This went through Melrose’s mind in the moment it took him to say, “Come in.”
40
Daniel Bletchley was happy to come in and stood in the foyer, shaking hands. His eyes, though, Melrose noticed, seemed to be following the sweep of the graceful staircase that he had once climbed so often to the upstairs rooms with which he was so familiar.
“You’re the musician,” said Melrose.
Dan turned his eyes from the staircase and laughed. “I don’t know if I’m the musician, but, yes, I’m one of them.” His expression and his tone grew more sober. “When I heard about what happened, I thought Dad could use some help. Tom.” Dan shook his head. “He was with Dad for a long time. A long time.” He brought this out on an expiration of breath, as if Time had been profligate with Tom Letts’s life, as if Tom should have been able to count on it for more. Then he added, “I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“You’re not bothering me in the least. My aunt is coming for tea at five, and you’ll want to be gone before that event horizon. But as for now, join me in the library. I’ve got a fire and whisky going.”
“Sounds great.” As Melrose led the way, a way with which Dan Bletchley was thoroughly-and sadly-familiar, Dan said, “ ‘Event horizon’? Sounds ominous.”
“It is. It’s my aunt, who, knowing I wanted to get away from Long Piddleton-my village in Northants, that is-and all things Piddletonian, just for a change, a damned change, followed me and has taken up residence at that B-and-B in the village.”
Daniel laughed. “Not to worry; she won’t last. No one can stand that place for more than a night or two.”
“Wrong. Wrong on that score. She’s been there for over a week.”
Melrose might not have recognized Daniel Bletchley with only the snapshots to go by. Sitting now in the wing chair beside them, and with a drink in his hand, he still might have escaped recognition. He was a man who was very alive, an aliveness not captured by a camera’s lens; He was apparently one of those people subdued by them; cameras didn’t “catch” him. Certainly, he was one who wasn’t tempted by them, for he was always looking away, or down, or in shadow. Melrose might have wondered if the two men were the same person.
They were. From the way Daniel picked up the photograph of the children and looked at it, carefully set it back, and looked in his whisky glass, there could be no mistaking who he was.
“Dad said you were a lot of help. He said you were at the Hall last night. With that detective.”
“Commander Macalvie.”
“Yes. I know him from… does he have any idea what’s going on?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Dad sometimes gives the impression of being-uh, demanding and impervious to people’s feelings.”
“I’ve seen no sign of that, none.”
Dan smiled, if a little uncertainly. “He’s very tough in business. Sometimes he appears to be steamrolling right over people… I’m trying to explain it to myself. Police seem to think whoever it was was trying to kill him and not Tom. I know Dad can be headstrong, arbitrary, intractable, but-” He shrugged.
“If those qualities earn you a bullet in the back, I have a relation who’d be riddled.”
Dan laughed. “Yes. You’re probably right.”
Melrose thought for a moment. “Could it be some old grudge? Some old damage your father caused?”
Dan was thoughtful, head down, the whisky glass, empty, swinging from the tips of his fingers. Melrose got up and took the glass from his hands. Dan thanked him absently. He put his elbows on his knees, made a bridge of his now empty fingers, and rested his mouth against them. He stared at the fire.
Except for the occasional spark and split of wood and the click of glass against bottle, the room was perfectly still. Beyond the window, the quiet day. He could easily check Karen Bletchley’s account of what happened with that of her husband.
“Daniel,” Melrose said without thinking; he was not usually free with first names on short acquaintance. “If you don’t mind my calling you that?”
Of course he didn’t mind. The long fingers, the pianist’s fingers, waved this away and took the whisky. “Go on.”
“I met your wife. I met Karen.” He felt uncomfortable, as if he were telling a secret. Or would have done, had it not been for what he suspected was an artful story of hers.
Daniel was surprised. “Really? Where did you meet?”
She hadn’t mentioned it. Why? “She came here, actually. It was only a few days ago.”
Daniel set his drink on the table and again leaned forward, mouth against entwined fingers. Full attention.
“She wanted-she said-to see the house again. I imagine tragedy-well, pulls one back. Look, I’m terribly, terribly sorry about your children, what happened to them. It was-” He searched for words. “I have none of my own.” Suddenly, Melrose felt the lack and was ashamed of it, as if he’d been considered for parenthood and been found wanting. Ridiculous, but there it was.
Dan said nothing, but his eyes, scarcely visible over his fingertips, were wet. It would take very little, thought Melrose, to bring this man’s feelings to the surface. “She told me-” He tried to sort out what Karen had told Macalvie four years ago and had since told him. Then he went on to report what Mrs. Hayter had told him and, before that, Macalvie. And the rest of it. “The thing is this: Commander Macalvie has never let this case, what happened to your children, go. He’s never closed it. Now he wonders if the strange things that have been happening are related to what happened back then. That’s the reason I bring it up.” He felt fuddled. “I’m probably overstepping my bounds; Macalvie will talk to you about all of this. I certainly don’t want to bring up something that you must find painful.”
“No. I don’t mind. I don’t want not to talk about it. It makes me ill not to be able to talk about it. So, please, go on.”
“Well.” Now Melrose sat forward too, hands circling his glass. “Your wife went over that terrible night. She told me that earlier the children had come upon some people in the woods, more than once, a man and a woman. At first your wife thought nothing of it when they talked about it, but after a while she got to thinking it was peculiar. She didn’t know who the man was or who the woman was. That is, she didn’t actually see them. But… what do you make of all this?”
“I didn’t know what to make of it. Mr. Macalvie asked the same questions.”
“Did you think she was-they were real?”
“You mean did the kids make them up?”
“Not exactly. I wondered if-” What in hell was he doing? He knew nothing about Bletchley’s present relationship with his wife. Why should he be putting himself in a policeman’s place, in Macalvie’s place, raising issues like this? “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. Through no fault of your own you’ve got involved with my family. I’ve no idea what Karen told you. Since Noah and Esmé died, we haven’t talked much.” He turned his face toward the high window that faced the cliff and the bay. “I’m not sure we did before.” He rested his head against the tall back of the chair and closed his eyes in the manner of a man who is tired to death. Life, however, would never let Daniel Bletchley go, merely at his bidding. “Sometimes I catch my own thoughts and wonder, How can I think of anything at all except what happened to those little children? Have you ever had something happen in your life, some event that washes over everything else and flattens it?”