‘The photograph.’
‘Ah, yes, the photograph. Well, I held on to it, of course, just as he’d asked me to, although I’m afraid it gave me no means of finding you, because he’d neglected to tell me your name. Perhaps he never even knew it himself. And then one day — it would have been, oh, almost twenty years later — a most extraordinary thing happened. One of the doctors came up to my room and brought me a magazine. Wasn’t that thoughtful of him? All of the staff are familiar with my little hobby, you see, and this was a colour magazine with a lovely long article in it, all about the Mark i Hurricane. Well, I have to say that it wasn’t very well researched: I was most disappointed. The autiior missed several important points — never even mentioned, would you believe, its one real advantage over the Spitfire, which, as you know, was the thickness of the section wings. I actually wrote a letter of complaint to the editor, but it was never published. I wonder why …’
There was a dangerously long silence, and Michael realized that she had drifted off again.
‘Anyway, about this magazine.’
‘I’m sorry: I do tend to get distracted sometimes. The magazine. Precisely. Well, after I’d read this article, I started to look at some of the other items, and imagine my surprise, Michael — imagine my delight, and astonishment — when I found, tucked away at the very back, a charming little short story about a castle and a detective, and at the top of it, the very same picture which Mr Farringdon had given me all those years ago. A picture of you, Michael! You as a little boy! Fate had delivered you into my hands, at last, and not only that, but it turned out that you’d become a writer. It was all too, too perfect! I began to think of a little plan, which would enable me to make financial reparation for what my family had done to you — I knew that you would be short of money, it went without saying: all writers are short of money — and which, at the same time, would inevitably lead you to find out the truth about your father and how he died. You would discover the truth about my family, Michael, and reveal it to the world, in the form of a book. And what a book it would be! I envisaged … a tremendous book, an unprecedented book — part personal memoir, part social commentary, all stirred together into one lethal and devastating brew.’
‘Sounds wonderful,’ said Michael. ‘I should have hired you to write the blurb.’
‘I think, in retrospect, that I overestimated you,’ said Tabitha. ‘Much as I enjoyed the extracts which you sent to me, my expectations had been too high. I see now that you weren’t quite equal to the task. You lacked the necessary … dash, the necessary … daring, the necessary … what is the word?’
‘Brio?’
‘Perhaps, Michael. Perhaps that’s what you lacked, in the end.’ She sighed. ‘But then, who could really do justice to my family? Liars, cheats, swindlers and hypocrites, the lot of them. And Lawrence was the worst. By far the worst. To betray your country for money is bad enough, but to send your own brother to his death … Only my family could do such a thing. When it happened, I realized for the first time what they were really like: and after that, what did it matter if they locked me away? I didn’t care what became of me.’ She sighed again, even more heavily. ‘It quite spoiled my war.’
‘You say that almost as if you’d been enjoying it,’ said Michael.
‘But of course I was enjoying it,’ said Tabitha, smiling. ‘We all were. It’s so hard for you young people to understand, I know, but there’s nothing like a good war for pulling a country together. Everyone was so nice to each other, for a while. Everything that had divided us suddenly seemed so petty and inconsequential. Things have changed, since then. Changed terribly. Changed for the worse. We were all so polite, you see. We observed the niceties. Mortimer, for instance … He would never have behaved like this, running around the house and chopping his family up with axes and knives and what have you. It would never have entered his head, in those days.’
‘I imagine not,’ said Michael. ‘Still, it won’t happen again, I don’t suppose.’
‘What won’t happen again, dear?’
‘A war like that.’
‘But we’re at war now,’ said Tabitha. ‘Hadn’t you heard?’
Michael looked up. ‘We are?’
‘Of course. The first bombers were sent out shortly after midnight. I’ve been listening to it on the wireless.’
Michael was stunned. Even after the expiry of the UN deadline, he had somehow never believed that it would happen. ‘But that’s terrible,’ he stammered. ‘It’s a disaster.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ said Tabitha cheerfully. ‘The allies will have no difficulty establishing air superiority. The F-117A Night-hawk is a most sophisticated craft. The navigation system, you know, features an INAS with both Forward-Looking and Downward-Looking Infra-Red sensors, and it can carry up to four thousand pounds of explosives at speeds of five hundred and fifty miles an hour. The Iraqis have got nothing like it. And then there are the F-111s: well, Colonel Gadaffi already knows what they can do. With EF-111A Ravens blinding the enemy’s acquisition radars, they can fly through an attack corridor at more than fifteen hundred miles an hour. Their weapons bay accommodates up to fourteen tons of ordnance —’
Michael had already lost interest. There were more urgent matters to consider. ‘So you think it is Mortimer?’ he asked.
‘Of course it is,’ said Tabitha. ‘Who else would it be?’
‘It’s just that these killings — they’ve obviously been carried out by someone who knows all about the family. What they’ve been up to, over the years. But Mortimer hasn’t really seen any of them for a long time, has he? How would he know those things?’
‘Why, that’s simple,’ said Tabitha. ‘Mortimer’s read your book, you see. Whenever you sent me part of your manuscript, I would always forward a copy on to him. He found it most interesting. So in a way, Michael, you are responsible for all of this. You should feel very proud of yourself.’
She went back to her knitting, while Michael brooded over the role he could now be seen to have played in this bizarre story. He felt anything but proud.
‘Where is he now?’ he asked.
‘Morty? Well, I’m afraid that’s very difficult to say. He’s hiding somewhere, that’s for sure, but this house is full of secret passages. It’s a veritable warren. I found that out the night I locked Lawrence in his bedroom. A few minutes later, you know, he was downstairs playing billiards, so there must be some hidden link between the two rooms.’
‘That’s right — you’d heard him in his room, hadn’t you, speaking in German?’ It was all starting to become clear. ‘Could he have been talking into a radio set, do you think?’
‘Certainly he could.’
Michael leapt up. ‘Which room was it?’
‘It’s at the far end of the corridor. The one where young Roderick has been staying.’
He ran out into the corridor and went to find Phoebe, knowing that she had the only key. But she was no longer in bed. Gripped by a sickening anxiety, Michael swung around only to find that she was now standing in the doorway behind him, a grim expression on her face.
‘Quick,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get into Roddy’s room.’
‘Too late. I’ve just come from mere.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Come and have a look.’
It was not a pleasant sight. Roddy was lying on top of the bed, naked and motionless. He had been covered from head to foot in gold paint, and must have been dead for two or three hours.