Sea Change (15 page)

A brief silence fell. There had been such a ring of truth in what Estelle de Vries had said that the three men were momentarily struck dumb. Had she really done it? If so, only one question mattered. And it was Mcllwraith who posed it. 'Why?'

'Because some things matter more than money. Such as love. Or the loss of it.' Her head fell. 'Pieter and I…'

'Fell out?'

'Everything I did was for him. For us. Our future.'

'Such as murdering your husband?'

'Have you ever been in love, Captain?'

'Aye. For my pains, I have.'

'But you're a man. You cannot love as a woman does. Not just with her heart. But with every fibre of her being. You do not understand.'

'Make me understand.'

'Very well. I adored Pieter. I worshipped him. I did whatever he said we had to do to escape…' She shuddered. 'From de Vries. Yes, I helped Pieter kill him. And I lied to blacken Mr Spandrel's name.' She turned and looked at Spandrel. 'For that I am truly sorry.'

'Not as sorry as I am,' said Spandrel, wondering if she grasped the doubleness of his meaning.

'All de Vries's money goes to his son,' she went on.

'We know,' said Mcllwraith. 'But why should that worry someone who loves with every fibre of her being?'

'It didn't. But Pieter… said we had to have money if he was to keep me in the manner he wished to. He could not bear the thought of me living in poverty. And with the Green Book…'

'There was no need to see whether your love would thrive in adversity.'

'No. Exactly. We were greedy, of course. I don't deny it.'

'That's as well.'

'It wasn't all greed, though. Not for me.'

'But for Zuyler?'

'Perhaps.' She gave a crumpled little smile. 'When we arrived here yesterday, he told me that he would have to go on alone. That the Alpine crossing would be too much for me. I assured him it would not. But he insisted. He would leave me here, travel on to Rome alone and then return to fetch me when he had sold the book. But in his eyes I could see the truth. He wasn't coming back for me. It had all been for the money. And he didn't mean to share it. He didn't love me. He never had. I'd merely been the instrument of his enrichment. We argued. But he didn't change his mind. There was, of course, no possibility that he would. He had made it up a long time ago. He went out then. He had already arranged to sell the chaise, apparently, needing the proceeds to hire a guide for the crossing. While he was out, I took the book down to the bridge and threw it into the river. It was the last thing he had anticipated. Otherwise he would have taken it with him. He did not understand, you see, how deeply I loved him. And how little the money mattered once he was lost to me. But if I could not have him, he could not have his reward. It seemed very simple to me. And I was glad to do it, glad to hurt him as he had hurt me. When he returned, I told him at once what I had done.' She shook her head. 'He searched the room, you know. He didn't believe me. He thought I'd hidden it somewhere. When he realized the truth, he grew angry.' Her fingers moved to the bruise on her cheek. 'Very angry.'

'And then?'

'He left. I imagine he's in some tavern now, cursing my name and drowning his dreams of the wealth that won't now be his.'

'Nor yours.'

'Nor anyone's.' She looked from one to the other of them. 'Aren't you going to look for it? You surely won't take me at my word.'

Mcllwraith sighed. 'No. I fear we can't do that.' He turned to Jupe and Spandrel. 'You both know what you're looking for. I suggest you set about it.'

'We're not going to find it,' said Spandrel. 'Are we?'

'Probably not. But look anyway.'

It did not take long. The chest of drawers contained only clothes and there were few places where such an object could be hidden. Jupe pulled a travelling bag from beneath the bed and opened it. Inside was the despatch-box. But it was empty, as Spandrel had known it would be. Then Jupe rolled aside the rug covering half the floor and crouched over the boards with the lantern, looking for some sign that one of them had been lifted. But there was none.

'Congratulations, madam,' said Mcllwraith, when the search had come to its predictable conclusion. 'The Government will be grateful to you.'

'Why?'

'Because the Green Book's destruction serves them well. The guilty go free and—' He chopped the air with the edge of his hand. 'Love conquers all.'

'We should find Zuyler,' said Jupe grimly.

'Aye. So we should.'

'What will you do to him?' asked Estelle.

'I don't know.' Mcllwraith looked at her. 'Whatever it is, I doubt it'll compare to what you've already done to him.'

