CHAPTER NINETEEN
It wasn’t, as it turned out, that late when I reached Street. But a wet Monday night in November isn’t exactly carnival time, especially in a town with Quaker traditions. The streets were deserted.
The Two Brewers pub in Leigh Road wasn’t doing a roaring trade either. Just as well it was the drink I popped in for, not the company. Although a ghostly kind of company was waiting for me. Rupe and I had quaffed our first under-age pints of cider there, back when it was called the Albert. A lot more than the name had changed since. Even so, I’d have happily lingered at the bar but for the knowledge that coming to Street made no sense unless I did what I’d come there to do.
It might as well have been midnight as the middle of the evening in Hopper Lane. A few glimmering lights were the only signs of life – housebound life, at that. I groped my way through the dripping rhododendrons to the door of Penfrith and spotted Howard through the sitting-room window, slumped in a chair staring vacantly at the television. Win and Mil were nowhere to be seen. It was less than three weeks since I’d last stood there and I felt about three decades older. A quiet life, I reckoned, was definitely underrated.
Howard’s response to the knocker was to jump like a startled rabbit and run for cover. When the door was opened – by Win – I could see him behind her, peering out into the hall from the sitting room. Then I looked at Win and said, ‘I’m back.’ And she looked at me with her no-nonsense gaze and took her instant, unspoken measure of me.
‘Best come in out of the rain, Lancelot.’
‘Hello, Howard,’ I said as I stepped inside. I got some grinning and hissing in return by way of a greeting and the opportunity to notice that his clothes – grey cardigan, Durham University sweatshirt, pyjama bottoms and Rupert Bear slippers – were exactly the same as he’d been wearing on my previous visit. A sour smell hanging in the hallway suggested there hadn’t been a lot of washdays since.
‘Go back to your programme, Howard,’ said Win. ‘We’ll be in the kitchen.’
Howard rotated his head several times, as if testing the mobility of his neck, then slowly turned and did as he’d been told.
‘Sorry to, er, call so late,’ I said as he vanished from view.
‘We’ve been worried about you.’ Win didn’t look worried, but then her basic expression – stern and practical – had never encompassed a wide range of emotions, any more than her dress sense had tended to the exotic. She was wearing her usual drab outfit of shapeless sweater (brown) and frayed three-quarter-length skirt (darker brown), enlivened this evening by a pair of doubtless home-knitted mittens (darkest brown of all).
‘There have been problems, Win. Keeping in touch . . . just wasn’t possible.’
‘Have you got any news of Rupert?’
‘Yes. I have.’
‘Come through to the kitchen. We’ll talk there.’
‘Where’s Mil?’
‘Behind you.’
I started nearly as violently as Howard had a few minutes earlier when I realized that Mil was indeed standing directly behind me, having presumably come down the stairs without my noticing. She was sporting a different colourway of Win’s ensemble (more mushroom than chocolate, sans mittens) and an apprehensive expression that suggested she’d already decided my news was bad. ‘Lance,’ she said simply, with an emphatic nod.
‘Hello, Mil.’
‘Let’s get out of the hall,’ said Win. ‘It’ll be warmer in the kitchen.’
This much was undeniably true, thanks to the range, although that was the full extent of the room’s attractions. Washing-up was piled in the sink, the tap dripping percussively into a soiled saucepan, out of time with the faster drip of a leak in the scullery roof, beneath which a bucket was nearing the half-full stage. Someone – Win, I assumed – had been cleaning the silver cutlery. Knives, forks and spoons, some gleaming, some dull, were lined up alongside a cloth and tin of Goddard’s polish on a sheet of newspaper on the kitchen table. Why the ancestral silver had struck her as more urgently in need of attention than the washing-up was a mystery beyond plumbing, but of such mysteries the Alder household wasn’t short.
‘Will you have some tea, Lancelot?’
‘Yeh. Thanks. Why not?’
‘See to that, Mil.’
‘Before you do, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. Perhaps you should sit down.’
Both sisters stared at me in a taut moment of silent scrutiny, while the tap and the leaking roof dripped and the television blared on in the sitting room, muffled by the thick walls between. Then Win said, ‘Have you found him?’
