The Inheritance

SIXTEEN

There were dark circles under Mary’s eyes, and her hands were in continual motion, with the nails bitten down to the quick. Obviously Stephen wasn’t the only one feeling the strain of the trial. The visits to the prison were taking a visible toll on his girlfriend. She longed for everything to be over.

“So why doesn’t he visit you?” she asked. They’d been talking about Silas for ten minutes already. He had been the only topic of conversation since Mary had first come into the visits hall and Stephen had fanned the new witness statements out across the table between them.

“Because he’s not allowed to,” said Stephen.

“Why?”

“Because he’s a prosecution witness.”

“But he didn’t need to be, did he? I didn’t make a statement to the police. They wanted me to, but I didn’t.”

Stephen stared intently into a space just above Mary’s head. He was unable to make his mind up about what to do.

“You know, he didn’t look at me once all the time he was giving his evidence,” he said after a moment, remembering the bent, averted head of his brother as Silas slowly answered the barristers’ questions. “It was like he couldn’t bear to.”

“Well, he can bear to drive your father’s Rolls-Royce. I’ve seen him in it, gliding up and down the High Street in Oxford like he owns the place,” said Mary.

“Why are you so against him suddenly?” asked Stephen, picking up on a vehemence in his girlfriend’s voice that he hadn’t heard before.

“Because you’ve got to save yourself. And this is the only way.”

“Save myself! I still might be acquitted, you know. I mean, I am innocent-in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Stephen bit his lip, fighting to control his emotions. Months inside Wandsworth Prison had taught Stephen to live in the present and not think about the fate that awaited him if he was convicted. It was the only way to survive, although he wasn’t always successful.

“I know you’re innocent. But that’s not enough,” said Mary, refusing to give ground. “You can’t leave this to chance, Stephen.”

“I’m not leaving it to chance. I’m going to tell the jury the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. That I couldn’t kill anyone even if I wanted to, let alone my own flesh and blood. I’m simply not that kind of person. The whole thing’s completely crazy: I mean, why would I have sat there playing chess with my father if I was going to shoot him in the head at the end of the game? You know, Mary, sometimes I feel like Alice in bloody Wonderland, like I’ve gone through the looking glass backward.”

“I know you do. I can understand that. But the trouble is that murderers do crazy things. And you were there in the room with him. That’s the problem. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think the jury is going to need someone else to blame if it’s going to let you off.”

“And that someone’s my brother. I know. But if I’m so up against it, why didn’t you push me to accuse Silas before? Why now?”

“Because of Mrs. Ritter and the maid. The new evidence gives you an opportunity that you didn’t have before. And I don’t want you to die, Stephen. You’re running out of time. Can’t you see that?” asked Mary, with sudden passion.

But Stephen was silent, gnawing his knuckles.

“Swift wanted to go for my brother from the first, you know,” he said eventually. “But I wouldn’t let him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t believe Silas killed our father. I couldn’t believe it.”

“But what did that matter if you got acquitted?” asked Mary impatiently. “He’s not the one on trial.”

“No. But he might be. Afterward. And I wanted to do what was right. It must seem mad to you, Mary, but I felt-I still feel-I owe him something. I suppose it’s because he’s adopted and I’m not. It’s like I came along and took everything away from him. My mother always preferred me. She was like that. She did what she wanted without thinking too much about other people. And Silas got a raw deal. I was at home, and he was away at school, and during the holidays nobody took any notice of him except to point out how much better I was at everything.

“But I never knew what he was thinking. He always kept everything to himself. And then, when I was sent away to school after my mother died, he didn’t spend much time with me. He was a lot older, and I suppose there was no reason for him to.”

“Except that it would’ve been kind,” interjected Mary.

“Yes, but still it wasn’t unusual. No, what sticks in my mind is something that happened near the end of my first term. There were some boys in my class who were picking on me, making my life miserable, and one day I came round a corner and Silas was with them. I don’t know if he was telling them to stop or encouraging them to carry on. I never asked him because the bullying stopped soon after that, but I often wondered.

