Some Deaths Before Dying

JENNY

1

She got home a little before eleven, stiff and trembling after almost twelve hours of driving. Jeff ran her a bath and brought her finger-food to eat while she soaked.

“How have you got on?” she said.

“I’ve broken the back of it. There’s just a bit of tidying up and presentation to get right.”

“Are you pleased with it?”

“It’s the best I can do—clearer than I expected. But there’ll be boardroom politics I don’t know about, and Billy’s a formidable operator at that sort of thing. What about you? Was it worth it?”

“Oh, yes! It’s a terrific house for a start. And Uncle Albert seemed happy. There was just one sticky bit—I’ll tell you about that in a moment. But he made a little speech and gave Mrs. Matson the pistol—I didn’t see what happened to it—she sent me out of the room for that, but it wasn’t there when I came back and we didn’t bring it home.”

“Great. As long as I don’t have to bother about it any more. What’s the old lady like?”

“Upsetting. No, that’s wrong, because she’s rather wonderful. She’s disturbing, though. They didn’t tell us what’s wrong with her, but she’s paralysed from the neck down, and she can barely speak, but mentally she’s all there. Absolutely. You can see it looking out of her eyes. Hell, if I start telling you now I’ll get all wound up and I’ll never get to sleep. Are we going to have time for a lie-in tomorrow?”

“Nine o’clock? Then you can tell me at breakfast and I’ll have the rest of the morning to get my report together, and then we’re free.”

“Great. Let’s have lunch at The Cat and go and walk on the Downs.”

The telephone rang as they were leaving the house. Jenny answered.

“Mrs. Pilcher? This is Sister Morris at Marlings. Albert would like to talk to you. He’s upset about something he thinks he’s lost. He thinks you might have it. Wait. He wants me to go out of the room. Here you are then, Albert.”

Sounds of movement, and the closing of a door. Breathing.

“Hello? Uncle Albert?”

“Who’s that, then?”

“Jenny. Jenny Pilcher. I’m married to your great-nephew Jeff. Yesterday we drove all the way to Forde Place to give Mrs. Matson her pistol.”

“Say that again.”

“We drove to Forde Place yesterday. We took the pistol so that you could give it back to Mrs. Matson. She was in bed. You looked at a lot of old photographs with her. There was one of Anne fishing.”

His memory snagged on the image, held.

“Right,” he said. “So there was. Little Anne, fishing. And that’s where it’s gone, back in the box with the other one—that’s what I wanted to be sure of. Thanks. You’re a good girl, Penny. I’ve been misjudging you, but you’re a lot better than I gave you credit for.”

“I’m glad you think so. Don’t ring off, Uncle Albert. Can I have a quick word with the sister?”

“Listening at the keyhole most likely. I’ll get her.”

She heard the handset clunk down, and looked at Jeff.

“Could we go on from the Downs and have tea with him?” she said. “I’ve thought of something that might help.”

“Provided we don’t hang around over lunch.”

“I’ll be about ten minutes. You’ve finished with the computer?”

“For the moment.”

It took a bit longer than that, fiddling with typefaces to make the document look authentic. Jeff leaned over her shoulder and made suggestions. The end result pleased them both.

CERTIFICATE

It is hereby certified that on the 9th day of April 1996

SERGEANT MAJOR ALBERT FREDRICKS. M.C., M.B.E.

returned one (I) LADURIE PISTOL to MRS. MATSON. of Forde

Place, Matlock, Staffordshire, the said pistol having been entrusted to him for safekeeping by the late COLONEL MATSON.

Signed Jennifer Pilcher LLB.

Attorney at Law

“I’ll do a couple of copies,” said Jenny. “One for him and one for Sister Morris in case he loses it.”

“Fine—and I’ve had a thought. I’ll do his filing while I’m there, and that’ll give me a chance to see if there’s anything about this chap Voss in the old Cambi Road lists.”

The obituary was very brief. Terence Voss had died in 1978.

He had been a conscript, so his military career had been limited to the war years, and had consisted of his call-up, training, posting to Singapore, capture and internment. He had remained a private throughout. He was described as a cheerful and colourful character. His next of kin was given as E. J. Cowan, with an address in the Midlands.

As soon as she returned to work, without great hope Jenny wrote on the firm’s paper but giving her home telephone number, saying that she would be interested in any information about the late Terence Voss. On the same day she handed in her resignation, but agreed to stay on for a month to clear up outstanding work.

Jeff, meanwhile, received an acknowledgement of his report, with a formal note telling him he was temporarily suspended on full pay. This meant, among other things, that he still had the use of the car.

