29

MIDNIGHT. AND AT the twelfth stroke of the clock, Frank Griffith stirred wearily in his chair. He had delayed long enough, he knew. If he delayed any longer, he might never do it at all. Yet do it he must. To have held back when he first received Beatrix’s letter was understandable. To stay his hand once more when Charlotte found him was excusable. But now understanding and excuses had run out. Fairfax’s visit had proved what he should have recognized all along: that Tristram’s secret would not be safe until his letters to Beatrix were destroyed.

Frank leaned forward to tap out his pipe against the fender, then rose and rubbed some of the stiffness out of his lower back. In front of him, dimly reflected in the clock-glass, he could see his lined and hollow-cheeked face. He had been strong and lithe and handsome once, striding the cobbled streets of Swansea while white horses rode the bay and factory hooters blared out their summons. So young and confident of his place in the world, with a tireless body and an inexhaustible mind, hard as the steel he forged, bright as the sun on the hills. All that was gone and wasted now, shed and shattered in dole queues and hunger marches, sloughed like a flayed skin on the snowy heights above Teruel.

This should have been done years ago. They should have been buried with Tristram in Tarragona. Or consigned to flame somewhere far back along the road that ended here, in his old age and solitude. But they had not been. So now, as the new day inexorably advanced, he would have to ensure that at long last they were.

He made his way to the kitchen, moving slowly and quietly so as not to rouse Bron. There he put on his boots and a jacket and took down the torch from its nail beside the range. He opened the back door and stepped out into the garden, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the moonlight. He shivered and chuckled faintly at how frail he had grown. He felt cold even on a balmy midsummer night, whereas once—

Stifling such futile thoughts, he walked round to the wicket-gate and let himself into the yard, raising and lowering the latch with punctilious care, for he saw no sense in taking any risks, even if in truth there were none to be run. He gazed about him and breathed deeply. All was still and silent. The wind had died with the day, leaving the moon to preside in pale and ghostly splendour over the empty black gulfs of field and moor. He knew them all. He knew them well. Every peak and slope, every rain-hewn cleft. Every boulder, every blade. This was home. This, he supposed, was where, one day not far off, he would die. And at least, after this night’s work, he would die with a clear conscience.

Old age craves reassurance as well as rest. He waited longer than necessary for certainty to creep upon him through the chill. Then he marched across the yard and entered the barn, slipping in through the half-open door. And there he stopped once more. The darkness was absolute, but silence did not impose itself until a fraction of a second after his entrance. No matter. The scratching had been unmistakable. It was a dormouse. Nothing more and nothing larger. It would not move again while he remained. And he would not remain long.

He switched on the torch and ran its cone of light along the upper half of the left-hand wall, counting the trusses as he went. There was the ladder, propped against the wall. And there, he knew, wedged between the fifth beam and the thatched roof, was what he had come for. Tristram’s letters from Spain and fifty years ago. His confessional. His apologia. His secret.

Frank stepped across to the ladder and moved it to a position just short of the fifth beam. Clutching the torch in his right hand and trailing its light on to his feet, he began to climb, placing both feet on each rung before moving to the next. Five rungs took him to within reach of the hiding-place. Raising the torch, he shone it into the gap and made out the familiar shape and metallic sheen of the biscuit tin he had used. It had once contained shortbreads, a Christmas present from Beatrix. Now it contained a fragment of his own past, and the lie of another’s, preserved in ink and paper, bound in string and secrecy.

Transferring the torch to his left hand, he reached out with his right and picked up the tin, then started back down the ladder. So light his burden, so simple his task: soon it would be safely done. The next rung was the last. Then it only remained—

He was pulled off the ladder so suddenly and violently that he hit the straw-scattered floor before he was aware of what was happening. The torch had fallen to his left, the tin had slipped from his grasp. As he tried to rise, he was dazzled by the brilliance of some more powerful torch than his own, then his head was jerked aside by a gloved hand. There was a movement above him, a stumble, an oath, a stooping form faintly discernible, black moving against black, an arcing flash of light, then a scrape of metal on stone. Whoever he was, he wanted the tin and what he must know was inside. And now he had found it.

Frank propped himself up on one elbow and saw the man crouching a few yards away, with something clutched against his chest. It was happening too fast for him to intervene. It was happening and he was losing what he should never have preserved. Cursing his age and his indecision, he began to struggle to his feet. ‘Stop!’ he bellowed. ‘Stop, damn you!’

Suddenly he was blind, assailed by white glaring light. He could see nothing and hear less. He tried to turn, to escape for the moment he needed to understand where he and the man and the door were in relation to each other. But it was too late. After all the moments he had frittered away since the letter arrived, another was too much to ask. He knew that. It was the only thing he did know.

Something struck him in the chest with such force that he was thrown backwards off his feet. There was a falling plunging instant, too brief for him to form a single thought beyond the burning shame of his stupidity. Then he hit the wall. And broke through into oblivion.