The Vivero Letter

I

I made good time on the way to the West Country; the road was clear and there was only an occasional car coming in the other direction to blind me with headlights. Outside Honiton I pulled off the road, killed the engine and lit a cigarette. I didn’t want to arrive at the farm at an indecently early hour, and besides, I had things to think about.

They say that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. It’s a dubious proposition from the logical standpoint, but I certainly hadn’t disproved it empirically. Not that I had intended to eavesdrop — it was one of those accidental things you get yourself into with no graceful exit — so I just stood and listened and heard things said about myself that I would rather not have heard.

It had happened the day before at a party, one of the usual semi-impromptu lash-ups which happen in swinging London. Sheila knew a man who knew the man who was organizing it and wanted to go, so we went. The house was in that part of Golders Green which prefers to be called Hampstead and our host was a with-it whiz kid who worked for a record company and did a bit of motor racing on the side. His conversation was divided about fifty-fifty between Marshal MacLuhan waffle and Brand’s Hatchery, all very wearing on the eardrums. I didn’t know him personally and neither did Sheila — it was that kind of party.

One left one’s coat in the usual bedroom and then drifted into the chatter, desperately trying to make human contact while clutching a glass of warm whisky. Most of the people were complete strangers, although they seemed to know each other, which made it difficult for the lone intruder. I tried to make sense of the elliptical verbal shorthand which passes for conversation on these occasions, and pretty soon got bored. Sheila seemed to be doing all right, though, and I could see this was going to be a long session, so I sighed and got myself another drink.

Halfway through the evening I ran out of cigarettes and remembered that I had a packet in my coat so I went up to the bedroom to get it. Someone had moved the coats from the bed and I found them dumped on the floor behind a large avant-garde screen. I was rooting about trying to find mine when someone else came into the room. A female voice said, ‘That man you’re with is pretty dim, isn’t he?’

I recognized the voice as belonging to Helen Someone-or-other, a blonde who was being squired by a life-and-soul-of-the-party type. I dug into my coat pocket and found the cigarettes, then paused as I heard Sheila say, ‘Yes, he is.’

Helen said, ‘I don’t know why you bother with him.’

‘I don’t know, either,’ said Sheila. She laughed. ‘But he’s a male body, handy to have about. A girl needs someone to take her around.’

‘You could have chosen someone more lively,’ said Helen. ‘This one’s a zombie. What does he do?’

‘Oh, he’s some kind of an accountant. He doesn’t talk about it much. A grey little man in a grey little job — I’ll drop him when I find someone more interesting.’

I stayed very still in a ridiculous half crouch behind that screen. I certainly couldn’t walk out into full view after hearing that. There was a subdued clatter from the dressing-table as the girls primped themselves. They chattered about hair styles for a couple of minutes, then Helen said, ‘What happened to Jimmy What’s-his-name?’

Sheila giggled. ‘Oh, he was too wolfish — not at all safe to be with. Exciting, really, but his firm sent him abroad last month.’

‘I shouldn’t think you find this one too exciting.’

‘Oh, Jemmy’s all right,’ said Sheila casually. ‘I don’t have to worry about my virtue with him. It’s very restful for a change.’

‘He’s not a queer, is he?’ asked Helen.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Sheila. Her voice was doubtful. ‘He’s never appeared to be that way.’

‘You never can tell; a lot of them are good at disguise. That’s a nice shade of lipstick — what is it?’

They tailed off into feminine inconsequentialities while I sweated behind the screen. It seemed to be an hour before they left, although it probably wasn’t more than five minutes, and when I heard the door bang I stood up cautiously and came out from under cover and went downstairs to rejoin the party.

I stuck it out until Sheila decided to call it a night and then took her home. I was in half a mind to demonstrate to her in the only possible way that I wasn’t a queer, but I tossed the idea away. Rape isn’t my way of having a good time. I dropped her at the flat she shared with two other girls and bade her a cordial good night. I would have to be very hard up for company before I saw her again.

A grey little man in a grey little job.

Was that how I really appeared to others? I had never thought about it much. As long as there are figures used in business there’ll be accountants to shuffle them around, and it had never struck me as being a particularly grey job, especially after computers came in. I didn’t talk about my work because it really isn’t the subject for light conversation with a girl. Chit-chat about the relative merits of computer languages such as COBOL and ALGOL doesn’t have the glamour of what John Lennon said at the last recording session.

So much for the job, but what about me? Was I dowdy and subfusc? Grey and uninteresting?

