Play to the End (35 page)

"Some would say he simply saw the error of his ways."

"Only people with soft hearts and simple minds. We've got a National Health Service to look after the sick and dying. None of the so-called victims had any claim on my birthright."

"Even though one of them was your real father?"

"What had Kenneth Oswin ever done for me? I owed him nothing. The debt was all the other way." Roger sniggered. "Though I suppose you could say he paid it off in the end."

"What do you mean?" I asked, even as his meaning began to dawn on me.

"I couldn't let Father squander the capital the sale of Colbonite had left him with. I'd been loyal to him. I'd done his dirty work. And I wasn't about to be cheated out of my reward. I couldn't make him see reason. He was determined to go ahead. So, I had to stop him."

"You're saying '

"Oswin killed him at my bidding, Toby. Yes. You've got it."

"But.. . why would he .. ."

"I promised to look after Derek. Financially, I mean. Oswin was dying. And he was worried his son wouldn't be able to cope without him. As we've seen, I think he underestimated the resourcefulness of my half-brother, as you kindly defined him. So, the deal was that I'd featherbed Derek for the rest of his life .. . provided Oswin made sure I had the means to do so."

"You .. . played one father off ... against the other."

"That's one way to put it. And I'll tell you what, Toby. They both deserved it."

"You welched on the deal, didn't you?"

"No. Valerie Oswin did that. I'd made an initial payment to her husband, without which he'd never have gone ahead, and another afterwards. But the cheques were never cashed. After he died, she sent them back to me. Exactly how much she knew, I have no idea."

"And Derek, what does he know?"

"Nothing, I suspect. His father had every incentive to keep our agreement to himself. And that's where it could and should have stayed. Our secret. Mine and a dead man's. But now, of course, I've been forced to share it with you."

"I haven't forced you." That was surely true. Indeed, I couldn't understand why he'd revealed so much to me, glad though I was that he had for more reasons than he needed to know. My puzzlement on the point made little impact on me at that moment, however, amidst my astonishment at discovering how coolly and almost casually, by his own admission, he'd arranged his father's murder.

"Blame circumstances, then. Perhaps it's fairer to," he went on.

"They've conspired against both of us, I'm afraid. Have you noticed, by the way, that we're not on the right road for Tunbridge Wells?"

"What?"

He braked heavily and flicked on the indicator. "We should have taken a left at the last roundabout but one." The car slowed sharply to a crawl. Roger steered it up over the grass verge and we came to a juddering halt by an overgrown five-bar gate. "This is the Eastbourne road."

I was still trying to absorb all the implications of what he'd confessed to and, come to that, why he'd confessed. The sudden switch of subjects to the banalities of route-finding barely registered. As far as that went, I took him at his word, realizing I'd been unaware myself of our surroundings for several miles. I assumed he was about to turn round and head back, although there hardly seemed room for the manoeuvre. But he didn't attempt to. Instead, he jumped out of the car, strode round to my side and pulled the door open.

As he did so, I saw the gun in his hand, held low, where no passing driver would glimpse it, displayed for my benefit alone. "Move over, Toby."

"What the hell's going on?"

"Move over to the driver's seat."

"Why?"

"Just do it. Or, believe me, I will shoot."

I looked into his eyes and read there only deadly seriousness. The fear of imminent death jagged into me. "All right," I said. "All right." I released the seat belt, then cautiously levered myself over the gearshift and hand brake and settled behind the steering wheel.

"Belt up," said Roger. I obeyed. Then he slipped into the seat I'd just vacated and slammed the door, shutting out the rush of traffic. He pushed himself well back and away from me, the gun still held in his hand, still pointing straight at me.

"I thought we had an agreement," I said, my voice unsteady.

"We do. I just didn't mention all the caveats. But then, neither did you. Like taping our conversation."

"I don't know what you mean." I did, of course, and can't have sounded genuinely uncomprehending. But I had to mount some kind of pretence.

