Fifteen

Shit! Shit! Shit! I don’t believe this. It’s like some kind of gruesome joke. Bones in the cellar! God only knows what is going on. Jean thinks that Sentance is behind it all, but I can’t see it. He’s self-seeking, certainly, and probably dishonest, but I doubt he’s a murderer. I don’t think that he’s got it in him, to be frank. I’m going to have it out with him, whatever Jean says about keeping him at arm’s length. I suppose we’d better wait until they’ve put a date on the bones first, as that Yates says. But fuck it. If it had just been the passports, I thought I might have had a chance with Thornton. Got him to see that Yates is over-keen, let me go back to Joanna on compassionate grounds. He’s not likely to let me go if he thinks I’m a murder suspect, though, is he? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

What am I going to say to Joanna? I promised I’d call her again this evening. She was upset enough when I told her about the search. She’s going to be desperately unhappy about them digging up the cellar, pulling the house about. We’ll have the whole ‘I want to come home’ thing all over again. I probably won’t be able to make her stay put this time, either. Especially if she finds out that Jean’s here. I’m surprised that she hasn’t asked about Jean already. When Sentance started on about contacting my solicitor, she must have known who he meant.

Jean’s been almost manic since she got here. I don’t know what her game is, either. She’s doing her job superbly well, as always, but there’s more to it than that. She must know that there’s no use her trying to rekindle old flames. I’m sure she’d have the good taste not to try while Joanna’s still alive and, if she hasn’t, she’s surely got enough sense to know what I’d think about it.

There’s a light tap at the kitchen door and I know that she’s back. She tells me that the cops want to see me in the drawing-room. She’ll be there too, of course. I surprise myself by suggesting that she should be a little less combative with them. God knows I don’t want them in the house, but we’re not likely to be rid of them unless we attempt some semblance of co-operation. She nods, but in her ‘I’m the lawyer and I know best’ way.

I sit through their so-called interview in a kind of dream, as if I’m viewing them through glass. I know, although they say they’re not accusing me . . . yet, that I’m bound to be a suspect. I worry that they’ll say that Joanna’s a suspect, too. Jean keeps on retaliating like a terrier that’s caught a rat bigger than itself. I cut her short on a couple of occasions, but politely, naturally. I suddenly find her outfit offensive. I think I understand the rationale behind the way that she dresses: she lures blokes like me into her web and hoodwinks the coppers into thinking that she’s dim at the same time. She’s getting too old for it, even so. She should try a bit more grace and dignity. God, am I weary with all of this! I honestly believe that if they charge me with murder now I won’t have the energy to defend myself.

Yates starts talking about the deeds of Laurieston and who owned it before Opa. I’m transported back almost forty years, to a hot and stifling day in August. What year would it have been? I suppose the deeds will say. I think it was one of those two fierce summers in the mid-1970s. I was a small boy, holding Opa’s hand, standing beside him in the porch as he rang the bell.

A tall woman with silver hair opened the door. She was dressed in old-fashioned clothes: a high-necked blouse made of some lacy material and a wide brown skirt that almost reached her ankles. I noticed that she walked with a limp. When I looked down, I saw that one of her ankles was very swollen. Her shoes were shiny brown lace-ups with suede panels inserted at the sides. I’d never seen shoes like them.

“You’ve come to see Mrs Jacobs?” she asked.

“Yes,” said my grandfather. “I understood that her son would be here, too.”

“Mr Gordon? He’s not here yet. Do you want to see Madam on her own?” She uttered the word ‘madam’ in a curious way. When I thought about it afterwards, I realised that it was the opposite of respectful. At the time I was more taken with the name ‘Mr Gordon’. I thought I’d like to be called ‘Mr’ followed by my first name, not my surname, just like Mrs Jacobs’ son.

The tall woman opened the door wider and motioned to us to enter. My grandfather went first, pulling me after him. We stood in the hall while the woman knocked on what is now the drawing-room door, the room we’re sitting in. A feeble voice said, “Come in.”

