Take No Farewell - Retail (59 page)

‘What are you doing here, Geoffrey?’ Angela glared at me with what, but for the telegram, I would have believed was a genuine mixture of fury and astonishment. She was wearing a long cream cashmere coat and a purple cloche decorated with bows. Her hair had been cut fashionably short and on the broad lapel of her coat there glistened the ruby-studded
monkey
brooch that numbered among the many gifts Turnbull had showered upon her.

‘Come in and close the door,’ I said quietly.

She frowned and, with a haughty little toss of the chin, did as I had asked her, leaning back against the door with one hand still clasping the knob.

‘They all think you’re surprised to see me, I suppose?’

‘What?’

‘We won’t be left alone for long, so tell me quickly: what have you found out?’

Her gaze intensified and acquired a tinge of incredulity. ‘Kindly explain yourself at once, Geoffrey. I understood from Clive that you were prepared to be reasonable. I do not regard this as reasonable.’

She was speaking loudly enough to be heard in the hall. Assuming this was some ploy to deceive Turnbull and Victor, I moved closer and lowered my voice. ‘If you’d prefer to talk elsewhere, we can meet at my hotel.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you – here or anywhere else,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t want to see you ever again.’ She brushed past me, moved towards the fire, then swung round and faced me. ‘If you don’t leave here immediately, I shall ask Royston to call the police and have you removed.’

‘But—’

‘I cannot imagine what you thought coming here would achieve.’

‘I came because you asked me to!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘There’s no need to go on denying it. Whatever you’ve found out, just tell me and I’ll make sure you come to no harm.’

Her face was white with rage now, her lower lip trembling. And my confidence was ebbing fast. ‘I’ll only say this once, Geoffrey. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’ve come in answer to your telegram. The one you sent from Beaulieu on Friday.’

‘I sent no telegram.’

‘“Have discovered disturbing information about Victor Caswell. Come at once. Angela.”’

‘You’re mad.’

‘Why should I lie about such a thing?’

‘Show me it, then.’

‘I don’t have it with me. I didn’t—’ I broke off and stared at her. She did not believe me. The truth – plain to see in her face the moment she had entered the room – could no longer be ignored. She had not asked me to come. She had not wanted me to come. To her, all that I had said must indeed have sounded like madness. ‘As God is my witness, Angela, I’m only here because I received a telegram, sent in your name, asking me to come at once.’

‘Rubbish! You’re here to cause trouble, using this preposterous story to justify it. Well, I won’t have it, do you hear? I won’t have it.’

‘Listen to me, for God’s sake! You don’t understand. It’s not—’

‘Staddon!’ barked Turnbull from the doorway. ‘Be silent!’ His chest was puffed out with indignation, his face dark with wrath. ‘You have a damned nerve, I must say.’ He smiled solicitously across at Angela. ‘Why don’t you join the others in the drawing-room, my dear? It would be best, I think, if I had a word with … our visitor … in private.’

With a nod of agreement and not so much as a glance in my direction, Angela swept from the room. Turnbull closed the door carefully behind her, then rounded on me.

‘Well, Staddon? What’s the meaning of this?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps you do.’ An idea had come into my mind. ‘Did you send the telegram?’

‘What telegram?’

‘Was it a way of ensuring Angela would go through with the divorce? Has she been having second thoughts? Is that it, Major? Did you reckon my character needed a little more blackening in her eyes?’

He stepped closer. ‘Have you gone quite mad, Staddon?’

‘No. But maybe you want Angela to think I have.’

‘If so, my wish has been granted, hasn’t it? This exhibition has blasted every last chance you had of winning her back.’

‘I don’t want her back. You’re welcome to her.’

Venom flared in his eyes. ‘To spare Angela’s feelings, I’ll let you walk out of here, provided you leave now, without further ado.’

‘What will you do if I don’t? Hire the same marksman you—’ Suddenly, the words died in my mouth. Turnbull’s eyebrows rose faintly in curiosity, his head moved slightly to one side, his gaze became instantly less aggressive and infinitely more menacing.

‘Don’t stop, Staddon. Finish what you were going to say. I hope – for your sake – it’s not what I think.’

