Fault Line - Retail (11 page)

‘It’s just what I was thinking of doing anyway, sir. I mean, the knapsack has to be there somewhere.’

‘The police are happy to assume it sank.’

‘I don’t believe Oliver would go to the bother of posing for those photographs if he didn’t think they’d ever be developed.’

‘Neither do I. So, be as thorough as you can. It’s pretty much a jungle round that pit, but there’s a good chance that not far from where you found him …’

‘I’ll find the knapsack – with the camera inside.’

‘And maybe more besides.’ Lashley polished off his whisky and stood up. ‘I appreciate this, Jonathan, I really do. Sorry I have to dash off. There are a lot of calls on my time today, as I’m sure you can imagine. Thank your mother for the tea. Let me know how the search goes, won’t you? Phone me at the office. Joan will see I get the message.’

I got up out of the deckchair and he shook me by the hand. ‘I’ll miss Oliver,’ I said.

‘So will I. He could be as infuriating as all hell, but … you had to love him.’

‘Perhaps tomorrow I could … call round and talk to Vivien.’

Lashley grimaced. ‘Best leave it a little longer. These sedatives
have
really knocked her out. And Muriel … Well, I wouldn’t want her saying things to you in the heat of the moment, if you know what I mean. In situations like this, people tend to look for someone to blame.’

Yes, I supposed, they did. And in the eyes of the Wren family I was the obvious candidate.

‘One step at a time, Jonathan. That’s how we should play this.’ At least it sounded as if he wasn’t about to blame me. ‘And the first step is: find that knapsack.’

It’s a measure of how shaken I was by the day’s events that I didn’t insist on going to the police station on my own. There was little my father could contribute to the proceedings, after all, but I knew he wanted to do his best for me and I was grateful for his support, though, naturally, I didn’t tell him so.

The completion of my statement was a long-winded and at times tedious process. I mentioned the knapsack and extracted grudging confirmation that it hadn’t been found. I also mentioned Gordon Strake and, when I pushed the subject, was told he’d be questioned in due course. There was no sense of urgency and it was generally implied that as a mere witness – and a young lad to boot – I should be supplying information, not seeking it.

Dad took much the same view, predictably enough as a defender of the establishment in all matters. ‘Let the police get on with their job, Jonathan,’ he advised me on our way home. ‘They’ll do what needs to be done.’

‘Mr Lashley doesn’t seem confident they will.’

‘Then it’s for him to challenge them, not you.’

‘I can’t just … do nothing.’

‘Yes, you can. What’s happened is a tragedy for the boy’s family, of course, but you’ll be off to university in a month. New friends. New horizons. You’ll soon put all of this behind you.’

Poor old Dad. I think he really believed that.

I headed out early next morning, shortly after Dad had left for the bank. I told Mum I was going to kill some time at the beach and
play
tennis with a schoolfriend at the Lido, a diet of harmless fresh-air fun she heartily approved of.

In reality, of course, I was going nowhere near the Lido.

I entered the pit the way Vivien and I had the previous day. There was no way of walking round from the entrance track to where we’d found Oliver. The slopes above the lake were simply too sheer to allow it. So, it took another scramble down through the trees and undergrowth from the bank near Scredda to reach the shore.

There was nothing to indicate what had occurred there just twenty-four hours previously. The police had amassed what evidence they wanted, which I suspected was very little, and gone on their way, leaving Relurgis Pit in peace. The lake shimmered opaquely in golden sunshine. A buzzard circled on a thermal high above. And nothing more than a gentle breeze stirred the greenery.

I tried to be meticulous and systematic, descending slowly and by a winding route in case Oliver had discarded the knapsack on the way down. Once at the gravelly patch of shore where Vivien and I had crouched beside his body, I extended the search as far round the perimeter of the lake on either side as I could reach, narrowly avoiding falling in on several occasions.

There was no sign of the knapsack. Oliver could have hidden it, of course. There were plenty of loose rocks available to conceal it. Or he could have loaded some of those rocks into the knapsack, thrown it into the lake and watched it sink. But even by Oliver’s standards such behaviour, after going to all the bother of having me take pictures of him at Goss Moor, seemed senseless. So, where was it?

I decided to check the jetty area before giving up, although how Oliver might have found his way over there I couldn’t imagine. I heaved my way back up to the lane and walked along to the turn-off.

