Читать книгу The Long Kill - Reginald Hill - Страница 12

An hour later any faint doubts about the identification had been completely removed.

Jaysmith was sitting in the front garden of the red-tiled house called Naddle Foot. Alongside him, filling the bright air with the pungent smoke of a Caporal, was Steven Bryant. And by turning his head just forty-five degrees, he believed he could actually see the entry hole left in the flower bed by his aberrant bullet. He shifted his chair slightly to remove the temptation to stare and looked instead across the valley to the opposing fellside where he had patiently prepared to kill his host.

‘Another sherry?’ said Bryant in a voice roughened almost to a growl by a lifetime of chain-smoking.

Jaysmith realized he had emptied his glass unawares.

‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘One before lunch is enough.’

He studied the other man as he spoke. Distance had made him overestimate his age. The venerable halo of silver hair was belied by his shrewd brown eyes and his ease of movement. Early sixties rather than early seventies, an estimate confirmed in the office when Bryant had said, ‘To be quite honest, Mr Hutton, I’ve more or less given up practising law. There’s a book I want to write and I’ve been devoting more and more time to it over the past ten years, and when I got to sixty, three years ago, I thought, to hell with the law’s tediums! I still dabble a bit, however, so Anya has not deceived you entirely. But now that she’s played her little trick, to which I was not a party, I assure you, I would recommend you let me pass the actual job of conveyancing over to my partner, Donald Grose. He’s very able, much better tempered than I am, and to tell the truth, I don’t really fancy getting into any business dealings with old Muriel Wilson. She can be a tiresome old stick.’

Jaysmith could understand why Anya had wanted her father to look him over, if, as he suspected, that was the serious purpose behind her little trick. Beneath this friendly, apparently open approach, he was aware of a keen analytical scrutiny. There was no hint of cross-questioning, but questions were constantly being asked. He guessed that Anya valued her father’s judgement highly and did his best to impress the man. But all the time, his concentration was being distracted by his own speculations about the other. He could not be what he seemed, a simple country solicitor. Jaysmith’s expensive talents were not turned loose on such prey. But none of his own gentle probings had so far produced even the slightest clue. All he could say was that already he sensed in Bryant a strength of will that might mean ruthlessness, and a dark watchfulness that might mean guilt; but his feeling was vague and might itself be the creation of his own uncertainties.

There was one other possible clue, but this too might just be a creation of his own straining after information. From time to time his sharp linguist’s ear felt it detected just the slightest nuance of ‘foreignness’ in Bryant’s speech, vanishing as soon as suspected and probably a simple by-product of his tobacco-growl. There was nothing else to suggest non-English origins, except perhaps the name Anya, but that was just the kind of name pretentious middle-class parents might give their daughter anyway.

On the other hand, whatever else Bryant was, he gave little sign of belonging to the pretentious middle class. Beneath his smart clothes and civilized conversation, there was an earthiness and, if Jaysmith was not mistaken, a strong vein of sensuality too, untouched as yet by his age.

The probing questions had ceased as though by mutual agreement during lunch, which was a simple though delicious meal of baked trout and green salad followed by a freshly baked bramble pie, all washed down with a crisp Moselle. Bryant was industrious in topping up Jaysmith’s glass, and when it was suggested they return to the garden to drink their coffee, the accompanying brandy balloon was full enough to swim a goldfish.

Still icily sober, Jaysmith decided to let the relaxation Bryant obviously hoped for work for him.

‘Anya,’ he said mellowly as she handed him a cup of coffee. ‘That’s a lovely name you chose for your daughter, Bryant.’

Glancing at him with surprise, the woman said, ‘Less buxom than Annie, certainly. We established that.’

Jaysmith smiled and she smiled back, a shared joke which momentarily excluded her father.

Bryant said abruptly, ‘It was my mother’s name. Anya Winnika.’

‘Polish?’ said Jaysmith, trying to make his interest casual. ‘Were you born in Poland then?’

Bryant did not look as if he was going to answer, but Anya, as if concerned at any hint of rudeness to their guest, said quickly, ‘Pappy was a law student in Warsaw till 1939. He got out when the Nazis invaded.’

‘And the Russians,’ interrupted Bryant harshly. ‘Don’t forget the Russians came in from the east at the same time.’

‘And your parents, did they get out with you?’

Bryant lit another Caporal from the one he was smoking.

‘No,’ he said. ‘They thought they could sit it out. Why not? How many invasions over the centuries had poor Poland had to sit out! I wasn’t any wiser than they were, just younger and more impatient. I followed the provisional government first to France then to England. I found out later that when the Nazis came, they requisitioned our family house for one of their senior officers. As for my parents, they were moved into the ghetto. My mother was Jewish, you see. Not orthodox; far from it; and she had cut herself off completely by marrying a Gentile. It took the Nazis to reunite her with her people. My father went with her of course. He was a gentle man, trusting in human nature almost to the point of foolishness. But they’d have had to shoot him to stop him accompanying mamma. The next time I saw Warsaw it was in ruins. Our house had survived but now there was a Russian general in it. It was a small change, hardly noticeable.’

