The Silver Falcon (24 page)

‘Before you say anything,' she said slowly. ‘I know quite a bit about that marriage. And about Richard's childhood. He's told me everything. So it won't come as a surprise.'

Andrew Graham raised his brows. ‘If you say so, Isabel,' he said. ‘But I don't think you'll find the accounts match. Firstly, I'm here because I heard reports that you were going to marry Richard. If there's no truth in it, if you and he aren't involved with each other, I shan't say another word. I've had this family secret on my mind for a very long time; I'd rather go on keeping it. But in fairness to you, and because Charles loved you the way he did, I can't.'

‘Go on,' Tim said. ‘Tell her. Whatever it is.'

Andrew leaned back a little and sighed.

‘The first thing you've got to believe, Isabel, is I've no personal motive in this. You accused me once of hating Richard. That's not true. I hate what he did to his father and how he treated him, right up to the end, but I don't hate Richard. I'm sorry for him. Just like I was sorry for his mother. You know she killed herself?'

‘Yes,' Isabel said. ‘Yes, I know she did. Poor thing.'

‘That's not a bad description,' Andrew said. ‘A poor thing; unstable all her life, unfaithful to the best husband a woman could have had, a hopeless neurotic who couldn't control herself and couldn't face the consequences. He lived a life of misery with her. Covering up for her breakdowns, for the illegitimate child she had, which he pretended was his own. And seeing that child grow up to be just like her. I know; I looked after him from the time he was born. And there was always something wrong. Charles knew it too. We both pretended it wasn't serious; just a difficult kid. Going through a phase. You know the lies people tell each other when they don't want to face the truth.'

The room was absolutely quiet while he talked. There was no sound through the double-glazed windows of the traffic pouring through the Place Vendôme below them. Isabel was sitting rigid, her hands clasped in her lap. She could see Tim Ryan leaning forward, staring at Andrew Graham.

‘He had a totally neurotic relationship with both his parents. He hated and resented Charles; he was insanely jealous of him because he was completely mother-fixated. He worshipped her. When he was a little boy it was cute; by the time he got to adolescence it was plain sinister. He followed her everywhere; if she had an argument with Charles the boy went berserk, yelling at his father, trying to fight him. I don't say she encouraged it. She probably didn't know what she was doing; she was so vain, so shallow emotionally. She had to have someone in love with her. Even if it was her own son.'

‘I don't believe you,' Isabel heard herself saying. It sounded very clear. ‘He told Richard he was a bastard when the boy was fourteen years old. He blamed and bullied both of them; she was terrified of him and so was Richard. He was the abnormal one, hating a child and punishing a woman for one mistake for all those years. I'd like you to go, Andrew. I don't want to hear any more.' She was on her feet.

‘Isabel –' Tim said. ‘Isabel, for God's sake – listen to him!'

‘I thought he'd tell you a load of lies,' Graham said sadly. ‘That was another thing. He twisted everything. He doesn't know what the truth is. He's a psychopathic personality, Isabel. What he told you is exactly how he sees what happened. But it's all distorted. He hated his father so he makes out it was Charles who hated him. And when his mother took that overdose it wasn't the first time; she'd done so half a dozen times before. Not serious suicidal attempts, just trying to gain notice, frighten Charles. And of course get the boy's sympathy. But that night she went too far. By the time Charles found her she was dead. And Richard Schriber went clean off his head.' He bent down and took up a small briefcase. He opened it, and handed Isabel a plastic folder.

‘If you won't believe
me
,' he said. ‘Read this.'

She didn't move to take it. She stayed on her feet; she wanted to tell him it was lies, to order him out. But she felt frozen, paralysed with the remorseless logic; the only thing Richard wanted from Beaumont had been his mother's picture. His obsessive hatred of Charles.…

‘I'd like to see him lose just once.'

She didn't take the folder but Tim Ryan did. He read through it in silence. Andrew Graham looked very tired. He finished his bourbon. Then Tim looked up at Isabel.

‘He was committed to the Graneways Mental Nursing Home for nine months after his mother died,' Tim said slowly. ‘Two specialists diagnosed a severe personality disorder. Endemic schizophrenia. You'd better read it for yourself. And sit down. I'll get you a drink.'

