The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel (2 page)

It doesn’t matter. In four hours I’ll be in London. That’s all I know and that’s plenty.

I shut the notebook and lean my head against the cold windowpane.

I wake to a pink sunset streaming through the double glass. Crystals of ice gather on the rim of the outer windowpane, drops of dew carried from California and frozen hard in the thin air. In a break between the cumulus clouds below, a jagged black coastline appears, then terrain of the deepest green. A vast blue-white glacier drops to the sea. Iceland. I’m at the gates of Europe.

Before I left I asked Geoffrey Khan one question.

—Why would anyone leave money to someone who’d never bother to collect it?

Khan sighed. —Even if I knew the answer, I couldn’t tell you. Information about our client can be given only at the trustee’s discretion. You can ask James when you arrive, but I can’t guarantee he’ll be able to say.

—I understand.

—However. If I may say something so obvious as not to be a breach of confidentiality—

—Please.

—This was 1924. And these were not people like you and me.

Son of the goddess, let us follow wherever the fates draw us or draw us back. Whatever may be, every fortune must be mastered through endurance.

—Virgil,
The Aeneid,
V. 709–10

Gentle rain falls from a colorless London sky. I thread my way through the sidewalk crowds on High Holborn, checking the street signs against the map in my hand.
Kingsway
.
Procter Street
. Rainwater gathers in dark puddles, reflecting the white delivery vans, the jet-black cabs and candy-red buses.

I turn left and follow Sandland Street to Bedford Row, a line of four-story terraced Georgian houses with brick facades. Beside the entrance to number 11 there is a brass plaque:
TWYNING & HOOPER, SOLICITORS
. I push a button on the intercom, feeling dazed and shaky. At breakfast I had two cups of coffee, but they didn’t help much. I look up at the security camera. The white columns of the doorway have Ionic capitals.

—Good morning. How can I help you?

—I’m Tristan Campbell. I have an appointment with James Prichard—

The receptionist buzzes me in. She takes my jacket and leads me into a waiting room with a tufted leather couch.

—I’ll get Geoffrey right away.

A few minutes later she comes back carrying a tray with a porcelain tea service. The tea scalds my tongue, so I stir in more milk. I look up and see the receptionist watching me from behind her desk. Our eyes meet and she smiles. Absently I page through a copy of the
Financial Times
from the coffee table. I finish the tea and flip over the cup.
SPODE COPELAND’S CHINA ENGLAND
.

—Mr. Campbell. A pleasure to meet you at last.

Khan approaches with a quick stride and shakes my hand. He wears a slim-fitting suit of dark navy. His brogues are buffed to an impressive shine.

—Shall we go and meet James?

Khan leads me up a tall wooden staircase. Above us are vast murals on the walls and ceiling: a king on horseback heralded by angels; young Britannia with her shield and trident, receiving the tributes of the world.

Two young men in neckties come down the stairs, maroon folders tucked beneath their arms. They nod solemnly as we pass. I look down at my thrift-store clothes, a wrinkled dress shirt and a pair of old slacks.

—I feel underdressed.

Khan smiles. —Not at all. You’re the client. We’re the solicitors.

We walk down a corridor to a pair of French doors. Khan pauses here, lowering his voice.

—A word before we go in. Naturally you can address him as James, he doesn’t stand on formality. But I might suggest you answer any questions—

Khan hesitates.

—As directly as you can. I can say from personal experience that vagueness goes nowhere with James. He sees right through it. Be as blunt as you can with him and he’ll be honest with you in turn. How does that strike you?

—Great.

Khan smiles warmly. He knocks on the door and ushers me in. The office is large but spartan. A table with carved lion’s feet, its surface
covered with paper stacked in neat piles. A leather couch and club chairs. An immense Persian rug. Prichard stands behind the table, a sheet of paper lifted intently before his face. He is silver-haired and wears a tie and waistcoat over a French-cuffed shirt. He raises a hand to us, then paces between the window and the fireplace, his eyes fixed on the page. Prichard signs the sheet over his desk and calls in a secretary to collect it. He turns, beaming.

—If you can fill the unforgiving minute, Prichard quotes, with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

He extends his hand. —James Prichard. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I suppose London weather is living up to your expectations?

Prichard gestures to one of the chairs; he and Khan sit on the couch opposite. They cross their legs in the same direction. Framed photographs hang on the wall behind them. Above Khan’s shoulder there is a black-and-white picture of a group of men in three-piece suits gathered stiffly around a bald man with a white mustache. The bald man’s head is tilted slightly to the camera and he holds a pipe in his hand.

—Is that Clement Attlee?

Prichard looks at me.

—That’s right. He was a client of ours.

I point at a tall, fair-haired young man in the photograph.

—And that’s you?

Prichard nods, but he doesn’t turn toward the picture.

—I did very little work on Mr. Attlee’s estate. It was handled by the most senior solicitors, but they let me sit in on a few meetings for posterity’s sake.

Prichard pauses. —At any rate, how was your journey? Don’t be put off London on account of Heathrow. Or British Airways, for that matter. Our charms are elsewhere. What hotel have they put you in?