A few days later, while Jenny was at work, Jeff got a call from Mrs. Thomas, enquiring, with reasonable tact, about Uncle Albert’s finances. She told him her mother had asked her to find out.

“I explained we were a bit up in the air at the moment. I said we should be OK for a bit, but we couldn’t see very far into the future.”

“About till next Tuesday, you mean.”

“Oh, it’s better than that. Don’t worry.”

But Jenny felt she had a duty to worry, and to let Jeff see that she was doing so. It took some of the load off him. He wasn’t good at worrying, he hadn’t had enough practice. He had this image of himself as relaxed, easygoing, taking life as it comes, and to a large extent that was justified. For himself there’d never been much to worry about, and nor did there now seem to be for the pair of them. They would make out. But the sudden responsibility of worrying for Uncle Albert rather threw him. His instinct was to be laid-back about it, but his intelligence was aware that this might not be, in this case, the right response. So, Jenny told herself, if she kept on visibly working at the worry face, he could allow himself to relax.

She still hadn’t heard from Terry Voss’s next of kin when she left her job and was about to start temporary work with a firm in Sevenoaks. Then a letter arrived, forwarded from the firm she had left, marked “Personal.” It was computer-written and cleanly printed, from a church office in West Kent. It referred in formal terms to her enquiry and asked her to call a number. It was signed “Rev. E. J. Cowan.”

She called, a woman answered, she asked to speak to the Reverend Cowan, and was transferred. Another woman said “This is the vicar’s office. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for the Reverend Cowan.”

“Speaking.”

“Oh … my name is Jenny Pilcher. I wrote to you about Mr. Terence Voss.”

“Yes, of course. I would like you to tell me what you want to know, and why, before I say anything more.”

The voice was light, formal, scholarly in an old-fashioned way, but with something a little peculiar about some of the vowels.

“Well,” said Jenny. “It’s a bit complicated, and some of it is confidential. I wrote to you on office paper, by the way, because I thought I was more likely to get an answer. I’m a solicitor, but this is a personal matter …”

She paused for some kind of response, but none came.

“I got your name from an obituary in the Cambi Road Association newsletter,” she said. “I believe Mr. Voss was a Japanese prisoner of war, on the Cambi Road.”

“That is so.”

“My husband’s great-uncle, Sergeant Major Fredricks, was there at the same time.”

“Bert Fredricks?”

“We call him Uncle Albert.”

“He is still alive then? How is he?”

“Physically fine. He’s living in an old people’s home near Hastings, where he’s very well looked after. But his memory isn’t too good, particularly recent stuff. I can’t go into the next bit, but he became very anxious to visit somebody called Mrs. Matson, who lives up in Derbyshire. She’s the widow of Colonel Matson, who was—”

“I have met the Matsons.”

“Well I drove him up about six weeks ago, and he sorted out what he’d come to see her about. She’s paralysed, by the way—bedridden—but there’s nothing wrong with her intellect. They looked at a lot of old photographs together—Uncle Albert’s memory is pretty good for that sort of thing—and he enjoyed himself. But there were a couple of times when he got very agitated, when Mrs. Matson tried to question him about something—it was two things, actually, and I don’t know if they were connected. He didn’t exactly refuse to tell her, but he pretended to have lost his memory, which he won’t normally ever admit to.”

“You thought he was lying?”

“Yes. So did Mrs. Matson, I’m pretty sure. This thing was extremely important to her—I don’t know why—but she could see how upset he was so she didn’t press him. Now, when I’d first been talking to Uncle Albert about making this trip, one of the things Mrs. Matson wanted to know about had actually come up in passing, and Uncle Albert told me he’d been there and so knew about it. He’d added, ‘Ask Terry Voss.’ So after we’d said goodbye to Mrs. Matson I slipped back into her room and told her, and she asked me to find out anything I could. That’s why I wrote to you.”

There was a pause.

“Tell me, Mrs. Pilcher, had you met Mrs. Matson before?”

“No.”

“What is your general attitude to your husband’s great-uncle?”

“I like him a lot. I think he’s a wonderful old man.”

“And yet you went back and told this almost complete stranger something that he had been anxious to conceal. Why did you do that?”

Ms. Cowan’s tone had become marginally less formal since the mention of Uncle Albert’s name, and didn’t now change, but Jenny felt there was something not exactly brutal, but almost inhuman, in having the question asked so instantly and inescapably.

