Name To a Face

TWENTY-ONE

I wasn’t with the company back in the summer of 1999,” said Whybrow His soft, susurrant voice was the only sound that reached Harding through the dark blanket of the night. “If I had been, things might have been very different.” They were parked in a lay-by just round the headland from Nice, no more than a couple of kilometres from Villefranche. “I think I’d have questioned Kerry Foxton’s credentials-and her motives-sooner and more searchingly than I gather Ray Trathen did. But that wouldn’t necessarily have made any difference. There’s no legislating for accidents. And an accident is what happened to her on that diving expedition.

“I made enquiries about the Foxton family at the time of the inquest. It seemed prudent to establish whether there were any surprises in store for Barney. That’s when I first heard about Hayley Barney really should have told me sooner. He’d heard from Carol, of course. Kerry had confided in her that she had a twin who’d suffered from depression since her mid-teens. Her parents were embarrassed by the contrast between the two girls and never mentioned Hayley. After a spell in hospital and a sequence of recoveries and relapses, Hayley cut herself off, living alone in Birmingham, where she held down various temporary jobs when she was well enough to work. Kerry kept spasmodically in touch with her, but the accident put a stop to that. Her parents told Hayley nothing about it, apparently for fear the news would only make her illness worse. She didn’t hear about their deaths until long after the event.

“She’d become content to have no contact with her family. Self-imposed isolation is quite common in such cases, I’m told. She must have supposed Kerry and her parents had abandoned her. Then, at some stage, almost certainly after the inquest, she found out what had really happened to them. I don’t know how and it doesn’t much matter now. The point is that she did find out.

“You’d think learning a thing like that might be the last straw for someone with a history of mental trouble. Not so in Hayley’s case, though. At the time of my original enquiries, I arranged to have a confidential word with a psychiatrist who’d treated her while she was still living in London. It transpired he’d had doubts about the diagnosis of depression all along and had come to believe the real problem was rooted in feelings of inferiority to her twin-something he never mentioned to the family. When I asked him what effect her twin’s death might have had on her, he answered in one rather surprising word: liberating.

“You never suspected Hayley was mentally ill, did you? Why not? Because Kerry’s death means she’s no longer crushed by her inability to match her sister’s achievements. More than that, it’s given her a way to surpass those achievements, by becoming her twin’s avenger.

“Who can say what she hoped to gain by latching onto Barney’s uncle Gabriel? Barney’s convinced she tried to persuade the old man to leave her Heartsease and all his money. It’s possible. That would have been a kind of revenge. If so, the plan failed. Gabriel was far from a soft touch. But the family feud over the ring came to light as a result of his death and she began to plot a direct move against Barney, having been encouraged by the likes of Ray Trathen-and maybe even Gabriel too-to believe he’d murdered Kerry. Whoever stole your phone must have been put up to it by Hayley. She was presumably looking for anything she could use against Barney. And, boy did she strike lucky.

“Don’t feel you have to admit or deny anything, but it’s occurred to me you may have got closer to Hayley than was good for you. The tape proves you and Carol are lovers. I’ve known that for quite a while, by the way, though happily Barney doesn’t have a clue she’s been unfaithful to him. Valuable information for Hayley. But was it also unwelcome information? Was jealousy part of the mix? You tell me. If you want to. Or not, if you don’t.

“I’ve advised Barney not to call in the police. Hayley’s arrest and prosecution would only tempt the media, especially Fleet Street, to reopen the Kerry Foxton story. Then they might start digging into Starburst International, which we don’t need at any time, but especially not at the moment, with a particularly juicy deal about to be finalized involving the sort of people who’d run a mile if the press started sniffing around.

“What we really need to do is to find Hayley and persuade her to submit herself to professional care so this kind of thing can’t happen again. We’ll see she has the best treatment available. Barney will pay. The fact she didn’t go through with her plan suggests to me she knows she needs help. We’re willing to supply it. I think she may be willing to accept it, especially if it’s offered by the right person. I see you as that person.

“I imagine you must have found out enough about Hayley at least to know where to start looking for her. We’ll cover your expenses. Do whatever is necessary to find her. Quickly. I doubt Carol will sleep soundly in her bed until you do. She doesn’t know about the tape, incidentally. She was still locked in the bathroom when I came across it. So, that’s between you and me. Which is how it can stay as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to sully Barney’s rosy vision of his marriage.

“I can’t predict how he’d react if he learnt the truth about your afternoons with Carol. His volatile temper and the stake he has in Jardiniera suggest to me it would work out badly for you. And for Carol. So, for all our sakes, let’s avoid that, shall we?”

Harding did not immediately respond. He sat still, staring straight ahead through the windscreen towards the faint, twinkling lights of Villefranche. But there was no stillness in his mind, where more grim realizations and queasy suspicions than he could keep track of jostled and collided.

He was being blackmailed. That was clear, however subtly Whybrow had phrased his proposition. Harding did not need to be told how disastrous it would be if Barney heard the tape of Carol’s message. He had no choice but to do what was asked of him. Or at least to try.

Finding Hayley, if she did not wish to be found, would be far from easy. She would surely not return to Penzance. Ann Gashry could well know where she was. It was certainly apparent that Ann had lied about Hayley in virtually every particular. Nathan had not been her brutal Svengali. Nathan, indeed, might not even exist. Some explanation for Hayley’s likeness to Kerry had been needed to distract Harding while the plot against Barney Tozer was set in motion. Feeding him titbits about Francis Gashry and sending him to see Herbert Shelkin had served the same purpose. And then there was the night he had spent with Hayley. Had that just been another way of blinding him to the truth?

He wondered if Ann had tracked Hayley down in Birmingham and told her her parents and twin sister were dead. If so, it implied they had been co-conspirators ever since. He wondered also if Whybrow could be right about Hayley’s mixed motives for attacking Carol. Either way, Hayley knew about his affair with Carol and had done even before they slept together. Darren Spargo had not been stalking her. Rather he had been acting a part, scripted and paid for by Hayley.

There was one consolation worth clinging to. She had not taken her plot against Barney to its logical, murderous conclusion. Carol was traumatized but unscathed. Barney was outraged but at liberty. The situation was not beyond redemption. Maybe Whybrow’s solution to the problem was the best all round.

And maybe it was too good to be true. The reasons he had given for avoiding police involvement were not entirely convincing. Harding knew what Ray Trathen for one would say was the real explanation. Barney did not want Hayley’s belief that he had murdered Kerry to be examined in court-not to mention the newspapers-because she was right: he had murdered Kerry.

If that was true, Barney’s reluctance to see Hayley prosecuted was reinforced by guilt. He did not know how she had planned to frame him for Carol’s murder, of course. As far as he was concerned, she had only intended to do to him what he had done to her: take the life of a loved one. Maybe he saw the justice in that and had no wish to punish her for it-an interpretation that only rendered Whybrow’s calculation more impenetrable.

In the final analysis, it did not really matter. A peace offering was on the table. And Harding was to be its broker. Willingly or not.

“I’m asking a lot of you, I know,” said Whybrow, breaking the long, heavy silence. “But I wouldn’t if I thought you weren’t equal to the task.”

“Is that so?”

“You’ll do it?”

“I don’t appear to have much option.”

“I’m sorry you see it like that. Truth is, this is in everyone’s interests.”

Oddly, Harding felt that probably was the truth. He sighed. “There are leads… I could follow.”

“Good.”

“When would you want me to start?”

“As soon as possible.” Whybrow ejected the tape from the dashboard player and handed it to him. It was a cynical, mocking little gesture. There would be another copy. There would always be another copy. “There’s no time to be lost.”