Death of a Wine Merchant (8 page)

Nathaniel Colville looked like a patriarch. He was tall and well built with a slim white moustache and a great shock of white
hair. He looked about seventy years old but his bearing was still erect, his eye steady. Powerscourt remembered Sir Pericles Freme and his less flamboyant white locks and thought he was surrounded by white-headed men. Nathaniel lived close to his brother in a beautiful house right on the river in a village called Moulsford. A gardener was working among the roses that led down to the Thames. A couple of rowing boats were drifting past towards Pangbourne. A pair of blue tits were conducting what sounded like a vigorous argument in the bushes. Nathaniel Colville showed Powerscourt into a seat by the fire.

‘How very good of you to see me, Mr Colville,’ said Powerscourt. ‘This must be a very difficult time for you all.’

‘It’s good of you to come all this way,’ said Nathaniel Colville. ‘I don’t suppose I shall be much use to you. I haven’t had very much to do with the family business for years. I still get the dividends, of course, and I’m still meant to be writing the history of the firm. I’m supposed to have been doing that for the last eight years. I’ve got all the early records in a room at the top of the house but I don’t even read them any more. I don’t think I’m ever going to finish it now.’

‘There’s still time, plenty of time,’ said Powerscourt, thinking ruefully of his own unfinished second volume on the Cathedrals of England, the notes and descriptions still mouldering in a cupboard in Markham Square. ‘Tell me, Mr Colville, is there anything you can tell me about your nephews, Randolph and Cosmo? Anything you can remember about their early years, about their characters?’

Nathaniel Colville shook his head. ‘I was thinking about that before you came, Lord Powerscourt. They were both perfectly normal little boys. They spent a lot of time, obviously, with my own children and another cousin when they were growing up. There was nothing that suggested one was going to be shot at his son’s wedding and the other one arrested with a gun in his hand, nothing at all.’ The old man shook his head slowly.

‘Is there anything in the firm’s history that might have left somebody bearing a grudge against them?’

‘A vendetta come to Norfolk to take revenge for some sins committed long ago? I don’t know anything of that sort but, as I said, I haven’t had much to do with the business for a long time.’

‘Were things very different in your days, Mr Colville, when the firm started up?’ Powerscourt suspected that Nathaniel Colville might be happier with the past than the present.

‘I know I’m old, Lord Powerscourt, God knows when you get to my age, you are reminded of it every day. But I think of those early years when we were establishing the business as a time of great happiness. We were doing something none of us had done before. We didn’t really know what the rules were, if there were any rules. We took risks, we spent an awful lot of money advertising our wares in the newspapers once we were up and running. Nobody had ever done that before. We tried to do the best we could for our customers. We worked very hard. We were very intensely alive, if you know what I mean. There wasn’t a great deal of time for children. Anyway we were away in France quite a lot of the time.’

‘Do you think that times are less happy now? In the wine trade, I mean.’

‘Do you remember the Jubilee, Lord Powerscourt? The second one, not the first? I remember watching the procession to St Paul’s, the soldiers marching through London from all over the world, all come from parts of the British Empire, the royal carriages in procession with the little Queen at the end? I saw them all pass by from the windows of my club on Pall Mall and I remember thinking that this was the end of an era. Two days before, you see, we learned that one of our competitors had been offering champagne at two shillings a case less than we were. In the old days that would have been unthinkable. The rivals might put their stuff on the market at the same price. We all had to make a living after all. But
now it was no longer live and let live, it was live and let die. I remember thinking very strongly that this was the end of an age. What have we had since? That fat adulterer on the throne. Women, suffragettes they call themselves, marching about the place throwing stones through shop windows and demanding votes for women. These dreadful motor cars belching smoke over us all – only the other day the gardener and the footman and I had to help pull some fool in his car out of the river down there. Brakes failed, the man said. God help us all. Right through my life, Lord Powerscourt, I’ve been interested in politics. I can’t imagine saying today that things are better than they were at the time of the Jubilee. Entente Cordiale with our oldest enemy, the French, hoping to lure us into some terrible war of revenge with Germany over Alsace Lorraine. The Germans building up a vast navy and spoiling for a fight. Russia honeycombed with revolutionaries seeking a final reckoning with the Tsar – they had a damned good go at it only a couple of years back.’

‘Has the wine trade become more and more competitive, Mr Colville?’ Powerscourt was wondering if anything concrete was going to come out of his visit.

‘Well, I’m not there now, but I would say it has, yes.’ Nathaniel Colville laughed suddenly. ‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, I realize I must have been sounding dreadfully reactionary just now. I’m not that bad. I try to do what the doctor tells me, regular exercise, moderation in all things. Did you learn Greek at school, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt nodded.