It could very well be that I was — to other people. I had never been one for wearing my heart on my sleeve, and maybe, judging by the peculiar mores of our times, I was a square. I didn’t particularly like the ‘swinging’ aspect of mid-sixties England; it was cheap, frenetic and sometimes downright nasty, and I could do without it. Perhaps I was Johnny-out-of-step.

I had met Sheila a month before, a casual introduction. Looking back at that conversation in the bedroom it must have been when Jimmy What’s-his-name had departed from her life that she had latched on to me as a temporary substitute. For various reasons, the principal one having to do with the proverb of the burnt child fearing the fire, I had not got into the habit of jumping into bed indiscriminately with female companions of short acquaintance, and if that was what Sheila had expected, or even wanted, she had picked the wrong boy. It’s a hell of a society in which a halfway continent man is immediately suspected of homosexuality.

Perhaps I was stupid to take the catty chatter of empty-headed women so much to heart, but to see ourselves as others see us is a salutary experience and tends to make one take a good look from the outside. Which is what I did while sitting in the car outside Honiton.

A thumbnail sketch: Jeremy Wheale, of good yeoman stock and strong family roots. Went to university — but redbrick — emerging with a first-class pass in mathematics and economics. Now, aged 31, an accountant specializing in computer work and with good prospects for the future. Character: introverted and somewhat withdrawn but not overly so. When aged 25 had flammatory affaire which wrung out emotions; now cautious in dealings with women. Hobbies: indoors — recreational mathematics and fencing, outdoors — scuba diving. Cash assets to present minute: £102/18/4 in current bank account; stocks and shares to the market value of £940. Other assets: one overage Ford Cortina in which sitting brooding; one hi-fi outfit of superlative quality; one set of scuba gear in boot of car. Liabilities: only himself.

And what was wrong with that? Come to think of it — what was right with that? Maybe Sheila had been correct when she had described me as a grey man but only in a circumscribed way. She expected Sean Connery disguised as James Bond and what she got was me — just a good, old-fashioned, grey, average type.

But she had done one thing; she had made me take a good look at myself and what I saw wasn’t reassuring. Looking into the future as far as I could, all I could see was myself putting increasingly complicated figures into increasingly complicated computers at the behest of the men who made the boodle. A drab prospect — not to mention that overworked word ‘grey’. Perhaps I was getting into a rut and adopting middle-aged attitudes before my time.

I tossed the stub of the third cigarette from the window and started the car. There didn’t seem to be much I could do about it, and I was quite happy and contented with my lot.

Although not perhaps as happy and contented as I was before Sheila had distilled her poison.

From Honiton to the farm, just short of Totnes, is a run of about an hour and a half if you do it early in the morning to avoid the holiday traffic on the Exeter by-pass, and dead on the minute I stopped, as I always did, on the little patch of ground by Cutter’s Corner where the land fell away into the valley and where there was a break in the high hedge. I got out of the car and leaned comfortably on the fence.

I had been born in the valley thirty-one years earlier, in the farmhouse which lay snugly on the valley floor looking more like a natural growth than a man-made object. It had been built by a Wheale and Wheales had lived in it for over four hundred years. It was a tradition among us that the eldest son inherited the farm and the younger sons went to sea. I had put a crimp in the tradition by going into business, but my brother, Bob, held on to Hay Tree Farm and kept the land in good shape. I didn’t envy Bob the farm because he was a better farmer than I ever would have been. I have no affinity with cattle and sheep and the job would have driven me round the twist. The most I had to do with it now was to put Bob right on his bookkeeping and proffer advice on his investments.

I was a sport among the Wheales. A long line of fox-hunting, pheasant-murdering, yeoman farmers had produced Bob and me. Bob followed the line; he farmed the land well, rode like a madman to hounds, was pretty good in a point-to-point and liked nothing better than a day’s rough shooting. I was the oddity who didn’t like massacring rabbits with an airgun as a boy, still less with a shotgun as a grown man. My parents, when they were alive, looked on me with some perplexity and I must have troubled their uncomplicated minds; I was not a natural boy and got into no mischief — instead I developed a most un-Whealeish tendency to book reading and the ability to make figures jump through hoops. There was much doubtful shaking of heads and an inolination to say ‘Whatever will become of the lad?’

I lit a cigarette and a plume of smoke drifted away on the crisp morning air, then grinned as I saw no smoke coming from any of the farm chimneys. Bob would be sleeping late, something he did when he’d made a night of it at the Kingsbridge Inn or the Cott Inn, his favourite pubs. That was a cheerful practice that might end when he married. I was glad he was getting married at last; I’d been a bit worried because Hay Tree Farm without a Wheale would be unthinkable and if Bob died unmarried there was only me left, and I certainly didn’t want to take up farming.