"You ran the tape to the end of the seance when I went in to see Delia, then started recording when I came back out. I saw you reach into your pocket to press the button as I came down the drive. I probably wouldn't have noticed, but I was looking out for it, you see. I was expecting it."

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"No need. What can be recorded can just as easily be erased."

"You want the tape?"

"Not yet. And there's no need to switch the machine off. Let's just carry on as we are. Start driving."

"Where to?"

"Straight ahead."

"To Eastbourne?"

"Just drive. I'll handle the navigation."

I put the car into gear, edged out into the traffic and took her up to fifty.

"Give her a bit more. She likes to cruise."

I accelerated. We flashed past a sign: Eastbourne 10, Hastings 22. The road ahead was a ribbon of drizzle-glossed black between dun-green fields. Low grey cloud had camped on the downs to our right. The chilling thought struck me that

I might never see the sun again. This could be it: a dull winter's day my last on Earth.

"Nothing to say, Toby? Perhaps you should stop recording after all."

"Why don't you do the talking?" I cast him a quick glance. "You've done most of it so far."

"Why do you think I've told you the truth?"

"I don't know."

"Think about it."

"I don't know."

"I'm serious. Think, Toby. What possible purpose could it have served? Take your time. Mull it over. We've a few miles to go yet."

"I could never prove you conspired with Kenneth Oswin to murder your father."

"Without the tape, you mean? No. I don't suppose you could. But you could tell Jenny what I've told you. If you could convince her it was true, she and I would be finished."

"She wouldn't believe me."

"Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't. Who can say? If someone else corroborated the story, of course, she'd have to believe it. She'd have no choice."

"No-one else knows. You said so yourself."

"Did I? I must have forgotten Delia."

"Delia?"

"She prevaricated when you challenged her about her hospital visit to Oswin. I noticed the way she avoided my eye when she said she had a few "doubts" about Oswin's truthfulness. I could see it was more than that. She knew he'd lied when he denied I'd spoken to him about my parentage. And she knew why he'd lied."

It was suddenly as clear to me as it was to Roger. "Why should he lie?" I'd asked her. "Ah," she'd replied. "Clearly there are limits to your perceptiveness." Yes. There were limits to my perceptiveness.

But not, apparently, to hers.

When did she rumble me, I wonder?" said Roger, musingly. "There and then in the hospital with Oswin? Or later? Well, it doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter at all. Because I've devised a solution to all my problems. And you're it, Toby."

"What?"

"I'll explain when we reach our destination. Speaking of which, I need to set up our rendezvous there with Jenny." He plucked a mobile phone out of his pocket with his free hand.

"Don't drag her into whatever you're planning, Roger." I glanced pleadingly at him. "For God's sake."

"Don't worry. At least' he gave me a lopsided grin 'don't worry about Jenny. She's going to be fine. I'll make sure of that. Now, keep your mouth shut." He extended his arm until the barrel of the gun was jabbing into my ribs, then punched in some numbers on the phone and held it to his ear. A few seconds later, he got an answer. "Good morning. I need to speak to one of your guests urgently. Her name's Jennifer Flood. My name's Roger Colborn. Yes, I'll hold." A few more seconds passed. "Thanks." Then a few more. When he next spoke, it was in a tone I hardly recognized as his. "Hello, my sweet .. . Look, I'm sorry, but I persuaded Delia to tell me where you were staying ...

I know, but .. . Well, this is an emergency, I'm afraid. It's Toby.

He's become completely unreasonable .. . None of my doing, I promise ..

. I'm on my way to meet him now ... I had to agree for Delia's sake ..

. Well, naturally that's a worry, especially after what happened yesterday .. . He came to the house .. . Not pleasant, no ... Look, I can't see this ending well unless you're there to talk him round .. .

You will come, won't you? .. . It's for the best. We need to put a stop to this .. . Beachy Head." So. Our destination was the place where Ann Colborn had gone to kill herself twenty years ago. My heart was racing now, sweat beading on my upper lip. Most of what Roger was telling Jenny he seemed to be making up as he went. But his prediction was spot-on. I couldn't see this ending well either. "I don't know,"

he continued. "It makes no sense. But then he isn't making sense .. .