‘Sit down. Please.’
I took a chair on one side of the table. Win first, then Mil, sat opposite me. Win carefully folded the cloth over the cutlery, then looked at me and said, ‘What have you to tell us, Lancelot?’
‘Rupe’s dead.’
At first, there seemed to be no reaction. They went on staring at me. Then Mil stifled a sob. Tears filled her eyes. Win swallowed hard. For her, tears apparently weren’t an option. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘He was murdered. In San Francisco.’
There was another sob from Mil. To my surprise, Win crossed herself and whispered something in Latin under her breath, then said simply, ‘When?’
‘Twenty-first of September.’
‘The twenty-first of September?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Not the twenty-second?’
‘No.’
‘Strange. It was the morning of the twenty-second when I . . . sensed it.’
It was stranger than she knew. I suddenly remembered the time difference. The night of the twenty-first in California would have been the morning of the twenty-second in Somerset. ‘What did you sense, Win?’
‘Loss.’ She turned to her sister. ‘Make the tea, dear.’ Calling Mil dear was, I reckoned, as much as she could manage by way of sisterly consolation.
Mil got up, scraping her chair on the floor, and moved mechanically to the range.
‘You never told me about this sensation before,’ I said to Win.
‘I hoped it meant nothing.’ She nodded to herself. ‘I hoped in vain.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you.’ She seemed to remember something important. ‘He was your friend as well.’
‘He was.’
‘Who murdered him?’
‘A man called . . . Townley.’
Mil gasped and grabbed the rail of the range. Win looked round sharply at her, then back at me. ‘Townley?’
‘Stephen Townley. Recognize the name?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, Win. It’s pretty obvious Mil does, even if you don’t.’
‘Mil knows nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ The word came out of Mil’s mouth almost as a wail. There was horror as well as grief on her face as she stared at her sister. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Keep your voice down. Do you want Howard in here?’
‘I’ll keep my voice down,’ I said levelly. ‘You sent me to find your brother. That’s what I did.’
‘We’re grateful.’
‘I don’t want your gratitude. It’s no use to me. Going after Rupe got me – and others – into a lot of trouble. He’s not the only one to have been murdered. There have been five other deaths, Win. Five. Just think about that. Five lives ended. Plus Rupe’s. I don’t blame you. Rupe did the damage. But why? Why did he go after Townley? He was trying to blackmail the man. That’s how he came to be murdered. But why? What was it really all about?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Peter Dalton. It goes back to him, doesn’t it?’
‘Peter?’ gasped Mil.
‘Control yourself,’ said Win. ‘Brew the tea.’
‘Forget the tea,’ I said. ‘Just tell me.’
‘This can’t have anything to do with . . .’
‘I think you know it has. Dalton died in August ’sixty-three. Officially, he committed suicide. But he was more likely murdered – by Townley. Maybe for money. Train Robbery money. Howard told the police he saw a holdall full of fivers at Wilderness Farm a few days before Dalton’s death.’ I looked up at Mil. ‘You knew Peter Dalton pretty well, didn’t you, Mil?’
She gaped at me helplessly. No tea was brewing. But memories were stirring – memories and secrets. ‘It was Mum’s fault,’ she murmured.
‘Your mother?’
‘If she hadn’t told Rupert—’
‘That’s enough,’ snapped Win. ‘Don’t say another word.’
‘But Win—’
‘Be quiet.’ Win was on her feet now, staring at her sister. ‘You’ll not blame my mother for anything.’ (My mother, I noticed, though she was Mil’s too, of course.) ‘Hers wasn’t the fault, was it?’
‘No, Win. I’m sorry.’ Mil wiped away her tears with a dishcloth that had been drying on the range. ‘It’s just . . . so hard. To lose Rupert . . . when I was never able to . . .’
‘Never able to what?’ I prompted.
‘I think you should go upstairs, Mil,’ said Win, quietly but firmly. ‘I can explain what needs to be explained.’
‘But . . .’
‘Go on.’
Mil looked at me, then at her sister. ‘Now Rupert’s gone,’ she murmured, ‘maybe we should . . .’
‘I’ll tell him, Mil. You go. It’ll only upset you more to hear it said.’
