At dinner that night the three men were initially subdued. Justyn had asked if he could join them, but Grant was concerned that Tony might feel overwhelmed if they arrived mob-handed. The last thing he wanted was to risk putting him off talking freely, as he suspected that this gathering might be his one chance to hear the full story.
He placated Justyn by saying that the two would meet up for a drink later that evening at Justyn’s favoured West End club or his flat in Maida Vale. Brigit, meanwhile, had no problem with the old friends getting together on their own.
‘It must have been Estelle appearing like that and winding her up that sent Suzie over the edge,’ started Tony.
‘But she had gone to Cornwall with a gun,’ countered Grant.
‘Well, so had I,’ added Danny, which came as a shock to Tony but not to Grant.
They turned to study Danny closely for a moment before Tony inquired, ‘Why?’
‘Ivan Youlen,’ he replied. ‘Well, you know, Grant. He had hoodwinked us with some baloney about Trevor Mullings the fisherman catching God, so we were nervous that we were walking into a trap.’
‘And did you know Suzie was armed, too?’
‘No, not until we reached Mevagissey. I guess we both feared what might lie ahead.’
Tony listened in silence. He was aware that his sister had once used a gun in Cape Town, firing at an intruder on her property. His brother-in-law had told him about it when he had visited them in South Africa some time later; Frank had said that he had to take the gun off her, as he was sure Suzie was shooting to kill.
The three men were briefly interrupted while they placed their orders for dinner. The menus received scant attention.
It didn’t take Grant long to return to the subject of Estelle’s role in events. ‘So why was her reappearance so distressing to Suzie?’
‘Well, she knew,’ replied Tony. ‘She knew everything. Even though Richard had divorced her after only five years of marriage, she never let go.’ He hesitated, and Grant noted Tony’s use of his father’s first name, recalling how Suzie always referred to him so formally and reverently as ‘Father’. ‘Estelle used to turn up at our home near Croydon and sort of stalked him. We christened her “Estelle from Hell”.’
‘We saw her performance in Cornwall in 1972,’ interrupted Grant. ‘I remember her demanding, “Has anyone seen that bastard ex-husband of mine?” I’m sorry, Tony. I can see this is very painful for you.’
Tony paid no attention to the apology, instead revealing that it was after that incident at the hotel that Richard had taken a restraining order out against Estelle to prevent her constant harassment. He continued to set out the family tale of woe until he arrived at the last piece of the jigsaw. ‘You see, Richard was a control freak. Estelle believed he had both used and destroyed her. Their flat in London was a pretty plush affair in Belgravia. And she never missed an opportunity to belittle him by telling everyone she’d paid for it. They had a busy social life, and he was going through medical school – another thing she said she’d paid for. She started drinking heavily. He rather neglected her as a loving husband, and as her drinking escalated she became increasingly unstable. He was well aware of her mental and physical decline and knew she was having casual affairs, but this suited him fine because it gave him the ammunition he needed to sue for divorce.’
‘Suzie told me some of this,’ interrupted Danny, who had a strong suspicion he knew where this was heading.
‘Ah, yes, I thought she might have.’
As Tony continued, Grant took the opportunity to observe him closely. He was a good-looking sort of fellow, no doubt attractive to the opposite sex. He was somewhat thick-set and lacked his father’s height, but he was an imposing presence none the less. Grant knew he had been a good club rugby player and had once had a trial with the Harlequins. He clearly took himself very seriously. However, what particularly struck Grant was Tony’s apparent lack of empathy. He delivered his story of unhappy family life in a flat, monotonous voice devoid of emotion. The tale he revealed was undoubtedly true and no doubt hugely personal to him, a burden he had carried through life, but he was setting it out as though he was detached from it, as though it were merely some inconvenient truth, someone else’s domestic misfortune. He went on to reveal more about his sister’s life, matters of which Grant and Danny had been unaware. Suzie had been bulimic during her childhood and had twice tried to take her own life. Nobody outside her immediate family knew about this because of the secrecy and closing of ranks deemed essential by the all-powerful Richard.