Remember Consuela
, the rational half of my brain shouted.
She is all that matters. Not Malahide, not Turnbull, not Angela and, above all, not you
. ‘You’re right, Major. I should go now – before we all say things we might regret.’

He fell back a pace, his expression softened. ‘I’m glad you’ve seen reason.’

‘Regard my visit as an unfortunate misunderstanding. I’ll leave straightaway.’

‘Do that.’ He stepped across to the door, laid his hand on the knob, then, before turning it, stared at me and said: ‘In your own interests, Staddon, ensure we don’t meet again. Ever.’ With that, he flung the door open and I stepped past him into the hall.

As I did so, I became visible to the occupants of the drawing-room and they to me. Angela and Celia were standing near the window, Victor and Clive side by side in front of the fire. Only Miss Roebuck was seated, in an armchair in the centre of the room. For an instant I was tempted to enter and remind them of the many reasons why they were all, collectively and individually, despicable. Clive and Celia had conspired at the fiction of my cruelty to suit Angela’s purpose. She had allowed Turnbull to entice her away from me with nothing more than oily charm and lavish generosity. He, for his part, was almost certainly a liar, a thief and a
murderer.
But Imogen Roebuck was, if possible, even worse. And Victor was either her dupe or her accomplice and probably both.

I looked from one to the other of them. Angela’s and Celia’s eyes were averted, busily engaged with each other’s in a charade of sororal sympathy. Clive’s slack-jawed gape was as blandly disapproving as I might have expected, Victor’s quivering glare of hostility equally predictable. As for Miss Roebuck, she regarded me with heavy-lidded bemusement only just conquering indifference. She was smoking a cigarette – something I had not seen her do before – and was wearing an elegant dark blue silk dress. She had crossed her legs and was sitting well back in the chair, one elbow propped up to hold the cigarette. There was, in her pose and her expression, an absolute confidence she had never declared before, a confidence that she would achieve and perfect the transition from humble governess to wealthy wife, a confidence indeed that she had already done so.

As I watched, Gleasure emerged into view from a corner of the room, carrying a tray of drinks. He approached Miss Roebuck and handed her a glass, then moved towards Clive and Victor. Before reaching them, he glanced fleetingly in my direction and, with the faintest inclination of his head, seemed to ally himself with my thoughts.
They believe they are safe and secure, that they cannot be defeated. Be patient and you may yet surprise them
.

‘Enrico!’ called Turnbull from behind me. ‘Mr Staddon is leaving.’

I looked along the hall and saw Enrico bustling forward to open the front door. I had to leave now, I knew. I had to accept the humiliation they had inflicted upon me. They all thought me a fool and it was best, for the moment, to let them go on believing I was one. If Turnbull had sent the telegram in order to lure me into a trap, he had made a grave mistake, for, in doing so, he had handed me an opportunity I was not about to let slip.

In the drawing-room, Victor swallowed some of his
whisky.
Angela turned away from the window and added her disgusted stare to the dismissive expressions of the rest. Miss Roebuck seemed almost about to smile – but did not. I lowered my head, forcing myself to believe that soon they would regret their convenient alliance. For Consuela’s sake, I would have to endure their contempt in silence. What they might say once I had gone I could not afford to care about, far less resent. Enrico was holding the front door open. Outside, the shadows were lengthening. Another day was failing. Biting back every word I might have spoken – every rebuke, every accusation – I hurried out into the dying light.

‘
Arrivederci, Signor Staddon
,’ said Enrico as I passed. But I did not answer.

The telephonic resources of the Hotel des Anglais succeeded, after several false starts, in connecting me with the North Western Hotel in Liverpool early that evening. Over a crackling line, I told Imry what had happened.

‘You think Turnbull sent the telegram?’

‘Probably, but it doesn’t matter. Once Gleasure agrees to alter his testimony, I shall have what I came for. And he will. I’m sure of it.’

‘What will you do – bring him back with you?’

‘Yes. But first I’ll go to the British Consul in Monte Carlo and have Gleasure sign a sworn statement in his presence. Armed with that, the Consul should feel obliged to contact the Home Office in London at once. Now, when are the Pombalhos due?’

‘Two o’clock. I’ll meet them off the ship and bring them back here.’

‘Good. I’ll try to telephone you again before you set off for the docks.’

