Name To a Face

THIRTY-NINE

Harding waited till dark before presenting himself at Ann Gashry’s door. This was not only to allow time for the police to contact her with the news of her brother’s death. Harding had needed time himself, to come to terms as best he could with an event that seemed to make no sense in the context of what had gone before-unless, he was coming more and more to suspect, what had gone before was not as he had believed it to be.

Ann’s greeting suggested she had been expecting his visit. She invited him in and he found himself once more in the sombre, fustily decorated drawing room, which was thickly curtained and fire-lit against the chill of the evening. There was no obvious sign of distress on her part. She was dry-eyed and calm, though perhaps paler than ever. A photograph album lay open on the table beside her chair. Harding glimpsed faded snaps of seaside holidays long ago: stiffly smiling parents; a teenage girl in an unglamorous swimsuit; a pouty little boy brandishing a plastic spade like a weapon.

“I haven’t looked at these photographs in years,” said Ann, gently closing the album. “They date from before my parents divorced: the brief period when Nathan and I were brother and sister under one roof.”

“I’m sorry Ann.”

“Thank you. It’s a shock, of course. There can be little true grief. We led such different lives. And yet…”

“He was your flesh and blood.”

“Indeed.” She picked up a glass from the table and sipped some of the contents. Brandy, Harding assumed. Her tipple, especially at times of stress. “Would you like a drink?”

“Thanks.”

“Help yourself.”

He poured himself a whisky and tilted the Courvoisier bottle enquiringly towards Ann. She shook her head and sat down. Harding joined her.

She drew a deep breath. “How did you hear?”

“I went to see him. It had just happened.”

“Was it… very dreadful?”

“They’d screened everything off.”

“Did you speak to the police?”

“No. They’d have… queried my being there.”

“So you want me to tell you what they make of it.” She looked him in the eye, defying him to pretend his principal reason for visiting her was to offer his condolences. “Well, perhaps we could start with why you went to see Nathan today. You didn’t seem to have it in mind yesterday.”

“I hoped Jack Shepherd-Kerry’s old editor-would know what she’d hidden under the floorboards. But he couldn’t help me. So, I decided to try Nathan instead.”

“You seriously expected him to know-or to tell you if he did?”

“I was running out of options.”

“Well, you’ve one fewer left now.”

“Do the police believe it was suicide?”

“They seem inclined to. An accident’s out of the question. And murder? There was no sign of a struggle, apparently. Naturally, they wanted to know how he’d been when we last met. Was he distraught at being implicated, albeit unwittingly, in Barney Tozer’s murder? Was there any suggestion he was keeping back vital evidence? Was he perhaps not so unwitting after all and prey to remorse? I’m sure you can imagine the direction their questions took.”

“How did you answer them?”

“As frankly as I felt I could. A degree of reticence was essential, for my sake as well as yours. I certainly made it clear I regarded the idea that Nathan had committed suicide as absurd. I gather his girlfriend said much the same. He was planning to go to work today as far as she knew. He wasn’t ill. And according to her he wasn’t depressed, just angry at Hayley for using him to lure Barney Tozer to his death. None of which I suspect is likely to deflect the police from their suicide theory. It fits the facts better than any other from their point of view.”

“If it wasn’t suicide…”

“Hayley’s not physically capable of throwing a grown man from a balcony, Mr. Harding. You know that. It’s as absurd as suggesting he threw himself.”

“But something propelled him.”

“Yes. Or someone.”

“Someone other than Hayley.”

“Quite so.”

“Which means…”

“Have you seen Sir Clowdisley Shovell’s tomb in Westminster Abbey?”

Harding blinked in surprise. “Sorry?”

“If not, you ought to take a look at it, in view of your involvement in the Association story. A grandiose marble monument carved by Grinling Gibbons. Bizarrely in accordance with the fashion of the day, Sir Clowdisley is depicted, despite his obviously eighteenth-century wig, in a toga and sandals, more like a Roman emperor than an admiral. Most of the thousands of tourists who file past the tomb every year don’t pause to read the inscription, so probably have no idea he was a man of the sea. Costume sends a message. And sometimes that message can be misleading, whether by design or not.”

“What are you getting at, Ann?”

“How sure are you that it was Hayley who shot Barney Tozer?”

Harding could not suppress a rueful smile. It was the question he had been asking himself since learning of Nathan’s apparent suicide. It was the question that begged all others. He had persuaded himself at one point that the young woman he had pursued through rain and lamplight along the streets of Munich might not be Hayley after all. He had only changed his mind at Nymphenburg, in the seconds after Tozer’s death, when he had watched the same young woman run away through the trees, without looking back. She matched Hayley in height and build and hairstyle. And she was dressed for the part, in the same kind of mac Hayley had been wearing the very first time he had seen her, at Heartsease, a few days before the auction. But was it her? Was it her beyond the shadow of a doubt?

“If you’re not sure, Mr. Harding, not absolutely sure, then…”

“We only have Nathan’s word for it she set up the rendezvous in the first place.”

“And if he was lying, for whatever reason…”

“He can’t own up to it now.”

“Death seals everyone’s lips.”

“My God.” Some of the implications of what they were saying flashed through Harding’s mind. “Could this be true?”

“I think it may be.”

“But if it is…”

“Then, what do we do about it?” She gazed at him intently. “What exactly do we do?”

With so much unknown, they had to learn as much as they could as quickly as they could. Ann volunteered to contact Veronica and pump her for information about Nathan’s activities in recent weeks: where he had been, who he had spoken to, what he had said that might seem more significant now than it had at the time. For his part, Harding could see nothing for it but to chase down the last lead left to him: the identity of the Heartsease thief; which might, just might, be the answer to everything.

Since the call from Whybrow, Harding had kept his phone switched off. He checked for messages as he stood stamping his feet to keep warm while waiting for the next train to Victoria on the wind-lashed platform at West Dulwich station. There was one: from Carol. And it was very different in tone from the last message she had left for him.

Why are you in England, Tim? Tony’s told me what you said, but I don’t believe it any more than he does. If you’re still chasing Hayley, you’re as mad as she is. If not, then what the hell are you up to? Explanation please. I think I’m owed one. What are you trying to do?

It was a reasonable question in its way. But it was not one Harding had any intention of answering. He switched the phone off again, shoved it back into his pocket and squinted down the track. Where was the train?

The sleeper pulled out of Paddington on schedule at ten to midnight. Harding had secured a berth at the last minute. After dumping his bag in his cabin, he headed for the buffet, where nightcaps were being served. He suspected he would need several.

There were half a dozen or so customers ahead of him in the queue. He paid them no attention. But one of them paid him a great deal.

“Mr. Harding,” came a familiar voice. “This is a surprise.”