“Well,” she said slowly, “I didn’t think about it at the time. It just seemed the right thing to do. But I did on the way home, quite a lot. The answer is that I felt Mrs. Matson had done something for me—she didn’t know, and I don’t want to tell you what it was—it’s very personal—but I felt I owed her something. That’s why I wrote to you too—I mean, after I’d had time to think it out.”

“And, other things being equal, truth is in itself to be preferred to falsehood?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t think about that. Yes, I suppose so. But they weren’t. Equal, I meant.”

“They seldom are. Well, Mrs. Pilcher, I shall need to think about this. I have not much more time now. But I should very much like to talk to your Uncle Albert. You say he’s at Hastings. Where are you? That’s a Maidstone number, isn’t it? I was wondering whether we could all three somehow meet.”

“That would be great.”

“I’m afraid that it’s not that I necessarily wish to help you or Mrs. Matson. Perhaps I had better explain my interest. Terry was my mother’s brother. He was very important to me. The times when he was in prison were the bleakest periods of my childhood. You are not perhaps aware that my uncle was a professional thief.”

“No. I’m sorry. He was just a name.”

“That is why I was so cautious when you wrote to express your interest. Well, now. From what you tell me, Bert is reasonably mobile. I’m afraid my own time is extremely taken up. I’m supposed to have Thursday afternoons free, but they seldom are. Let me see …”

“I and my husband could collect Uncle Albert and bring him to you, if that would help, but it would have to be at a weekend. I shall be working again from Monday on.”

“Unfortunately parish priests tend to be busiest at weekends … ah, yes, I could arrange to have an hour and a half free this coming Sunday, before evensong. I could offer you tea.”

“That sounds great. I’ll have to check with my husband, and the nursing home, but I should think it will be all right. Can I let you know?”

“Of course. I’ll pencil it in. Provisionally then, four o’clock, Sunday the 24th. Do you need directions?”

“Not if I can find it on the map.”

“We will assume you can. The vicarage is opposite the church, and clearly designated as such. I hope that none of you is allergic to cats.”

“Hell … Oh, sorry. I’m afraid my husband is. I may have to come without him. I’ll let you know.”

Jeff decided not to risk the cats, with the hay fever season almost on him.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Ms. Cowan, when Jenny telephoned. “But I’m greatly looking forward to meeting Bert Fredricks after all these years. About your other problem I’m not so sure. We may in any case have some difficulty in discussing it in his presence, if he’s so unwilling to talk about it.”

“Suppose I wrote telling you in confidence as much as I know. It isn’t a lot. The main thing this time is to give you a chance to make up your mind whether you want to help at all.”

“That might be very useful. I’m glad you see it that way. Till Sunday then.”

2

The village—almost a small town—was in that tangle of lanes with which the Kentish Weald is reticulated between the roaring thoroughfares to the coast. It was self-consciously kempt, with old, small-windowed houses, weatherboarded and tile-hung, all in near-perfect condition—this not to catch the tourist’s eye and camera, but for the gratification of the inhabitants who had chosen to live in this half-artificial version of the English dream, and had the money to maintain it. The main street curved up a hill—little more than a mound—to a church and churchyard at the top, building and tombstones of the same dark sandstone. The church looked genuinely mediaeval, and was probably fascinating, but Jenny found churches oppressive. She responded much more willingly to the houses of the living.

A woman answered the vicarage door. Several cats wove purring round her ankles. She was about fifty, tall and angular, with a narrow pale face framed by a helmet of dense, shining white hair. She wore silver pendant earrings, a dog collar and a dark grey suit, with the frilled white cuffs of her shirt just visible. The effect, obviously deliberate, was strikingly black and white.

Her smile was thin but not sour.

“Come in,” she said. “The kettle is just coming to the boil. Mind your head, Mr. Fredricks—the ceilings are desperately low. You too, Mrs. Pilcher—in fact you’ll find the doorways are more of a trap for you, because you aren’t used to ducking. This way. I shan’t be a moment.”

She showed them into a dark room with a lattice-paned window and a beamed ceiling so low that Uncle Albert couldn’t stand erect.

“What’s going on?” he said. “What’s this woman doing, got up like that?”

“She’s the parson here. They have woman parsons now, you know.”

“It’s not right. Not in the Bible—bet you it’s not. So what does she want with us, then?”

“She wants to talk to you about Terry Voss. She’s his niece. You remember Terry Voss?”

“Terry? I should think I do. What does she know about Terry, then?”

Jenny guessed from his tone what he meant.