‘Very well. I’ll await your call. Meanwhile, don’t take any unnecessary risks, eh?’

‘Don’t worry, Imry. I have a feeling this is going to turn out well. All I have to do is what I find most difficult: wait – for just a little longer.’

The Baie des Fourmis was placid beneath a moonless sky as I paced the shoreline late that night. Out along the dark and barely visible finger of the cape were scattered pinpricks of light, one of which was the Villa d’Abricot. I wondered how my wife and her new-found friends were entertaining themselves. A dinner party, perhaps? A rubber of bridge? When the lights were turned out, would Angela go to bed alone? Would Imogen Roebuck? They were cocooned out there across the bay, swathed in fine silk and exquisite secrecy, while, hundreds of miles away, Consuela lay between stiff prison sheets and gazed up into the darkness she expected to see just three more times before the end.

I clenched my fists and repulsed another invasion of panic. The end would not come. I would yet obtain the means to stave it off. Gleasure had no choice but to do as I had demanded. He was preparing, even then, to bring the seductive futures of the Villa d’Abricot’s inhabitants crashing down around their heads. And I would make sure he did not falter.

I returned to the hotel shortly before midnight, weary enough to be certain of sleep, confident enough to bide my time until Gleasure arrived. I hardly noticed that the door of my room was unlocked. I assumed I had left it open earlier or that a chambermaid had called in my absence. Either way it seemed a matter of no significance. I dismissed it from my mind and went to bed.

‘
Ouvrez! Ouvrez la porte!
’

The hammering and the shouts were too much – too loud and sudden – for my drowsy reactions to assimilate. For a second, I thought I was at home in Suffolk Terrace. I could not comprehend what was happening. Then awareness swept over me. The events of the previous five months rose as one and propelled me into the reality of a hotel room in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, with pale dawn light seeping through the windows and noise bludgeoning me from beyond the door.

‘
Ouvrez la porte immediatement!
’

I propped myself up in bed and fumbled for my watch. It was not yet seven o’clock. I could make no sense of such an interruption at such an hour. I wanted to call out, but what little French I knew had deserted me. There was the sound of running feet in the corridor, a shout of ‘
J’ai la clé,’
then a jangling of keys. I stumbled from the bed and hauled on a dressing-gown, but before I could move towards the door, a key turned in the lock and it was flung open. A blaze of light from the corridor dazzled me. Tall men in uniform were beside and in front of me, gruff voices raised, fingers jabbing. A figure in plain clothes, shorter than the others and bald-headed, waved a document at me. The light above us was snapped on. The men’s faces became clear, their identity obvious.

‘Geoffrey Staddon?’ barked the bald-headed one in clipped and accented English.

‘What? Yes. But—’

‘Jospin. Nice Sûreté.’

‘I don’t understand. What … What do you want with me?’

‘I think you know,
monsieur
.’ He looked round at his companions. ‘
Fouillez la chambre!
’ Instantly, they began opening drawers and cupboards. Most were empty. My clothes were over a chair, my coat and hat in the wardrobe, my other belongings still in my bag.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I think you know that also,
monsieur
.’ One of the policemen had found the bag now and was sifting through its contents. He took out my passport and tossed it onto the bed. Jospin picked it up and opened it. I wanted to protest or call a halt, but could not order my thoughts fast enough. ‘You are an architect,
monsieur
,’ said Jospin, as if passing the time of day.

‘Yes. But what—’

‘
J’ai trouvé quelque chose!
’ cried the man searching the bag. ‘
Un petit paquet de papier, ici, au fond du sac
.’ He held something up and Jospin stooped to examine it.

‘What is this,
monsieur
?’ In Jospin’s palm rested a small twist of blue paper. I did not recognize it, yet it was instantly familiar to me from the evidence given at Consuela’s trial. Surely it could not contain, as the one found at Clouds Frome had …

‘I’ve never seen it before.’

Carefully, Jospin unwound the twist until the paper formed a bowl in his hand. At the centre was a pile of white powder. He looked up at me. ‘
Monsieur?
’

‘I just told you. I’ve never seen that packet – or its contents – before.’

‘But we found it in your bag.’

‘I didn’t put it there.’