I got into the car, drove on a little way, then turned on to the farm road. Bob had had it graded and resurfaced, something he’d been talking about for years. I coasted along, past the big oak tree which, family legend said, had been planted by my great-grandfather, and around the corner which led straight into the farmyard.

Then I stamped on the brake pedal hard because someone was lying in the middle of the road.

I got out of the car and looked down at him. He was lying prone with one arm outflung and when I knelt and touched his hand it was stone cold. I went cold, too, as I looked at the back of his head. Carefully I tried to pull his head up but the body was stiff with rigor mortis and I had to roll him right over to see his face. The breath came from me with a sigh as I saw it was a perfect stranger.

He had died hard but quickly. The expression on his face showed that he had died hard; the lips writhed back from the teeth in a tortured grimace and the eyes were open and stared over my shoulder at the morning sky. Underneath him was a great pool of half-dried blood and his chest was covered with it. No one could have lost that much blood slowly — it must have gushed out in a sudden burst, bringing a quick death.

I stood up and looked around. Everything was very quiet and all I heard was the fluting of an unseasonable blackbird and the grating of gravel as I shifted my feet sounded unnaturally loud. From the house came the mournful howl of a dog and then a shriller barking from close by, and a young sheepdog flung round the corner of the house and yapped at me excitedly. He was not very old, not more than nine months, and I reckoned he was one of old Jess’s pups.

I held out my hand and snapped my fingers. The aggressive barking changed to a delighted yelp and the young dog wagged his tail vehemently and came forward in an ingratiating sideways trot. From the house another dog howled and the sound made the hairs on my neck prickle.

I walked into the farmyard and saw immediately that the kitchen door was ajar. Gently, I pushed it open, and called, ‘Bob!’

The curtains were drawn at the windows and the light was off, so the room was gloomy. There was a stir of movement and the sound of an ugly growl. I pushed the door open wide to let in the light and saw old Jess stalking towards me with her teeth bared in a snarl. ‘All right, Jess,’ I said softly. ‘It’s all right, old girl.’

She stopped dead and looked at me consideringly, then let her lips cover her teeth. I slapped the side of my leg. ‘Come here, Jess.’

But she wouldn’t come. Instead, she whined disconsolately and turned away to vanish behind the big kitchen table. I followed her and found her standing drooping over the body of Bob.

His hand was cold, but not dead cold, and there was a faint flutter of a pulse beat at his wrist. Fresh blood oozed from the ugly wound in his chest and soaked the front of his shirt. I knew enough about serious injuries not to attempt to move him; instead, I ran upstairs, stripped the blankets from his bed and brought them down to cover him and keep him warm.

Then I went to the telephone and dialled 999. ‘This is Jemmy Wheale of Hay Tree Farm. There’s been a shooting on the farm; one man dead and another seriously wounded. I want a doctor, an ambulance and the police — in that order.’

II

An hour later I was talking to Dave Goosan. The doctor and the ambulance had come and gone, and Bob was in hospital. He was in a bad way and Dr. Grierson had dissuaded me from going with him. ‘It’s no use, Jemmy. You’d only get in the way and make a nuisance of yourself. You know we’ll do the best we can.’

I nodded. ‘What are his chances?’ I asked.

Grierson shook his head. ‘Not good. But I’ll be able to tell better when I’ve had a closer look at him.’

So I was talking to Dave Goosan who was a policeman. The last time I had met him he was a detective sergeant; now he was a detective inspector. I went to school with his young brother, Harry, who was also in the force. Police work was the Goosans’ family business.

‘This is bad, Jemmy,’ he said. ‘It’s too much for me. They’re sending over a superintendent from Newton Abbot. I haven’t the rank to handle a murder case.’

I stared at him. ‘Who has been murdered?’

He flung out his arm to indicate the farmyard, then became confused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to say your brother had murdered anyone. But there’s been a killing, anyway.’

We were in the living-room and through the window I could see the activity in the yard. The body was still there, though covered with a plastic sheet. There were a dozen coppers, some in plain clothes and others in uniform, a few seemed to be doing nothing but chat, but the others were giving the yard a thorough going over.

I said, ‘Who was he, Dave?’

‘We don’t know.’ He frowned. ‘Now, tell me the story all over again — right from the beginning. We’ve got to get this right, Jemmy, or the super will blow hell out of me. This is the first killing I’ve worked on.’ He looked worried.

So I told my story again, how I had come to the farm, found the dead man and then Bob. When I had finished Dave said, ‘You just rolled the body over — no more than that?’