She read through the typed pages, the doctors' reports. Paranoid delusions, a tendency to violence. And that final dreadful prognosis. A psychopathic personality with schizoid tendencies. Unlikely to respond to treatment. He had been released into the guardianship of his Duckett grandmother. She closed the folder and handed it back to Tim. She felt physically sick.

‘I'm sorry,' Andrew Graham said. ‘I'm really sorry. I know you won't tell anybody anything; for Charles's sake. I'd better take that back. And I'll be going now. Get rid of him, Isabel. He's not only unbalanced, but in my opinion, since his father died, he's potentially a dangerous man.'

She heard him leave the suite; Tim saw him out to the door; she could hear them talking quietly. She looked at the drink Tim had given her and sipped it again. It was brandy. Nine months in a mental home. A tendency to violence. Schizoid. Paranoid delusions. He had held her in his arms, made love to her, taken her on a crazy walk through Dublin streets in the early morning rain, with his arm round her waist, laughing as they got wetter.

He wasn't what they said. Living in a world of fantasy, seeing his mother and his life through a mirror of emotional distortion. That wasn't Richard. Tim had come back. He came and sat beside her and put his arms round her.

‘You've got to believe it, Isabel,' he said. ‘The evidence was all there. Thank God you found out in time. Andrew was talking to me just now. He reminded me of that swimming accident in Barbados. He thinks you could be in real danger if you go on seeing Richard. And so do I.'

‘I don't believe him,' Isabel said slowly. ‘I've known Richard long enough to judge for myself. Even if it
was
true – if he did go over the edge when his mother committed suicide, there's nothing wrong with him now. I love him. I'd know if there was. As for what happened in Barbados – I did that myself. I panicked and went wild under water. Richard saved my life. You ought to remember that when you say such things.'

‘Don't cry,' Tim said quietly. ‘He can't help it. It's not his fault.'

‘Go away, please,' she whispered. ‘Just go away and leave me alone. I know you mean well, but I don't want to hear any more. Please, go away.'

‘All right,' Tim got up. He was reluctant to leave her, but she wasn't hysterical; he had never seen a woman cry so quietly, without any sound or ugliness.

He went out, and she heard the door close softly.

It had all been so factual, so low key. There was none of the heat which had characterized that early confrontation between Richard and Graham after the funeral. He had been so cool that evening, so determined to be impartial. ‘I don't hate Richard. I feel sorry for him.' If Richard was lying, so then was Andrew Graham when he said that. He hated Richard just as Charles had hated him. If he had been sick and disturbed as a child, broken down as a young man after his mother's suicide, was that any reason to blame him – to keep him away from his home and his stepmother, away from the funeral of the man who was supposed to have loved and protected him in spite of not being his own. It was hypocrisy, and she could see right through it. She had lived in that tight little community, so insular and suspicious of anyone who broke its rules. Maybe Richard was everything they said; perhaps his mother was vain and empty and her love affair was an amoral tumble in the hay, dignified by her unhappy son into a single error. The way Graham spoke of her, it sounded like constant infidelity. Maybe it was all true, and Richard had been permanently scarred. It didn't mean he had to be abandoned, driven away, like the sick in primitive societies for fear they would pass on their devils to the healthy. Overlying the clinical terms, the cruel, impersonal terminology with which his suffering was described, there lay the pathetic image of the boy growing up at Beaumont. Unwanted, unloved, except by someone, herself, far too weak to help him. She went into the bedroom, picked up the telephone and asked for the number of Coolbridge. She made a great effort to sound calm when he answered.

‘Richard?'

He sounded surprised and then pleased. It had taken a long time before he answered the phone.

‘I just wanted to find out if you liked the house.'

‘I think it's lovely. No wonder you took root down here.'

‘Are you comfortable – did Mrs Jennings look after you?'

It was a silly conversation, banal questions, but it kept them talking, and she needed that. She needed to hear his voice, to hear it sounding normal and even gay. He was teasing her about Coolbridge; she didn't really listen. ‘Lady of the manor,' he was saying. ‘I liked your bedroom. That's one hell of a regal bed. I'll have to make an appointment –' His laughter was so natural. She could imagine him at Coolbridge. Sitting in the yellow drawing room, with his leg slung over the arm of the chair. Drinking, of course. He drank too much. It couldn't help him.

