The Luminaries (72 page)

‘I see,’ said Gascoigne, wondering why Lauderback had not explained this so sensibly to Thomas Balfour two months ago.

‘Look,’ said Lauderback, ‘I’m playing straight with you, Mr. Gascoigne, and I’m telling you that the law is on my side. Carver’s break with his father is commonly known. He had a thousand provocations to assume an alias. Why, I could call in the father’s
testimony
, if need be. How would Carver like
that
?’

‘Not very well, I should imagine.’

‘No,’ cried Lauderback. ‘Not very well at all!’

Gascoigne was annoyed by this. ‘Well, I wish you luck, Mr. Lauderback, in bringing Mr. Carver to justice,’ he said.

‘Spare the bromide,’ Lauderback snapped. ‘Talk to me plain.’

‘As you wish,’ Gascoigne said, shrugging. ‘You know without my telling you that proof of provocation is not evidence. A man cannot be convicted simply because it can be proved that he had good reason to commit the crime in question.’

Lauderback bristled. ‘Do you doubt my word?’

‘No indeed,’ said Gascoigne.

‘You just think my case is weak. You think I don’t have a leg to stand on.’

‘Yes. I think it would be very unwise to take this matter to court,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I am sorry to speak so bluntly. You have my
compassion
for your troubles, of course.’

But Gascoigne felt no compassion whatsoever for Alistair
Lauderback. He tended to reserve that emotion for persons less privileged than himself, and although he could acknowledge that Lauderback’s current situation was pitiable, he considered the politician’s wealth and eminence to be ample consolation for
whatever
inconveniences the man might be encountering in the short term. In fact, enduring a spot of injustice might do Lauderback a bit of good! It might improve him as a politician, thought Gascoigne—who was, in his private adjudications at least,
something
of an autocrat.

‘I’ll wait for the Magistrate,’ said Lauderback. ‘He’ll see sense.’

Gascoigne tucked the envelope into his jacket, next to his
cigarettes
. ‘I understand that Carver is now attempting to draw down funds from your protection and indemnity scheme, in order to finance the debts that he incurred in disposing of the shipwreck.’

‘That is correct.’

‘And you wish to refuse him access to this money.’

‘Also correct.’

‘On what grounds?’

Lauderback turned very red. ‘On what grounds?’ he cried. ‘The man has stiffed me, Mr. Gascoigne! He was planning this from the outset! You’re a fool if you think I’ll take it lying down! Is that what you’re telling me? To take it lying down?’

‘Mr. Lauderback,’ Gascoigne said, ‘I do not presume to give you any kind of advice at all. What I am observing is that no laws appear to have been broken. In his letter to Mr. Garrity, Mr. Carver made it very plain that he is acting on Mr. Wells’s behalf—for Mr. Wells, as you know, is dead. To all appearances Carver is merely doing the charitable thing, in settling matters as the shipowner’s proxy, because the shipowner is not able to do the job himself. I do not see that you have any evidence to disprove this.’

‘But it’s not
true
!’ Lauderback exploded. ‘Crosbie Wells never bought that ship! Francis Carver signed that bloody contract in another man’s name! It’s a case of forgery, pure and simple!’

‘I’m afraid that will be very difficult to prove,’ said Gascoigne.

‘Why?’ said Lauderback.

‘Because, as I have already told you, there is no proof of Crosbie
Wells’s true signature,’ said Gascoigne. ‘There were no papers of any kind in his cottage, and his birth certificate and his miner’s right are nowhere to be found.’

Lauderback opened his mouth to make a retort, and again seemed to change his mind.

‘Oh,’ said Gascoigne, suddenly. ‘I’ve just thought of something.’

‘What?’ said Lauderback.

‘His marriage certificate,’ said Gascoigne. ‘That would bear his signature, would it not?’

‘Ah,’ said Lauderback. ‘Yes.’

‘But no,’ said Gascoigne, changing his mind, ‘it wouldn’t be enough: to prove a forgery of a dead man’s hand, you would need more than one example of his signature.’

‘How many would you need?’ said Lauderback.

Gascoigne shrugged. ‘I am not familiar with the law,’ he said, ‘but I would imagine that you would need several examples of his true signature in order to prove the abberations in the false one.’

‘Several examples,’ Lauderback echoed.

‘Well,’ said Gascoigne, rising, ‘I hope for your sake that you find something, Mr. Lauderback; but in the meantime, I’m afraid that I am legally obliged to carry out Mr. Garrity’s instruction, and take these papers to the bank.’

Upon quitting the Wayfarer’s Fortune the chaplain had not escorted Anna Wetherell directly to the Courthouse. He took her instead into the Garrick’s Head Hotel, where he ordered one
portion
of fish pie—the perennial lunchtime special—and one glass of lemon cordial. He directed Anna to be seated, placed the plate of food in front of her, and bid her to eat, which she did obediently, and in silence. Once her plate was clean, he pushed the sugared drink across the table towards her, and said,

‘Where is Mr. Staines?’

Anna did not seem surprised by the question. She picked up the glass, sipped at it, winced at the sweetness, and then sat for a moment, watching him.

‘Inland,’ she said at last. ‘Somewhere inland. I don’t know exactly where.’

‘North or south of here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is he being held against his will?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You
do
know,’ said Devlin.

‘I don’t,’ Anna said. ‘I haven’t seen him since January, and I’ve no idea why he vanished like he did. I only know that he’s still alive, and he’s somewhere inland.’

‘Because you’ve been getting messages. Inside your head.’

