Duplicity (35 page)

‘This is sudden, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘I got a phone call at work today, asking me to go home as soon as I could. I don’t know what’s wrong, exactly,

but …’

His landlady was very sympathetic. ‘You poor thing, you must be worried out of your mind. Well, I should really charge you till the end of the month, but it’s not your fault.’

‘I’d rather pay the full amount. It’s not your fault, either. It’ll have to be a cheque, though. Somebody stole my wallet this afternoon.’

‘A cheque’ll do nicely, but things do seem to be going against you. You’ll be leaving in the morning? What time would you like breakfast?’

‘I meant to say. I won’t need any breakfast. I’ll get something to eat at the airport.’

‘I can give you an earlier breakfast, it’s no bother.’

‘No, no. I’ll have time to shove in. The check-in’s a couple of hours before the actual flight.’

Surprisingly, he slept like a log, and wakened even before his alarm went off at five. To save any awkward goodbyes, he washed and dressed quietly, picked up his bag and crept down the stairs. On the way to the air terminal, he wondered if there was enough in his bank account to cover the fare to Edinburgh. If not, he’d have to go by sea, and he couldn’t waste that much time. He needed help now! Today!

Chapter Thirteen

Frank Milne had cleared up after his evening meal and was checking the television listings in his morning paper to see if there was anything on worth watching. Too many nights lately it had been rubbish on each of the five channels. Maybe Andrew had been right and he should get connected to one of those satellite companies he’d read about. Oh, good! One of David Attenborough’s programmes. He couldn’t see whether it was a repeat or not, the print was too small, so he had likely seen it before, but they were worth watching twice. Maybe he’d better go to the toilet first, though. He never got much warning nowadays and he didn’t want to miss anything.

He had just sat down again when someone rang his front doorbell. It never failed, did it? Every time he was looking forward to watching something decent, somebody rang the bell. He levered himself up gradually, frowning when the bell rang again. Cheeky beggar! One of them door-to-door salesmen, likely, young lads that couldn’t wait. His stiff fingers fumbled at the lock, awkward Yale thing, but he didn’t unfasten the chain; safer to wait to see who was there. He edged the door open, another young lad. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, Uncle Frank. Roddy Lewis.’

‘Roddy? No, it can’t be. Your mother said you were in America.’

‘I was, but I’ve given up my job. Can I come in? I want to speak to Auntie Helen.’

The old man shook his head as he slid back the chain. ‘Come in, lad, but you’re too late. My Helen died a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Oh, no! I’m really sorry, Frank.’

Closing the door quietly behind him, Roddy turned round and, emotion overwhelming him, flung his arms around the frail figure, shorter and thinner than he remembered, and they wept together for the woman they had both loved.

They drew apart at last, rather self-conscious about showing their feelings, and sat down as if their legs had given way. After a few moments of awkward silence, Frank said, ‘Was it something important you wanted to speak to Helen about? Maybe I could help?’

Having almost given up all hope of any solution to his problem, Roddy’s story came out in a rush, then in fits and starts, in long silences that the other man did not interrupt, until at last, he said, ‘I know there’s nothing you can say, Frank. I know I should keep away from Dilly, but, oh, I wish I could see her again.’

‘She’s grown up into a lovely young woman, I can tell you that.’

‘You’ve seen her?’

So now it was Frank’s turn to talk, to tell how Roselle had also been too late to see Helen. ‘She’d wanted to ask her to sort Dilly’s problems out, but I think the lass went home after the funeral in an easier frame of mind anyway. Just being away from what’s troubling you can make a difference, you know.’

Another silence fell, and then Frank said, ‘Helen always knew there was something going on between you and Dilly. She said you loved each other too much, and that was when you were just toddlers. It was even more noticeable once you started school - at least, after Dilly started. She’d been at death’s door with meningitis, if you remember, and ever after that, you were scared to let her out of your sight in case something bad happened to her.’

‘I still feel like that. You know, she once said we should just run away together and get married and have babies.’

‘That had been when she was still just a wee lass, though?’

‘We had left school by that time, and I had to fight myself really hard not to do it. We could have gone far enough away so nobody would know us, and we could have been happy.’