Mil bowed her head, absent-mindedly replaced the dishcloth on the range, then moved slowly to the door that Win was holding open for her, breathing heavily as she went. Just as she was about to leave the room, she stopped and turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, Lance,’ she said, sounding as if she truly was, ‘for any trouble I’ve brought you.’
‘That’s all right, dear,’ said Win. ‘You can leave this to Lancelot and me.’
Mil nodded dolefully and left. Win waited until she saw her sister climbing the stairs – I could hear her plodding steps from where I was sitting – then closed the door, stooped to a low cupboard and got out a dusty, quarter-full bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky. She poured us a couple of fingers each in grimy glasses and sat back down at the table.
‘Rupert tried to blackmail Townley, you say?’
‘There was a lot to blackmail him with.’
‘More than the Train Robbery?’
‘That wasn’t the half of it.’
‘Did Rupert take on more than he could manage?’
‘He couldn’t manage Townley, that’s for sure.’
‘And Townley killed him?’
‘Not personally. But . . . effectively, yes.’
‘Has finding this out put you in danger, Lancelot?’
‘You could say so, yeh.’
‘I’m sorry for that.’
‘Me too. So, how about giving me the meagre satisfaction of knowing why Rupe was so determined to have a go at Townley?’
‘I fear Mil was right. If Mother hadn’t left that letter for him, none of this would have happened. If I’d known what she’d done . . .’
‘What letter was this?’
‘She lodged it with the solicitor, to be handed to Rupert after her death.’
‘What was in it?’
‘The family secret. And a shameful one it was. Rupert was Mil’s son, Lancelot.’
‘What?’ I gaped at her in astonishment.
‘There it is. I’ve said it. Yes. My brother Rupert was born to my sister.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘It’s true. My mother thought he had a right to know and feared we would never tell him. So, she decided to ensure that after her death . . . the secret would be revealed to him.’
‘How did he react?’
‘Like you, he could hardly believe it. But he had to. There were harsh words. Mil took to her bed. I feared for her sanity. Rupert . . . But there, I couldn’t blame him. It was a terrible thing for him to learn. He’s never set foot in this house since.’
‘I don’t understand. How was this kept secret originally?’
‘Before Mil began to show, Mother took her away to Bournemouth. We told people Mother was expecting and needed special treatment on account of her age and that Mil had gone to keep her company. They came straight back after Rupert’s birth and registered him here as Mother’s child. Illegitimacy then was a real scandal. Not like now. Mil would have been out of a job. Shunned. And if she was to marry . . . She was only nineteen. It seemed best to arrange it as we did. I won’t say I opposed it, because I didn’t. It worried Father, though. Whether he’d have allowed us to go through with it if he’d lived . . . I’m not sure.’
‘Did he kill himself because of this, Win?’
‘Nobody knows what happened. It wouldn’t have helped to think of his death as anything other than an accident.’
‘He was depressed at the time, though, because of what was being planned?’
‘Yes. He thought it was wrong. What’s happened since makes me think we should have listened to him. But Mother and I . . . overrode him.’
‘Who was Rupe’s father, then? Peter Dalton?’
Win nodded. ‘Mother named him in her letter. Rupert made lots of enquiries about him after reading it. He dug it all up. There were times he was here, in Street, when we didn’t know. People at the Post Office would say they’d seen him. But we hadn’t. I think he was . . . investigating.’
‘And his investigations revealed that his real father was murdered by Stephen Townley.’
Win nodded again. ‘If Rupert’s father had been alive and willing to marry Mil when she admitted she was with child, it would all have been different.’
‘But he wasn’t.’
‘No.’
‘And Rupe held Townley to blame for that.’
‘He must have done, yes.’
‘The man he went after . . . was his father’s murderer.’
I thought about that for a moment and felt sorry for Rupe for the first time since setting off in search of him. The woman he’d always thought of as his sister was actually his mother. And the people he’d always thought of as his parents were actually his grandparents. No wonder Rupe had wanted to take revenge for the guilt-riddled chaos of his family relationships. And there was Townley, waiting in his past, a deserving target for whatever revenge he could contrive. Which, thanks to Townley’s dark dealings, amounted to quite something.