‘I thought it was Bob,’ I said. The build was the same and so was the haircut.’

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Dave. ‘He might be an American. His clothes are American, anyway. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Nothing.’

He sighed. ‘Ah, well, we’ll find out all about him sooner or later. He was killed by a blast from a shotgun at close range. Grierson says he thinks the aorta was cut through — that’s why he bled like that. Your brother’s shotgun had both barrels fired.’

‘So Bob shot him,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t make it murder.’

‘Of course it doesn’t. We’ve reconstructed pretty well what happened and it seems to be a case of self defence. The man was a thief; we know that much.’

I looked up. ‘What did he steal?’

Dave jerked his head. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you. But just walk where I walk and don’t go straying about.’

I followed him out into the yard, keeping close to his heels as he made a circuitous approach to the wall of the kitchen. He stopped and said, ‘Have you ever seen that before?’

I looked to where he indicated and saw the tray that had always stood on the top shelf of the dresser in the kitchen ever since I can remember. My mother used to take it down and polish it once in a while, but it was only really used on high days and feast days. At Christmas it used to be put in the middle of the dining-table and was heaped with fruit.

‘Do you mean to tell me he got killed trying to pinch a brass tray? That he nearly killed Bob because of that thing?’

I bent down to pick it up and Dave grabbed me hastily. ‘Don’t touch it.’ He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t know. That’s not brass, Jemmy; it’s gold!’

I gaped at him, then closed my mouth before the flies got in.

‘But it’s always been a brass tray,’ I said inanely.

‘So Bob thought,’ agreed Dave. ‘It happened this way. The museum in Totnes was putting on a special show of local bygones and Bob was asked if he’d lend the tray. I believe it’s been in the family for a long time.’

I nodded. ‘I can remember my grandfather telling me that his grandfather had mentioned it.’

‘Well, that’s going back a while. Anyway, Bob lent it to the museum and it was put on show with the other stuff. Then someone said it was gold, and by God, it was! The people at the museum got worried about it and asked Dave to take it back. It wasn’t insured, you see, and there was a flap on about it might be stolen. It had been reported in the papers complete with photographs, and any wide boy could open the Totnes museum with a hairpin.’

‘I didn’t see the newspaper reports.’

‘It didn’t make the national press,’ said Dave. ‘Just the local papers. Anyway, Bob took it back. Tell me, did he know you were coming down this weekend?’

I nodded. ‘I phoned him on Thursday. I’d worked out a scheme for the farm that I thought he might be interested in.’

‘That might explain it. This discovery only happened about ten days ago. He might have wanted to surprise you with it.’

I looked down at the tray. ‘He did,’ I said bitterly.

‘It must be very valuable just for the gold in it,’ said Dave. ‘Well worth the attention of a thief. And the experts say there’s something special about it to add to the value, but I’m no antiquarian so I can’t tell you what it is.’ He rubbed the back of his head. There’s one thing about all this that really worries me, though. Come and look at this — and don’t touch it.’

He led me across the yard to the other side of the body where a piece of opaque plastic cloth covered something lumpy on the ground. ‘This is what did the damage to your brother.’

He lifted the plastic and I saw a weapon — an antique horse pistol. ‘Who’d want to use a thing like that?’ I said.

‘Nasty, isn’t it?’

I bent down and looked closer and found I was wrong. It wasn’t a horse pistol but a shotgun with the barrels cut very short and the butt cut off to leave only the hand grip. Dave said, ‘What thief in his right mind would go on a job carrying a weapon like that? Just to be found in possession would send him inside for a year. Another thing — there were two of them.’

‘Guns?’

‘No — men. Two, at least. There was a car parked up the farm road. We found tracks in the mud and oil droppings. From what the weather’s been doing we know the car turned in the road after ten o’clock last night. Grierson reckons that this man was shot before midnight, so it’s a hundred quid to a pinch of snuff that the car and the man are connected. It can’t have driven itself away, so that brings another man into the picture.’

‘Or a woman,’ I said.

‘Could be,’ said Dave.

A thought struck me. ‘Where were the Edgecombes last night?’ Jack Edgecombe was Bob’s chief factotum on the farm, and his wife, Madge, did Bob’s housekeeping. They had a small flat in the farmhouse itself; all the other farm workers lived in their own cottages.

‘I checked on that,’ said Dave. ‘They’re over in Jersey on their annual holiday. Your brother was living by himself.’

A uniformed policeman came from the house. ‘Inspector, you’re wanted on the blower.’