“She knows he was in prison quite often. But she was very fond of him. That’s why she wanted to meet you.”

“Terry’s all right. More than all right. Only he couldn’t tell yours from mine—never could and never would. Is he showing up here then? She’ll need to watch her spoons.”

“I’m afraid Terry’s dead, Uncle Albert.”

“Can’t be helped. A lot of ’em are. Most of ’em now, I dare say. Funny sort of room. Looks like it’s been got ready for a sale, somehow.”

This, Jenny thought, was remarkably perceptive of him. She too had been vaguely puzzled by the oddity of what was clearly a sitting room, with armchairs and a sofa arranged for people to gather and converse. There were upright chairs against the walls, a couple of tables, a bookcase, pictures on the walls, rugs—but nothing seemed to relate to the room or to any of the other objects in it. As Uncle Albert said, it was as if a random collection of furniture had been brought in and arranged wherever it would physically fit, but not because anyone was going to want to live with it.

Ms. Cowan came back with a tray, wading through a moving eddy of cats. She almost knocked the milk jug over as she slid the tray onto a table, but Jenny had moved to help and caught it in time.

“Oh, thank you,” said Ms. Cowan. “We’re not going to starve, at least. My parishioners rightly consider that I am incapable of looking after myself, let alone visitors, so I have only to mention that I have somebody coming and I am inundated with scones. Now, out you go! Shoo! No laps on Sunday. You know that perfectly well.”

She chivvied the cats out and closed the door. They miaowed affrontedly beyond it.

“Weekdays I wear skirts on which the hairs don’t show,” she explained. “Well now, this is wonderful. So you’re Bert Fredricks! Do you mind if I call you Bert? My Uncle Terry always did. It’s how I think of you. My name’s Eileen, but Terry always called me Nell.”

“Nell?” said Uncle Albert, as if instantly, magically unbewildered. “You’re telling me you’re Terry’s little Nell!”

He guffawed with amazement and delight. Jenny had never heard him produce such a sound. It made the effort of bringing him here, even the half day away from Jeff, worth while.

“Yes, I’m little Nell,” said Ms. Cowan.

He had risen when she’d brought the tray in, and she now stood in front of him, smiling. With simple naturalness he put his hands on her shoulders, bent and kissed her on the forehead. She seemed to Jenny to hesitate for a moment, but then closed her arms round him and hugged him. The movement was gawky, uncertain, as if long unpractised. After a few seconds she released him and turned to Jenny.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I haven’t really introduced myself in the excitement. I’m Eileen Cowan, of course. Nobody except Uncle Terry and his friends has ever called me Nell, but we’ll stick to that to avoid confusion. And you’re Jenny? Jennifer?”

“Jenny except on cheques and things.”

“Jenny, not Penny,” confirmed Uncle Albert. “She’s worth twice what Penny’s worth, if you want to know. Can’t think what their mother was doing, calling ’em pretty well the same name like that. It’s not as if they’d been twins.”

He spoke with the full authority of the head of the imaginary family.

“Well, that’s settled,” said Nell. “Now if I give each of us a little table. And everyone must have two scones, so that I can say with honesty how much we enjoyed them. The smaller ones are Sharon Smith’s and the others and Annie Fletcher’s. The jam is Cyril Buck’s from his own strawberries. Splendid. Now tea … Oh dear, what on earth have I done? And it’s almost cold. I know I warmed the pot, and I know the kettle was boiling … bother, I shall have to go and make a fresh pot.”

“Why don’t you let me do that?” said Jenny. “You stay and talk to Uncle Albert—after all that’s what we’re here for.”

“Oh, would you? The kitchen’s just along the passage, and I’ve left everything out.”

This turned out to be no less than the truth. The makings of several meals littered the working surfaces, actual food being protected from the cats by being shoved under a couple of old-fashioned meat-safes. When Jenny emptied the teapot she found five tea-bags in it, three round and two rectangular. She deduced that one set had been left in from last time tea had been made, and furthermore, since Nell hadn’t discovered them when she emptied the water out after warming the pot, that hadn’t been done either.

The cats ignored Jenny as she boiled the kettle and made fresh tea. Two were busy licking the last smears of butter from a wrapping and three others were curled in their baskets. They all looked well and cared for.