‘You see,’ Tony was now in full flow, ‘my father thought he was at the cutting edge of advanced medical research, in terms of the heart and the brain. He was a great believer in trialling electroshock treatment and monitoring its results, and he had prescribed and administered it on many occasions.’
Grant was tempted to mention Richard’s role in the treatment of Caroline’s father, but he feared that Tony might take offence and clam up.
‘The second time she attempted suicide Richard took full control. She had been very overweight as a child up to the age of about thirteen. She had as a pet an overfed border terrier called Aorta whom she indulged ridiculously. Later, when Suzie’s eating habits went into reverse and she developed anorexia, Aorta suffered and would have won gold had there been a canine slimmers’ Olympic Games.’ Tony’s remark was delivered without any humorous inflection, but Grant had to suppress an involuntary laugh. ‘Richard used to call them Fatty One and Fatty Two, which didn’t do a great deal for her self-esteem, as you can imagine.’
Grant recalled the spindly border terrier Suzie kept in Cape Town and guessed that lessons, no doubt of a painful variety, had been learnt.
Tony stopped talking as their food was served. When he resumed he had tears in his eyes, and with a twinge of guilt Grant felt he had misjudged him. No doubt he had been very fond of his elder sister, his only sibling, and seeing her in such a tortured state, bulimic and nearly killing herself, must have been incredibly upsetting for him during his formative years.
‘It was just before Christmas,’ Tony continued with bleary eyes, ‘and she couldn’t face the festival of food and television-watching. She disappeared. Just as the authorities were about to issue a national alert and a search party, a voice was heard whimpering in our neighbour’s garden shed. Suzie used to see a lot of Gill, her friend next door, and had decided the best place to take an overdose was concealed in Gill’s family’s shed. It was Gill’s father who first heard her and shouted across to me in our garden, where I was playing football with a friend. We had to smash down the door, as she had locked it from the inside, and we found her curled up in a foetal position emitting tiny moans. She looked half-dead. I will never forget the pleading look in her eyes. I’ll never forget it,’ he repeated. At this point he broke down.
Danny and Grant comforted him as best they could, until he was able to recover his equilibrium, apologizing profusely. He brushed their concerns away by raising his hand. ‘Richard took total control, as usual. An ambulance delivered Suzie to one of those grim-looking mental hospitals that blighted the landscape in the 1960s and 1970s. Six weeks later she was delivered home. In her mind she felt she was coming back to a tickertape parade. She had gone into hospital wailing and broken, but she was returning smiling with a new confidence. She was, however, emotionally walled up. Her love and gratitude to our father knew no bounds, and that was the problem, you see – all she had ever wanted was his approval, and now she genuinely believed she was alive only because of him. In her head …’ Tony hesitated a moment, ‘she didn’t just think Richard played God; she thought he was God.’
The others at the table fell quiet. Danny and Grant felt it only respectful to let Tony’s heart-rending story be followed by a moment of silence.
‘Thank you for sharing this with us, Tony,’ Danny finally said.
‘It must have been very painful to do that, even now,’ Grant offered sympathetically. ‘But we thank you. It now makes some kind of sense. How I wish I hadn’t started the investigation. I feel very responsible, and I’m so sorry.’ He went quite pale, and the others thought he was about to pass out.
‘No, you mustn’t think that. Don’t think that, Grant. I always thought something like this might happen,’ Tony said, ‘as long as Estelle Hughes-Webb was alive, anyway.’
‘Well, that can’t be for too much longer. I’d say we’ve been a bit unlucky there,’ Danny observed.
‘Have we?’ said Tony. ‘To be honest, I don’t bear her any kind of grudge. The real problem was Richard.’ He spat the word out. ‘He caused all this, spreading misery wherever he went.’ He paused for a moment before adding, ‘He deserves to have his reputation thoroughly trashed.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Grant found himself agreeing, in a murmur. Then a final thought occurred to him. He recalled that when Caroline had been haranguing Suzie about Ted’s electroshock therapy Suzie had been downright dismissive, saying, ‘We’ve all got our own stories to tell.’ He now understood what she meant.