Dave excused himself and went away, and I stood and watched what was going on. I wasn’t thinking much of anything; my mind was numbed and small, inconsequential thoughts chased round and round. Dave wasn’t away long and when he came back his face was serious. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. ‘Bob’s dead,’ I said flatly.

He nodded gravely. ‘Ten minutes ago.’

‘For God’s sake!’ I said. ‘I wasted half an hour outside Honiton; it could have made all the difference.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, whatever you do. It would have made no difference at all, even if you had found him two hours earlier. He was too far gone.’ There was a sudden snap to his voice. ‘It’s a murder case now, Jemmy; and we’ve got a man to look for. We’ve found an abandoned car the other side of Newton Abbot. It may not be the right one, but a check on the tyres will tell us.’

‘Does Elizabeth Horton know of this yet?’

Dave frowned. ‘Who’s she?’

‘Bob’s fiancée.’

‘Oh, God! He was getting married, wasn’t he? No, she knows nothing yet.’

‘I’d better tell her,’ I said.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a farm to run now, and cows don’t milk themselves. Things can run down fast if there isn’t a firm hand on the reins. My advice is to get Jack Edgecombe back here. But don’t you worry about that; I’ll find out where he is and send a telegram.’

‘Thanks, Dave,’ I said. ‘But isn’t that over and above the call of duty?’

‘All part of the service,’ he said with an attempt at lightness. ‘We look after our own. I liked Bob very much, you know.’ He paused. ‘Who was his solicitor?’

‘Old Mount has handled the family affairs ever since I can remember.’

‘You’d better see him as soon as possible,’ advised Dave. ‘There’ll be a will and other legal stuff to be handled.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Look, if you’re here when the superintendent arrives you might be kept hanging around for hours. You’d better pop off now and do whatever you have to. I’ll give your statement to the super and if he wants to see you he can do it later. But do me a favour and phone in in a couple of hours to let us know where you are.’

III

As I drove into Totnes I looked at my watch and saw with astonishment that it was not yet nine o’clock. The day that ordinary people live was only just beginning, but I felt I’d lived a lifetime in the past three hours. I hadn’t really started to think properly, but somewhere deep inside me I felt the first stirring of rage tentatively growing beneath the grief. That a man could be shot to death in his own home with such a barbarous weapon was a monstrous, almost inconceivable, perversion of normal life. In the quiet Devon countryside a veil had been briefly twitched aside to reveal another world, a more primitive world in which sudden death was a shocking commonplace. I felt outraged that such a world should intrude on me and mine.

My meeting with Elizabeth was difficult. When I told her she became suddenly still and motionless with a frozen face. At first, I thought she was that type of Englishwoman to whom the exhibition of any emotion is the utmost in bad taste, but after five minutes she broke down in a paroxysm of tears and was led away by her mother. I felt very sorry for her. Both she and Bob were late starters in the Marriage Stakes and now the race had been scratched. I didn’t know her very well but enough to know that she would have made Bob a fine wife.

Mr. Mount, of course, took it more calmly, death being part of the stock-in-trade, as it were, of a solicitor. But he was perturbed about the manner of death. Sudden death was no stranger to him, and if Bob had broken his neck chasing a fox that would have been in the tradition and acceptable. This was different; this was the first murder in Totnes within living memory.

And so he was shaken but recovered himself rapidly, buttressing his cracking world with the firm assurance of the law. ‘There is, of course, a will,’ he said. ‘Your brother was having talks with me about the new will. You may — or may not — know that on marriage all previous wills are automatically voided, so there had to be a new will. However, we had not got to the point of signing, and so the previous existing will is the document we have to consider.’

His face creased into a thin, legal smile. ‘I don’t think there is any point in beating about the bush, Jemmy. Apart from one or two small bequests to members of the farm staff and personal friends, you are the sole beneficiary. Hay Tree Farm is yours now — or it will be on probate. There will, of course, be death duties, but farm land gets forty-five per cent relief on valuation.’ He made a note. ‘I must see your brother’s bank manager for details of his accounts.’

‘I can give you most of that,’ I said. ‘I was Bob’s accountant. In fact, I have all the information here. I was working on a suggested scheme for the farm — that’s why I came down this weekend.’

‘That will be very helpful,’ said Mount. He pondered. ‘I would say that the farm, on valuation, will prove to be worth something like £125,000. That is not counting live and dead stock, of course.’

My head jerked up. ‘My God! So much?’