Jenny admitted to being mildly obsessive about cleanliness—Jeff said she was a hygienopath. Left by a man, this level of mess would have disgusted and angered her. Left by most women it would have been even worse, not mere slobbishness, but a kind of betrayal. But left by Nell, her reactions were more uncertain. Disgust and horror, certainly—mercifully she had brought out the cup into which Nell had begun to pour, so she could at least get that clean for herself—but the anger was replaced by confusion. To be angry with somebody is to judge them, and she wasn’t prepared to judge Nell, both in the sense of not wishing to and of not having enough to go on. Nell’s treatment of Uncle Albert seemed to be absolutely honest, from the heart. Did it follow that her method of life was equally honest? Of course not. Nobody needed to be as domestically helpless as Nell made herself out to be—apparently revelled in being, and in her parishioners rushing to her rescue with scones and jam … But then again, mightn’t that pose, though deliberate, have a quite different motivation? How should a woman conduct herself so as to be accepted as priest to a presumably very conservative parish such as this? Perhaps by letting them believe that she was no more than a slightly different version of a phenomenon they were already used to—the otherworldly bachelor scholar—not many of ’em about these days, mind you—gone with the gouty colonels and the hard-riding squires … If so, there was actually something pleasingly subversive about Nell’s performance, which she herself might well be aware of.

Then, as she carried pot and cup back to the sitting room, it crossed Jenny’s mind to wonder whether Nell might be gay. She knew herself to be imperceptive about that sort of thing. The clerical dress was masculine in effect, and Nell’s manner to Uncle Albert had been mildly flirty …

She found them sitting knee to knee, bending towards each other as they talked. Both started to rise at her entry.

“Don’t get up,” she said. “I’ll pour. You haven’t got all that time.”

“You do that,” said Uncle Albert, settling back. “Now where was I?”

“You were telling me about Terry giving you all pickpocketing lessons so that you could steal from the guards if you got the chance. Wasn’t that dangerous?”

“Dangerous and then some. It was a way of passing the time as much as anything. I don’t know anyone was fool enough to try it. Find you at something like that, and morning parade the Japs would tie you to a post and make the rest of us watch while they hammered you unconscious.”

“Terry told me about that. It happened to him, he said. It was so bad he didn’t remember anything that had happened for days afterwards and when he came round you were in a different camp. The rest of you had carried him there, he said.”

“Not exactly carried him—you want me to tell you about that? It isn’t party conversation, not to my mind.”

“Please. Anything you can about Terry, good or bad.”

“Right you are … just put it there, lass—two sugars and a good dollop of milk … Well, we were building this road, like I told you, and the drill was that when we’d finished one section they’d parade us and march us on to a new camp. Anyone that couldn’t stand to for the parade they hammered with their rifle butts and left. No food, no water. I’ve heard tell of natives come creeping out of the forest and carrying them away and looking after them, but it can’t’ve happened that often—anyway not to anyone I ever ran into.

“It wasn’t a long march on, no more than about ten miles, but the state we were in then it might’ve been from Harwich to hell. And those as couldn’t keep up they pulled out of the line and hammered and left by the road—the very bit of road that man might’ve been building the day before.

“Now our last lot of guards, they’d been a bit soft—bastards still, but sloppy bastards, so we’d been getting away with little things. Then this new lot came, and they were hard bastards. They didn’t just crack down, fair and square—they set traps. Day before we were due our next move we were lining up for our ration—mostly it was just boiled rice, but some days there’d be scraps of meat in it, or dried fish—you wouldn’t’ve fed a dog on it, back home—and Terry spotted a bit of fish, as big as my thumb, maybe, lying by the pot, like it could’ve fallen out of the pot while they were mixing up. It didn’t look like any of the Japs was watching, so Terry scooped it up, but of course one of ’em had been keeping an eye on it while the others were looking the other way deliberate, so they were on him, and next morning they tied him to the pole and hammered him unconscious in front of us all. After that they kept us standing out in the sun while they got ready for the move.

“Now Terry was tough. He didn’t look it, mind you, a skinny fellow with a big head—big hands and feet too, like he hadn’t been put together right, somehow—but by the time the Japs were ready we could see how he was trying to stand up. And just before they gave the order to march Colonel Matson stood out of line, which he wasn’t supposed to, and said, ‘That man’s coming with us.’

“A couple of Japs ran to push him back into line with their butts, but he stood his ground and called out, ‘On your feet, Private Voss. Jump to it, man! Attention! Quick march!’

“And then Terry was up and starting to stagger over, and I yelled out the step for him. Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, and the lads joined in, and we hauled him across that way in little dribbles of steps while the guards stood and laughed until we dressed him in line.”

He paused in what was clearly a well-worn narrative, stirred his tea and drank.