‘Where are you? What part of the house?'

‘I'm in the hall. I've been exploring, that's why it took so long to answer. They've got a good cellar. How's the Ritz?'

‘Just the same. I miss you.'

‘I miss you too,' he said. ‘I'm glad you called.'

‘So am I,' she said. ‘I just wanted to tell you I loved you.' There was a pause. ‘Richard? I thought we'd got cut off.'

‘No, darling,' his voice was louder as if he had moved the receiver close to his mouth. ‘No way. You might call back in five minutes and say it again. I rather like it.'

‘I meant it,' she said. ‘Take care of yourself. Call me after the races tomorrow.' She hung up and lay back on the pillows.

She fell asleep without realizing it, worn out with emotional strain and woke up with a cry of fear that echoed from her dream. A dark, confused and tortured dream in which she had been drowning, anchored under water by a chain which turned out to be an arm, gripping remorselessly, until her lungs burst and filled with water. The face floating so near to her, twisted in a murderous grimace, was Richard's, and the arm that imprisoned her under the suffocating seas belonged to him.

If there was one thing Roy Farrant didn't criticize about his wife, it was the way she dressed. She had a natural sense of what suited her, and the years when she modelled had given her a flair for line and colour.

Patsy had chosen white to wear at Longchamp, a crisp silk suit with a black and white spotted blouse, a straw hat trimmed with the same material. She looked magnificent that day and he was very proud of her; heads were turning as they walked round the members' enclosure. ‘You look very good,' he said grudgingly. ‘I like that outfit.'

She smiled with real pleasure. ‘I'm glad you think it's nice. I went to this new shop in Knightsbridge –' Farrant cut off, not listening. It was a brilliant day, mercifully cool with a pleasant breeze that fluttered the brims of the large hats. Farrant loved racing in France; he liked the elegance, the banks of flowers, the sensation of exclusivity which made every meeting an occasion like Royal Ascot. It didn't bother him that the doyens of French racing barely acknowledged him. He didn't speak French and he didn't give a damn about whether he was snubbed or not.

He, Roy Farrant from Barnsley, born in one of those grim terraced houses they showed on TV in documentaries about the twenties, was as rich as any of them and more successful than most. He had a beautiful wife on his arm and a string of winners to his credit. But at that moment he was looking out for Isabel Schriber. He had decided to come to the meeting after he and Barry had worked out their plan. He wanted to be there to see the Silver Falcon. The idea of that grey colt obsessed and tormented him more and more. He wouldn't rest until he'd watched the race and seen Barry Lawrence do his stuff. The draw favoured them; that was a piece of luck. Garvin's horse was a front runner who faded, that helped too; it meant Falcon wouldn't outdistance them to start with if Jean-Martin had been told to go on ahead, and if he was riding a waiting race, then Lawrence could hold his mount back and keep right with him.

‘I'm going down to the paddock,' Farrant said. ‘They'll be coming in any minute.'

‘I'm coming,' she said. ‘I'm dying to see the Silver Falcon, aren't you?'

‘Yeh –' he said, heavily sarcastic. ‘Dying is the right word.'

The paddock was very green; in spite of the warm weather French racecourses were extensively watered, producing the smooth springy turf that so often confounded the firm-ground horses. They took up a position by the entrance for owners and trainers, perching on the little stools. There were three horses in the ring already, walking serenely round and round, led by their stable lads. Paddock cloths were bright, the coats of the three thoroughbreds, one chestnut and two dark bays, gleamed like oilskin. They stepped proudly, daintily, their eyes examining the scene. Farrant looked them up in the race card. He saw Garvin's horse Happy Hero come in, a strongly built bright bay, with a fine head; his looks belied his lack of stamina. Garvin always turned his horses out beautifully. This particular no-hoper looked a perfect picture of health and fitness. Farrant looked at the closed-circuit TV screen which showed the money going on each horse and noted that there was a fair bit on Happy Hero. Barry Lawrence's change of mount had been noted in the papers, and criticized as usual, but it brought the punters in.