'Tell him…'

'What?'

'That he's lost something more valuable than the Green Book.' She gazed into the guttering fire. 'And there will come a time when he regrets it.'

'Did you believe her, Spandrel?' Mcllwraith asked as they walked away from the house a few minutes later.

'Yes.'

'Me too. Jupe?'

'She may be lying. She may be more cunning than you think.'

'You have no soul, man. “Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.” Mr Congreve had it right, I reckon.'

'I'm a mere servant, Captain. What would I know of a playwright's moralizing?'

'Enough. If you wanted to. But to business. I doubt we'll have to look far for our despondent Dutchman.'

He was right. They found Zuyler in the third tavern they tried, a loud, smoke-filled establishment that was clearly as much a brothel as a drinking den. Zuyler seemed to have availed himself of both of the commodities on offer. He was leaning back in his chair at a corner table, with a girl on his knee and two bottles, one empty, one nearly so, in front of him. His left hand held a goblet, while his right was cradling one of the girl's ample breasts, barely concealed by her bodice.

'A charming scene, don't you think, gentlemen?' Mcllwraith declared, dragging the girl to her feet and telling her to be on her way, which she promptly was. 'Mijnheer Zuyler!' Zuyler looked around in slack-jawed confusion, apparently uncertain where or why the girl had gone. 'Perhaps you prefer to be called Kempis. Or Kemp.'

'Who… are you?' Zuyler slurred.

'Surely you know Spandrel here.'

'Sp-Spandrel?' Zuyler gaped at him, his eyes visibly struggling to focus. 'That can't…' He tried to rise, then slumped back. 'No,' he said. 'You're not…'

'Oh but he is. Why don't you tell him what you think of him, Spandrel?'

'What would be the point?' Spandrel shook his head dismally.

'Maybe you're right,' said Mcllwraith. 'An enemy in his cups is a contemptible thing. We have a message for you, Zuyler. From Estelle.'

'Estelle?' Zuyler spat. 'Die zalet-juffer.'

Suddenly angry, Spandrel stepped forward and hauled Zuyler out of his chair. Then, staring into the eyes of the man who had all but condemned him to death, he realized how empty the prospect of revenge was. He pushed Zuyler away and watched him fall against the chair, then slide to the floor, toppling the table as he went.

'What did he call her?' asked Mcllwraith, as the bottles rolled to rest at his feet.

'I don't know,' said Spandrel. 'And I don't care.'

'Is that so? For a moment, I thought you did. We'll forget the message, then, shall we?'

'He would.' Spandrel looked down at Zuyler where he lay, spilt wine dripping onto his face from the table. 'Even if we delivered it.'

They walked down to the river gate. Mcllwraith tipped the gateman to let them through the wicket and they made their way to the middle of the bridge. The river was lost in mist and darkness, but they could see it spuming round the cutwater by the light of the gatehouse lanterns at either end and could hear the roar of it as it swept on round the bend to the north.

'This isn't how I'd expected the chase to end,' said Mcllwraith. 'And it's far from what my superiors will want to hear. But hear it they must.'

'I'm still not convinced,' said Jupe. 'They may have lodged the book at a bank and be waiting for us to give up before retrieving it and carrying on to Rome.'

'You said yourself, man, that they've hardly set foot outside the house since arriving. So, they couldn't have known Spandrel and I were here. Are you suggesting they contrived all this just in case we came calling?'

'No,' Jupe admitted. 'I suppose not. But I shall keep my eye on them till their intentions are clear, nonetheless.'

'A wise precaution, no doubt.'

'I've been away from the house too long as it is.'

'Don't let us detain you.'

'I shan't. This is all very… unsatisfactory, you know.' There was a reproachful edge to Jupe's voice.

'Aye, aye. Life often is.'

'I'll bid you good night, then. You know where to find me.'

'And you us.'

Mcllwraith and Spandrel watched Jupe walk away along the bridge until he had vanished into the shadow of the gatehouse arch. Several more moments passed with nothing said. The river rushed on below them. Then Spandrel asked plaintively, 'What are we to do now?'

'Now?' Mcllwraith clapped him on the shoulder. 'Isn't it obvious?'

'No.'

'There's only one thing to do in a situation like this.'