‘But your conscience wouldn’t have let you stay happy, lad. You knew it was wrong.’

‘But Dilly didn’t care that it was wrong, and maybe we
would
have been happy.’

Frank just shook his head, then changed the subject. ‘I’ve just realised. You must be hungry. Will I make something for you?’

‘I don’t feel like eating. Maybe a cup of tea and a slice of toast?’

Five minutes later, munching quite happily, he said, ‘That’s what I missed most over there. A decent cup of tea.’

‘I’ve heard other folk saying that. But I was thinking -what are you intending doing?’

Roddy lifted his shoulders. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘Well, what about stopping here with me? You’ll find a job easily enough, and we’d be company for each other in the evenings. If you don’t want your mother to know, I’ll not tell her, but I’d advise you to tell her yourself. She’ll be worried sick if she stops getting letters from America.’

‘What if she comes here to see me? She might take Dilly with her. What’ll I do?’

‘You’ll have to be the gentleman. You’ll surely manage to cope if you just see her for an hour or two once or twice a year?’

‘I’ll try.’

Roselle had been late in getting home from her friend’s house and was feverishly trying to think of something quick to make for the evening meal. She had just settled on cheese pudding with vegetables when she heard the car drawing up outside. It couldn’t be Brian home already? But it wasn’t Brian. The man who rang the bell turned out to be an absolute stranger. ‘Mrs - um - Pritchard?’

‘No, I’m sorry. You’ve got the wrong house. My name is Lewis. What number are you looking for?’

‘Thirty-one, which is what it says on your door, Mrs Lewis. It’s your - um - husband I came to talk to.’

Mystified, she said, ‘Brian should be home in about half an hour, but are you sure it’s him you want? His name’s not Pritchard, either.’

‘I am quite sure. It
is
your husband I have come to see. I’ll wait in the car.’

She waited until he had walked down the path before she closed the door. She didn’t feel at all happy about it. Why would he ask for Pritchard first then say it was Lewis he wanted? She put the cheese pudding into the oven then prepared the vegetables, all the while worrying about the man waiting outside. She had a shivery feeling in the pit of her stomach that he was trouble, that she should have closed the door in his face and said nothing, but it was too late to do anything now.

When Dilly walked in some thirty-five minutes later, she said, ‘You’re late, and where’s your father?’

Her daughter looked surprised at her tone. ‘We were held up on the road, and Dad’s gone off with a man who was waiting for him.’

‘Did you hear what the man said to him?’

‘He showed Dad an identity card, or something like that, probably to show he was who he said he was.’

‘And that was all?’

‘Dad went off with him in his car. The man’s, I mean.’

‘I hope he’s not long. Our meal will be spoiled.’

‘I’m not waiting, and neither should you.’

Roselle obediently dished up for two, but only her daughter enjoyed the cheese pudding. Roselle was too worried to eat anything. Maybe she was being oversensitive, but her fears grew with every passing minute. What on earth was going on?

As soon as he saw the man jumping out of his car and striding towards him, Brian’s mind jumped to the correct conclusion - a conclusion he had expected for many years but it had been so long in happening that he had come to believe that it never would.

‘Look,’ he had said, as steadily as he could, ‘I’d rather you didn’t come into the house. You can say whatever you want to me, but I don’t want my wife to know. There’s a place we can get peace, it’s not far, just a few miles along the road. I’ll show you.’

His first thought had been Slains Castle, the old ruin quite near the edge of the cliff, but then he remembered the Bullers of Buchan, that slim path between two fearsome inlets of the sea. It was farther along, but it was better.

After the car had been parked, Brian ushered him along the dangerously narrow path, pointing down to the seething waters far below on both sides. ‘It’s some sight, isn’t it? Doesn’t it make you wonder how it happened?’

‘I haven’t time to be wondering about anything; I’ve more important things to attend to. I suppose you know why I’ve come?’

‘Not really. May I see your ID again?’ After glancing at the card, he went on, ‘So you’re a Detective Inspector? From Peterhead? I think you have come on a short wild goose chase.’

‘I think not. We have been alerted by the constabulary in Belfast that you are on their Wanted list.’