‘Rupe had a photograph of Townley, taken by Howard. How did he get hold of that, Win?’
‘Howard must have given it to him. We drummed it into Howard to keep quiet about what he reckoned he’d seen that summer for fear he’d blurt out something about Mil and Peter. But somewhere along the line he may have told his tale to Rupert. They were that close when Rupert was a boy.’
‘Rupe never breathed a word to me about it.’
‘Probably because he didn’t believe it. He always did his best to protect his brother.’
That was certainly true. Rupe never wanted people to think Howard was crazy – or at any rate crazier than he really was. The Train Robbery story must have struck Rupe as a madness too far. Until that posthumous letter from his mother – well, the woman he’d regarded as his mother – prompted him to take another look. But how had he been able to take it further? How had he got started on Townley’s trail? ‘Would the letter your mother left for Rupe have told him anything about Townley, Win?’
‘I never read it. How can I say? All she would have known about him, from Mil, was that he was an American friend Peter made during his time in the Army. She knew precious little about Peter, come to that. There wasn’t much she could tell Rupert about his father beyond his name. Mil had nothing of his. Except . . .’ Win frowned. (It would be more accurate to say her frown deepened, since there was always the making of one on her face.)
‘What?’
‘Mil has a small china cat that sits on her bedside table. Peter gave it to her. Mother wanted to get rid of it, but Mil was so attached to it that Mother relented in the end. Whether she mentioned it in her letter I don’t know. I can’t see why she would have. It’s just Mil’s silly old Japanese cat.’
‘Japanese?’
‘A good-luck charm from Japan, yes.’
‘Peter Dalton had been to Japan?’
‘At some point, I suppose.’
To visit a friend. Yes, it had to be. That was the connection. Mrs Alder probably had referred to it in her letter. Even so, Rupe wouldn’t have made much of the reference at first. Then Eurybia sent him to Tokyo, where he had the opportunity and inclination to look for traces of Dalton’s friend. Bingo! At the Golden Rickshaw, haunt of a certain brand of American military man circa 1960, he chanced on another photograph of Townley. From that moment on there was no turning back for him. Just as now there was no coming back.
‘Is it important, Lancelot?’
‘The cat? No more than anything else. Just one clue among several. Rupe put them together very cleverly. His only miscalculation was thinking he could handle Townley. He’s not alone in that.’
‘Is Townley threatening you?’
‘Not exactly. Let’s just say I’ve lived to regret making his acquaintance. But at least I have lived.’
‘Are you back to stay now, then?’
I smiled. ‘’Fraid not. Got to keep moving.’
She didn’t ask why. Maybe she realized this uncharacteristic wanderlust on my part had something to do with her family – and the position they’d put me in. If so, it wasn’t a point she wanted to dwell on. ‘Have you seen your parents?’
‘Not yet. I thought I’d go round there now.’
‘Please give them my regards.’
‘Will do.’ I glanced up as the clock began to strike nine – the strong, unhurried strikes of a Victorian farmhouse timepiece, probably bought by Win’s grandparents, maybe even her great-grandparents, way back in the Alders’ landlocked past. (Rupe had pulled off quite a first for the family by getting his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.) ‘I’d better be on my way. They go to bed early these days.’
Win saw me to the door. Howard didn’t stir from his chair in front of the television as I passed the sitting room. There was no sign of Mil. I glanced up the stairs, half-expecting to see her watching me from the landing. But she wasn’t there.
‘It’s stopped raining,’ said Win as I stepped out into the cool, damp air.
‘So it has.’
‘Goodbye, Lancelot.’ (Good night wouldn’t really have covered it. We both knew that.)
I heard the door close behind me as I turned away. And it seemed to me that a lot else closed in that moment.
Which only goes to show how you shouldn’t take the way things seem on trust. I barged my way back through the sodden barrier of rhododendrons, turned into the lane – and pulled up sharply.
A man was standing directly in front of me – a broadly built figure, raincoated, his face deep in shadow. I had an instant impression of immobility – as if he’d been waiting for me.
‘Hi, Lance.’
I recognized his voice, but at first doubted my own recognition. It couldn’t be him. Not here. It just couldn’t be. ‘Gus?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘What the bloody hell . . .’
