Days Without Number (18 page)

But he had driven two hundred miles to see off an old friend and Nick hoped that signified something. 'Dr Farnsworth?' he ventured.

'Nicholas.' They shook hands. 'A pleasure to see you again, despite the occasion.'

'I'm impressed you remember me.'

'Put it down to the Daily Telegraph crossword puzzle.'

'I'm sorry?'

'It keeps the memory in training. Very important.'

'Of course.'

149

'A decently done service, I thought.'

'Good. I'm glad you could make it.'

'Retirement has a liberating effect on the diary, if not on the bank balance. Besides, I could hardly have stayed away in the circumstances.'

'The circumstances?' Nick felt sure he had caught something odd in Farnsworth's tone.

'Well, I'd spoken so recently to Michael . . .'

'You had?'

'Why, yes. He died on Sunday the twenty-first?'

'That's right. A week ago yesterday.'

'Then it can only have been a few days before.'

'Really?' Nick tried not to sound as curious as he was. 'Do you mind my asking what you spoke to him about?'

'Not at all. It's--'

"Scuse me,' put in a voice. 'Mr Paleologus?'

Nick turned to meet the squinting gaze of an old man in a threadbare overcoat and a black suit, white-shirted but tieless, the shirt buttoned to the neck. He was not much above five feet tall, loose-limbed and built like a whippet. In one hand he clutched a dark brown cap, in the other a crumpled copy of the order of service. His white hair was cut so short that it was no more than a light dusting on his head. His face was narrow and frowning, the eyes twinkling darkly through the compressed lids.

'I didn't think it fitting to come to the graveside, see, not being family and all. You likely didn't spy me at the back of the church. I just wanted to make myself known before I left. I'm Frederick Davey.'

Nick covered his discomposure with a smile and shook Davey's hand. 'I'm Nicholas Paleologus. This is Dr Julian Farnsworth, an old colleague of my father's. Pleased to meet you, Mr Davey. Do you live around here?'

'No, no. Tintagel. I'd not have known about this but for the notice in the paper.'

'You drove down?' Nick asked, partly because he could see no car parked in the lane that Davey was likely to have driven

150

and partly because he did not dare stray beyond the blandest of topics.

'I got no car. Can't afford one.'

'How did you make the journey, then, Mr Davey?' Farns worth enquired.

'The Plymouth bus dropped me at Paynter's Cross. Twas shanks's pony from there.'

'You walked from Paynter's Cross?' Nick was genuinely surprised.

'Had no choice. If I was to be here. As I thought I should, like.'

'How did you know Michael?' asked Farnsworth.

'Who?'

'My father, Mr Davey,' said Nick.

'Oh, sorry, I'm sure. Always thought of him as ... Mr Paleologus. Well, young Mr Paleologus, when I first met him. He was helping his father on the dig up at the castle then.'

'The dig?' Farnsworth's archaeological senses were suddenly alert.

'Under Dr Radford.'

'You mean the Tintagel excavations of the nineteen thirties?'

That'll be them.'

'My, my, that is interesting. What was your involvement, Mr Davey?'

'Well, I was took off quarrying to do the spadework. Me and a good few others. Tweren't so very scientific, now I look back.'

'Fascinating.' The expression on Farnsworth's face suggested that he was not being sarcastic.

'I think we should be starting back for the house, Nick,' said Irene as she suddenly appeared amongst them. 'You'll join us, Dr Farnsworth?'

'Gladly.'

'And, er . . .'

'This is Mr Davey, Irene.' Nick caught her eye. 'From Tintagel.'

'What time's your bus back, Mr Davey?' asked Farnsworth.

151

'Quarter to five. There's only one a day, see.' 'How very inconvenient. Still, I could give you a lift some of the way ... if we were leaving at the same time.'

And so, courtesy of Julian Farnsworth, Fred Davey was added to the party that assembled for a late buffet lunch at Trennor. There were fifteen in all, rather more than Pru had catered for, though there was ample slack in her assessment of the quantities required, which was as well, given Davey's swiftly exhibited capacity to consume her sausage rolls.