“And then there was another time. We went to the movies with my mother to watch a film called The Way to the Stars. In it, there’s a young American pilot with engine trouble flying over this village, and he has to decide whether to eject and hope for the best or steer the plane onto somewhere safe and then go down with it in a ball of flame.”

“So what does he do?”

“He stays with the plane, of course,” said Stephen, smiling. “This was a war movie, and that’s what war heroes do. But afterward Silas and I had this big discussion about it. And he said that he’d have bailed out because, chances are, nothing would have happened and the plane would’ve crashed beyond the village anyway.”

“But you voted to go down with the plane?”

“Yes, although there’s no virtue in that. It was just a conversation. Why I’m telling you about it is because Silas was so cold-blooded about the whole thing. He was only interested in calculating the chances. It was obvious that concepts like honour and sacrifice didn’t mean anything to him. And I was thinking before you came that that’s the kind of mind-set you need to have if you’re going to sit down and plan out how to kill someone.”

“I suppose so,” said Mary. “I don’t know.”

“No, of course you don’t. You’re not like that. I’m just saying that maybe my sense of guilt has got in the way of my seeing Silas for who he really is.”

“A cold-blooded killer?”

“Yes. Maybe. My father was certainly that. I keep thinking of what he did to those people in France. I can’t get the place out of my mind. I wish I’d never gone there. It feels like a curse, like something I’ve got to pay for. Not just my father, but me as well.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Mary uneasily. “Curses didn’t kill your father. And they won’t kill you.”

“Maybe not. It’s just it was something about that place. It was so desolate. It was like that ruin near Oxford that you took me to. What was it called?”

“Minster Lovell?”

“Yes. A locked church and a fallen-down house and a sense that time was standing still. Like it was frozen. Waiting. Marjean was like that, but even more so.”

“But there’s no forbidden lake at Minster Lovell,” said Mary, making an effort to lighten the conversation. “The Windrush is a beautiful river. There were children swimming in it when I went there the first time.”

“How do you know about the lake?” asked Stephen, looking up. “I never told you about a lake at Marjean.”

“Yes, you did,” said Mary. “You described it all to me in your rooms in Oxford the night before we went to see your father, so that I’d be prepared. That’s what you said. Don’t you remember?”

“No. I don’t know. I suppose I must have done. I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so confused,” said Stephen wearily. “It’s being in here that does it to me.”

“It’s all right. I understand. You need to concentrate on your trial now. That’s what matters. And your barrister is right. You should go after Silas, because he’s the one who killed your father. Everything points to him. Not just Mrs. Ritter and the maid. Remember the way he got you to go out to your father’s house?”

“But that wasn’t just him. It was you too. You needed the money for your mother.”

“Yes, but it’s not me who wrote the letter to your father. Don’t you remember him standing behind you at the desk, suggesting what would be the right words to use? And his alibi is so convenient. Didn’t you see the way that he gazed at Sasha when she wasn’t looking that night at dinner?”

“Which night?”

“The night of the murder. Maybe it’s something only women can see. He was watching her so hungrily, and she looked at anyone except him. They weren’t sleeping together. I’d bet my life on it.”

“Would you?”

“Yes, I would.”

“What about my life though? Would you bet that on it?” asked Stephen.

Mary hesitated before she replied. She looked up at the clock at the back of the visits hall and swallowed hard before she looked back at her lover.

“Yes, I would,” she said. “You’ve got no choice, Stephen. You can’t go down with the plane this time.”

Stephen visibly relaxed. “All right,” he said. “You’ve convinced me. Let’s see what Swift can do tomorrow. Perhaps it’s not too late after all.”

Mary smiled back, but as she got up to go, she felt her heart beating hard against her chest and tears starting in her eyes. She turned away suddenly without saying good-bye, and half ran toward the exit at the far end of the hall, without looking back at Stephen. Then, once she was outside the prison gates, she took a moment to compose herself, breathing the free air deep into her lungs, before she got into her car and drove away.