‘Do you remember that they had a favourite saying back then, the Greeks I mean? Maiden agan. Nothing to excess. Think of it, man. Nothing to excess? Greeks? These were people who served up their guests children cooked in a stew at banquets, who went to war for twenty years because a king’s wife ran off with another man, who ended up with their most restrained philosopher Aristotle educating a prince, Alexander, who wanted to conquer the whole bloody world.
Nothing to excess? Some day I’m going to tell my doctor what I’ve just told you but the right moment hasn’t come yet.’

‘Let me just go back to where I started, Mr Colville. Anything at all you can tell me about Randolph and Cosmo?’

The old man looked at Powerscourt carefully as if sizing him up, as if he were a colt he might buy at the sales. ‘You seem a perfectly respectable sort of fellow to me,’ he said finally. ‘There is perhaps one thing you ought to know, though please don’t tell any of my relations I told you.’ He stopped and stared into his fire. ‘It’s about Randolph,’ he said and paused again. It was as if he wasn’t sure he could get the words out. ‘They say he was a terrible man for the women, chased anything that took his fancy.’

‘Before his marriage,’ asked Powerscourt, ‘or after?’

‘Damn it, man, I only know what I hear. But I should say the answer to your question is both before and after. All the way through.’

Alfred Davis, general manager of Colville and Sons, was staring in disbelief at four sheets of paper on the table in front of him. The latest disaster to strike the Colville company was the non-arrival of a great consignment of wine from Burgundy, wine in every price range. The receipts in front of Alfred were the records of these deliveries in the previous years. Always they had left Burgundy in the second week of October and arrived in London a week or so later. Now there were no records at all. Every attempt to contact the firm of Chanson, Père et Fils, had failed. Alfred had first been made aware of the lack of incoming burgundy the evening before. He had spent most of his time since staring at the records of previous years. Alfred Davis did not wonder if anything had gone wrong at the wine merchants in France, a serious illness, a death perhaps which might have impeded business. He worried only about the firm of Colvilles. This consignment was meant to last them into the New Year. Another shipment usually came along in February. But Christmas, granted the long lead times involved in the trade, was almost upon them. Alfred did not know what he could do if the shipment simply failed to turn up at the docks. Mr Randolph had looked after the Burgundy business for years. No doubt he could have conjured some more wine out of those wily
négociants
and filled the gap. But Mr Randolph was rotting in his grave near the Thames and would trouble the wine trade no more. Alfred
could not imagine what damage the loss of the Burgundy wines would do the business at one of the busiest times in the wine merchant’s year, Christmas and New Year.

There was a knock at his door. A junior porter told him that there was a Mr John Jackman, the younger Mr John Jackman, waiting to see him. Alfred shook his head. ‘I can’t see him now,’ he said, ‘not this morning, not today. He’ll have to come back another time.’

‘He says, sir,’ the porter sounded apologetic, ‘that he’ll come back every day until he receives satisfaction.’

‘He can come back every day till the end of time if he wants to,’ said Davis, ‘I don’t see a time at present when I will be able to talk to him. Tell him there’s no point. I’ve got nothing to say. There’s nothing I can do.’

John Jackman senior had worked for Colvilles for over forty years. He ended up in charge of the wholesale distribution system. Shortly before he retired there was a row about his pension. Reports of great shouting matches and fists being thumped on tables circulated round all the Colville buildings. Jackman thought he had been conned out of what he had been promised. He said that Randolph and Cosmo were cheats, depriving their workers of what was rightfully theirs. If death and the prison cell had not intervened, Jackman had threatened to go to Walter and Nathaniel to plead his case. Alfred was not aware of the precise nature of the transactions and the various charges and counter charges. But as he stared down at the notes about the missing wine a truly terrible thought struck him. What if the Colvilles were reneging on all their promises about pensions? He had always been told that a generous provision would await him on his retirement and see him off into a trouble-free old age. What if that money never came? How would he and Bertha manage? He had a few savings, but not as much as he would have liked for Bertha was not good with money. Now another of his headaches was coming on and he had run out of pills. He remembered Bertha saying to him that very morning at the breakfast table
in Kentish Town, ‘You haven’t been looking well at all, Alfred, not for weeks now. Why don’t you change jobs? Ask Colvilles for a less stressful post or look for a position elsewhere?’