His presence was a far greater complication in another sense. Once word about him had passed between Nick's siblings, a tension entered the atmosphere that only they were aware of. Davey had witnessed a will they had subsequently destroyed. It was hard for them to believe he had made the journey from Tintagel purely because he and Michael Paleologus had worked on the same dig more than sixty years before. A whispered settlement of tactics took place in the kitchen. Irene was to monopolize Baskcomb; he and Davey obviously had to be kept apart. Anna would keep Laura and Tom out of mischief. Basil would seek to shepherd Archie and Norma into conversation with the Wellers. Andrew would swap Cornish lore with Davey. Which left Nick to probe Farnsworth's recent contact with their father, a task all agreed he was best qualified to undertake.

He made an adroit start by luring Farnsworth into the study to admire Michael Paleologus's collection of archaeological books. Farnsworth had done no more than finger a few spines when Nick reminded him of what they had been discussing before Davey's arrival at the church gate.

'Ah yes. On that subject, I was half-expecting to see David Anderson here.'

'You were?'

'Well, when I spoke to Michael, he mentioned that he'd also been in touch with Anderson. The young man's done well for himself, given his pedestrian cast of mind. I'm sure he was the ideal choice for whatever Michael wanted of him.'

152

'Some archival research at Exeter Cathedral Library.'

'Ah. You were privy to Michael's enquiries, then.'

'In part. I spoke to David Anderson last week. He'd have liked to be here today, but his teaching commitments didn't permit.'

'How sad. What did Michael have him burrowing after in Exeter?'

'It had to do with a seventeenth-century occupant of this house, by the name of Mandrell.'

'Really?' Farnsworth's expression betrayed no reaction.

'He didn't. . . speak to you about Mandrell?'

'Not at all. Probably knew better. I'm no historian. Not much of an archaeologist either, in Michael's opinion. You have to dirty your hands to do it properly.'

'Why did Dad contact you, then?'

'Checking up on an old acquaintance. Very much my speciality. Though, as it turned out, I couldn't help him.'

'What old acquaintance was this?'

'Digby Braybourne. Heard of him?'

'I don't think so.'

'No reason why you should. A contemporary of Michael's. Also an archaeologist. Briefly a fellow at Brasenose. An entertaining character. I have one or two fond memories of him. Left Oxford under something of a cloud, I'm afraid.'

'What sort of cloud?'

'The sort that involves a spell in prison. Fraud, as I recall. Authenticating fake artefacts for one of the big auction houses, hence bringing the University into disrepute. You're not likely to need a college parking space after that. It would have been the bum's rush for Digby whatever the jury decided.'

'When was this?'

'Oh, it must be more than forty years ago now. Let me see. Yes. Michaelmas term of 'fifty-seven, I'd say.'

'And Braybourne went to prison?'

T'm afraid so. I visited him a couple of times in Reading Gaol, which I thought kinder of me than he did. He asked me

153

to stop going. So, I stopped. And that is the last I ever saw of him. He never returned to Oxford, gown or city.'

'What happened to him?'

'Haven't the foggiest. As I told Michael. But... I agreed to ask around. Still turned up nothing, though. A cold trail.'

'Why did Dad want to trace him after all these years?'

'For a reunion of old army pals, apparently. They served in the war together.'

'Did they?' Nick was puzzled. His father had never once, as far as he knew, participated in regimental reunions. His time in uniform was not something he had ever dwelt on. He had done his bit for king and country without running many personal risks, the way he had told it. Whiling away most of the war on Cyprus, conveniently bypassed by all hostilities. 'Would that have been on Cyprus, do you think?'

'Quite possibly. I remember they both spoke of being stationed in the Med. But was it Cyprus?'

'Dad always said so.'

'There you are, then. Of course, I imagine they may have . . . passed through other places.'

'They may have, yes.'

'Who can say?'

'Well, Digby Braybourne, I suppose.'

'Indeed. But where is Digby?' Farnsworth smiled. 'Just like the fellow, really. Never to be found when you want him.'

The party fizzled to a close without incident. Archie became drunk, as was not unexpected. Anna escaped molestation by Farnsworth. Mrs Weller turned out to be an old girl of Laura's school, which delighted her more than it did Laura. And Fred Davey never had a chance to talk last wills and testaments with Baskcomb. Though what Farnsworth meant to give him the chance to talk about en route to Tintagel was in its way an equally disturbing thought.

