Days Without Number (17 page)

'You never mentioned it to me,' Andrew complained.

'I didn't think it was any big deal. You didn't mention a much bigger one, did you?'

'I was going to.'

'What's the significance of the book, Tom?' Nick intervened.

'Oh yeah. Well, I guess we've all heard of Tristan and Yseult, the original star-crossed lovers.'

'Remind us,' said Irene.

'Right. OK. I flicked through the book on the train down, basically to see if I could work out why Grandad sent it to me. Beroul's the name of some twelfth-century storyteller. His version of the romance is the oldest surviving. The way he 140

tells it, Tristan was the nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, who--'

'Whose court was at Tintagel,' Basil interrupted.

'Yeah. Well, I thought that must be the point. You know, Grandad going down memory lane, reminding me of the legends linked to the place he helped excavate back in the Thirties.'

'But he was always scornful of the legends,' said Nick.

Irene sighed. 'Why don't you just come to the real point, Tom?'

'I'm trying to. The legends aren't it. I get that now. Yseult is the daughter of the King of Ireland. Tristan kills her uncle in fair combat, but is wounded in the process. The wound refuses to heal so Tristan casts off in a boat with neither sails nor oars, trusting to God to take him wherever he needs to go to be cured. He's washed up on the Irish coast, taken into the court posing as a minstrel in distress and has his wounds tended by Yseult, who turns out to have the magic touch. Tristan's cured and returns to Cornwall. He and Yseult only become lovers later, when Yseult is sent to Cornwall under Tristan's escort to marry King Mark. Her mother gives her a love potion to drink with the King on their wedding night, but it gets mistaken for wine on the voyage and she shares it with Tristan instead. The tragic love story unfolds from there. But earlier on, when he first meets Yseult, Tristan uses a pseudonym to avoid identifying himself as her uncle's killer. The pseudonym is actually an anagram of his own name. He calls himself--'

'Tantris,' said Basil softly.

'What?' Irene looked sharply across at her brother.

'Tantris,' Basil repeated. 'Yes, of course. The two syllables turned the other way round. I should have thought of that.'

'Yeah.' Tom nodded. 'Tristan called himself Tantris when he needed to conceal his true identity.'

'Wait a minute,' said Andrew. 'Are you saying--'

'There's no such person as Tantris.' It seemed to Nick as he spoke that he had known this for some time, but only now been forced to admit it. There never has been.'

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I .t

Anna stared at him in obvious bafflement. 'Would someone |

mind telling me what the hell we're talking about?'

There's no Tantris,' said Nick. 'It's as simple as that.'

'And no Tantris,' Basil began, 'means--'

'No money.' Andrew's words were muffled by the hand he had raised to his face. 'Oh God.'

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

At ten o'clock the following morning, with their father's funeral only two hours away, Andrew, Irene, Basil, Nick and Anna sat, black-suited and sombre-faced, in their solicitor's cluttered office in Plymouth. Maurice Baskcomb, also black-suited but somehow failing to look sombre despite a frown, kneaded his large, sausage-fingered hands together and leaned forward on his desk.

'I think it fair to say I've never experienced the like of this in my far from short legal career,' he said, forming the words slowly and deliberately. 'When you telephoned me last night--'

'We're sorry to have disturbed you at home, Mr Baskcomb,' said Irene.

'Think nothing of it, Mrs Viner. It was, I think we can agree, an emergency. In some ways, it still is. As you suggested, I contacted Mr Tan--' He paused, pursed his lips, then continued. 'I contacted the solicitor I've been dealing with on your behalf, Miss Palmer of Hopkins and Broadhurst, London. She could not tell me a great deal, bound as she is by rules of confidentiality.'

'I'll bet,' growled Andrew.

'Such rules exist for the protection of the client, Mr Paleologus, not the solicitor.'

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'We understand that,' said Irene. 'What could Miss Palmer tell you?'

'Well, it appears she's never met Mr Tantris, which is hardly surprising, given the unusual circumstances. She's dealt only with his assistant, a Miss Elsmore. Now, 1 did give your description of Miss Hartley to her and, though she wouldn't commit herself, I had the distinct impression that the description could easily have fitted Miss Elsmore. I also contacted Bristol University's personnel department this morning. There is an Elspeth Hartley on their academic staff, but she's currently on sabbatical ... in Boston.'

'Would that be Boston, Lincolnshire,' Basil enquired, 'or Massachusetts?'