‘Messages wasn’t the right way to describe it,’ Anna said. ‘That wasn’t right. It’s more like … a feeling. Like when you’re trying to remember a dream that you had, and you can remember the shape of it, the sense of it, but no details, nothing sure. And the more you try and remember, the more hazy it becomes.’

Devlin was frowning. ‘So you have a “feeling”.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said.

‘You have a feeling that Mr. Staines is somewhere inland, and that he is alive.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘I can’t give you any details. I know it’s
somewhere
muddy. Or leafy. Somewhere near water, only it isn’t the beach. The water’s quick-moving. Over stones … You see: as soon as I try and put it into words, it trips away from me.’

‘This all sounds very vague, my dear.’

‘It’s not vague,’ Anna said. ‘I’m certain of it. Just as when you’re certain you did have a dream … you
knew
you dreamed … but you can’t remember any of the details.’

‘How long have you been having these “feelings”? These dreams?’

‘Only since I stopped whoring,’ Anna said. ‘Since my blackout.’

‘Since Staines disappeared, in other words.’

‘The fourteenth of January,’ said Anna. ‘That was the date.’

‘Is it always the same—the water, the mud? The same dream?’

‘No.’

She did not elaborate, and to prompt her Devlin said, ‘Well, what else?’

‘Oh,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘Just sensations, really. Snatches. Impressions.’

‘Impressions of what?’

She looked away from him. ‘Impressions of me,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

She turned her hand over. ‘What he thinks of me. Mr. Staines, I mean. What he dreams about, when he imagines me.’

‘You see yourself—but through his eyes.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Exactly.’

‘Ought I to infer that Mr. Staines holds you in high esteem?’

‘He loves me,’ she said, and then after a moment, she said it again. ‘He loves me.’

Devlin studied her critically. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Has he made an avowal of his love?’

‘No,’ Anna said. ‘He doesn’t need to. I know it, just the same.’

‘Do you get these feelings frequently?’

‘Very frequently,’ she said. ‘He thinks of me all the time.’

Devlin nodded. The situation was at last becoming clear to him, and with this dawning clarity his heart was sinking in his chest. ‘Are you in love with Mr. Staines, Miss Wetherell?’

‘We spoke of it,’ she said. ‘The night he vanished. We were
talking
nonsense, and I said something silly about unrequited love, and he became very serious, and he stopped me, and he said that
unrequited
love was not possible; that it was not love. He said that love must be freely given, and freely taken, such that the lovers, in
joining
, make the equal halves of something whole.’

‘A passionate sentiment,’ Devlin said.

This seemed to please her. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘But he did not declare his love for you, after all that.’

‘He didn’t make any vows. I said that.’

‘And nor did you.’

‘I never got another chance,’ she said. ‘That was the night he disappeared.’

Cowell Devin sighed. Yes, he understood Anna Wetherell at long last, but it was not a happy understanding. Devlin had known many women of poor prospects and limited means, whose only transport
out of the miserable cage of their unhappy circumstance was the flight of the fantastic. Such fantasies were invariably magical—angelic patronage, invitations into paradise—and Anna’s story, touching though it was, showed the same strain of the impossible. Why, it was painfully clear! The most eligible bachelor of Anna’s acquaintance possessed a love so deep and pure that all respective differences between them were rendered immaterial? He was not dead—he was only missing? He was sending her ‘messages’ that proved the depth of his love—and these were messages that only
she
could hear? It was a fantasy, Devlin thought. It was a fantasy of the girl’s own devising. The boy could only be dead.

‘You want Mr. Staines to love you very much, don’t you, Miss Wetherell?’

Anna seemed offended by his implication. ‘He does love me.’

‘That wasn’t my question.’

She squinted at him. ‘Everyone wants to be loved.’

‘That’s very true,’ Devlin said, sadly. ‘We all want to be loved—and need to be loved, I think. Without love, we cannot be ourselves.’

‘You’re of a mind with Mr. Staines.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘That is precisely the sort of thing that he would say.’

‘Your Mr. Staines is quite the philosopher, Miss Wetherell.’

‘Why, Reverend,’ Anna said, smiling suddenly, ‘I believe you’ve just paid yourself a compliment.’

They did not speak for a moment. Anna sipped again at her
sugared
drink, and Devlin, brooding, looked out across the hotel dining room. After a moment Anna’s hand went to her bosom, where the forged deed of gift still lay against her skin.

Devlin looked sharply at her. ‘You have ample time to
reconsider
,’ he said.

‘I only want a legal opinion.’

‘You have my clerical opinion.’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘“Blessed are the meek”.’

She seemed to regret this impudence immediately; a violent blush spread across her face and neck, and she turned away.
Suddenly Devlin wanted nothing more to do with her. He pushed his chair back from the table, and placed his hands on his knees.

‘I will accompany you to the Courthouse door and no further,’ he said. ‘What you do with the document in your possession is no longer my business. Know that I will not lie to protect you. I will certainly not lie in a court of law. If anyone asks, I shall not
hesitate
to tell them the truth, which is that you forged that signature with your own hand.’

‘All right,’ said Anna, rising. ‘Thank you very much for the pie. And the cordial. And thank you for all that you said to Mrs. Wells.’

Devlin rose also. ‘You oughtn’t to thank me for that,’ he said. ‘I let my temper get the better of me there, I’m afraid. I wasn’t at my best.’

‘You were marvellous,’ Anna said, and she stepped forward, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him very nicely on the cheek.