Overhead the sun had disappeared behind thick clouds and there was an icy bite to the wind. And yet Mary kept the windows wound down all the way back into London. The winter air blew all her thoughts away, granting her a temporary oblivion that Stephen couldn’t even begin to hope for. Back in his cell he lay quite still on the wafer-thin mattress of his bunk bed, concentrating hard, trying to shut out the banging of heavy doors and the anonymous shouting, the constant noise of the prison that seemed never to go away. There was something on the edge of his memory, just out of reach. It had come to him for a moment while he was talking to Mary and then disappeared. Something that she’d said, something about Silas. And now he had it. Silas driving their father’s car-the Rolls-Royce, the beautiful car in which his mother died. But Stephen was remembering a time long before that, just after the end of the war when he was no more than seven or eight. A hot summer’s day with his big brother home from school for the holidays. Silas wore long trousers and Stephen wore shorts, and he only came up to just above Silas’s elbow. Silas walked round through the elm trees to the big brick garage at the back of the house, and Stephen followed him at a respectful distance. They were going to look at the Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, their father’s pride and joy.

It was cool inside, a relief from the hot sun, and Stephen took out a wrinkled linen ball that had once borne some resemblance to a pocket handkerchief and wiped his forehead, while he blinked, getting used to the half darkness. Gently he ran his hand down the gleaming black side of the car and then up over the curve of the great round headlamp to where the silver lady knelt above the radiator grille. Stephen loved the Rolls-Royce mascot, the girl with her arms outstretched behind her, holding her flowing gown, her silver hair flying in the wind. And last time they came here, Silas had told him the lady’s real name. She was called the Spirit of Ecstasy. It was just right, thought Stephen. That was exactly what she was.

But that was last time. This time was different. Silas had brought a key. Stephen knew it was wrong, but he was too excited to protest when his brother opened the doors and invited him into the red morocco interior, sitting next to his brother as Silas handled the wheel, shifted the gear stick, and flicked the indicator up and down, up and down, until the door opened and their father pulled them out of the car one by one, dragging them by their collars out into the sunlight.

Stephen remembered how frightened he’d been at that moment, but as it turned out, his fear had been groundless. His father didn’t touch him; John Cade’s rage was focused entirely on his elder son. Cade let go of Stephen, adjusted his hold on Silas’s collar, and with his free hand smacked Silas across the face one, two, three times. And then, pulling Silas close, Cade spoke through his teeth into his son’s frightened eyes: “Don’t you ever do that again, boy. You hear me? One more time and you’ll be gone for good.”

Silas was white as a sheet, the colour entirely drained from his face, but Cade hadn’t finished.

“Do you hear me?” he shouted.

“Yes.”

Silas barely got the word out through his chattering teeth, but it was enough. Cade pushed him away, letting go of his shirt, and Silas fell back onto the Tarmac drive. And by the time he’d picked himself up, his father was gone.

Silas was a mess, bleeding from the nose and with tears running down his cheeks, and his breath came in strangled gasps. Stephen felt shocked. It was his first experience of violence. Unable to think of any other way to comfort his brother, he offered him the dirty handkerchief that he still had balled up in his hand and then stood there uncertainly while Silas wiped away the blood and tears.

And then, catching his brother’s eye, Stephen realised that Silas wasn’t frightened anymore; he was angry, angrier than Stephen had ever seen him.

“I’ll kill the bastard,” said Silas. “I swear it. When I’m old enough, I’ll get a gun and I’ll shoot him. Like a dog.”

Silas held Stephen’s gaze for a moment and then handed him back his handkerchief before he turned and walked away, limping slightly as he made his way back toward the house. But Stephen remained rooted to the spot, trying to find some way to absorb the trauma of his experience.

And perhaps he’d been unable to, Stephen thought to himself, sitting on the bed in his prison cell fifteen years later. And perhaps that was why he’d forgotten the day in the garage for so long. Until now. The return of the memory seemed like a sign. And Silas’s words spoken all those years ago seemed no empty threat; they seemed like a promise.