Alfred had almost shrieked his reply. ‘Are you mad, woman? The Colvilles aren’t running a hospital or a charity down there in the West End. If I said I wasn’t up to the job, I’d be out of the door faster than you could draw the cork out of a bottle. Another position? At my age? Don’t be ridiculous!’

Privately Bertha thought her husband was not up to the job, not in the present circumstances. Now, wondering yet again what to do about the missing burgundy, Alfred thought the same.

Powerscourt found Lady Lucy walking up and down the drawing room in Markham Square, her eyes red with tears.

‘Lucy, my love, what’s the matter?’ Powerscourt held her tight.

‘It’s so silly, Francis. Here am I walking up and down this room just like you do. Only I know you’re thinking when you do it, I can see it in your eyes, I’m just upset.’

‘What’s been upsetting you?’

Lady Lucy made her way to a chair by the fire. ‘It’s Milly,’ she said, ‘she’s only just gone.’

‘She of the Horrible Husband?’

‘Indeed so, Francis. Things are worse than we thought, much worse. All her money has gone. Horrible Husband has debts that he’s owned up to of three thousand pounds. Milly thinks there may be more. Only two people from the family have replied to my request that we club together to give her some money. So I wrote her a cheque right here in this room for one hundred pounds, Francis. I hope you think that’s all right. It’s just I couldn’t bear the idea of those little children going hungry.’

Lady Lucy looked defensively at her husband. Perhaps he would be cross.

‘Think nothing of it, Lucy. Where is the husband now? Is he still at home?’

‘The real reason Milly came has nothing to with the money, Francis. This story doesn’t come at first hand but I think it’s reliable all the same. Milly thought you should know about it. Terrible Tim goes drinking in some sordid gambling and drinking den near Paddington station. He drinks quite a lot there with the husband of a great friend of Milly’s called Trumper, Beauchamp Trumper. This Trumper told his wife that one day just before the wedding, Timothy had got more than usually drunk. He had begun to criticize the Colvilles. There was a lot of stuff, Beauchamp thought, about how he had been unfairly dismissed, his career ruined, his abilities questioned by those two Colvilles, Randolph and Cosmo. Beauchamp said it seemed to be the insults to his honour that made him most upset. Then, Francis – Beauchamp swears he remembers this bit perfectly – Tim said, “I tell you what I’m going to do to that arrogant sod Randolph Colville. I’m going to kill him. I bloody well am too.”’

At that point they heard, more or less simultaneously, the ringing of the telephone and a series of whoops and war cries as the Powerscourt twins, Christopher and Juliet, five years old, hurtled down the stairs towards the noise. It was always the same now. Whenever the bell rang, wherever they were, whatever they were doing, Christopher and Juliet headed for their father’s study at very high speed. They had once leapt out of the bath when the bell went off and shot down the stairs wrapped only in the scantiest of towels, passing one of Lucy’s relations who happened to be a High Court judge on the way.

They seemed to believe that the telephone was like a sacred object in some primitive tribe, to be worshipped and revered. At first they had refused to accept that you could speak to another person through the instrument, or that another person could speak to you. When Powerscourt spoke to them once from a neighbour’s telephone they had both dropped the
instrument on the floor and fled upstairs, putting themselves straight to bed and holding whispered conferences from under the bedclothes.

On this occasion the twins reached the phone a lot earlier than their father. They took up their usual position, crouching on the floor and looking reverently at the instrument. When Powerscourt picked it up he was greeted by an unusually loud voice, even for his brother-in-law on the telephone.

‘Francis!’ boomed William Burke. The twins had never heard anybody speak so loudly through the telephone before. They thought the caller must be in the next room or outside in the street. Christopher and Juliet exchanged quick conspiratorial glances and clapped their hands over their ears. Then they fled the field to continue their life of crime elsewhere in the house.

‘William, how good of you to call back so soon.’ Powerscourt looked suspiciously at the study door in case the twins were lurking on the far side. A shriek from the upper floors told him they had gone.

‘I haven’t very much to say as yet,’ Burke shouted cheerfully, ‘and I haven’t got very long. Mary’s dragging me off to the opera again. Doesn’t seem fair to me. I went a couple of years ago, for God’s sake.’

‘You might enjoy it, William,’ said Powerscourt.

There was what sounded like a cross between a snort and a grunt at the other end. ‘Back to the Colvilles, Francis. My man is out of town for a few days but I have managed to pick up a few tasty scraps for you.’

‘Excellent, William, fire ahead.’

‘The main thing is that a lot of people in the know say there is something very funny going on with the Colville money. Nobody knows exactly what, but there is general agreement among sensible men that there is a serious problem. One man thinks they run two sets of accounts, one real, seen by nobody but senior Colvilles, and another one for more widespread circulation. The most significant fact,’ Burke ratcheted up the
volume another three or four notches at this point, ‘is that they’ve lost three senior accountants in the last five years.’