‘Am I doing here? Good question.’
‘Is Toshi with you?’
‘No. Toshi has no idea where I am. I’d checked out of the Arundel by the time he got back there.’
‘But . . .’
‘I followed you here, Lance.’
‘You . . . followed me?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I don’t . . .’
‘Parminter’s not my real name.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No. Nor’s Ventress. But that’s the name you’ll know me by.’
If central Somerset had suddenly developed seismic instability and a fissure had opened in the earth beneath my feet, I think I’d have been rather less surprised than I was by the realization that Yamazawa’s laid-back drinking buddy from New Jersey, Gus Parminter, was actually . . . a hired assassin.
‘Let’s take a walk along the lane. We need to talk, you and me. It looks private enough hereabouts. And like the lady said . . . it’s stopped raining.’ Gus laid a large, firm hand on my shoulder and turned me round. We started walking, slowly.
‘You’re . . . Ventress?’ I asked, struggling to get the words out.
‘Yup.’
‘Ledgister hired you . . . to kill Hashimoto?’
‘He did. Then Townley hired me . . . to kill Ledgister.’
‘You planted the bomb?’
‘And set it off. Yuh. Neat work, if I say so myself. I reckoned Yamazawa was bound to lead me to you. And therefore to Ledgister. Townley’s instructions were clear. Terminate Ledgister and that low-life he’d taken up with – Madron. Plus destroy the letter. Three birds with one stone. Not bad, hey?’
If he was expecting a compliment he’d come to the wrong man. But why had he come to me at all? ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to tell you something very important, Lance. For once, that phrase “a matter of life and death” really is appropriate. You see, Townley’s instructions didn’t finish at Ledgister, Madron and the letter. He wants a clean slate. He wants to rule out any possibility of another Rupe Alder disturbing his retirement. He wants the thread Rupe followed cut at the source and wound in. Which means, I’m awful sorry to say . . .’
We stopped. Staring at him in the pallid gleam of one of Hopper Lane’s very few street-lamps, his face patched by the shadows of the overhanging trees, I hadn’t a doubt – not the slightest – as to what he meant. ‘You’ve come here to kill me, haven’t you?’
He nodded. ‘Plus the Alders. The brother and the two sisters.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘A more pious response to the imminence of death than some manage, Lance. I’ll give you that. But consider: why am I telling you this? You surely don’t think I gave Ledgister any notice of his demise. And you know I didn’t give Hashimoto any.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Why, then?’
‘Because Townley’s not the only one who could use a clean slate. I hadn’t a clue what Ledgister was getting me into when he hired me. I have now. You know what I mean. The stuff of legends. People in legends tend to be dead, though, so I’m happy to miss out on a mention. But to do that I need to close down the whole Townley connection. And I reckon that’s best done at the other end.’
‘What . . . do you mean?’
‘I mean to take Townley out. And you can help me. In return for which you and your hillbilly friends . . . get extended leases on life.’ A glimmer of lamplight told me he was smiling. ‘Tell you what. My car’s stowed further along the lane. Why don’t we go over the details there? I think it could be starting to rain again.’ He moved on and I fell in beside him, my thoughts struggling to keep pace.
‘Hold on,’ I said, a point suddenly striking me. ‘I thought you said you followed me here. You can’t have done that in a car.’
‘An exaggeration, I admit. As soon as you got on the train it was obvious where you were headed. Hertz beats public transport any day. I was here way ahead of you.’ (In more ways than one, I was rapidly coming to understand.) ‘Townley gave me a heap of background on the Alders and where you fit in. I was wondering how to get you down here if you didn’t come of your own accord, because I reckoned from the first I’d need you as a go-between. I mean, hell, the Alders would be spooked by me, wouldn’t they, without you to hold their hands? So, thanks for making it easy. It’s appreciated. There’s the car.’
A small, dark-painted hatchback was parked on the verge ahead, overhung by trees. Ventress opened the passenger door for me. Resisting the fleeting thought that maybe I should just make a run for it, I got in. I was aware, when all was said and done, that if a man like him wanted me dead, that’s what I’d already be.
