Mrs. Withersby, doughty advocate of positioning herself wherever drink and smokes were being consumed, fit herself in. There was, after all, a new person sitting at that table who might be good for a glass or two.
As she approached, Agatha was saying, “What Vivian could do, once she sells up, is buy one or two of the almshouses where those Withersby people live.”
“Someone callin’ fer me?”
Yes, thought Diane. God is. She closed her eyes briefly and gave thanks to Saint Coincidence. She hadn’t set foot in a church in decades. The closest she’d got was that wine-tasting in the vestry of St. Rules. Now she wondered if judgment about the faith had been too hasty. “Mrs. Withersby!” She’d never said more than two words to the woman in her life. Now she was offering her cigarette case. “I’d like you to meet Count Franco Giopinno.”
Having helped herself to four of Diane’s cigarettes, she looked the count up and down. “Don’t know as you’d fancy me as a neighbor.”
Giopinno, his color having gone from white to whiter, rose and, bowing to the three women said, “If you will be so kind as to excuse me, I have an urgent call to make-my mother.” He mumbled something about his mother’s illness as he put on his coat; then he slipped away like smoke.
Diane excused herself and went to sit with Plant and Trueblood.
“Where’s he going? Is he gone?”
“I’d certainly imagine so. He went to call his mother, for God’s sake, mumbling something about her being ill. That, I suspect, is prelude to his having to leave suddenly.” She sighed and said, “Well, that’s sorted, then.”
She felt something akin to sadness, such as children feel when their favorite game is over and they have to go in to tea.
67
Brian Macalvie rose when Morris Bletchley-without his wheelchair-came into the blue room, which Macalvie had been sharing with an old lady dressed in dark blue, as if she meant her dress to match the silk upholstery of the chair she sat in. She had spoken to him only once, and that to ask him to turn her chair so that it faced the window. He had done so, and since then she had sat and stared out. Occasionally, her lips moved and she smiled.
“Commander Macalvie,” said Bletchley. They shook hands.
Macalvie said, “I wanted you to know what’s happened. We’ve got the person who shot Sara Colthorp and Tom Letts and Chris Wells in custody.”
“Constable Evans told me. I’m not much given to surprises, Mr. Macalvie, but that damned well did it. Brenda Friel.” He shook his head and motioned to a Queen Anne wing chair covered in heavy blue velvet. “Sit down, please.”
Seated across from Bletchley, Macalvie told him, not all but enough, about the three shootings.
Moe Bletchley said, “But the Friel woman apparently has no qualms about killing. Why not just kill Chris to begin with? Why go to the trouble of making it look as if she’d run off?”
“For one thing, when Chris Wells came back here, Brenda thought we’d finally take her in for the murder of Sada Colthorp. And for another-she didn’t want to have to. Chris Wells was her best friend. I know it sounds implausible that the woman could still think in those terms, but that’s how I see it.
“Still, Brenda couldn’t be sure Chris was a real danger to her. Chris knew Ramona died of an AIDS-RELATED problem. But Chris didn’t know who the father was because Brenda herself didn’t know until Tom Letts mentioned Putney. Brenda knew Ramona had been working in London but didn’t know she’d been working for you. Brenda thought Chris would work it out if Tom Letts were murdered.
“But what I think is that Chris wouldn’t have done anything. I think she was too good a friend to take her suspicions to the police. I think she was like that.”
Moe sat unhappily, looking down at the carpet at his feet. “Poor Johnny. The poor lad.”
“Yes.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and then Macalvie said, “There’s another thing, Mr. Bletchley, that I think you need to know.”
Tentatively, Moe raised his eyes to look into Macalvie’s. “You’re going to tell me something about Noah and Esmé. You found something else.” He said this as if new knowledge about the deaths of his grandchildren would fall on his head like an ax. He stiffened. “Go ahead.”
Macalvie, who had never thought of himself as a comforting person, searched for words. “That’s always been a mystery. It’s stuck with me. I never closed the case. I’m afraid that we’ll never be sure; still, I went over the file again and wondered if the medical examiner’s report was absolutely clear to you.”
Moe Bletchley look at Macalvie, his eyebrows raised in question.
“It’s the drowning. There were deep abrasions to Noah’s skull. What must have happened was Noah slipped and was knocked unconscious and Esmé, tried to pull him back and got pulled in herself. What I’m saying is that Noah wouldn’t have known anything and Esmé would have drowned very fast. And drowning definitely isn’t-if you have to die-the worst way to go.” What a lie, what a bloody lie, thought Macalvie, moving his eyes away from Bletchley’s, for he was sure the old man could read the lie in them.
Moe was perceptive, but he was being told something he wanted to believe, and no matter how sharp his mind, perception went out the window. “What you’re telling me is that they didn’t suffer much, that it was quick.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t know if that helps at all; I just think the worst of remembering is imagining the terror a little kid would go through.”
Moe had his face in his hands now and tears leaked through his fingers. All he could do by way of answer was to nod his head.
“And probably you-you and your son-have always felt responsible.” Macalvie leaned toward him and put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Mr. Bletchley, you weren’t responsible. Neither of you. It was a hideous accident.” Macalvie said it again.
“You weren’t responsible.”
Macalvie had never had any intention of letting Morris Bletchley see the tape; saying that he did was the only way to get Brenda Friel to give it up.
He stood on the cliff above the stone steps and looked out over water like steel and a sky the color of lead. He imagined how a visitor knowing nothing of its history would consider it an impressive, even a beautiful prospect. The bay, the sea beyond it, the ragged, precipitous cliffs had an almost calming effect on his mind. Whatever perilous events had taken place here, they had left no footprints.
Macalvie had never destroyed evidence before. He reasoned-yes, rationalized-that the tape would do little if anything for the prosecution’s case against Brenda Friel; the tape wouldn’t even work against Simon Bolt, had he been living, or Sada Colthorp. The only person who would be convicted on the basis of this film was the young woman who’d led the kids down the steps, and Macalvie marveled at her utter disregard for the danger this film would put her in. If she were found and indicted, she might possibly enter into a plea bargain and give up the other three, but two of them were dead and the case against Brenda Friel in the deaths of Tom Letts and Chris Wells was so strong that adding conspiracy to commit other murders would merely add one more life sentence to her time.
His concern was for the Bletchleys. Why should they suffer more than they already had just to see Brenda Friel get a third life sentence? This film was what the tabloids lived for. Some unwritten law should protect innocent survivors such as the Bletchleys. Such as Maggie.