To my surprise, a taxi was parked at the start of the track. The driver was smoking a cigarette and studying racing form in his newspaper so intently that he jumped when I greeted him.

‘Mornin’,’ he said gruffly, but then smiled genially. ‘Headin’ for the lake?’

‘Yes.’

‘Watch your step. Some young feller drowned there yesterday.’

‘Really?’

‘’Fraid so. Could be why I’m here. Got the meter running on an old gent from the Carlyon Bay. You’ll find him down by the jetty. Well, I hope you will. Lessen he’s in with fishes an’ all.’

Francis Wren, hatted and lightly overcoated as if for a fickle early spring rather than high summer, was leaning on the rail by the jetty, puffing at a pungent cigar and gazing out thoughtfully across the lake. He gave no sign of hearing me approach.

‘Mr Wren?’

He turned round slowly and looked at me. ‘Why, it’s young Jonathan.’

‘Yes, sir. Good morning.’

‘Good morning.’ At his instigation, we shook hands. ‘Well, well, this is an unexpected meeting. Even though … we both have cause to be here.’

‘I’m terribly sorry about what happened to Oliver, Mr Wren.’

‘Of course. Understood. Damnably upsetting for you as well as the family. I’ve been knocked sideways by the news, I don’t mind admitting. Like father, like son. Dreadful. Just dreadful.’

‘It wasn’t necessarily suicide.’

‘Kind of you to say so, but from what Harriet’s told me – I’ve had to rely entirely on my sister for information, of course – there’s not much room for doubt, now is there?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘You wouldn’t be out here looking for Oliver’s knapsack, would you?’

‘Ah. You know about that.’

‘Harriet’s a thorough informant. The parallels with his father’s missing briefcase are … eerie, I must say. Perhaps deliberately so. The workings of that boy’s mind are hard to fathom.’

‘Yes. They are. And, yes, I have been looking for the knapsack.’

‘But I see you’re empty-handed. I can’t say I’m surprised. I don’t think it’s here to be found, Jonathan.’ Francis cast a glance back across the lake. ‘Oliver’s sent us a message. But we don’t seem to be able to read it.’

‘This was the first pit Wren’s worked?’

‘That it was. It’s strange to see it now, so green, so … tranquil, when I remember it as a vast white hole in the ground, with men looking no bigger than ants from here, hewing away at the bottom with picks and shovels. It was still operating when I left the company, though it was on its last legs by then.’ He was lost for a moment in a reverie of remembrance, then he looked at me sharply. ‘Now, what’s all this about Gordon Strake?’

‘Oliver said Strake was following him. And he was. I saw that for myself.’

‘You’re sure it was Strake?’

‘Well, that’s who Oliver said it was. A man was certainly following him.’

Francis frowned. ‘Baffling. Quite baffling.’

‘Mr Lashley told me … Strake was an old comrade of yours.’

‘He served under me in Italy. “Old comrade” is stretching it. He’s a Plymouth man. Came down here after the war looking for work. I took him on as a favour to someone who’d seen a lot of hard action. I gather Greville sacked him last year.’

‘Apparently so.’

‘Well, no doubt the police will find out what he’s been up to.’

‘As his old CO, you might be able to get more out of him than the police.’

Francis smiled faintly, as if entertained and tempted by the idea of taking a personal hand in the investigation. ‘Interesting suggestion, young man. I’ll certainly consider it. Now, I think I must be getting back. Luisa will be wondering where I’ve got to. Would you like a lift into town?’

I declined his offer, explaining that I wanted to continue searching for the knapsack, although in truth I no longer seriously expected to find it. I watched him potter away along the track
towards
his waiting taxi and found myself wondering just what his connection with Strake signified.

Only after he’d vanished from sight did I remember the takeover of Wren’s by Cornish China Clays. I should have asked Francis how he felt about the demise of the family firm. It was strange how unimportant that now seemed. Oliver’s death had overshadowed everything else. As perhaps he’d meant it to.

A fruitless hour of delving in gorse bushes and picking my way around the treacherous shore of the lake had passed when I abandoned the search and headed back to St Austell. I arrived tired, thirsty and dispirited. It was nearly one o’clock and I wondered if I’d find Pete Newlove in the General Wolfe. His uncomplicated slant on the world of Walter Wren & Co. suddenly seemed like the tonic I needed, along with the several pints he’d be happy to join me in.

