10

EIGHT DAYS HAD passed since Beatrix’s funeral when Charlotte decided she could postpone a visit to Jackdaw Cottage no longer. On a cool breezy morning, she drove down to Rye, collected the key from Mrs Mentiply and entered what was now her property but still seemed indelibly to belong to another.

Thanks to Mrs Mentiply, the cottage was spotlessly clean. It was as if she regarded her bequest as a retainer and meant to discharge her duties more assiduously after her employer’s death than before. The effect was to suggest Beatrix had merely gone away for a few days. All was as she might expect to find it when she returned. Except that she would not return.

Listlessly, Charlotte wandered from room to room, reliving in jumbled order her visits down the years. In her memory of them, she fluctuated between childhood and her present age, but Beatrix never varied. Always she was the same: kindly but not indulgent, generous but not playful. She had treated Charlotte as an adult long before she was one and retained to the end an independence of mind which some found disconcerting but which Charlotte had come more and more to admire.

But an end had come to all that and to preserve Jackdaw Cottage as some kind of museum was surely not what Beatrix would have wanted. As she gazed from the window of what had often been her room out across the small patch of garden towards the sea, Charlotte knew that the wisest solution was the swiftest: sell up and have done.

Yet Beatrix would surely also have wanted her to have a memento of their times together, something that would remind her of her godmother whenever her eye fell upon it. Ironically, she would have chosen one of the smaller pieces of Tunbridge Ware, but they lay bagged and labelled in a police station basement, awaiting Colin Fairfax’s trial. The only remaining item of Tunbridge Ware was the work-table in the drawing room and, as soon as Charlotte had thought of it, she realized how appropriate it would be, since it combined practicality and elegance in a manner close to Beatrix’s heart.

Without further ado, she carried it out to her car, went back for some blankets to wrap it in for the journey, then briskly took her leave. Tomorrow she would contact an estate agent and put the sale of Jackdaw Cottage in hand. Tomorrow nostalgia would be cast aside.

‘So, what you’re telling me,’ said Colin, ‘is that you’ve drawn a complete blank.’

‘Yes,’ Derek replied, averting his gaze towards the bare wall of the visiting room. ‘I’m afraid I have.’

‘The family have nothing to say?’

‘Not to anybody associated with you.’

‘And there are no clues to be found in Tristram Abberley’s biography?’

‘None. Read it yourself and see.’

‘I intend to.’

They eyed each other warily for a moment, Derek sensing the silent accusation of failure that hung between them. Colin would think he had lost his nerve, misplayed his hand, blown his chance. And the worst of it was that he would be right.

‘Where do we go from here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, I do. At least, I know where I go. Down for a long stretch. Dredge keeps pushing me to do some kind of deal with the police. And I would if I could. But I can’t. They all think I’m holding out on them. They mean to make me suffer for that. And suffering isn’t my favourite occupation. But it seems I may have to get used to it.’

‘I’m sorry, Colin. If there was anything—’

‘Find something!’ Colin nearly shouted the words, drawing a sharp glance from the warder. ‘Just keep trying, brother,’ he murmured through a fixed grin. ‘You’re my only hope.’

At Ockham House, Charlotte was in the process of selecting a suitable place for Beatrix’s work-table when the telephone rang. It was Ursula.

‘Hello, Charlie. Maurice asked me to call you.’

‘Really? I thought he was still in New York.’

‘He is. But we spoke last night. He wanted me to find out if you could have lunch with us next Sunday.’

‘Next Sunday? Well, yes, I’d be delighted. But ….’

‘Is there some problem?’

‘No. No problem at all. I’m just surprised Maurice should make a transatlantic phone call simply to invite me to lunch.’

‘Well, it appears he’s bringing somebody back with him from New York who wants to meet you, so he asked me to make sure you were free.’

‘To meet me? Who is this person?’

‘I don’t know. Maurice wouldn’t say. “Very keen to make your acquaintance.” That’s all I know. A secret admirer, perhaps.’

‘In New York? I hardly think so.’

‘I shouldn’t be too sure.’

‘You know who it is, don’t you?’

‘Absolutely not. Guides’ honour. Anyway, the mystery will be solved on Sunday. You will come, won’t you?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there. With an incentive like that, how could I stay away?’