we’d discussed this already.’

‘Yes, but that was months ago.’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ I said.

He made a decision, stuck his head into his car again and this time brought out a business-sized brown envelope which he held out to me.

‘It’s a copy of the analysis done on the horse nuts,’ he said. ‘So read it and shred it.’

‘OK. And thanks.’

I held the envelope and plastic bag together and knew I couldn’t take such trust lightly. He must be very sure of me, I thought, and felt not complimented but apprehensive.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said, ‘do you remember, way back in June, when we took those things out of Gordon Quint’s Land-Rover?’

‘Of course I remember.’

‘There was a farrier’s apron in the Land-Rover. Rolled up. We didn’t take that, did we?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t remember it, but no, it’s not among the things we took. What’s significant about it?’

I said, ‘I’ve always thought it odd that the colts should stand still long enough for the shears to close round the ankle, even with head collars and those nuts. But horses have an acute sense of smell… and all those colts had shoes on — I checked with their vets — and they would have known the smell of a blacksmith’s apron. I think Ellis might have worn that apron to reassure the colts. They may have thought he was the man who shod them. They would have trusted him. He could have lifted an ankle and gripped it with the shears.’

He stared.

‘What do you think?’ I asked.

‘It’s you who knows horses.’

‘It’s how I might get a two-year-old to let me near his legs.’

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he said, ‘that’s how it was done.’

He held out his hand automatically to say good-bye, then remembered Gordon Quint’s handiwork, shrugged, grinned and said instead, ‘If there’s anything interesting about that strip of rag, you’ll let me know?’

‘Of course.’

‘See you.’

He drove off with a wave, trailing his boat, and I returned to my car, stowed away the bag and the envelope and made a short journey to Shelley Green, the home of Archie Kirk.

He had returned from work. He took me into his sitting room while his smiling wife cooked in the kitchen.

‘How’s things?’ Archie asked. ‘Whisky?’

I nodded. ‘A lot of water…’

He indicated chairs, and we sat. The dark room looked right in October: imitation flames burned imitation coals in the fireplace, giving the room a life that the sun of June hadn’t achieved.

I hadn’t seen Archie since then. I absorbed again the probably deliberate grayness of his general appearance, and I saw again the whole internet in the dark eyes.

He said casually, ‘You’ve been having a bit of a rough time.’

‘Does it show?’

‘Yes.’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Will you answer some questions?’

‘It depends what they are.’

I drank some of his undistinguished whisky and let my muscles relax into the ultimate of nonaggressive, noncombative postures.

‘For a start, what do you do?’ I said.

‘I’m a civil servant.’

‘That’s not… well… specific.’

‘Start at the other end,’ he said.

I smiled. I said, ‘It’s a wise man who knows who’s paying him.’

He paused with his own glass halfway to his lips.

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Then… do you know Davis Tatum?’

After a pause he answered, ‘Yes.’

It seemed to me he was growing wary; that he, as I did, had to sort through a minefield of facts one could not or should not reveal that one knew. The old dilemma — does he know I know he knows — sometimes seemed like child’s play.

I said, ‘How’s Jonathan?’

He laughed. ‘I hear you play chess,’ he said. ‘I hear you’re a whiz at misdirection. Your opponents think they’re winning, and then… wham.’

I played chess only with Charles at Aynsford, and not very often.

‘Do you know my father-in-law?’ I asked. ‘Ex-father-in-law, Charles Roland?’

With a glimmer he said, ‘I’ve talked to him on the telephone.’

At least he hadn’t lied to me, I thought; and, if he hadn’t lied he’d given me a fairly firm path to follow. I asked about Jonathan, and about his sister, Betty Bracken.

‘That wretched boy is still at Combe Bassett, and now that the water-skiing season is over he is driving everyone mad. You are the only person who sees any good in him.’

‘Norman does.’

‘Norman sees a talented water-skier with criminal tendencies.’

‘Has Jonathan any money?’

Archie shook his head. ‘Only the very little we give him for toothpaste and so on. He’s still on probation. He’s a mess.’ He paused. ‘Betty has been paying for the water ski-ing. She’s the only one in our family with real money. She married straight out of school. Bobby’s thirty years older — he was rich when they married and he’s richer than ever now. As you saw, she’s still devoted to him. Always has been. They had no children; she couldn’t. Very sad. If Jonathan had any sense he would be nice to Betty.’