'The latter, Mr Paleologus.'

'She set us up,' said Anna, whose tone was still fixed in the disbelief that had overtaken her the previous night.

'She's clearly been less than open with you,' Baskcomb went on. 'And with me. And indeed with her own solicitor.'

'What about the money?' asked Andrew, the undertow in his voice suggesting he already knew the answer to his question. 'What about the half a million quid Tantris was supposed to have deposited with Hopkins and Broadhurst?'

'Withdrawn late Friday afternoon,' Baskcomb gloomily replied. 'Miss Palmer was apparently about to telephone me to report that development when I telephoned her.'

'How was it withdrawn?' asked Irene.

Tn the form, I imagine, of a Hopkins and Broadhurst cheque.'

'Payable to whom?'

'To Miss Elsmore, presumably. Or to whomsoever Miss Elsmore nominated as payee. Miss Palmer had no authority to give me that information.'

'But it's the only way to track down the bastard behind this swindle.' Andrew glanced round at his siblings for support. 'She has to tell.'

'There's been no swindle,' Baskcomb calmly responded. Tin afraid it amounts to nothing more than an elaborate practical joke.'

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'A jokeT

'I don't see the funny side of it either, Mr Paleologus.'

'But you don't lose by it, Mr Baskcomb, do you? You haven't had the prospect of quitting a farm that grows debts thicker than thistles dangled in front of you, only for it to be snatched away. My God, when I think . . .' Andrew looked away towards the window.

Then his gaze slowly drifted back to Nick. Only they knew just how far they had gone to ensure Tantris's offer remained on the table. And now they knew it had never really been there in the first place. It was a joke, a horribly good one. But no-one was laughing. No-one in Baskcomb's office, anyway.

'Didn't you say, Mrs Viner,' Baskcomb resumed, 'that you had one further line of inquiry to follow where Miss Hartley is concerned?'

Irene looked at Nick for an answer. 'She mentioned a friend who works at the Museum,' he said. 'It'll be another ruse, I'm afraid. A name she picked up from a staff list or something of the kind and dropped into the conversation for the sake of ... well . . .'

'Verisimilitude,' said Basil.

'Exactly. Her mobile phone was switched off over the weekend. Now the number's unobtainable. Draw your own conclusions.'

'Sadly, I'm afraid you'll have to,' said Baskcomb. 'I'm entirely at a loss.'

'Loss,' murmured Andrew. 'Yeah. There's plenty of that to go round.'

Andrew had not been making even an oblique reference to the ceremony they were about to take part in. It was a measure of the degree to which they had been made fools of by the Tantris deception that they could find no space for the sorrow they were supposed to display - and to feel. They emerged from Baskcomb's office into a damp, grey morning that had not even the decency to be appropriately cold, each churning with anger and humiliation. And loss, of 145

course: the kind of loss Elspeth Hartley had decreed they should experience.

'The bitch,' hissed Anna. 'Who is she? Why did she do this?'

'It has to be some sort of con trick,' said Irene, her self control still intact. 'But I don't understand. What did she gain from it?'

'I suspect Dad could have told us,' said Basil.

'What do you mean?'

'He saw through the pseudonym at once. He was meant to. As the book he sent to Tom demonstrates.'

'Why did he send it to Tom? Why didn't he warn us instead?'

'There again, he could have told us. Alas, it's too late to ask him now.'

'I'm not sure I can face this bloody pantomime,' said Andrew. 'You may have to get through it without me.'

'We'll get through it together, Andrew,' said Irene. 'It's time we all went back to Trennor and waited for the cort�ge. Let's hope Laura and Tom haven't strayed from the car park. I don't want us to run late.' She at least was determined to maintain a dignified front for the funeral. 'The last thing we need is Archie and Norma getting wind of what's happened.' Norma, their late mother's sister, and her husband Archie, retired lawn-mower entrepreneur, were pledged to attend, despite being given plenty of encouragement to excuse themselves on grounds of age and distance. 'I've told Laura to say nothing. Can we rely on Tom?'

'Of course,' Andrew edgily replied.

'Good. Then I suggest we get on. All this' - she glanced up at Baskcomb's office window - 'will have to wait.'

But one thing would not wait. Irene was taking Andrew, Laura and Tom in her car, leaving Nick to chauffeur Basil and Anna. There was time, Nick reckoned, to check if Elspeth's reference to Tilda Hewitt really was the ruse he thought. He dropped Anna off outside the Museum, then drove back and 146

forth between Charles Cross and Drake Circus for as long as he judged she might need.