First, though, I stopped at a call-box and rang Wren’s. I got through to Joan Winkworth, who was lunching at her desk. Lashley was in a meeting at CCC (no surprise there) but had left word I was to come and see him at six o’clock. I asked her to tell him I’d be there.

It was a short step to the General Wolfe, where, disappointingly, Pete was nowhere to be seen. I retired to a corner with my beer, lit a cigarette and pondered the futility of my morning’s efforts. The person I most wanted to talk to about what had happened was Vivien, but I’d more or less agreed to leave her be for a while, although part of me was beginning to suspect Lashley had manoeuvred me into that agreement for reasons of his own. There was always the chance, if I rang Nanstrassoe House, that Vivien would be the one who answered. Somehow, though, I didn’t reckon it was a very good chance.

‘Mind if I join you?’

The question caught me unawares. Looking up, I was astonished to see Gordon Strake standing over me, though not much over, thanks to the shortness of his stature.

He was a small, ferrety sort of fellow, with a narrow,
sallow-skinned
face and dark, greasy hair. He looked an unhealthy fifty or so, his cheap brown suit and stained tie doing nothing to improve his appearance. He had a roll-up wedged at the corner of his mouth and was holding a half-finished glass of stout.

‘They said I might find you here,’ he said, sitting down next to me without waiting for my response. ‘You’re Jonathan Kellaway, aren’t you?’

‘And you’re Gordon Strake.’

‘That I am.’ He took a gulp of stout and set the glass on the table. There was a stale smell to him, detectable even through the beer and cigarette fumes. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you, sonny.’

‘Who’s “they”?’ I asked, determined not to let him gain the upper hand. He probably thought it would be easy to intimidate me.

‘What?’

‘The “they” who said you might find me here.’

He gave me a sneering frown. ‘Don’t get clever with me, sonny. I’ve had the Old Bill on my back this morning thanks to you.’

‘Good.’

His frown deepened. ‘What did you say?’

‘I’m glad they’ve been to see you. Did you tell them who paid you to follow Oliver Foster?’

‘Who paid me?’ The frown became a bemused smile. ‘Come off it, sonny. You knew what he was up to. Which is more than I did. I wouldn’t have got mixed up in this if I’d had any inkling how it was going to end. That friend of yours was cracked, if you want my opinion. He must have been, to do what he did.’

‘Who paid you?’ I pressed.

‘You trying to tell me you don’t know?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘Pull the other one.’

‘I’ve got no idea who you’re working for.’

‘
Was
working for, you mean.’

‘OK.
Was
. What difference—’ I was silenced by the sudden
realization
of what Strake’s insistence on the past tense might signify.

‘You really don’t know, do you?’

‘You mean …’

‘Oliver Foster hired me, sonny, scheming little head case that he was. Paid me twenty quid for that bloody pantomime on Wednesday. Easy money, I thought. Not so sure about that now.’

‘But …’

‘Why? Good question. Reckoned you might be able to tell me. Thought you were in on it. Looks like I was wrong. In which case … we’ve got nothing to say to each other, have we? Bloody Wrens. I wish they’d leave me alone. If you see any of them, don’t give them my condolences, will you?’

With that he was out of his chair and away across the pub. He finished his stout in one long swallow and plonked the glass down on the end of the bar without breaking his stride. A moment later, he was gone.

Leaving me to contemplate the ring his glass had left on the tabletop in front of me – a ring like a frozen ripple, radiating from nothing.

NINE

BY THE CLOSE
of a miserable afternoon I’d concluded that Strake was right, damn him. Madness of some kind had driven Oliver to end his life in mysterious circumstances of his own orchestration. Francis Wren believed he’d sent us a message we weren’t equipped to understand. I was beginning to believe he’d sent us a message he didn’t want us to understand. And what that meant for Vivien I preferred not to imagine.

I arrived at Wren’s as instructed, promptly at six. I was immediately puzzled by the emptiness of the car park. Lashley’s Jag wasn’t there, which tended to imply he wasn’t there either.

The rest of the staff had all gone. That was no surprise on a sunny Friday afternoon. The only people on the premises turned out to be the cleaners, Ethel and Mavis. Ethel reported that Lashley had left no more than ten minutes previously. She had no idea where he’d been going, of course. ‘But he was in a tearing hurry, I can tell you that.’