‘I don’t think he’s that devious. Or not yet, anyway.’

‘Do you like him?’ Archie asked curiously.

‘Not much, but I hate to see people go to waste.’

‘Stupid boy.’

‘I checked on the colt,’ I said. ‘The foot stayed on.’

Archie nodded. ‘Betty’s delighted. The colt is permanently lame, but they’re going to see if, with his breeding, he’s any good for stud. Betty’s offering him free next year to good mares.’

Archie’s sweet wife came in and asked if I would stay to dinner; she could easily cook extra. I thanked her but stood up to go. Archie shook my hand. I winced through not concentrating, but he made no comment. He came out to my car with me as the last shreds of daylight waned to dark.

He said, ‘In the civil service I work in a small unacknowledged off-shoot department which was set up some time ago to foretell the probable outcome of any high political appointment. We also predict the future inevitable consequences of pieces of proposed legislation.’ He paused and went on wryly, ‘We call ourselves the Cassandra outfit. We see what will happen and no one believes us. We are always on the lookout for exceptional independent investigators with no allegiances. They’re hard to find. We think you are one.’

I stood beside my car in the dying light, looking into the extraordinary eyes. An extraordinary man of unimaginable insights. I said, ‘Archie, I’ll work for you to the limit as long as I’m sure you’re not sending me into a danger that you know exists but are not telling me about.’

He took a deep breath but gave no undertaking.

‘Good night,’ I said mildly.

‘Sid.’

‘I’ll phone you.’ It was as firm a promise, I thought, as ‘let’s do lunch.’

He was still standing on his gravel as I drove out through his gates. A true civil servant, I thought ruefully. No positive assurances could ever be given because the rules could at any time be changed under one’s feet.

I drove north across Oxfordshire to Aynsford and rang the bell of the side entrance of Charles’s house. Mrs Cross came in answer to the summons, her inquiring expression melting to welcome as she saw who had arrived.

‘The Admiral’s in the wardroom,’ she assured me when I asked if he was at home, and she bustled along before me to give Charles the news.

He made no reference to the fact that it was the second time in three days that I had sought his sanctuary. He merely pointed to the gold brocade chair and poured brandy into a tumbler without asking.

I sat and drank and looked gratefully at the austerity and restraint of this thin man who’d commanded ships and was now my only anchor.

‘How’s the arm?’ he asked briefly, and I said lightly, ‘Sore.’

He nodded and waited.

‘Can I stay?’ I said.

‘Of course.’

After a longish pause, I said, ‘Do you know a man called Archibald Kirk?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘He says he talked to you on the telephone. It was months ago, I think. He’s a civil servant and a magistrate. He lives near Hungerford, and I’ve come here from his house. Can you remember? Way back. I think he may have been asking you about me. Like sort of checking up, like a reference. You probably told him that I play chess.’

He thought about it, searching for the memory.

‘I would always give you a good reference,’ he said. ‘Is there any reason why you’d prefer I didn’t?’

‘No, definitely not.’

‘I’ve been asked several times about your character and ability. I always say if they’re looking for an investigator they couldn’t do better.’

‘You’re… very kind.’

‘Kind, my foot. Why do you ask about this Archibald Church?’

‘Kirk.’

‘Kirk, then.’

I drank some brandy and said, ‘Do you remember that day you came with me to the Jockey Club? The day we got the head of the security section sacked?’

‘I could hardly forget it, could I?’

‘You didn’t tell Archie Kirk about it, did you?’

‘Of course not. I never talk about it. I gave you my word I wouldn’t.’

‘Someone has,’ I said morosely.

‘The Jockey Club didn’t actually swear an oath of silence.’

‘I know.’ I thought a bit and asked, ‘Do you know a barrister called Davis Tatum? He’s the head of chambers of the prosecuting counsel at Ellis’s trial.’

‘I know of him. Never met him.’

‘You’d like him. You’d like Archie, too.’ I paused, and went on, ‘They both know about that day at the Jockey Club.’

‘But, Sid… does it really matter? I mean, you did the Jockey Club a tremendous favor, getting rid of their villain.’