'What's that?'

'We follow Zuyler's example. And get roaringly drunk.'

As Mcllwraith and Spandrel walked up through the mist-filled streets of the city towards the Drei Tassen inn and the lure of its tap-room, Jupe was climbing the stairs of the Pension Siegwart. His room was on the third floor. But his climb ended at the first. There he paused, as if pondering some course of action, before heading along the landing to the door of the room taken by the couple known to the landlady as Mr and Mrs Kemp, where a light was still burning.

He knocked at the door with three soft taps. A moment later, it opened and Estelle de Vries looked out at him.

'Mr Jupe,' she said, with no inflexion of surprise. 'You're alone?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Mcllwraith and Spandrel?'

'Have gone.'

'Do you think they were fooled?'

'Oh yes.' Jupe nodded. 'Completely.'

The mist had all but gone by morning. The sun was up in an icy blue sky, glinting on the giant horseshoe of the Aare, within which were clustered the spires and turrets and jumbled rooftops of Berne. Spandrel looked down at the river from a high, buttressed terrace behind the cathedral. A line of broken water marked the course of a weir linking the southern bank to a landing-stage and dock away to his left. Smoke was rising from a mill adjoining the dock and the sound of sawing from a wood-yard carried up to him through the clarified air. A man with a fowling-piece under his arm was walking across a field on the opposite shore, a dog trotting beside him through the patches of snow. The world went on its way. And so did the people in it.

The thoughts filling Spandrel's head were not those he would have expected in the wake of his confrontation with the two people who had saddled him with the blame for a murder. Many times, languishing in his cell in Amsterdam, he had wondered what he would do if he ever set eyes — or laid hands — upon them. And never once had it occurred to him that he would simply walk away and leave them to their own devices. But what else could he do? They had worked his vengeance out for him. They had undone themselves. Estelle de Vries he now saw as beyond condemnation, Pieter Zuyler as beneath contempt. They hated each other more than he could contrive to hate either of them.

For Estelle he felt in truth no hatred whatever, rather a perverse kind of admiration. To risk all — and to lose all — in the name of love was somehow magnificent. Spandrel did not care that she had destroyed the Green Book. He faintly approved of the action. And he could not help worrying what its consequences would be for her. Zuyler's capacity for violence might yet cost her dear. She should leave Berne without delay. She should return to England and put behind her the follies and the evils Zuyler had tempted her into.

Whether she would he did not know. It had seemed to him, listening to her account of herself in that mean little room at the Pension Siegwart, that he could almost taste the blackness of her despair. She had abandoned her old life and now her new life had abandoned her. What would she do? 'She might drown herself,' Mcllwraith had said at some late and drunken stage of the previous night, 'before Zuyler does it for her.' This suggestion, half-jest though it was, had lingered in Spandrel's mind, till he had convinced himself that something of the kind was horribly possible, that it might, indeed, have already happened.

It was to shake off the depression that this idea had plunged him into that he had left Mcllwraith breakfasting morosely at the Drei Tassen and walked aimlessly about the streets of the city as it stretched and yawned and came to its Saturday morning self.

But he had not succeeded. The depression remained. And gazing down at the river, on which a barge had just now put out from the dock, he realized that there was only one way to be rid of it. He would have to return to the Pension Siegwart. And make some kind of peace with Estelle de Vries.

The door was answered by a twinkle-eyed butter-ball of a woman whom Spandrel took to be Frau Siegwart. Her command of English was evidently little greater than his of German and he did not help his cause by asking for Mevrouw de Vries. Once he had laughed that off and specified Mrs Kemp instead, there was a glimmer of understanding and he was invited to enter.

The stairs shook under Frau Siegwart as she led Spandrel up to the first floor and she was panting by the time they reached the door of the best room in the house. She knocked at it briskly, then more briskly still when there was no response. 'Ich verstehe nicht,' she said with a frown. 'Wo sind sie?' She listened, knocked again, then tried the handle.

The door was not locked. Frau Siegwart pushed it open and peered into the room. There was no-one there. Glancing in over her shoulder, Spandrel noticed at once what a sharp intake of the landlady's breath suggested she too had noticed. The drawers in the chest beneath the window were sagging open. And they were empty.