“I don’t know why it is,” said Nell. “Heroism ought to be horrible. The need for it is usually horrible, and so is the event itself. So why is it that when one hears a story like that one feels a need to weep with a kind of joy?”

“It’s because we are the way we are,” said Uncle Albert. “Mind you, that’s just the half of it. We’d got about ten miles to go, and we’d got to get Terry there somehow, though ten miles was about as much as any of us could do, never mind helping a man along who couldn’t hardly walk a couple of steps on his own, and the Japs watching out for anyone slowing the line down, ready to haul him out and hammer him and leave him in the ditch. But most of the way they let us drag old Terry along, turn and turn about, one on each side with his arms round our shoulders. I thought maybe they’d eased off a bit because they’d been impressed with Terry’s guts, but it wasn’t that at all. They were just playing with us.

“All of a sudden, when we reckoned we’d just about done it, they pushed their way in among us and grabbed Terry and started to hammer him again. Of course we yelled at them and broke rank to try and stop them, but they’d got their guns on us before we’d hardly moved, and we could see they meant it. So we fell back, all except the Colonel. He just walked up to Terry regardless and bent down to pick him up.

“And then one of the Japs brought his butt crashing down on the back of his head and knocked him flat and half of them kept their guns on us while the others kicked and hammered the Colonel where he lay.

“Then they shoved us back into line and marched us on, broken men, broken men. Half of us wouldn’t have lasted the time we had, nothing like, without the Colonel, and we knew it. And that night, lying in our sheds, I could hear men sobbing in the dark.

“Only somewhere in the middle of the night the Colonel came crawling into the camp with Terry on his back. He’d tied his arms round his neck with his belt so he could drag him along. The Japs just flung them into the shed with the rest of us. And they had them both working on the road next day, but this time they let us cover for them a bit. More than a bit. I met a Jap one time—after the war this was—and I told him about this, and he said it was because they’d been impressed by an officer doing that for one of his men. I don’t know, myself. I could never figure the bastards out.”

He sat back and drank his tea again.

“Thank you,” said Nell. “Terry told me some of that, but of course it wasn’t from his own memory. It’s never the same as when someone has actually seen it happen. Now we must test the scones. I know the jam to be excellent.”

The reminiscence seemed to have exhausted Uncle Albert’s conversational energies, but he sat and munched and listened benignly while Nell talked about her own memories of her uncle. Gradually, as she did so, though her diction remained as precise as ever, the underlying oddity of some of her vowels became more noticeable, but at the same time less odd, once the connection had been made to the childhood of which she spoke.

She had been born in Whitechapel, just as the war was ending, into a family belonging to the Elect of God, one of those rigid, highly exclusive millenarian sects, the thought of which gave Jenny the shudders—far worse than the blanketing Anglicanism that her own grandparents had practised, and against which her mother had reacted with total impatience of anything to do with religion.

Nell’s family had been very poor. The sect’s principles forbade them the use of money that they hadn’t earned by their own labour, so they wouldn’t accept any kind of welfare payment or charitable help. If they had been permitted, they would have let their children die rather than use the National Health system. Their women were not allowed to work for wages. All this was justified by close reading of the Authorised Version.

They did, however, acknowledge a duty to look after their own. Nell’s father was a cobbler, but he died when she was five, leaving her mother with her and two younger brothers and no income at all. The sect, in their own phrase, “took pity on her,” that is to say she became a virtual domestic slave in the house of her in-laws, who, when there wasn’t work to keep her busy all day, loaned her to other members of the sect in the same capacity. Nell now thought that at least one of the men took advantage of this situation, but her mother had been too cowed to complain.

The mother had converted into the Elect, which was sometimes permitted when no suitable brides were available from within it. Nell believed she had married to escape from her own family, which was a branch of one of the criminal clans which then governed the underworld of the East End. Her father had been a professional hard man and frightener, notorious for his violence, and her only protector in her childhood and youth had been her older brother, Terry. When she was fifteen he was sent to prison for the first time, and offered a way out she took it, marrying illegally, and without the consent of her parents.

They made no effort to get her back. She was one fewer mouth to feed, and was never going to be handsome enough to earn worthwhile money on the streets. On her admittance to the sect she was “made new,” and nothing in her past was of any interest to them, so when Terry sought her out on leaving prison he was not welcomed. He was an ingratiating character, however, and managed to persuade the elders that his main interest was in their beliefs. Luckily for him they didn’t accept male converts, but had a category of “Tolerables,” who, if they remained faithful, would not be fully saved when the Lord destroyed sinful humanity, causing them to die of thirst by removing the sea (Revelation 21:1) but would be allowed to toil in a sort of underheaven, or celestial basement, doing such tasks as emptying the latrines, a necessary consequence of the full resurrection of the body.