“I’ll just go first and make sure that she’s decent,” said the woman, her brown skirt swishing as she limped into the room and turned to close the door. “Sit down, if you’d like to.” She indicated a high-backed wooden settle that had been placed against the wall. Opa lifted me on to it. I swung my legs and looked down at the floor tiles between my sandalled feet. They’re still there now. They’re made of tiny mosaic pieces in brown, blue, cream and dull red. They create an elaborate pattern of what I now know are stylised fleurs-de-lys, their bold cream swirls dramatic against the other, more muted colours.

After a while, when the woman hadn’t returned, Opa came to sit beside me. He fixed his eyes on the wall opposite.

“Bless my soul!” he said. Being an ex-pat Dutchman, he liked to cultivate phrases that he thought were very British. He never managed to rid himself of his guttural accent, though.

I looked up to where his gaze had fallen. Ornamenting the wall were several rows of pictures, hung vertically in threes, framed in what as an adult I came to identify as passe-partout. They were in sepia. I’d never seen brown photographs before and I was fascinated by them. Opa clearly disapproved. I could see that the pictures were strange. They were all of the same man, a man with whiskers on his face, dressed in pale clothes and a hat like a white policeman’s helmet. But what held both me and my grandfather transfixed was not the man himself, but his companions. In each of the photographs he was posing sometimes with one, sometimes with several black women. Some had bones or beads pushed through their noses, or ear-lobes distorted by the weight of heavy earrings. All wore elaborate many-tiered necklaces. Every one of them was naked to the waist. All were grinning at the camera. The bewhiskered man grinned, too.

“Extraordinary!” said my grandfather, more or less talking to himself. “Those photographs are probably valuable. Not to my taste, though. No. Not at all.” He was emphatic about this, as if he’d been caught practising some vice.

The drawing-room door opened at that moment and the tall silver-haired woman limped out. Opa jumped to his feet. He motioned to me to stand and I scrambled off the settle.

“Mrs Jacobs will see you now,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Opa, with a short bow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m Beatrice Izatt. Mrs. I’m Mrs Jacobs’ housekeeper, or companion, as she prefers to put it.”

He bowed again. Mrs Izatt lowered her voice.

“She’s not too bad, today,” she said, sotto voce, “but don’t be surprised if her attention wanders, or she nods off while you’re talking to her. If you can persuade her to let me show you around the house, I’ll be happy to do so. If you can’t, you’ll have to wait until Mr Gordon arrives. She doesn’t know that the house is to be sold, so don’t alarm her. Just say that you’d like to see her lovely home. She won’t think it’s odd. People did that sort of thing when she was young and she spends most of her time living in the past now.”

I felt rather afraid. I sensed that my grandfather was apprehensive, too. He took hold of my hand again and led me through the drawing-room door. Mrs Izatt followed us.

The room that we entered smelt fusty and was far too warm. It was also very dark. The heavy curtains had been drawn. The only light came from two little electric wall-lamps that had been fixed to brackets on either side of the bed. The bed itself was an enormous four-poster, around which smaller items of furniture had been crowded with more reference to usefulness than aesthetics. There were several small tables, a two-seater sofa and a commode. In the further reaches of the darkness gleamed a dressing-table mirror. The fireplace was as it is now, but not in use. An embroidered firescreen stood in front of it. Although the day was warm, one bar of the electric fire that stood in front of that had been switched on. I can see it as clearly now as . . .

“Mr de Vries, are you quite well?”

It is the red-haired policeman speaking. I’m brought rudely back to the whole mess of Joanna, Jean, Sentance and the bones in the cellar.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I just drifted off for a moment.”

“Kevan, if you’re not up to this . . .”

“Stop trying to mollycoddle me, Jean. When I’m unable to cope, I assure you that you will be the first to know. You can then relay the message to DI Yates, even if he happens to be sitting beside me at the time.”