For a moment, while Frau Siegwart mumbled to herself and looked around, Spandrel struggled to understand what had happened. Where was she? Where were they? If Estelle had fled, as she well might have done, she would surely not have taken Zuyler's possessions with

her. Unless, of course, they had fled together. 'Jupe,' he said aloud. 'Where's Jupe?' 'Wiebitte?'

'Jupe. He's staying here. Mr Jupe.' 'Der Englander?'

'Yes. That's right. He's English too. Jupe.' Grasping apparently that her other English guest might be able to shed light on the disappearance of Mr and Mrs Kemp, Frau Siegwart clumped off towards the stairs. Spandrel followed.

Another two flights took them to a low-ceilinged landing at the top of the house. Frau Siegwart, breathing now like a bellows, rapped at one of the doors. There was no response. She tried again, with the same result. Then she grasped the handle and turned it.

Jupe's door was also unlocked, which somehow surprised Spandrel. But his surprise on that account was rapidly overborne by the shock of what he and Frau Siegwart found themselves looking at through the open doorway.

Jupe and Zuyler lay next to each other at the foot of the bed. There had been a struggle of some kind. The dressing-table had been overturned and the rug was bunched and ruckled beneath them. A pool of congealed blood extended across the rug and the floorboards around it. There was no movement, no sign of life. Both men, Spandrel realized at once, were dead.

'Mein Gott,' said Frau Siegwart, crossing herself as she spoke.

Spandrel stepped cautiously past her into the room and leaned forward, trying to see and understand what had happened. Zuyler was lying on his side, his face partly concealed by a fold of the rug. But enough of it was visible for there to be no doubt that he had died in agony. His eyes were bulging, his tongue protruding. There were splinters of wood scattered around him. One of his knees was sharply raised and the heel of his boot had gouged at the boards. He was wearing the greatcoat Spandrel had seen tossed over the back of the chair next to him in the tavern the night before. He did not seem to have been stabbed. There was blood beneath him, but no sign of a wound. The cause of his death looked to be the narrow leather strap wrapped around his neck. It was loose now, but there was a deep red line beneath to show where it had been drawn tight.

The blood belonged to Jupe. He lay on his back, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. A knife was buried to the hilt in his chest and his coat was sodden with blood. His left hand held the knotted loops of the strap, trailing in his stiffening fingers. It looked as if he had strangled Zuyler, who had managed to stab him with the knife as he did so. The wound had proved fatal, but not quickly enough to save Zuyler. Even as his life's blood had drained away, Jupe had finished what he had set out to do.

But why? What had they fought about? Spandrel's gaze moved to a knapsack lying open by the chest of drawers, with a bundle of clothes beside it. They were Jupe's, presumably. Had he been packing for a journey? If so, he would not have thrown his clothes on the floor. If he had stowed them in the knapsack, however, in readiness for his departure, and someone else had then pulled them out in search of something concealed beneath them—

'Herr Jupe,' Frau Siegwart wailed, suddenly realizing who the dead pair were. 'Und Herr Kemp.' She clapped her hands to her cheeks. 'Furchterlich.'

'You should call for help,' said Spandrel.

But a different thought had struck Frau Siegwart. ' Wo ist Frau Kemp?' Then she forced out the words in English. 'Where… Mrs Kemp?'

It was a good question. Indeed, it was a better question than Frau Siegwart could possibly know. Where was Estelle de Vries? And what did she have with her? Spandrel looked down at the two dead men. 'I don't know where she is,' he said, truthfully enough, though he could have hazarded a good guess at where she might be going. 'I don't know anything.'

'We've been a pair of fools, you and I,' said Mcllwraith an hour or so later, when Spandrel had finished describing to him the gruesome scene at the Pension Siegwart. 'You see what this means, don't you?'

'I think I do,' said Spandrel. 'Estelle de Vries didn't destroy the Green Book.'

'No more she did. But we'd have gone on believing her tearful little story save for something a sight more reliable than our judgement. Greed, Spandrel. That's what's undone them.'

' Them? Jupe was on their side, not ours?'

