Strange Loyalties

26

It was a fortress, wasn’t it? There were no electronically controlled gates or invisible seeing-eyes, at least as far as I could make out. You turned through the gate off Marrenden Drive and there it was among its trees, very large in weathered sandstone. It was, on the face of it, more accessible than my small flat with its double doors guarding nothing but the debris of a dishevelled life.

But the sense of openness was illusory, I felt. It wasn’t just that I could detect the signs of an elaborate security system. It wasn’t just the leaded windows that seemed more a way of looking out than seeing in. It was the awareness of strange proliferation in the building. There were outcrops and oddnesses around its edges. I wondered what shapes the rooms were and what might be in them. Two dozen paces through my flat would have told you all. Here, I suspected you might still not know where you were once you were in. It would have unexpected shadows and secret places. I thought of ghosts, not supernatural beings, just those self-projected creatures of the mind, old deeds that can haunt us more the more we deny them. No wonder ghosts traditionally frequent big houses, it occurred to me. There’s more room for guilt there.

I pulled the bell. It was a woman who answered. She was wearing a skirt and blouse. Her deferential air suggested I might have more rights here than she had. This was where she worked. I had started to explain what I was doing here when Dave Lyons appeared behind her.

‘That’s all right, Janice,’ he said. ‘I’ll get this.’

I nodded to him and he stared at me. He waited, looking over his shoulder to make sure that Janice had gone. He looked even more authoritative than he had looked in Cranston Castle House. He would. This was his territory.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

‘I just want to speak to you.’

‘But I don’t want to speak to you. Where did you get this address?’

‘The same place I got the phone-number.’

Something occurred to him.

‘Did you just phone there? Not long ago.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And hung up.’

‘Well, I didn’t think you would invite me down if you knew it was me.’

‘Oh, you’re right. You’re very careless for a policeman. That was a nuisance phone-call. Risky thing to be doing.’

‘I’ll deny everything. Come and get me, copper.’

‘What an arsehole,’ he said. ‘Move your car. If that’s what you call it. It’s blocking my driveway.’

I tugged my forelock.

‘Aye, zur,’ I said. ‘Right away, zur. After we’ve talked.’

‘We’ve talked all we’re going to,’ he said. ‘You’ve spoiled a lunch for me already. You’re not going to waste my evening. I’ve had more meaningful conversations with the talking clock.’

The door was open but it wasn’t open. The doorway might as well have been filled with reinforced glass. I wasn’t getting in.

‘It won’t take long,’ I said.

‘Get lost,’ he said and was closing the door.

‘Does your wife know about you and Anna?’ I said.

Now the door was really open. He looked as if he couldn’t believe the garbage someone had dumped on his doorstep. I think I shared his feeling to a degree, but to a very precise degree. What I had said was a malignant thing to say. But in handling such potentially toxic material in my own nature, I had a couple of protective thoughts, like rubber gloves. First, I would never have used such knowledge beyond this conversation with him, though he wasn’t to know that. (And the expression on his face told me this was knowledge, it was no longer guesswork.) Second, I wasn’t yet convinced of his right to moral outrage at my remark. But I still felt like averting my head from the smell of my own behaviour.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’d ask you to wipe your feet but how do you wipe the rest of you?’

Maybe that was fair enough. We crossed a wide hall with a wooden staircase leading up from it. The windows at the bend on the stairs were filled with stained glass. He took me through a large, open, wooden door, which he then closed. I assumed this was where he had come from when Janice answered my ring.

We were in a kind of personal trophy-room. There were a couple of small silver cups, maybe for golf. There was a piece of Caithness glass and three sombre certificates that were awards of some sort for industry. A careful arrangement of photographs on the wall showed groups of confident-looking men enjoying the importance of their own company. A leather-topped desk dominated the room. I had met its brother in Edinburgh. The desk-lamp was lit, its narrow beam focused on sheets of paper. I felt the intrusiveness of my presence in this man’s preoccupations.

‘I suppose you’d better sit down,’ he said.

I sat in a leather swivel-chair near the outer edge of the desk. He crossed to the small window and put his hands in his pockets, looking out. I noticed an antique-looking vase resting on top of a bookcase. I thought its pattern was as complicated as the interweaving lives I had stumbled among. Now that I had breached his sanctum, I experienced a reluctant awe at having invaded the private recesses of another person’s life. He was still looking out of the window. There wasn’t much to see out there except the obstructing branches of a tree. But he seemed to be able to see far, for he began to describe the view.

‘I’m going to marry Anna,’ he said. ‘I tell you that so that you’ll understand what the information means. That your seedy investigations have found out. This isn’t some hole-in-the-corner affair we’re talking about. You’re playing around with people’s lives here. Linda. My wife. She can’t have any children. Anna and I are hoping to have a family. But I care about Linda. She’s not too strong emotionally. Anna has agreed to give me time to prepare her for all this. It’ll help Linda if I leave her on my own terms. If Anna’s not involved. We can do it amicably. I need a little time to do that. To arrange things. I’m asking you not to interfere with that. For my wife’s sake. That’s all. I can understand how you feel. Anna being Scott’s widow. But Scott wasn’t exactly a saint himself, you know.’