(“They’d thought it all out, you see,” said Nell. “That’s the great weakness of systematic religion, the conviction that one can know everything.”)

Surprisingly there were almost a dozen of these hangers-on, some of them regular attenders at services and meetings, where they stood behind a rail just inside the door, some more occasional. Moreover their earnings were “purified by faith” and they were thus allowed—indeed expected—to contribute to the finances of the sect. So Terry could help his sister, buying clothes for her and the children, and bringing them permitted treats, such as raisin buns, though not the ones with sugar icing, which were forbidden by a text in Leviticus.

Terry took a particular interest in Nell, declaring from the first that she was a bright kid, and doing all he could to help and encourage her. The sect were forced by law to send their children to state schools, but removed them as soon as they were able to, in those days at fourteen. By that point Nell had won her first scholarship, to a local grammar school, but that made no difference to the sect’s plans for her, which were to bring her home, keep her there, and at sixteen to marry her to one of the men to bear his children and drudge for him.

Terry, having told only Nell what he was doing, arrived one morning with a parcel of gifts. As soon as the door was opened to take it in he forced his way through, while two of his friends appeared to hold the door and prevent anyone in the house going to find help. It was all over in a few minutes. Terry collected his sister and the family’s few belongings and drove off in the van in which they’d come to the basement flat he had rented for her. He went with her to collect the boys from their school. Nell found her own way to the new home.

A fortnight later Terry was in prison, awaiting trial for robbery with violence. He had left funds with a local solicitor to pay the rent and provide a weekly allowance for the next four years, the sentence he expected and received.

“He never had that kind of money,” said Nell, “and he didn’t go in for that kind of crime. From things he said later I believe that he took a rap for a man called Dan Brent, whose brother was a major vice racketeer. I doubt the police really believed that Terry was guilty, but he had confessed and they knew they’d get a conviction. I think the money was what Dan’s brother paid him for the confession. He didn’t do it for my mother or my brothers. He did it for me, so that I could go on with my schooling.”

“Were you happy in the flat?” said Jenny.

“Not particularly. I was happy to continue at school, but I missed Terry. My mother cooked and cleaned, to some extent, but she couldn’t cope with the responsibility of dealing with money and being on her own. I had to see to all that. And my brothers were too conditioned to the Elect. They had not had too bad a time there. Boys were much more considerately treated than girls. After a couple of years my mother received an offer of marriage from one of the Elect, a widower who needed somebody to keep house, so she moved back and took my brothers with her. I refused to go, and the Elect didn’t insist. I think they knew they couldn’t keep me, and I would be trouble in the meanwhile. My teachers found somebody to take me in, and Terry’s money paid for my upkeep. When he came out of prison there was enough left for him to rent another flat, and I moved in and kept house for him until I went to university. I converted to the Church of England in my first year, and he was the only member of my family who came to the service.”

Uncle Albert had listened benignly if uncomprehendingly (Jenny guessed) to Nell’s story. The mention of the church service caught his interest. He chuckled.

“So you’re a bishop now,” he said. “I wonder what odds the bookies would have given me on that—Terry’s little Nell becoming a bishop. When’s the service, then? I’ll come and see you do your stuff.”

Nell looked at her watch.

“Evensong’s at half past six,” she said. “I shall need to go in twenty minutes. Of course you can come if you want to. What do you think, Jenny?”

Jenny had enjoyed the outing, but by now she was beginning to ache for home, alone for the evening with Jeff. And a church service …

“Suppose I were to run Bert back to Hastings after the service,” said Nell. “I shall need to cancel an appointment, but it isn’t urgent. Then you could go straight home after the service, and you would be no later than you had intended. Or you could leave now, and I will find someone reliable to look after Bert until I have ‘done my stuff.’”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be glad to. Bert, Jenny must get home to her family, so you will stay with me for a little and then I’ll take you to the church, and when the service is over I’ll drive you home and we can talk some more. First I want a quick word with Jenny, so if you will sit where you are and finish your tea, we’ll go into my study. It’s just across the passage if you need us. Is that all right?”

“You go ahead and do what you want, Nell,” said Uncle Albert.

With his usual formality he rose and held the door for them. Nell led the way into a room which, though far more of a mess than the sitting room, was in its very mess more coherent, a room with a purpose, a workplace, with stacks of papers, piles and shelves of books, and a PC on the desk. She turned to Jenny.