‘Davis Tatum and, I’m sure, Archie, have engaged me to find out who is moving behind the scenes to get the Quint trial quashed. And I’m not telling you that.’

He smiled. ‘Client confidentiality?’

‘Right. Well, Davis Tatum made a point of telling me that he knew all about the mandarins insisting I take off my shirt, and why. I think he and Archie are trying to reassure themselves that if they ask me to do something dangerous, I’ll do it.’

He gave me a long, slow look, his features still and expressionless.

Finally he said, ‘And will you?’

I sighed. ‘Probably.’

‘What sort of danger?’

‘I don’t think they know. But realistically, if someone has an overwhelming reason for preventing Ellis’s trial from ever starting, who is the person standing chiefly in the way?’

‘Sid!’

‘Yes. So they’re asking me to find out if anyone might be motivated enough to ensure my permanent removal from the scene. They want me to find out if and who and why.’

‘God, Sid.’

From a man who never blasphemed, those were strong words.

‘So…’ I sighed, ‘Davis Tatum gave me a name, Owen Yorkshire, and told me he owned a firm called Topline Foods. Now Topline Foods gave a sponsored lunch at Aintree on the day before the Grand National. Ellis Quint was guest of honor. Also among the guests was a man called Lord Tilepit, who is both on the board, of Topline Foods and the proprietor of The Pump, which has been busy mocking me for months.’

He sat as if frozen.

‘So,’ I said, ‘I’ll go and see what Owen Yorkshire and Lord Tilepit are up to, and if I don’t come back you can kick up a stink.’

When he’d organized his breath, he said, ‘Don’t do it, Sid.’

‘No… but if I don’t, Ellis will walk out laughing, and my standing in the world will be down the tubes forever, if you see what I mean.’

He saw.

After a while he said, ‘I do vaguely remember talking to this Archie fellow. He asked about your brains. He said he knew about your physical resilience. Odd choice of words — I remember them. I told him you played a wily game of chess. And it’s true, you do. But it was a long time ago. Before all this happened.’

I nodded. ‘He already knew a lot about me when he got his sister to phone at five-thirty in the morning to tell me she had a colt with his foot off.’

‘So that’s who he is? Mrs Bracken’s brother?’

‘Yeah.’ I drank brandy and said, ‘If you’re ever talking to Sir Thomas Ullaston, would you mind asking him — and don’t make a drama of it — if he told Archie Kirk or Davis Tatum about that morning in the Jockey Club?’

Sir Thomas Ullaston had been Senior Steward at the time, and had conducted the proceedings which led to the removal of the head of the security section who had arranged for Chico and me to be thoroughly deterred from investigating anything ever again. As far as I was concerned it was all past history, and I most emphatically wanted it to remain so.

Charles said he would ask Sir Thomas.

‘Ask him not to let The Pump get hold of it.’

Charles contemplated that possibility with about as much horror as I did myself.

The bell of the side door rang distantly, and Charles frowned at his watch.

‘Who can that be? It’s almost eight o’clock.’

We soon found out. An ultrafamiliar voice called ‘Daddy?’ across the hall outside, and an ultrafamiliar figure appeared in the doorway. Jenny… Charles’s younger daughter… my sometime wife. My still em-. bittered wife, whose tongue had barbs.

Smothering piercing dismay, I stood up, and Charles also.

‘Jenny,’ Charles said, advancing to greet her. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

She turned her cheek coolly, as always, and said, ‘We were passing. It seemed impossible not to call in.’ She looked at me without much emotion and said, ‘We didn’t know you were here until I saw your car outside.’

I took the few steps between us and gave her the sort of cheek-to-cheek salutation she’d bestowed on Charles. She accepted the politeness, as always, as the civilized acknowledgment of adversaries after battle.

‘You look thin,’ she observed, not with concern but with criticism, from habit.

She, I thought, looked as beautiful as always, but there was nothing to be gained by saying so. I didn’t want her to sneer at me. To begin with, it ruined the sweet curve of her mouth. She could hurt me with words whenever she tried, and she’d tried often. My only defense had been — and still was — silence.

Her handsome new husband had followed her into the room, shaking hands with Charles and apologizing for having appeared without warning.

‘My dear fellow, anytime,’ Charles assured him.