‘Did you say three, William?’

‘I did,’ bellowed Burke.

‘Did they walk of their own accord or were they pushed?’

‘At least one walked out after three months in the job, saying, apparently, that he didn’t want to be there when the balloon went up.’

‘Names, William, can you get me names and addresses? Please?’

‘I’ll get them for you tomorrow, Francis. I’ve got to go. Damned cab at the door. Five hours of the wretched
Lucia di
Lammermoor
coming up. It would all be over so much quicker if they didn’t bloody well sing.’

Powerscourt made his way back to the drawing room. Lady Lucy seemed to have captured the twins and was reading them a story. She promised to read them another story in ten minutes if they went straight up to bed.

‘I gather you’ve been talking to William Burke on the telephone, Francis?’

‘William Burke says there is something funny with the Colville money. They’ve gone through three senior accountants in the last five years, apparently.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Lady Lucy, whose knowledge of senior accountants was somewhat limited, but did include the view that they should stay in their position longer than twenty months each. ‘I’ve been thinking about Milly’s husband all the time, Francis. Suppose he did go to Norfolk intending to kill Randolph. Suppose you manage to rescue Cosmo Colville only to put Terrible Tim in Pentonville in his place. Suppose he has to go on trial for murder. It would be terrible for Milly after all she’s been through.’

Powerscourt thought his wife had travelled quite a long way down the road of trial and retribution but she hadn’t gone all the way. When would she reach the last journey, the apologetic priest, the pompous governor, the hangman and
his assistant all on their way to the gallows? He was a pretty big man, Timothy Barrington White, he’d probably need a drop of seven and a half feet or so to finish him off.

‘Francis,’ Lady Lucy called him back from his reverie, ‘if he was arrested, Terrible Tim, I mean, would you try to get him off? Anything to keep the scandal away.’

Powerscourt reflected that his wife wasn’t exactly at the top of her form in this exchange. If Barrington White was arrested, it would mean that Cosmo Colville could walk free. If he then took on the responsibility of liberating Terrible Tim, somebody else would have to be arrested so that he too could walk free. Was Cosmo, after a couple of days of freedom, to return to his prison cell?

There was one definite fact where he could take action. He must speak to Beauchamp Trumper at the earliest opportunity. What if that fellow drinker of Tim’s had been so alarmed by what he heard of Tim’s drunken boasting that he would kill Randolph Colville, that he had warned the Colvilles to take care? If he had done so, one of the central mysteries of the case would be removed. Randolph Colville had taken his gun to the wedding because he thought somebody might try to kill his brother. Or himself.

Rain was falling in Fulham. It bounced off the top of the omnibuses and the roofs of the carriages. It bounced up off the pavement ensuring that the people were soaked from top to bottom. Small boys on their way home from school tried to shrink themselves inside their caps and hugged the side of the streets in a doomed attempt to keep dry. Lord Francis Powerscourt had his finest black umbrella high above his head, looking for the turning off this main road to the smaller Ringmer Avenue he believed should be the second turning on his left. London, he reflected, was growing bigger all the time, radiating outwards on all four parts of the compass. He wondered if it would ever stop.

Here was Ringmer Avenue at last and here was number sixteen, home to one James Chadwick, former senior accountant at Colvilles, who opened the door reluctantly.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Chadwick, Powerscourt’s the name. I wrote to tell you I proposed to call at this time today.’

‘Come in then.’ James Chadwick sounded as if he would have preferred to leave his visitor out in the rain. He showed Powerscourt into a small sitting room with a sofa and a couple of chairs and a good collection of books. Looking at it Powerscourt knew there was something wrong, something lacking. There was nothing warm or intimate about this place. It had all the humanity of a cell in the local jail. Powerscourt felt sure that there was no woman in the house. There might have been one here some time ago, but not now.

Powerscourt placed himself on the sofa. ‘Thank you so much for seeing me, Mr Chadwick,’ he began. ‘How long is it now since you left Colvilles?’

‘Four years nine months and two weeks,’ said Chadwick, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice.

‘Were they good people to work for, Mr Chadwick? The Colvilles, I mean?’

‘They were and they weren’t, if you follow me. Good in some ways, not so good in others. Not that I can tell you very much about them. My work was confidential, you see.’

‘I suggest, Mr Chadwick, that with one brother dead and the other one about to go on trial for his life, the time for confidentiality is past.’