—Brown’s.

—Splendid. Seen much of London yet?

—I got here last night.

—Well, have a look around before you go. The Tower. Regent’s Park. The British Museum.

Prichard looks at Khan.

—The confidentiality agreement, Khan prompts.

—Of course, Prichard says. You’ve read it carefully?

—Yes.

—And Geoffrey tells me you’re without your own representation?

—Yes.

Prichard nods. —As I’m sure you noticed, the agreement forbids revealing details of the case to any outside party, which makes advisors rather pointless anyway. Will you sign the agreement now? Without it I should not be able to tell you the details of the case.

Khan puts the thick document on the coffee table before us and offers his fountain pen. I flip to the signature page at the back and scratch out a misshapen signature. Khan calls in a young woman to notarize the document.

—Everything said henceforth, Prichard warns, is strictly confidential. Geoffrey, I can take over from here.

Khan walks out with the young woman, closing the door behind him. Prichard watches me for a moment, as if waiting for me to speak first. He smiles faintly.

—This is quite a long shot, but are you familiar with the Mount Everest expeditions of the 1920s?

—Expeditions?

—You’re forgiven. Geoffrey told me you were a history student, but it’s hardly the kind of thing one studies at university these days. Shall we move to the desk? I’m afraid I’ll need my notes to explain all this.

Prichard pulls out a chair for me in front of his desk and sits opposite. He shuffles among stacks of documents, some of them typewritten, others written in longhand on unlined paper.

—I’ve been brushing up on the case all week—I warn you, it’s quite a headache. I’ll endeavor not to bog you down with details, but it’s essential that you understand the ‘problem’ of the Walsingham estate, and the
sooner you grasp the problem, the better, for our time is limited. Most of what I’ll tell you was recorded by Peter Twyning, the estate’s executor. Fortunately he took meticulous notes. The case was a headache from the moment Twyning took it on. And he knew it.

Prichard unfolds a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses and puts them on. He examines the page before him.

—Our client was a man called Ashley Walsingham. At the age of seventeen, Walsingham inherited a substantial estate from his great-uncle George Risley, the founder of a very profitable shipping line. This was 1913. Risley was childless, and as Walsingham’s own father was dead, Risley looked upon Ashley as his grandson. When Risley died, Ashley inherited the majority of his estate. Peter Twyning managed the Risley estate and would later become executor of Walsingham’s fortune.

—Ashley went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, in the Michaelmas term of 1914. Rather bad timing, wouldn’t you say? The war began that August and Ashley duly applied for a commission in the army. By the summer of 1916 he was about to be sent to France. In his last week in England he met a woman called Imogen Soames-Andersson.

Prichard looks up at me. —Does that name mean anything to you?

—No.

—A pity. I’d hoped it might. You see, Imogen was the sister of your great-grandmother Eleanor.

I shake my head. —I’ve never heard of them. Soames—

—Soames-Andersson. Anglo-Swedish—an unusual family. Twyning left pages of notes on the Soames-Anderssons alone. The father was a Swedish diplomat, first deputy to the Swedish envoy in London. The mother was English, apparently an accomplished sculptress. They had two daughters, Eleanor and Imogen. The English side, the Soameses, had quite an artistic pedigree, and the daughters were brought up in the same line, rather bohemian. Eleanor later became a painter of some distinction.

—She was my great-grandmother?

Prichard frowns. —Yes, we’ll get to that bit. As I said, Ashley met
Eleanor’s younger sister Imogen in August 1916. They had some kind of love affair for a week, then Ashley was deployed to France. We presume the two of them kept in touch. In November 1916, Ashley was badly wounded in one of the last battles of the Somme offensive. He was mistakenly reported dead. Imogen was notified by this law firm of Ashley’s death, only to learn a week later that he was in fact alive. As soon as she heard, Imogen went directly to France. She found Ashley at a hospital in Albert, near the front line. They met briefly but had an argument, or so Ashley told Twyning. Then Imogen disappeared. As far as we know, she never returned to England and was never seen again.

—What happened to her?

Prichard takes off his eyeglasses.

—We don’t know. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Ms. Soames-Andersson had a reputation for being rather—impulsive, shall we say. At least in Twyning’s view. From his notes, I gather he considered her something of a wild card. Certainly he wished she’d never crossed paths with Ashley. There was much speculation on the cause of her disappearance, but nothing was ever proven. Evidently Ashley believed she was still alive, for he told Twyning so on several occasions.

Prichard glances at his wristwatch. He puts his eyeglasses back on.

—I’ve neglected the most important part. The climbing. At Charterhouse one of Ashley’s schoolmasters was Hugh Price, the famous mountaineer. Price took him climbing in Wales, with summer seasons in the Alps. In 1915 Ashley was elected to the Alpine Club, and by the early 1920s he was said to be one of the best climbers in England. In 1924 Ashley won a spot on the third British expedition to Mount Everest. A few days before he sailed for India en route to Tibet, Ashley came to this law firm and asked Twyning to revise his will. Previously his principal beneficiary had been his mother, but Ashley had Twyning amend the will to leave the majority of his estate to Imogen.