Francis was glad he’d followed his instincts and brought the Saab rather than accepting the festival’s offered alternative, a ‘limo’ from Dewkesbury station, some twenty-five miles away. The joke among the festival’s participants was that said limo was actually a bog-standard minicab, but then authors hardly expected to be treated like film stars. They were grateful for the chance to promote their books; happy enough with the proffered payment of half a case of English wine and a few extra goodies that Laetitia had conned out of local enterprises: a round of Dewkesbury Camembert, a jar of organic honey from the Dewkesbury Bee Centre.
Now his sleek blue chariot was winding up a narrow lane between high stone walls, thick with luxuriant undergrowth: long grass, nettles, brambles, bracken, wild flowers you would never see on Hampstead Heath. At a glance these barriers looked as soft as hedges; but try getting too close and you soon realised what an illusion this was, how rock solid they were underneath. SINGLE TRACK WITH PASSING PLACES was written on the sign at the bottom of the hill, and the best plan was to bolt along, getting as far as you could before you ran into someone coming the other way. Hopefully not literally.
As part of their strange non-marriage (Dickson had explained), Bryce and Scarlett jointly owned a cottage, ten miles outside Mold.
‘I think I’ve seen a snap of it, in the festival albums,’ Francis said; but even if Dan was aware which one he was talking about, he wasn’t going to be drawn.
‘You might well have done,’ he replied. ‘They’ve had it for years.’
Francis found it easily enough. The nearest village, Tittlewell, was clearly signed, as was the Black Bull pub two miles beyond. FREE HOUSE. OPEN ALL DAY. DRAUGHT HEADBANGER AND DEMON ON TAP. SIMON’S SCRUMPY. MARGE’S HOMEMADE PIES. GAGGIA MACHINE. That was a nice touch. If all went well, perhaps he’d drop in for a coffee on his way back. Down the long hill, up a slope, and there was the stony track on the bend, right by the Gnarled Tree of the sketch-map Dickson had drawn on the back of a press release.
Francis bumped slowly upwards, keeping carefully to one side of the grassy ridge down the middle. There were big, suspension-busting rocks in there too, as well as deep, puddle-filled dips. You needed a 4×4 for this kind of thing, not a low-slung Saab. He stopped to open and close a cattle gate, stepping carefully over the clanging metal bars, remembering childhood walks on Bodmin Moor. Driving on, he could see the view in the mirror getting better and better, a green and pleasant England spreading away to the east. Finally he reckoned he’d arrived. If this was the cottage, it was quite something, a long low stone building with a pond out front and a big garden running up the hill behind. Two little girls were playing on a swing to one side. At the sound of the car, they stopped and ran for the front door, shrieking for their mother.
She appeared a moment later, in a flowery apron over white blouse and blue jeans. She was more lined than in the Young Guns photo, but still beautiful in a fey kind of way. Slighter in the flesh than Francis had imagined, and now with long hair down her shoulders. For a moment he wondered if he should have come at all; he had no role here whatsoever. Curiosity and a gut instinct had driven him on, away from the afternoon party developing in the Green Room. Who – what precisely – did he think he was?
‘Good afternoon. Scarlett …’
Now he couldn’t remember her surname. Idiot. He could hardly say Peabody.
‘Paton-Jones, yes.’
He held out a hand. ‘My name is Francis Meadowes. I’ve come out from the festival. I’m one of the writers who’s speaking …’
She was laughing. ‘Sorry. I thought you were the police. They told me to expect a Family Liaison Officer.’
‘So you know?’
‘Yes.’ She made a warning face in the direction of her two girls, who were standing to one side, staring at him. Identical twins, mini-me versions of their mother, apart from those big, thoughtful brown eyes. Francis could see what Dan had meant; they were a rather magical-looking pair. ‘Girls. D’you want to go and play for a bit? And then Mummy’ll make you some supper –’
‘With striped ice cream?’
‘Yes, Perdita. With striped ice cream.’
This seemed to do the trick. The girls took one more look at the intruder, then ran off, screaming and giggling, round the side of the house.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t told them yet. I thought I’d wait for the police and find out exactly what happened first.’
‘What do you know?’
‘Just that Bryce died suddenly in the night. A friend phoned this morning. Then, later, the police, though how they got this number I’ve no idea, as we’re ex-directory. I suppose I’m being naive. They’re probably watching us as we speak from some satellite. I’m afraid I haven’t been in … to the hotel. It was OK for his new bird to identify him, apparently. So what’s your role in all this, may I ask?’
As Francis explained, he watched her interest growing.