Even when the generally less than mournful mourners had left, Nick and his siblings were not free to review in all its ramifications the reversal of fortune that had overtaken them.

154

A team effort at clearing away and loading the dishwasher brought forward Pru's departure by a good hour, but they were still constrained by the fact that Laura and Tom knew nothing - and could be allowed to know nothing - about their grandfather's second will. Nick and Andrew harboured their own gruesome secret, of course, one that made the burning of the will seem the most trivial of acts. But they could not speak of it. Nor did Nick see how they could engineer an opportunity to do so before he went back to Milton Keynes.

'It's "now you see it, now you don't" where the money's concerned, then,' Tom carelessly remarked, when discussion of the funeral had run its course and he had followed up numerous glasses of wine with a bottle of Gr�lsch.

'This Hartley woman was just having you on?' asked Laura.

'Apparently so,' said Irene.

'What are you going to do about it?'

'There's nothing we can do.'

'You could try to track her down,' said Tom.

'To what purpose? She's duped us, but she hasn't actually defrauded us.'

'Nevertheless,' said Nick, 'I was planning to stop in Bristol on my way back tomorrow and see if there's any way to confirm the real Elspeth Hartley is in Boston.'

'You're leaving tomorrow?' Andrew looked shocked by the news.

T'm expected back in the office on Wednesday.'

'Life goes on,' said Anna. 'And work too. Without an end in sight, now. Tantris has disappeared in a puff of smoke.'

'We can still sell the house,' said Irene.

'Yeah. But not as quickly. And not as lucratively.'

'What was the point of the deception?' asked Tom. 'Like you said, there was no real fraud involved. So, what was the object of the exercise?'

'We don't know,' Irene replied.

'But there has to have been one.'

'Presumably.'

155

'Stands to reason. Anyway, Grandad would have got the Tristan and Yseult reference straight off. He'd have known Tantris was a ringer, right?' 'Yes.'

'So, why didn't he blow the whistle?' 'He did, Tom,' said Basil. 'He blew it to you.' 'Yeah, but what good did that do? It was you guys who needed to know. Why didn't he tell you?'

It was a good question. And one to which nobody had an answer. Not an answer they could admit to, anyway, although a chilling possibility had taken root in Nick's thoughts. Michael Paleologus had rumbled Elspeth from the first, as he had been meant to. But he could not speak out, because of what he knew lay in that hole beneath the cellar. He could only send a message to Tom, knowing Tom was highly unlikely to come south in the near future, save in the event of a death in the family - such as his grandfather's. Michael Paleologus had been prepared to warn his children, but only when he was no longer there to suffer the consequences of doing so. Which surely meant he had foreseen his death. And a death foreseen is not much of an accident.

Irene and Laura left around dusk. It was business as usual for Irene at the Old Ferry that evening; and for many evenings to come now the goose that had promised to lay their golden egg had flown. Irene had clearly wanted to speak more freely than she could during the afternoon, but she was nothing if not self-controlled.

The same could hardly be said of Anna, who fumed and fretted mutely but very obviously. When Tom announced he was stepping out for a smoke and a breath of night air, nobody volunteered to go with him, though not because - as his father pointed out - the smoke was unlikely to be tobacco. In the circumstances, any chance of unfettered discussion was welcome.

'Did Davey ask you about cousin Demetrius, Andrew?' Anna blurted out as soon as Tom had gone.

156

'No. He'd have worried me less if he had. I mean, he has to know about him, doesn't he?'

'Not necessarily,' said Basil.

'He knows,' Andrew insisted. 'He asked me if all the family was present. Why would he do that unless he was in a position to be sure they weren't?'

'It could have been an innocent enquiry.'

'Innocent my arse.'

'He can't prove anything,' said Anna.

'Let's hope you're right. If he had another copy of the will, even the pittance we stand to salvage from this mess will slip through our fingers.'

'It's hardly a pittance,' said Nick.

'Easy for you to say.'

'Not so easy, actually, Andrew. I've put my neck on the line just like you.'

The two brothers stared at each other for a moment. Nick blamed Andrew for talking him out of doing what they should have done when they discovered the body in the cellar. If they had gone to the police then, they would not be left now wondering just how comprehensively they had been set up. He could not come out and say it, but the accusation was there in his gaze, as he meant it to be.