Anna was waiting to be picked up when he returned ten minutes later, with just the report he had expected. 'The Tilda creature deigned to speak to me and made it crystal clear she'd never heard of an Elspeth Hartley.'

'But which Elspeth Hartley is that?' pondered Basil as they headed up North Hill. 'The one currently on Bostonian sabbatical... or another?'

'Another,' said Nick ruefully. 'Or, rather, somebody else altogether.'

'And so the lady vanishes.'

'Yeah.'

'But with what accomplished?'

'Not sure.' But there had to be a logic to what had happened. Nick knew that. Maybe there never had been a hidden Doom Window. But the buried body was real enough. Except that now it was no longer buried. Could he and Andrew somehow have been manipulated into doing someone else's dirty work? Surely not. No-one could have predicted Michael Paleologus's death and the consequences that would flow from it. Could they?

'Do we know exactly who's showing up?' Anna asked as they joined the A38 and headed west, her mind turning only now to what was close at hand.

'Apart from locals, you mean?' Nick responded.

'I mean people we'll have to talk to afterwards over smoked-salmon sandwiches and sausages on sticks.'

'Ah. Right. Well, there'll be Archie and Norma, as you know. And I imagine we'll have to ask the Wellers back.' The Wellers were Michael Paleologus's closest neighbours, with whom the family maintained superficially amicable relations. 'Of the Oxford lot, only old Farnsworth is coming down.'

'Oh God,' Anna groaned. 'I'd hoped I'd never have to have my bum fondled by that lecher again.'

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'He obviously felt the opportunity was too good to miss,' said Basil.

'Shut up, Basil.'

'He was just about Dad's closest colleague,' Nick pointed out. 'It's natural he'd want to pay his last respects.'

'Maybe,' said Anna. 'But I'll still be standing with my back against the wall if he starts circulating.'

'Don't worry,' said Nick. 'I'll keep him away from you.' It had suddenly occurred to him that engaging Farnsworth in conversation would be no bad idea. It was clear to Nick that they knew less about their father than they had supposed. Julian Farnsworth was a social magpie, a collector of the curious details of other people's lives. For once it was possible he might have something to say that Nick wanted to hear.

To Nick's surprise, the anxieties besetting him fell away as soon as he climbed into the car following the hearse and realized that his father's funeral had begun. His mind was so numbed by recent events and his part in them that an hour of immemorial ceremony offered a mental refuge where he could calm himself with trivial but poignant memories of his childhood, when life had seemed both simple and joyful. It could not last, of course. He had been perceptive enough as a child to realize that even then. But, while it had, it had been wonderful. And his father, for all his faults, had been part of the wonder.

The hymns were sung, the prayers were said. The rector offered up some kindly words and made passing mention of Michael Paleologus's celebrated lineage. Then they processed to the graveyard and watched the coffin being lowered into the earth, while the rector made the final pronouncements, to a chorus of rooks and a murmur of wind in the yew trees. Anna sobbed, Laura wept and Aunt Norma dabbed her eyes. Irene merely squeezed her gloved hands together and breathed deeply.

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Andrew caught Nick's gaze and held it for a moment as he stepped forward to sprinkle his trowelful of earth on the coffin. Neither could help thinking of another burial, the truth of which their father had taken to the grave with him. That other body had no coffin, nor brass plate to give it name. Yet no doubt there were loved ones who would have liked the chance to bid him or her farewell.

The graveside party progressed slowly to the churchyard gate, where Nick stepped quietly to one side while Aunt Norma embarked on a round of hugs and endearments. Archie wobbled from foot to foot behind her. The Wellers hovered nearby. And Julian Farnsworth struck an extravagantly mournful attitude on the fringe of the group.

Nick's rough calculation put Farnsworth in his mid seventies, though he looked younger, thanks to suspiciously dark hair and an erect bearing. He had creases at the edge of his mouth that made him seem permanently on the point of smiling and sparkling blue-grey eyes that compounded the effect. He had not run to fat, nor grown gaunt with age. He dressed more smartly than most academics and was presumably the owner of the preposterously Parisian old Citroen parked a little further up the lane. He was the best manicured archaeologist Nick had ever met; according to Michael Paleologus this was because he never engaged in any actual archaeology. He had even been nicknamed 'the Commodore' because of the general belief that naval officers of that rank never went to sea.