Yes .. . The lay-by closest to the lighthouse .. . Right .. . You'll see the car ... OK ... Yes, I will be ... See you soon ... Love you ...

"Bye." He rang off and dropped the phone back into his pocket.

A minute or so of silence followed. Then I asked a question I wasn't sure I wanted answering. "Why are we going to Beachy Head?"

"I'll explain when we get there."

"But we're not just going to talk to Jenny, are we? We could have done that in Tunbridge Wells."

"No, Toby. We're not just going to talk."

"You said that if I could convince her you'd paid Kenneth Oswin to murder your father, she and you would be finished. You must realize the same certainly applies if you kill me."

"That's true. So, maybe I won't kill you. Maybe. You'll find out soon enough. Until then, I'm not sure we have anything more to say to each other. Just drive. I'll give you directions when you need them."

"But '

"Shut up," he shouted so loudly that I flinched. "Question time's over."

Aside from telling me which turnings to take and when, Roger Colborn didn't say another word as we skirted Eastbourne and headed south across the empty, rolling downs towards the end of the land and the end of our journey.

My fear didn't diminish as we went on. If anything, it increased. But I began, slowly and slightly, to control it, to calm my mind just enough to think about what he might be planning.

Little good it did me. If he meant to kill me, he surely wouldn't have told Jenny where we were going. But, if he meant to let me live, how could he guarantee I wouldn't, sooner or later, tell her what he'd confessed to me and play her the tape to prove it? How, come to that, could he be sure Jenny wouldn't phone Delia and be given a version of events wildly inconsistent with the one he'd just presented?

It made no sense. And yet it had to. Colborn was calm and confident.

He knew exactly what he was doing. He'd thought of everything. He had a plan. And I was central to it.

The next words I spoke were, "Is this where your mother came?" We were in a lay-by on a sharp curve in the road along Beachy Head. Beyond a low bank, the ground sloped up ahead of us for less than a hundred yards to the cliff top. It was cold and grey and drizzly, cloud drifting like gunsmoke across the hum mocked turf and wind-sculpted patches of gorse, the disused lighthouse on the bluff to the east blurred by the misting fret. There wasn't another car another human in sight.

"Yes," said Colborn, in laggardly answer to my question. "Witnesses reported that she sat here in the Jag, engine running, for several minutes, then drove straight up the slope -and over."

"If you're planning some kind of double suicide .. ."

"No. Turn the engine off if it'll reassure you."

It did, though not a lot. Silence wrapped itself around us, broken by the mournful wail of the foghorn on the new lighthouse out of our sight at the foot of the cliff.

"There was no bank round the lay-by when Mother killed herself,"

Colborn resumed. "But then it's only really intended to prevent accidents. You could get over easily enough with a few runs at it.

Then it's a straight drive to a sheer drop of more than five hundred feet. Death guaranteed. It's a popular spot for suicide. Twenty or so every year. And the number's climbing. It draws them. The closeness to the road. The certainty. The symbolism. End of land.

End of life."

"Why are we here?"

"For you to make a choice, Toby. For you to decide what happens to us you, me and Jenny."

"What choice do I really have? You're holding the gun."

"It'll be another half an hour at least before Jenny arrives. We have some time. Just enough, in fact." He stretched forward, opened the glove compartment, took out a pair of thin leather driving gloves and tossed them into my lap. "Put those on."

"Why?"

"Do it. Then I'll explain."

"All right." I pulled them on. "Now, why?"

"Because there has to be some way to account for your fingerprints not being on the gun. if it's ever recovered."

"What are you talking about?"

"It may have struck you that if Jenny phones Delia as she well might she'll realize I've lied to her."

"It's struck me."

"Not actually a problem, however, because if Jenny does phone Delia, she won't be able to speak to her."