‘Had they not suffered enough?’ asked Brigit.
‘Who, the residents?’
‘No, the police. First, they had the unsolved case of a hospitalized night porter and then a naked corpse on a beach, and, to cap it all, they ended up being browbeaten by an aggressive and wounded hotel manager. The appearance of Hector Wallace’s naked body must have been quite a shock for them. And what were they to think so soon after Tom? The hotel does rather take centre stage here. Being a rural constabulary they must have thought they had landed in an Agatha Christie novel, wondering where the next corpse would turn up!’
‘Hector died of natural causes, and it was fairly clear he had wandered off after a particularly heavy night’s drinking. Even his drinking companions, Trevor Mullings among them, said he had drunk them all under the table. Hector hated the end of the holiday. It was the happiest two weeks of his year, and his Aunt Agatha – his “Aunty Aunt” as he liked to call her – gave him a pretty free hand and then paid the bills at the end, including a very big tab at the Office.
‘You mean he didn’t stay alone?’
‘Well, he had his own room, but Aunt Agatha paid, and he had all his meals with her. She was in her eighties, and both were driven from Torquay by her chauffeur Hinton, who apparently never went faster than thirty miles an hour. Hector was frightened that this might be the last holiday, as Agatha had been complaining that her shares had taken a terrible tumble, and, like a lot of old people, she was worried the government had lost its grip with rampant inflation and constant strikes. She had been suggesting she should batten down the hatches and didn’t think she could afford to stay at the hotel again. Apart from this, she was very arthritic, and her health had become a source of concern for Hector. She had more or less brought him up; his parents had been tea planters in India and died in a plane crash while Hector was at boarding-school in England.’
‘How old was he at the time?’
‘He was about eight years old and at a strict Roman Catholic school somewhere in the West Country. Rumour had it that he was abused there and never developed much sense of self-worth. After that he lived virtually all his life in his aunt’s house. He had a great interest in horticulture, and he loved the gardens of Cornwall where everything grows so well. He had been a talented landscape gardener, but alcohol had long since rendered any permanent employment impossible. However, he showed his aunt respect by never drinking in her house. So, you see, there were good reasons why at the end of the holiday Hector Wallace should decide to end it all.’
‘So you believe it was an open-and-shut case of suicide then? I think you’re missing something.’
‘Don’t think so.’ Grant’s dismissive tone riled Brigit. ‘A drunken loser found naked and frozen dead on a beach after an excessive drinking binge didn’t require too much police investigation.’
Brigit stood up, glared at her husband and raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Right, I’ve had enough of all this. For the last two days all I’ve heard from you is this monologue of events from over forty years ago, according to the Great Grant, the Oracle. So why hasn’t anyone ever worked out what happened here? Why have you waited forty years to reveal all this? If there was a deathbed confession, why was it never investigated? There seems to be an absence of truth and certainly an absence of justice for Tom Youlen and possibly for Hector Wallace – “Oh, he was just a hopeless drunk –”’ Brigit mimicked her husband’s pompous, dismissive tone.
‘OK, OK!’ interrupted Grant, raising his voice. ‘I’m going to do something about it. I’m still concerned about it all, more than you could ever know. I’m going to take a three-month sabbatical from the firm. I qualify for the short-term sabbatical option.’
‘Woah! Calm down, tiger!’
‘No, Brigit, you’re right; you’re absolutely right. It’s time to find out the truth and to put the past to bed. Suzie Hughes-Webb, Danny Galvin, Caroline Jessops, Justyn Silver and Nick and Jenny Charnley. I’m going to see them all.’
Grant loathed himself for continuing to hide from her the real reasons for his obsession with the past. The truth was that he knew he was far less interested in securing justice for Tom than in discovering whether his mother had been in any way involved, but he knew this was not the right time to tell Brigit.
‘Well, you see Nick every summer anyway on your golf tours, but I guess you’ve never asked him the question?’ Brigit decided it was time to cool things down a bit.
‘No. We’ve never talked about it, so it will be interesting to see what he has to say now. I’ll cross-refer his version of events with his sister, Jenny, as Nick can be known to wing it a bit.’
‘If you don’t mind I’ll leave it to you. I have my business to run, and we’re seeing an upturn in the market. Things are really motoring again, in case you’re interested.’
‘Of course I’m interested, but I’m a bit distracted by all this, and now I need to track down all concerned and spend time with them.’
‘Distracted? You don’t say,’ muttered Brigit to herself.