'You have it. He saw us arrive here, then went to Zuyler and his lady love and convinced them that, without his help, they'd not escape us. Remember her confusion about who I represented — the Government or the House of Commons? Jupe must have told them I was a Government agent. A natural enough assumption, in the circumstances.' Mcllwraith pounded a fist into his palm. 'Jupe was the sceptical one, wasn't he? “I'm still not convinced.” “I shall keep my eye on them.” He overplayed his hand and we still didn't see the cards up his sleeve.'

'He hid the book in his room?'

'Aye. Then they performed their touching masquerade in the hope that we'd give up and go away, leaving them to go on to Rome and sell the book, sharing the proceeds among the three of them.'

'What went wrong?'

'It sounds as if Zuyler caught Jupe in the act of decamping with the book. I don't suppose they trusted one another for an instant. It was an alliance of necessity. Realizing that there'd probably be a Government agent coming after them in due course as well must have cast its own shadow.'

'Will there be?'

'Aye, man, of course. You don't think we have the field to ourselves, do you?'

'You never told me that.'

'Did I not? Well, perhaps I didn't think you needed to worry your head over it. And no more you do.' But there, though he did not say so, Spandrel begged to differ. 'Nor about Zuyler and Jupe, now they've done for each other. There's only one person we need to consider.'

'Estelle de Vries.'

'The very same. She must have gone to Jupe's room when Zuyler didn't return and found them dead. Whether she shed a real tear for her lover to add to the false ones she sprinkled over us last night we'll never know. What we do know is that she took the book from Jupe's knapsack and—'

'We can't be sure she did.'

'You said you searched the room.'

'Yes. After the landlady rushed off to raise the alarm.'

'And the book wasn't there.'

'No. But—'

'For pity's sake, man. Why else would she leave without raising the alarm herself?'

'No reason, I suppose,' Spandrel reluctantly admitted. 'It must be as you say.' But it was such a cold-blooded thing to have done. Even now, he could hardly bring himself to believe it of her.

'She's gone and the book's gone with her,' said Mcllwraith. 'The question is: where?'

It was not an easy question to answer. Even if she had lied to them about Zuyler selling the chaise, she could hardly have driven it away herself. She might have hired a driver, of course, but she would surely have realized it could not be long before they learned Jupe and Zuyler were dead and drew the correct conclusions. To attempt to outrun them on the road was futile. So, Mcllwraith reasoned, she would prefer to travel by the first available public coach and set off for the Simplon Pass from wherever the coach took her.

The Drei Tassen happened to be the principal coaching inn of the city. Enquiries revealed that no services had left for any destination since the previous afternoon. At noon, however, the Basle and Interlaken coaches were both due to leave. She would hardly head back to Basle. Interlaken, lying forty miles to the southeast, was the obvious choice. Rather too obvious, however, for Mcllwraith's liking.

And so it proved when they stood in the inn yard at noon and watched the coaches load and depart. There was no sign of Estelle de Vries. By then, word of the murders at the Pension Siegwart was abroad. The consensus of tap-room wisdom was that you could never tell with foreigners. It was at least a blessing that this pair had killed each other and left the locals unmolested. Old Frau Siegwart should choose her guests more carefully.

By dusk Mcllwraith and Spandrel between them had visited just about every inn, stable and boarding-house in the city. No unaccompanied Englishwoman, or Dutchwoman come to that, was to be found. Nor was there any word of such a person hiring transport or even asking how it might be hired.

'Where can she be?' asked Spandrel, as they made their way back to the Drei Tassen through the darkening streets.

'She may be lying low,' said Mcllwraith. 'Privacy can be bought, like most things.'

'Could she have persuaded some traveller to take her with him?'

'She could. There aren't many who'd refuse a woman like her… well, near enough whatever she wanted.'

'Then she could be anywhere.'

'Or on the road to it. Aye. But where do they say all roads lead? She won't give up now, Spandrel. Sooner or later, she'll turn south. It has to be the Simplon Pass. That's where we can be sure of catching her. She might be hiding here somewhere. But I'll waste no more time and boot leather looking. We'll leave in the morning.'

Nothing, Spandrel knew already, despite the brevity of their acquaintance, changed Mcllwraith's mind once it was made up. He was a man of firm will and fixed decisions. But even firmness can be pushed aside by a greater force. There is no decision, however fixed, that cannot be out-decided.