He gave me an amused look. ‘When a farm has been in the same family for as long as yours the cash value of the land tends to be ignored — it ceases to be regarded as invested capital. Land values have greatly appreciated in recent years, Jemmy; and you have 500 acres of prime land on red soil. At auction it would fetch not less than £250 an acre. When you add the stock, taking into account the admirable dairy herd Bob built up and the amount of modernization he has done, then I would say that the valuation for the purposes of probate will be not much less than £170,000.’

I accepted this incredible thing he was telling me. Mount was a country solicitor and knew as much about local farm values as any hard-eyed unillusioned farmer looking over his neighbour’s fields. He said, ‘If you sold it you would have a sizeable fortune, Jemmy.’

I shook my head. ‘I couldn’t sell it.’

He nodded understandingly. ‘No,’ he said reflectively. ‘I don’t suppose you could. It would be as though the Queen were to sell Buckingham Palace to a property developer. But what do you intend to do? Run it yourself?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said a little desperately. ‘I haven’t thought about it’

‘There’ll be time to think about it,’ he said consolingly. ‘One way would be to appoint a land agent. But your brother had a high opinion of Jack Edgecombe. You might do worse than make him farm manager; he can run the farming side, of which you know nothing — and you can operate the business side, of which he knows nothing. I don’t think it would be necessary to interrupt your present career.’

‘I’ll think about that,’ I said.

‘Tell me,’ said Mount. ‘You said you had a scheme for the farm. Could I ask what it is?’

I said, ‘The Government experimental farms have been using computers to work out maximum utilization of farm resources. Well, I have access to a computer and I put in all the data on Hay Tree Farm and programmed it to produce optimum profit.’

Mount smiled tolerantly. ‘Your farm has been well worked for four hundred years. I doubt if you could find a better way of working it than the ways that are traditional in this area.’

I had come across this attitude many times before and I thought I knew how to handle it. ‘Traditional ways are good ways, but nobody would say they are perfect. If you take all the variables involved in even a smallish farm — the right mix of arable and pasture, what animals to keep, how many animals and when to keep them, what feedstuffs to plant and what to buy — if you take all those variables and put them in permutation and combination you come up with a matrix of several million choices.

‘Traditional ways have evolved to a pretty high level and it isn’t worth a farmer’s while to improve them. He’d have to be a smart mathematician and it would probably take him fifty years of calculation. But a computer can do it in fifteen minutes. In the case of Hay Tree Farm the difference between the traditional good way and the best way is fifteen per cent net increase on profits.’

‘You surprise me,’ said Mount interestedly. ‘We will have to talk about this — but at a more appropriate time.’

It was a subject on which I could have talked for hours but, as he said, the time wasn’t appropriate. I said, ‘Did Bob ever talk to you about that tray?’

‘Indeed he did,’ said Mount. ‘He brought it here, to this office, straight from the museum, and we discussed the insurance. It is a very valuable piece.’

‘How valuable?’

‘Now that is hard to say. We weighed it and, if the gold is pure, the intrinsic value will be about £2,500. But mere is also the artistic value to take into account — it’s very beautiful — and the antiquarian value. Do you know anything of its history?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just been something that’s been around the house ever since I can remember.’

‘It will have to be valued as part of the estate,’ said Mount. ‘Sotheby’s might be best, I think.’ He made another note. ‘We will have to go very deeply into your brother’s affairs. I hope there will be enough... er... loose money... available to pay the death duties. It would be a pity to have to sell off a part of the farm. Would you have any objection to selling the tray if it proved necessary?’

‘No objection at all — if it helps to keep the farm in one piece.’ I thought I would probably sell it anyway, it had too much blood on it for my liking. It would be an uncomfortable thing to have around.

‘Well, I don’t think there’s more we can do now,’ said Mount. ‘I’ll set the legal processes in motion — you can leave all that to me.’ He stood up. ‘I’m the executor of the estate, Jemmy, and executors have wide latitude, especially if they know the ins and outs of the law. You’ll need ready money to run the farm — to pay the men, for example — and that can be drawn from the estate.’ He grimaced. ‘Technically speaking, I’m supposed to run the farm until probate, but I can appoint an expert to do it, and there’s nothing to prevent me choosing you, so I think we’ll let it go at that, shall we? Or would you rather I employed a land agent until probate?’

‘Give me a couple of days,’ I said. ‘I want to think this over. For one thing, I’d like to talk to Jack Edgecombe.’

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But don’t leave it much later than that.’

Before leaving Mount’s office I telephoned the farm as I had promised Dave Goosan and was told that Detective-Superintendent Smith would be pleased if I would call at Totnes police station at three o’clock that afternoon. I said that I would and then went out into the street, feeling a little lost and wondering what to do next. Something was nagging at me and I couldn’t pin it down, but suddenly I realized what it was.