‘So perhaps I can offer you a cup of tea,’ she said when he’d finished. ‘As you’ve nobly trekked all the way out here.’
He followed her inside the ‘cottage’, which was done up to the highest contemporary standards. There was polished slate on the kitchen floor and varnished boards in the long sitting room that led off it. Central was a big open fireplace with stylish sofas and chairs grouped around it. The walls were hung with original paintings and prints, while on tables and stands were a number of carved figures: two Buddhas; a Ganesh; various African bodies in dark wood.
Scarlett came through with a tray: Clarice Cliff teapot, two matching mugs, biscuits.
‘What a beautiful place you have here,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ She looked around, proprietorially. ‘It is rather special, isn’t it?’
‘When people said “cottage” I imagined something a bit more basic.’
‘We’ve put in quite a bit of work over the years. It was pretty basic when we started out, believe me. Damp up all the walls, no big windows, pre-war kitchen, outside loo. But when we saw the location we just had to have it.’
She sat down and poured tea for them both. ‘So what’s going on?’ she asked.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘With the police and everything. Aren’t they happy with the doctor’s verdict?’
‘I’ve no idea. Not having spoken to them in any detail.’
‘Do you think Bryce had a heart attack?’
‘He might well have done.’
‘But you’re not sure, are you?’
‘This is an odd situation for me. I’m a crime writer by profession. I’ve imagined and written about scenes like the one I saw today many times. And yet this morning was the first time in my life I’d seen a dead body in situ. So I have to admit to being intrigued.’
‘What exactly did you see?’
‘Apart from a single bruise on his right cheekbone, there was nothing at first glance to indicate any foul play. And yet my gut feeling now is that this wasn’t as simple as a straightforward heart attack.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I suppose I don’t believe Bryce wouldn’t have had time to call someone. Surely some kind of pain would have woken him up. There’s a phone right by the bed.’
‘These things do happen.’
‘I know they do. But how likely was it that Bryce would have died so suddenly? Is there a family history of heart disease? That you know about? I know he’d had his cholesterol checked out recently, hadn’t he?’
‘Who told you that? Priya?’
Francis nodded; he didn’t think it would be tactful to mention Anna too.
‘Very thoughtful of her to care,’ said Scarlett sarcastically. ‘Well, he had a high count of LDL, low-density lipoprotein, bad cholesterol as it’s called. Which, being Bryce, he did bugger-all about. Despite my nagging. At one point a couple of years ago I almost got him to start taking statins, then he read some blog that was dead against them, so he decided not to.’
‘Forgive me for being nosy,’ Francis asked, ‘but until recently you lived together most of the time. Or all the time?’
‘All the time. Your informants have clearly told you it wasn’t a conventional partnership. So what else did they say? That I was some downtrodden little mouse who sat waiting for him to waltz home from his latest mistress?’
Francis smiled. ‘Nobody seemed to understand the dynamic at all.’
‘It’s good to know that we kept them guessing. The simple truth is that we’re both quite headstrong people. A couple of years after the twins were born we just woke up one day and realised that we’d stopped having sex. We discussed it and there seemed to be a few limited options: we went to some kind of therapy and tried to work things out; we did what a friend of mine in LA did and spiced things up with naughty accessories; we became celibates; we split up; or we stayed together, but took other lovers as and when.’
‘Highly logical.’
‘Practical, I suppose. Bryce was always that. The bottom line was that neither of us wanted to leave the girls. We didn’t want some bossy outsider telling us how to fancy each other. Then Bryce brought home some bits and pieces from a sex shop in Soho, but once I’d handcuffed him to the bed and got the whip out I got the giggles, so that was a no-go.’
Francis wasn’t sure how literally to take this scenario. Was this woman always so open? Or perhaps this was just a reaction to the shock of her ex’s sudden death.
‘So you chose the last option?’ he said. ‘How did that work?’
Scarlett smiled; almost nostalgically, Francis thought. ‘It was fine for a year or two. Novelty factor, I suppose. We both had quite a bit of fun and for a while it actively improved things, gave us back our frisson. But the problem with that sort of set-up is that, Sod’s law, things never happen at the same time. One of you has always got the hot new thing going while the other’s just been dumped or whatever. Inevitably, you get jealous. So the temptation not to be honest creeps in. Then it becomes impossible, because you can’t trust each other …’
‘Which is where you got to?’
‘You’re a very sympathetic man, Francis, and I’ve no idea why I’m telling you all this, but basically Bryce started fibbing to me. Lying, actually. About Anna. The one before Priya. She had started as one of his little summer flings. Then she became more and for some reason he couldn’t give her up …’
There was a shriek from the kitchen and the twins were upon them. ‘Mummy, Mummy, Perdita won’t get off the swing.’