He went round to the driver’s side and got in beside me. ‘Hell of a damp climate you got here, Lance. I’m surprised you don’t have gills. Hey, maybe the Alders do, being ancient stock and all.’ He looked round at me. ‘I don’t mind if you laugh at my joke.’
‘Is it compulsory?’
He laughed for me – a deep, rumbling sound of apparently genuine amusement. ‘OK. Let’s quit horsing around. This is no bedtime story I have to tell you. This is reality. Which sure can be a hostile environment. You saw the letter Townley and Ledgister so badly wanted?’
‘Yes and no. I saw the envelope.’
‘Catch the postmark?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Dallas, Texas, on the most famous date in its history, right?’
‘Right.’
‘I made my own enquiries. Well, you have to in my line of business. It pays to watch your back. You have to think about your future as well as your fee. Hashimoto was a standard hit. No frills, no corners cut – my specialty. Eric Townley was a bolt-on I should have thought twice about. But what the hell? Ledgister was paying a fat bonus. Sloppy reasoning, I’ve got to admit. Must be getting old. Well, I’d like to get a good bit older. But when Stephen Townley contacted me, I realized that particular ambition was under threat. I asked around and got some disturbing answers. Townley was one of the Dallas boys – the Kennedy hit team, back in ‘sixty-three. I mean, that is hall-of-fame stuff in my profession. But it’s not what you’d call enviable status. Was there or wasn’t there a conspiracy? People have been debating that all your life and two-thirds of mine. Well, you need to be a simpleton to much doubt there was one, but there seem to be a lot of those around. Or maybe just a lot of people who study the mortality statistics for witnesses to the assassination and reckon they’re kind of hard to argue with. Either way, the big problem for conspiracy theorists is that no one’s ever held their hand up and said, hey, yeh, I was part of it and this is what it was and how it went down. Surely to God and J. Edgar Hoover one of them should have been desperate enough by now to have spilled the beans. But no. They never have. Now, why do you suppose that might be, Lance?’
‘Too frightened.’
‘For themselves or their families? It would account for a good few, for sure. But a loner, as most people in my line of work are, grown old, terminally ill, short of cash for a hip replacement, whatever. Why wouldn’t he go public – for the fame, the money, the hell of it?’
‘Well? Why wouldn’t he?’
‘Because he’s already dead. Dead and buried. They all got taken out. Like so many of the witnesses. Culled, to save the herd. The hit men were hit.’
‘Except Townley.’
‘He saw it coming and had an escape route ready and waiting. We have to figure he was more than a foot soldier. He was on the recruitment side of things in Japan. Hell, he may even have recruited Oswald while the guy was serving there with the Marines. Maybe that’s when Oswald was first tied into the deniable fringes of the intelligence world. But he and Townley knew each other. That’s clear. They understood each other. So, when Oswald saw Townley in Dallas the day before Kennedy’s visit – I’m guessing, but it’s as good a guess as we’ll get now – he finally realized what was going on. Or maybe he already knew, but not that Townley was involved. Either way, he decided to warn Mayumi Hashimoto of the danger she might be in after the event, as a mutual acquaintance – or a mutual whatever she was to them. So, he wrote her a letter and mailed it on his way into work on the morning of November twenty-second. Or he could have delayed mailing it until straight after the assassination. It doesn’t matter. It got mailed. And, because of it, here we are.’
‘You believe Townley’s escape route involved Train Robbery money?’
‘It involved money big time. Disappearing’s an expensive business, especially when you have to give up your profession into the bargain. But he’d already set aside his disappearance fund. Dalton was a friend of his from West Berlin days, who’d got into trading information in the British underworld. I think he may have had Mafia – even Yakuza – connections.’ (Which suggested his visit to Townley in Japan had yielded more than a lucky china cat, I couldn’t help but reflect.) ‘Anyhow, Townley was sent over here in the spring of ‘sixty-three, apparently to sever any embarrassing links between the brewing Profumo scandal and the sensitive parts of US Intelligence Townley’s group had dealings with. Funny how all these things get kind of interconnected. Doesn’t pay to dwell on the point, though. So, let’s concentrate on this point. Townley was already looking for vanish money because he’d got wind of what was planned for the fall. Dalton had just picked up some choice dope about trainloads of used banknotes snaking down the country with zero security. Put the two together and what have you got? Motive and means. They set the heist up – or they set up the people who set it up. But they were behind it. That’s what counts. Dalton had recently inherited Wilderness Farm – a handily out-of-the-way place for Townley and him to do the planning and coordinating. Just a pity some interbred local youth developed an unhealthy interest in their activities. But that didn’t matter too much to Townley, because he meant to draw a line under the whole deal as soon as he had the money. Dalton probably trusted him. They were old friends. Big mistake. Townley killed him, set it up to look like suicide, saddlebagged the loot and rode off into the sunset. Three months later, straight after the Kennedy hit, he black-holed his entire life to date.’