“This will take only a moment,” she said. “I have thought about your letter, and having seen you both I would like to think about it a little more before making up my mind how much I feel I can help you. I’ll write to you in the next few days. I hope this isn’t a disappointment after the trouble you’ve taken bringing Bert to see me.”

“Oh, no. It’s been absolutely worth it. Uncle Albert’s having a wonderful time. Perhaps I can bring him over again one day. And I’m terribly grateful you’re taking him home. I never seem to get enough time with Jeff, and it’ll be worse now I’m working again.”

“You must bring him next time. I will arrange for a cat-free environment. Now, if you will just tell me how to find the place where Bert is living—I know Hastings reasonably well.”

3

“What do you mean, unnerving? That’s what you said about Mrs. Matson.”

“Did I? No, I said she was disturbing, or something. They’re completely different. Nell was very friendly and polite and wonderful with Uncle Albert, and she’s obviously very bright, brainy, brainy as you are, but … I didn’t feel easy with her, somehow … I think she’s probably a bit like me … too like. People don’t feel easy with me either … Has it ever struck you how different we are, you and me? I’ve been thinking about this. You are you from the inside outwards. You grew that way. Like a tree or something. I’m me from the outside in, like a bit of luggage. There are these bits inside. I’ve packed them as neatly as I can, and they sort of belong together—I mean they’re all mine and they fit me, but they wouldn’t be a bit of luggage without the suitcase round them. I’ve got my name on the suitcase. You can tell me apart from all the other suitcases waiting to be collected …”

“Stop there! This one’s mine. I’m taking it home.”

They were at the sink preparing mixed vegetables for one of his fry-ups. He put his knife down, bent, and heaved her not very gracefully into his arms.

“You should’ve got yourself a trolley,” she said.

“Couldn’t get it up the stairs.”

“No. Not now. I’m hungry. It confuses me if I keep thinking about food. Anyway, making love to a suitcase is kinky.”

“I rather like being hungry.”

“Well, you can take yours up and eat in bed. I’m having mine now.”

“Typical suitcase,” he said, putting her down. “Then Nell’s one too? Easy to spot on the carousel, by the sound of it.”

“Yes, but … I don’t know … I wonder … suppose what’s in there isn’t just a jumble of stuff. Suppose it’s just one thing, and it’s alive. And watching you.”

“You’re telling me you aren’t alive inside? Just underwear and stuff?”

“No, of course not. Forget about suitcases. I wish I hadn’t started it. She must have had a really extraordinary childhood. It wasn’t any worse than mine, but it was a lot weirder.”

The letter came on the Wednesday, Enclosed with it was a sealed envelope with Mrs. Matson’s name on it.

Dear Jenny,

First, I must thank you again for bringing Bert to tea with me. It was wonderful to meet him, and see him looking so well cared for, and loved and respected. He seemed to enjoy the service, and to remember afterwards who I was. That is to say that without being reminded he told me that I had done very well for myself, and Terry would have been proud of me. I am hoping to arrange for one of my congregation to pick him up sometimes on Sundays and bring him over for tea and evensong. I hope that you and your husband will see fit to join us occasionally.

Now to business. I accept your decision to help Mrs. Matson find out what she wants to know, as far as you can. For my part I propose to compromise. From what you tell me it sounds as though Bert and my uncle may have witnessed Major Stadding’s death, and were then asked, or decided, to keep the matter confidential. By your account Bert was prepared to make a considerable sacrifice of his self-esteem in order to do so. Since my uncle though he liked at least to drop plenty of hints about various episodes in his career, never mentioned the subject to me, except perhaps very indirectly, I believe he would have taken the same line as Bert. I therefore do not feel justified in trying to persuade Bert to break that confidence.

Within those limits, however, on the basis of my own memory of Mrs. Matson as well as what you tell me of her, I am prepared to help. Bert too, when I mentioned her name, was full of her praises, though he spoke as if he had not met her for years. I therefore feel justified in passing on to her a few things that Terry told me that might have a bearing on the matter. They are all trivial and tangential and though they were in some sense said to me in confidence. I do not feel constrained by Terry’s presumed promise of silence.

I have, as you see, written to Mrs. Matson separately, and must ask you to be so kind as to add her address. This is not out of any distrust of you but in order to respect her privacy. I am sure you will understand.

Yours very sincerely.

Eileen (I mean Nell)

“She’s been reading too much Jane Austen,” said Jeff.

“That’s just part of the trim on the suitcase.”