‘And what about the family?’ asked Carole.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I would think it quite likely that Professor Teischbaum would ask to talk to you . . . to your Aunt Belinda, I imagine . . . and I don’t know whether there are other living descendants of Esmond Chadleigh . . .’
‘There are a few, yes.’
‘Well, what will you say when the request comes in?’
‘I’ll tell the bloody woman to get lost and . . .’ But his instinctive anger dried up. A little smile irradiated his baby features. ‘No, maybe there too I’ll follow Sheila’s route of conciliation.’
‘So fobbing Marla Teischbaum off with the stuff in this file was Sheila’s idea, was it?’
‘Oh yes.’ Graham spoke as if the question had not been worth asking. He was more excited by the new thought Carole had planted in his mind, and he spoke slowly as he worked it out. ‘Yes . . . I will agree to meet The Teischbaum Claimant . . . and I will be terribly nice to her . . . and I will endeavour to answer all of her questions . . . in my inimitably helpful and charming manner . . .’ He grinned with childish glee. ‘And I will tell her absolutely nothing at all.’
‘Well, good luck,’ said Carole. ‘I hope she plays ball.’
‘It is not a matter of her “playing ball”,’ snapped Graham Chadleigh-Bewes, suddenly angry. Perhaps, after all, there was something other than food that could rouse his passion. ‘It is a matter of the truth. And of the truth being told to the public. Esmond Chadleigh was a wonderful man, a good Catholic, and a writer of extraordinary genius! It is important that the public knows that about him.’
‘And that is what they will know when they read your biography?’
‘Yes. And what they won’t know if the muck-rakers are allowed to defile his memory!’
‘Your use of the word, Graham . . . suggests that there might be muck to rake . . .’
‘No! There is none!’ With an effort, he calmed himself down. There was a silence, filled only by the persistent rain outside. ‘God, it’s a comment on the modern world, isn’t it, that everyone is assumed to have a “dark side”. Literary biography these days doesn’t look at a man’s writings; it starts its researches in the divorce courts and the VD clinics. Unless there’s some sleazy scandal, nobody’s interested. Why can’t people still believe in the concept of goodness? Esmond had no “dark side”. He was a genuinely Good Man. And that’s how he’ll be remembered . . . in spite of the worst excesses of The Teischbaum Claimant.’
His tirade seemed both to have satisfied and exhausted him. The eyes in his chubby face gleamed as they moved towards the tray.
‘Now, are you going to have another slice of cake . . .’ he asked as his hand moved forward to the knife, ‘or is it just me?’
Chapter Eleven
They heard the rattle of the front door opening, a loud female voice saying, ‘It’s all right, Belinda, I’ll see myself in’, and Sheila Cartwright’s height suddenly filled the room. She too was wearing one of the long Bracketts Volunteer waterproofs, and she shook the rain off as she lowered its hood.
Graham Chadleigh-Bewes was instantly on his feet. Though he’d shown no such deference to Carole, there were clearly some guests for whom he had respect – or possible fear.
‘I’m glad you’re still here, Carole,’ said Sheila without preamble of greeting. ‘I wanted to make sure you’d got the message right about what I want you to do, and I know Graham’s hopeless at that kind of thing.’
The grandson shrugged ineffectually. ‘Sheila, would you care for a bit of cake or—?’
‘No, thank you. Unlike you, I don’t spend my entire day stuffing my face. Carole, has he made it clear to you what you have to do?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ She indicated the file on her lap. ‘I have my olive branch at the ready.’
‘Mm. My first thought was that I should do it, but it makes sense to use someone more ignorant.’ Unaware that she’d said anything mildly offensive, Sheila Cartwright swept on. ‘The important thing is that you are very pleasant to this dreadful woman.’ She infused the words with the same level of contempt that Graham had. ‘You say the Trustees are happy to co-operate with her in her researches, but you also make it clear that those documents are the beginning and end of that co-operation.’
‘I somehow doubt if she’s going to take that very well.’
‘I don’t care how she takes it! That is all she’s getting. Which is why it’s a good idea for you to act as my ambassador.’ (Interesting choice of possessive pronoun, thought Carole. Not even the pretence that she was being sent as the representative of the Trustees. It said a lot about how Sheila Cartwright viewed her own relationship with Bracketts.) ‘Because I know so much about Esmond Chadleigh, the Teischbaum woman might try to winkle more out of me.’
‘It’d be the same if I talked to her,’ asserted Graham Chadleigh-Bewes, who thought he’d been out of the conversation too long.
Sheila Cartwright turned a withering look on him. ‘There was never any question of you meeting Professor Teischbaum. You’d have messed it up, like you mess up everything.’
Carole saw a momentary blaze of anger in his eye, but it was quickly extinguished. Graham Chadleigh-Bewes was used to being diminished by Sheila Cartwright; what angered him was the knowledge that her assessment of him was accurate.
She hadn’t finished, either. ‘If you’d done what you’d promised, and delivered your biography of Esmond last year, we wouldn’t have any of these problems.’
He looked sulky. ‘I thought we’d agreed that it’d be better for the book to come out for the centenary of his birth in 2004.’
‘We only agreed that when we saw there wasn’t a chance in hell of it coming out any earlier.’
Wounded, Graham shrank back into his chair. ‘It’s a massive undertaking. You wouldn’t understand, Sheila, because you’ve never been a writer. New material keeps being discovered.’
But his whingeing defence prompted no more response than a dismissive ‘Huh’. Sheila turned her attention to Carole. ‘When are you going to meet the woman?’
‘Actually,’ Graham interrupted, ‘I’ve got a rather good name for her . . .’
‘What?’ asked Sheila testily. ‘Good name for who?’
‘La Teischbaum. I call her “The Teischbaum Claimant”.’
His esoteric pun didn’t even get an acknowledgement. ‘So when are you going to see her, Carole?’
‘We haven’t fixed a time. She was going to ring me back today.’
‘Make it as soon as possible. We need that woman safely back in America. We’ve got quite enough on our plates here without distractions of that kind.’
‘Are you referring to the body in the kitchen garden?’
Carole was favoured by the kind of look she might have given her dog Gulliver if he’d made a mess on the carpet. ‘That is one of the issues concerning us here at Bracketts,’ said Sheila Cartwright loftily. ‘And, incidentally, whatever you do, don’t mention anything about that to Professor Teischbaum.’
‘Of course I won’t.’ Carole was getting sick of being treated like an unreliable schoolgirl. ‘So it hasn’t become public yet?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The police haven’t made an announcement to the press yet?’
‘No. Mercifully, the whole business is still under wraps.’
‘It can’t stay that way for ever.’
‘I am well aware of that, thank you.’
Carole was enjoying being more combative, and she could see that Sheila Cartwright disliked the taste of her own medicine. ‘Have the police arrested the Austen prisoner who made the confession?’