‘I just got off, you total spastic.’
‘Perdita! I’ve told you never to use that word.’
‘But I did get off the swing.’
‘Mummy, when are we going to have supper?’
‘Girls, please! I’m having a talk with Mr Meadowes. As soon as Nurjan gets back, we’ll eat.’
‘She might be ages.’
‘If she isn’t back in fifteen minutes I’ll start cooking. How does that sound?’
‘Six thirty?’
‘Six thirty, yes.’
‘We’ll hold you to that, Mummy.’
‘OK.’ Scarlett rolled her eyes at Francis. ‘Hold me to it then. But only if you run off and play right now. And never use that word again.’
‘Daddy uses it.’
‘I know he does. He’s being silly.’
‘When are we going to see Daddy?’
‘Tomorrow, darling.’
‘OK!’
They were gone, back out into the garden. Scarlett sighed deeply and picked up her BlackBerry.
‘I’m going to have to tell them tonight,’ she said, looking down as she tapped out a text. ‘God knows how they’ll take it. They adore their father.’ Francis said nothing, as Scarlett wiped the corner of her eye with the end of her little finger, then looked down at the painted wooden princess that sat on the glass table next to her, as if contemplating the blue, green and magenta beads implanted so delicately into her cuffs and trousers, the smile on her lips that was so artfully rendered. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘She is.’
‘That one’s Burmese. Bryce and I found her at a magical place called Inle Lake, where all the hotels are on stilts over the water. That was one of our happiest trips. Before the girls were born. Now where were we?’
‘Bryce had started lying to you about Anna.’
‘Oh yes. He lied to me. And from what I can gather, he lied to her too. Started to tell her that he was about to leave me and shack up properly with her. Which was terribly mean of him, because she was over forty and wanted a baby and I don’t think he ever had any intention of giving her one. Actually, by the end it suited him pretty well. Family weekends at home. Social life and sex with Anna in the week. And me still doing all his bloody laundry.’
‘But then, in the end, he did leave you – all.’
‘He did, didn’t he?’ Scarlett swallowed hard and for a moment Francis thought she might be about to break down; but then the steely calm reasserted itself. ‘And I never thought he would. Have the guts. Or the ruthlessness. Because he loved the girls. So much. But she gave him an ultimatum, pushy little Priya, didn’t she? All or nothing. And he was so cunt-struck he couldn’t bear the thought of nothing. But perhaps you knew that already?’
‘She did say something along those lines, yes.’
Scarlett sighed. ‘These young girls going for these middle-aged men, I really don’t get it. When I was that age I never fancied anyone more than five years older, max.’
‘There are other factors, though, aren’t there. He was a big cheese. She’s ambitious.’
‘I guess that must be it. What fools women are.’
‘And what about Anna?’
‘What about her? I’m afraid I thought it served her right. She knew we had kids. Her stated ambition was to split up this family. If she lost the chance of a family of her own then tough titty.’
‘Did you hate him after he left?’
Scarlett turned and met his eye. ‘I’m not sure “hate” is quite the right word. I thought Priya would soon tire of him and he’d come running back. It wasn’t the first time Bryce had fallen for an Asian bird. There was another one when he was teaching at Birkbeck a while back. One of his students, naughty man. He had to let her go in a hurry when her brothers found out.’ She laughed. ‘I suppose at the back of my mind I thought something similar might happen with Priya, but I guess the world has moved on since then. Anyway, I really didn’t see how it could last. Once she realised what a crusty old shit Bryce could be on a day to day basis, she’d wake up and want someone of her own age. At that point I would have the luxury of deciding what to do with him.
‘But yes, at the same time, when I thought about it, I wondered whether all along I hadn’t been a fool. Agreeing to an open marriage when we weren’t even married. My trouble is that I always see the best in people. And Bryce and I go back such a long way. I know him better than almost anyone else. I know his weaknesses, his ambitions, his phobias.’
‘Yes,’ said Francis; he was thinking of Virginia, another woman who claimed to have known Bryce better than anyone else. ‘I didn’t see you at the Sentinel party last night, did I?’ he asked.
‘You most certainly didn’t. My alibi is firmly intact.’
‘I didn’t mean …’
‘I’m sure you didn’t. But no, I was here with the kids all evening. NFI, I’m afraid.’
‘NFI?’
‘Not Effing Invited. Why would Laetitia want me now? I only ever got asked because of Bryce. I was aware of that. But to be off the list on my first year as a dumpee. There’s female solidarity for you. Have you met the silly bitch?’
‘Briefly. She came to a talk I did this afternoon.’