I was hungry!

I looked at my watch and discovered it was nearly twelve o’clock. I had had no breakfast and only a very light snack the night before so it wasn’t really surprising. Yet although I was hungry I didn’t feel like facing a set meal, so I climbed into the car and headed towards the Cott where I could get a sandwich.

The saloon bar was almost empty with just an elderly man and woman sitting quietly in one corner. I went to the bar and said to Paula, ‘I’ll have a pint, please.’

She looked up. ‘Oh, Mr. Wheale, I’m so sorry to hear of what happened.’

It hadn’t taken long for the news to get around, but that was only to be expected in a small town like Totnes. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s a bad business.’

She turned away to draw the beer, and Nigel came in from the other bar. He said, ‘Sorry to hear about your brother, Jemmy.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Look, Nigel; I just want a beer and some sandwiches. I don’t feel much like talking just now.’

He nodded, and said, ‘I’ll serve you in a private room if you like.’

‘No, that doesn’t matter; I’ll have it here.’

He phoned the order through to the kitchen, then spoke to Paula who went into the other bar. I took a pull of beer and was aware of Nigel coming to the counter again. ‘I know you don’t want to talk,’ he said. ‘But there’s something you ought to know.’

‘What is it?’

He hesitated. ‘Is it true that the dead man — the burglar — up at the farm was an American?’

‘There’s no certainty yet, but it’s a probability,’ I said.

He pursed his lips. ‘I don’t know if this is relevant, but Harry Hannaford told me a couple of days ago that an American had made Bob an offer for that tray — you know, the one they found was so valuable.’

‘Where did this happen?’

Nigel flipped his hand. ‘In here! I wasn’t here at the time, but Harry said he heard the whole thing. He was having a drink with Bob at the time.’

I said, ‘Do you know this American?’

‘I don’t think so. We get a lot of Yanks here — you run a place as old as the Cott and you’re on the culture circuit. But we didn’t have any Americans staying here just then. We have one here now, though; he arrived yesterday.’

‘Oh! What kind of an American?’

Nigel smiled. ‘Oldish — about sixty, I’d say. Name of Fallon. He must have a lot of money, too, judging by the telephone bill he’s run up. But I wouldn’t say he’s a suspicious character.’

‘Getting back to Hannaford and the other Yank,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me anything more?’

‘There’s nothing more to tell. Just that the Yank wanted to buy the tray — that’s all Harry said.’ He looked up at the clock. ‘He’ll be in soon, as like as not, for his midday pint. He usually comes in about now. Do you know him?’

‘I can’t place him.’

‘All right,’ said Nigel. ‘When he comes in I’ll tip you the wink.’

The sandwiches arrived and I took them to a corner table near the fireplace. When I sat down I felt suddenly tired, which wasn’t surprising considering I’d been up all night and subject to a hell of a lot of tension. I ate the sandwiches slowly and drank some more beer. I was only now coming out of the shock that had hit me when I found Bob, and it was beginning to really hurt.

The pub started to fill up and I saw one or two faces I knew, but no one bothered me, although I intercepted some curious glances from eyes that were quickly averted. But there’s a basic decency among countrymen which forbade them overt curiosity. Presently I saw Nigel talking to a big man in tweeds, then he crossed to me and said, ‘Hannaford’s here. Want to talk to him?’

I looked around the crowded bar. ‘I’d rather it wasn’t here. Have you a room I can use?’

‘Take my office,’ said Nigel promptly. ‘I’ll send Harry in after you.’

‘You can send a couple of pints, too,’ I said, and left the bar by the back door.

Hannaford joined me in a few minutes. ‘Main sorry to hear about Bob,’ he said in a deep voice. ‘Many’s the laugh we’ve had here. He was a good man.’

‘Yes, Mr. Hannaford; he was.’ It was easy to see the relationship between Hannaford and Bob. When a man is a regular caller at a pub he strikes up an easy and casual acquaintanceship in those four walls. More often than not it goes no further than that and there may be no meeting outside the pub. But for all that there need be no shallowness to it — it’s just uncomplicated and friendly.

I said, ‘Nigel tells me there was an American wanting to buy the tray from Bob.’

‘That there was — and more’n one. Bob had two offers to my knowledge, both from Americans.’

‘Did he? Do you know anything about these men, Mr. Hannaford?’

Hannaford pulled his ear. ‘Mr. Gatt was a real nice gentleman — not at all pushy like a lot of these Yanks. A middle-aged man he was, and well dressed. Very keen to buy that tray from Bob was Mr. Gatt.’