‘Why not do that right away – in August?’
‘Pertinent question, Lance. Distinctly pertinent. That had occurred to me. The answer’s conjectural, but it feels like the truth. He believed in the cause. I think that was it. He wanted the conspiracy to succeed and stayed on to do his bit towards ensuring it did. It was an article of faith for him – an expression, maybe the crowning expression, of his twisted brand of patriotism. There were plenty who thought like him in ’sixty-three. But not many with the balls to play a full part and the brains to figure out the fate pencilled in for him as well as the best way to avoid it. I take my hat off to the guy. He pulled some very smart moves. Getting back in touch with his family years later wasn’t so smart, though. Understandable, of course, but risky. Not that it would have mattered – he’d been written off as dead a long time ago – but for your friend Rupe Alder. There’s just no factoring-in a guy like that.’
‘Peter Dalton was his father.’
Ventress gave a ghostly little whistle. ‘Was he, now? Well, doesn’t that stand the dominoes all in a line? Rupe was out to nail his daddy’s killer. Who exactly was Rupe’s mother, then?’
‘The younger of the two sisters. Mil.’
Another whistle. ‘Bebop-a-lula. It just gets worse and worse.’
‘Yeh.’
‘Could be I have good news for Mil, though – a commodity I’d guess her life’s not been overburdened with.’
‘What sort of good news?’
‘Well, she might appreciate having a ringside seat at the demise of her old lover’s murderer.’
‘How’s she going to get that?’
‘Easy. I called Townley while I was waiting for you to show up earlier. I told him things went wrong after the car-bombing. I had the cops on my tail. Accordingly, I had to let him down where you and the Alders were concerned and get out of the country in double-quick time. He wasn’t happy. He was seriously unhappy. But he believed it. My panic turn’s surprisingly convincing. So, he thinks I’ve run out on him. Something I’m sure he’s already planning to make me suffer for. First, though, he’ll decide to do the job himself.’
‘You mean . . .’
‘He’ll come after the Alders. And you. My last service to him was to report you were headed this way.’
‘You told him that?’
‘Sure. It puts you all together, neatly packaged. Now, what’s he going to do? Fly back to San Francisco leaving unfinished business behind him? I don’t think so. No, he’ll come here. That’s as close to a certainty as you’ll get in this chance-driven world. He’ll come. And I’ll be waiting.’
‘When?’ I scrambled round in my seat to face Ventress, the realization suddenly hitting me that his plan was something he’d already set in motion – something that could no longer be stopped. ‘How soon?’
‘Tomorrow night, I’d guess. At latest, the night after. Not tonight. He’ll want to do a daytime reconnaissance first. Hope to get a fix on your whereabouts. The Alders’ whereabouts are a given, of course, but then he doesn’t know the ground. I’m assuming he never came to Penfrith in ‘sixty-three. A fair assumption, do you reckon?’
‘What?’ Tardily, I registered the fact that Ventress was genuinely interested in my opinion. ‘No. I’m sure he’s never been to Penfrith.’
‘Right. So, he’ll probably leave London first thing tomorrow and make his way here, stake out the Alder joint during the afternoon and make his move some time after nightfall.’
‘His . . . move?’
‘The triple hit, Lance. Quadruple, counting you. Get with it, will you? We’re in real time now. We don’t have infinite amounts of it. But we do have enough.’
‘Enough for what . . . exactly?’
‘For you to persuade the Alders to take in a couple of house guests. For the very short duration.’