‘My name is Brian Lewis and you won’t find that on any wanted poster.’

‘Possibly not, but Brian Lewis is not your real name, is it? You needn’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, a photograph of you as Brian Lewis has been verified as being Robin Pritchard, wanted for embezzlement and murder.’

Brian made a reasonably good attempt at a scornful laugh. ‘You can’t possibly think that I’m capable of murder? Look at me - an ordinary, straightforward man with a wife and twins to my name.’

Jed Logan’s red face deepened in intensity. ‘Twins? The records say one son only.’

‘I have a daughter and a son. Yes, Detective Inspector, you’ve got the wrong man.’

‘I am still obliged to take you in for questioning.’

The time had come for Brian to carry out the plan he had hastily made when he suggested this dangerous spot for their discussion, but something held him back. It would be so easy to give this lump of a bobby a sharp push and send him to his doom, but … he wasn’t finding it easy - second time around. He wasn’t really a killer. He’d done it once out of sheer desperation, and although he was going to lose everything that he had saved then, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Twenty years of dreading this very moment had taken their toll on him.

He gave a sigh of defeat. ‘All right, Inspector, you win, but will you please let me say goodbye to my wife first?’

Roselle had been trying all night to contact her son despite Dilly’s stream of orders for her to take a rest. ‘We need to stay together as a family to support your dad,’ she wailed now. ‘Are you sure that horrible ‘tec didn’t tell you anything?’ Dilly shook her head sadly. ‘I told you. All he said was Dad had committed a crime about twenty years ago, and he was being taken in for questioning.’

‘He told me years ago what he’d done, but it was only about a hundred pounds or so he stole. They surely wouldn’t wait twenty years to arrest him for that.’

‘There must have been more to it than that, Mum.’ The detective had said something about a body being found, but she couldn’t believe that they suspected her father of being a murderer, and she was definitely not going to tell her mother about it.

‘I can’t cope with this, Dilly. I don’t know what to do. I need a man to be there for me. I need Roddy.’

Her daughter agreed wholeheartedly with this. She, too, desperately needed Roddy. Then she remembered a man who would be more than delighted to give them support. ‘Why don’t we go to back to see Frank? I’m sure he’d know what to do.’

‘But I don’t want to bother him. It’s not long since he lost Helen, and we can’t saddle him with our troubles as well.’

‘I’m sure he’d be glad to help, Mum. Go and pack a weekend bag for us and I’ll let the police know we’ll be down there if they need us.’

‘You’d better phone Frank, as well, to let him know we’re coming.’

‘No, he’ll worry about us till he knows what’s what. We’ll just go, he won’t mind.’

After their evening meal, Frank Milne and Roddy were taking it easy by the fireside. They had spent the whole afternoon working in the garden, Roddy mowing the patch of lawn and trimming the edges, and Frank hoeing the paths and weeding the little rockery.

‘I’m glad that’s done,’ Frank observed suddenly into the comfortable silence that had fallen. ‘The longer I keep putting it off, the worse it gets. Helen always used to keep me up to the mark.’

‘With two of us now, though, we’ll manage fine.’

‘Once you’ve got a job, you won’t have time. Have you written to your mother yet?’

‘I will when I’m back on my feet properly. I don’t want her worrying.’

‘Roddy, lad, she’ll worry more about not hearing from you.’ The older man had been on the verge of calling her several times, but had thought better of it. If he alienated the boy, he’d most likely up tail and off.

He closed his eyes again, thinking about the strange coincidences that had happened to him recently. First, though it had been in response to a letter, his son had turned up after years of more or less ignoring his mother and father; second, Roselle had appeared with Dilly out of the blue; third, Roddy had popped in and it was like having a son again. He was a lucky man, a very lucky man, especially having had a woman like Helen for a wife for almost fifty years.

The doorbell rang, breaking into his pleasant thoughts, and even before Roddy was halfway to answer it, it rang sharply again. He couldn’t hear who it was, his hearing wasn’t good nowadays, but he was not left long to wonder. In came an avalanche of bodies, tangled through each other and making for his chair. It took him only a split second to recognise the older woman, and he struggled valiantly to get to his feet.