‘Did he offer a price — a definite price?’

‘Not straight out he didn’t. Your brother said it was no use him offering any price at all until he’d had the tray valued, and Mr. Gatt said he’d give Bob the valuation price — whatever it was. But Bob laughed and said he might not sell it at all, that it was a family heirloom. Mr. Gatt looked mighty put out when he heard that.’

‘What about the other man?’

‘The young chap? I didn’t relish him much, he acted too high and mighty for me. He made no offer — not in my hearing — but he was disappointed when Bob said he wasn’t set on selling, and he spoke pretty sharpish to Bob until his wife shut him up.’

‘His wife!’

Hannaford smiled. ‘Well, I wouldn’t swear to that — he showed me no marriage lines — but I reckon it was his wife or, maybe his sister, perhaps.’

‘Did he give a name?’

‘That he did. Now, what was it? Hall? No, that’s not it. Steadman? Nooo. Wait a minute and I’ll get it.’ His big red face contorted with the effort of remembering and suddenly smoothed out. ‘Halstead — that was it. Halstead was the name. He gave your brother his card — I remember that. He said he’d get in touch again when the tray was valued. Bob said he was wasting his time and that’s when he lost his temper.’

I said, ‘Anything else you remember about it?’

Hannaford shook his head. That’s about all there was to it. Oh, Mr. Gatt did say he was a collector of pieces like that. One of these rich American millionaires, I expect.’

I thought that rich Americans seemed to be thick on the ground around the Cott. ‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

Hannaford rubbed his jaw. ‘Let me see — it was after they printed about it in the Western Morning News; two days after, to my best recollection. That’ud make it five days ago, so it was Tuesday.’

I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Hannaford. The police might be interested in this, you know.’

‘I’ll tell them all I’ve told you,’ he said earnestly, and put his hand on my sleeve. ‘When’s the funeral to be? I’d like to be there to pay my respects.’

I hadn’t thought of that; too much had happened in too short a time. I said, ‘I don’t know when it will be. There’ll have to be an inquest first.’

‘Of course,’ said Hannaford. ‘Best thing to do would be to tell Nigel as soon as you’re sure, and he’ll let me know. And others, too. Bob Wheale was well liked around here.’

‘I’ll do that.’

We went back into the bar and Nigel caught my eye. I put my tankard on the bar counter and he nodded across the room. ‘That’s the Yank who is staying here now. Fallon.’

I turned and saw a preternaturally thin man sitting near to the fire holding a whisky glass. He was abouty sixty years of age, his head was gaunt and fleshless and his skin tanned to the colour of well worn leather. As I watched he seemed to shiver and he drew his chair closer to the fire.

I turned back to Nigel, who said, ‘He told me he spends a lot of time in Mexico. He doesn’t like the English climate — he thinks it’s too cold.’

IV

I spent that night alone at Hay Tree Farm. Perhaps I should have stayed at the Cott and saved myself a lot of misery, but I didn’t. Instead I wandered through the silent rooms, peopled with the shadowy figures of memories, and grew more and more depressed.

I was the last of the Wheales — there was no one else. No uncles or aunts or cousins, no sisters or brothers — just me. This echoing, empty house, creaking with the centuries, had witnessed a vast procession down the years — a pageant of Wheales — Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian. The little patch of England around the house had been sweated over by Wheales for more than four centuries in good times and bad, and now it all sharpened down to a single point — me. Me — a grey little man in a grey little job.

It wasn’t fair!

I found myself standing in Bob’s room. The bed was still dishevelled where I had whipped away the blankets to cover him and I straightened it almost automatically, smoothing down the counterpane. His dressing-table was untidy, as it always had been, and stuck in the crack up one side of the mirror was his collection of unframed photographs — one of our parents, one of me, one of Stalwart, the big brute of a horse that was his favourite mount, and a nice picture of Elizabeth. I pulled that one down to get a better look and something fluttered to the top of the dressing-table.

I picked it up. It was Halstead’s card which Hannaford had spoken of. I looked at it listlessly. Paul Halstead. Avenida Quintillana 1534. Mexico City.

The telephone rang, startlingly loud, and I picked it up to hear the dry voice of Mr. Mount. ‘Hello, Jeremy,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d tell you that you have no need to worry about the funeral arrangements. I’ll take care of all that for you.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, and then choked up.

‘Your father and I were very good friends,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I’ve ever told you that if he hadn’t married your mother, then I might have done so.’ He rang off and the phone went dead.

I slept that night in my own room, the room I had always had ever since I was a boy. And I cried myself to sleep as I had not done since I was a boy.