‘Not even approximately,’ I said.

‘He was having an affair with a woman called Ellie Mabon. Why don’t you check that out?’

‘I did.’

‘Jesus Christ. You really are a seedy one.’

‘Mr Lyons,’ I said. ‘I want you to stop saying that. All I’ve been trying to do is find out some truths about my brother’s life at the end. If the truths turn out to be seedy, you included, don’t blame me. You don’t accuse the X-ray of the cancer. And don’t parade your moral rectitude in front of me. As far as I can see, it’s just a long view of nothing. Like a flea on stilts. And this sudden confidential talk is crap. Open day at a nuclear plant. All that means is you’re only going to see what doesn’t matter. That’s not what I’m here for. Keep the moving details of your private life. I’m not sure I could believe them anyway. Maybe you are concerned about your wife. Or maybe it’s financially healthier for you to arrange the break-up this way. How would I know?’

I had swung the chair towards the window and was watching him. He turned towards me.

‘What is it you want from me?’ he said.

‘Just information. A modicum of honesty.’

‘About what?’

‘The man in the green coat.’

‘Not that again. Who the hell is the man in the green coat?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘You do remember as a student sharing a flat with Scott?’

‘Briefly, yes. It wasn’t exactly one of the highlights of my life.’

‘Do you remember someone called David Ewart?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘He came to see about renting the flat. When you and your friends were moving out. He was a first-year student.’

He was starting to laugh.

‘Is this supposed to be a serious question? I’m supposed to remember some student coming to look at a flat? What do you think I did? Made a note of it? “Dear Diary, a wonderful thing happened today.”’

‘But it seems to have been a memorable day. Or at least the evening was. Something happened that night.’

‘That would make it novel, right enough.’

‘You don’t remember all going out together that night?’

‘We went out together quite a few nights. I don’t remember any one night in particular. I shouldn’t imagine any of us did. The idea was usually to get pissed.’

‘That night Scott destroyed his paintings.’

‘Did he? I don’t know about that.’

I realised there was no way I could prove that he knew about that night. My only hope was to concentrate on small, specific details.

‘Who’s Sandy Blake?’

He thought about it carefully.

‘He shared with us as well.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He became a doctor.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s in South Africa.’ He was smiling. ‘I don’t think I have his address.’

‘What about the fourth one?’

‘The fourth what?’

‘The fourth student. There were four of you sharing the flat.’

‘No. There were only three.’

‘David Ewart says there were four.’

‘Who the hell’s David Ewart? I lived there.’

‘I think I’m wasting my time,’ I said.

‘I think you’re wasting everybody’s time,’ he said. ‘Especially mine.’

‘Well,’ I said.

I stood up and wandered vaguely about the room.

‘The door’s that way,’ he said, nodding.

I paused beside the bookcase. I touched the vase gently.

‘Leave that alone,’ he said. ‘It’s very, very valuable.’

I lifted it in one hand.

‘Put it down,’ he said.

‘You’re a liar, Mr Lyons,’ I said. ‘I assume your wife’s in?’

‘What if she is? That’s worth a lot of money. Put it down.’

I started slowly to throw the vase from hand to hand.

‘I don’t care about that stuff, Mr Lyons. Just about the real things.’

‘You would know what these are, I suppose.’

‘I know what they’re not. I’m still looking. Tell me, what’s the secret of your success?’

‘What I am I’ve made myself.’

‘And used a few other lives as the material. There are no self-made men. They all use other people as spare parts. Who was the fourth?’

‘There was no fourth.’

‘My palms are sweating,’ I said. ‘I can’t keep this up. When it breaks, I’ll break something else. Until Mrs Lyons comes. To see. . what. . the noise. . is.’

He said nothing.

‘Fuck it,’ I said.

I threw the vase up until it almost touched the ceiling and made to put my hands in my pockets.

‘Michael Preston,’ he shouted.

I caught the vase about four inches from the floor. The surprise of the name almost made me miss, for it was familiar to me. In the hearing of that name, I realised the deviousness that had been Scott’s life. That he had known Michael Preston and never mentioned the fact to me was amazing. Michael Preston was a very well known television presenter, his name the kind that was liable to crop up in a lot of conversations. I straightened up slowly.

‘You’re mad,’ Dave Lyons said.

‘Just angry,’ I said. ‘Mad’s a lot worse than this.’

I replaced the vase where it had been.

‘So that’s who was on television that night,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘No. Of course, you wouldn’t.’

I looked at him. He had rediscovered his anger. This wasn’t how people treated him. His mouth was sealed with rage.

‘I’ll unblock your driveway,’ I said.