‘Lucky you. She must rate you. She’s basically the most appalling intellectual snob. Made worse by the fact that she’s so stupid herself. But because she does her festival and mixes with all these top literary types, she’s kind of half-kidded herself that she’s on the same level as them. When she’s basically a failed actress who was lucky enough to inherit a festival. You know about her dad?’
‘I heard something …’
‘Henry was the brains behind all this; and, I may say, the charisma. Unlike her, he believed in the writers.’
She spoke with such passion that Francis began to wonder how objective her view of the flame-haired organiser was. Don’t say that Bryce had been involved with her too? It was hardly a question he could ask directly. ‘You don’t think she believes in the writers?’ he said.
‘She believes in success. In putting her long slimy tongue as far up the sphincter of the latest award-winner as she can. Booker, Costa, Baileys, she’s not fussy. What she’s not interested in is the grubby struggles of writers per se. While they’re suffering in their garrets to produce their marvellous confections. It’s actually funny. Because when people are obscure they get ignored and then they don’t know how to deal with her when they become flavour of the month and she’s all over them like a rash.
‘The sad thing is that when Henry was running the festival, it was a great week. Not only did he love writers, he under-stood what insecure egotists they all are. If anything he preferred failure to success. I think he thought that winning gongs was rather vulgar. Not that there were so many gongs back then. No, in the old days you’d find yourself in the pub with all kinds of people. The latest Booker Prize winner alongside some midlister who’d been jogging along quietly for years.
‘And people talked about ideas, not who’d won this, and who’d won that, and have you heard about this huge advance with this amazing agent? The party was a writers’ party. Not guarded at the door by dolly birds with clipboards asking you which TV company you work for. I remember when my girls were tiny, taking them along in their double buggy and letting them run around while we enjoyed ourselves. Julian Barnes feeding them crisps, Margaret Drabble patting their curly heads. But every year since Henry died it’s got worse.’
‘The party or the festival?’
‘Both. Half the people in the programme are off the telly, as far as I can see. She’s even got Family Man this year. Did you see that?’
‘Hard to miss, since he’s on the cover. But I suppose he is pretty famous, and he does sell an awful lot of books.’
‘That’s it, isn’t it? Where our culture has got to. Volume equals quality. Come to our literary festival and load up with recipes and gardening tips.’
‘If you hate it so much, why do you still bother to come?’
‘A good question. One I was starting to ask myself. But we have this place. And I love it up here at this time of year – whether I go into Mold or not. It’s like the end of term, start of the summer hols. We always used to stay on for a week or two. While Bryce tried to do what he called his “serious writing”.’
‘Bryce was out here with you?’
‘Of course. It was always a good time for the two of us. We’ve done it for so many years that in a way we used to relapse into a happier mode. Bryce’s girlfriends never came to Mold.’
‘And then this year was different?’
‘Certainly was. He and Priya even stayed here for a few days last week.’
‘I don’t imagine you were happy with that.’
‘Bugger all I could do about it, but no, it was pretty thoughtless of him.’
‘Was this the first year he hadn’t been at the cottage for the festival?’
‘It was. And look what happened. To tell you the truth, Francis, I so nearly didn’t come this year. But then I thought: stuff it, it’s my house too, why shouldn’t I? And I suppose I wanted to prove something to him as well. That he couldn’t just trample over all our memories like that.’
There was the sound of a car drawing up outside. Scarlett rose to her knees on the sofa to look out of the window. ‘It’s only Nurjan. Our au pair. I sent her into town to get some bits and pieces.’
Francis rose. ‘I must leave you in peace. It’s been good talking to you. One final little question, which only someone who knew Bryce intimately could answer.’
‘Shoot.’
‘When he took out his contact lenses at night, did he generally do it in the bathroom or the bedroom?’
‘In the bathroom, why?’
‘Always?’
She paused for a moment. ‘Yes. I guess so. I never really thought about it.’
‘Thanks. I don’t suppose I’ll see you in Mold.’
‘Not tonight you won’t, certainly. I’ve got to wait in for the police. If they ever turn up.’
Francis reached inside his jacket for his wallet. ‘May I give you my card?’
She looked at it, then made as if to toss it away. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
‘Keep it. You can always call me if you need to.’
As Scarlett stuffed the card into her front jeans pocket, the au pair appeared, though she wasn’t carrying any shopping bags. Nurjan was stocky and dark, with muscly arms either side of her sleeveless black T-shirt, and breasts like poached eggs. Francis wondered if Bryce had ever had a dalliance with one of her predecessors; unless he had a taste for the Amazonian, there was little temptation for him here.