Anthony Wingham turned my way and with self-conscious affability said, ‘Sid…’ and held out his hand.

It was extraordinary, I thought, enduring his hearty, embarrassed grasp, how often one regularly shook hands in the course of a day. I’d never really noticed it before.

Charles poured drinks and suggested dinner. Anthony Wingham waffled a grateful refusal. Jenny gave me a cool look and sat in the gold brocade chair.

Charles made small talk with Anthony until they’d exhausted the weather. I stood with them but looked at Jenny, and she at me. Into a sudden silence she said, ‘Well, Sid, I don’t suppose you want me to say it, but you’ve got yourself into a proper mess this time.’

‘No.’

‘No what?’

‘No, I don’t want you to say it.’

‘Ellis Quint! Biting off more than you can chew. And back in the summer the papers pestered me, too. I suppose you know?’

I unwillingly nodded.

‘That reporter from The Pump,’ Jenny complained. ‘India Cathcart, I couldn’t get rid of her. She wanted to know all about you and about our divorce. Do you know what she wrote? She wrote that I’d told her that quite apart from being crippled, you weren’t man enough for me.’

‘I read it,’ I said briefly.

‘Did you? And did you like it? Did you like that, Sid?’

I didn’t reply. It was Charles who fiercely protested. ‘Jenny! Don’t.’

Her face suddenly softened, all the spite dissolving and revealing the gentle girl I’d married. The transformation happened in a flash, like prison bars falling away. Her liberation, I thought, had dramatically come at last.

‘I didn’t say that,’ she told me, as if bewildered. ‘I really didn’t. She made it up.’

I swallowed. I found the reemergence of the old Jenny harder to handle than her scorn.

‘What did you say?’ I said.

‘Well… I… I…’

‘Jenny,’ Charles said again.

‘I told her,’ Jenny said to him, ‘that I couldn’t live in Sid’s hard world. I told her that whatever she wrote she wouldn’t smash him or disintegrate him because no one had ever managed it. I told her that he never showed his feelings and that steel was putty compared to him, and that I couldn’t live with it.’

Charles and I had heard her say much the same thing before. It was Anthony who looked surprised. He inspected my harmless-looking self from his superior height and obviously thought she had got me wrong.

‘India Cathcart didn’t believe Jenny, either,’ I told him soothingly.

‘What?’

‘He reads minds, too,’ Jenny said, putting down her glass and rising to her feet. ‘Anthony, darling, we’ll go now. OK?’ To her father she said, ‘Sorry it’s such a short visit,’ and to me, ‘India Cathcart is a bitch.’

I kissed Jenny’s cheek.

‘I still love you,’ I said.

She looked briefly into my eyes. ‘I couldn’t live with it. I told her the truth.’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t let her break you.’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ she said brightly, loudly, smiling, ‘when birds fly out of cages they sing and rejoice. So… good-bye, Sid.’

She looked happy. She laughed. I ached for the days when we’d met, when she looked like that always; but one could never go back.

‘Goodbye, Jenny,’ I said.

Charles, uncomprehending, went with them to see them off and came back frowning.

‘I simply don’t understand my daughter,’ he said. ‘Do you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘She tears you to pieces. I can’t stand it, even if you can. Why don’t you ever fight back?’

‘Look what I did to her.’

‘She knew what she was marrying.’

‘I don’t think she did. It isn’t always easy, being married to a jockey.’

‘You forgive her too much! And then, do you know what she said just now, when she was leaving? I don’t understand her. She gave me a hug — a hug — not a dutiful peck on the cheek, and she said, “Take care of Sid.” ’

I felt instantly liquefied inside: too close to tears.

‘Sid…’

I shook my head, as much to retain composure as anything else.

‘We’ve made our peace,’ I said.

‘When?’

‘Just now. The old Jenny came back. She’s free of me. She felt free quite suddenly… so she’ll have no more need to… to tear me to pieces, as you put it. I think that all that destructive anger has finally gone. Like she said, she’s flown out of the cage.’

He said, ‘I do hope so,’ but looked unconvinced. ‘I need a drink.’

I smiled and joined him, but I discovered, as we later ate companionably together, that even though his daughter might no longer despise or torment me, what I perversely felt wasn’t relief, but loss.