‘And your parents?’

He shrugged massively.

‘Who knows? The ghetto uprising of ’43; the resistance uprising of ’44; in one or the other they died, and so many with them that nowhere in the whole of that ruined city could I find a memory or a trace of their passing. Think of that, Mr Hutton, if you can. Think of that!’

Anya put her hand on her father’s arm and Jaysmith sipped his brandy for warmth. The sun still shone, but a chill seemed to have risen in this peaceful valley.

‘You speak excellent English,’ said Jaysmith with a deliberate banality.

It worked. Bryant coughed a laugh and said, ‘And why the hell shouldn’t I? I’ve been speaking it longer than you, Hutton. I learned it first from my grandfather when I was a child. He was an Englishman, you see, sent to look after his firm’s affairs in Gdansk – Danzig, it was then – in the 1880s. He never went back. When World War One came, he took his Polish wife’s name and moved to Warsaw. And after the Second World War was over and I saw that the Russians had a stronghold on my country, and realized that my life was to be in England, well, I reversed the process and reverted to my true patronym. I really am Steven Bryant, Hutton. Or, more properly, Stefan Bryant. Much more reassuring, isn’t it, than something full of Ks and Zs?’

‘Reassuring to whom?’

‘To solid English burghers looking for someone to do a bit of conveyancing for them,’ said Bryant. ‘But I’m sorry to have bored you with my family history. In the interests of equity, I will now keep quiet, and you must take your chance of telling us something about the Huttons and their origins.’

He smiled satirically as he spoke and he and Anya settled into near-caricatures of close attentiveness.

A trade-off! thought Jaysmith. He would much rather have relaxed and examined what Bryant had told him, looking for clues to his potentially fatal connection with Jacob.

But he needed all his mental powers now to concentrate on the lies he was about to tell. Glancing at Anya, he was filled with shame, but there seemed to be no choice. But rescue was at hand. Inside the house a voice called, ‘Mum? Gramp?’

Anya turned her head, tautening the line from chin through neck in a way which caught at Jaysmith’s breath, and called, ‘Jimmy! We’re out in the garden.’

A moment later a boy of about six ran out onto the terrace. He pulled up short when he saw Jaysmith, then resumed his approach more sedately.

‘Jimmy, this is Mr Hutton. Jay, this is my son, Jimmy.’

‘Hello,’ said the boy. He was small, with his mother’s brown eyes but much fairer both of hair and complexion. His expression at the moment was rather solemn and serious, but any suggestion of premature maturity was contradicted by a chocolate stain under his lower lip and a comprehensive graze of the right knee.

‘Hello,’ said Jaysmith.

He held out his hand. Before the boy could shake it, he turned it over to reveal that there was a fifty-pence piece in the palm. Slowly he made it move across the undulations of his knuckles and back again. Then he tossed it high in the air, caught it with his left hand and immediately offered both hands, fists clenched, to the boy who studied them with that look of calm appraisal Jaysmith knew from his mother.

‘What’s the problem, Jimmy?’ said Bryant after a while.

‘Well, I know it’s in that one,’ said the boy pointing to the left hand. ‘Only, it’s probably not, as it’s a trick, and it’ll be in that one.’

‘You’ve got to choose, Jimmy,’ said Anya. ‘That’s what the game is, choosing.’

Her eyes met Jaysmith’s for a moment.

‘All right,’ said the boy with the certainty of defeat. ‘That one.’

Slowly Jaysmith opened his left hand to show an empty palm.

‘I knew it’d be the other after all,’ said Jimmy with resignation.

Jaysmith opened his right hand. It was empty too. Then he shot his left hand forward and apparently plucked the coin from Jimmy’s ear. He handed it to the boy who took it dubiously and glanced at his mother.

‘Is it mine?’ he asked hopefully.

‘You’d better ask Mr Hutton.’

‘It’s certainly not mine,’ said Jaysmith. ‘Would you want a coin that’s been kept in someone else’s ear?’

The boy laughed joyously and thrust the coin into his pocket.

‘Thanks a million!’ he cried. ‘Mum, what’s for tea?’

‘Nothing till you’ve washed your face and I’ve put some antiseptic on that knee,’ said his mother.

She took him firmly by the hand and led him into the house.

‘Nice kid,’ said Jaysmith. ‘He looks fine.’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’ said Bryant.

‘An only child without a father, it can be tough. Does he talk about him much?’

‘Not to me,’ said Bryant. ‘Children are resilient, Mr Hutton. A boy needs a man around, that’s true. Well, Jimmy’s got me, so that’s all right.’

He spoke with controlled aggression.

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Jaysmith. ‘How long has it been since his father died?’

‘Last December.’

‘What was it? Illness? Accident?’

‘Climbing accident,’ said Bryant shortly. ‘But I think my daughter’s business ought really to be discussed with my daughter, don’t you? Another drop of brandy?’

‘No thanks,’ said Jaysmith rising. ‘It’s late. If school’s out, it’s time I was going. Goodbye, Mr Bryant. Thanks for your help and your hospitality.’

He stretched out his hand. Bryant took it and gave it a perfunctory shake without rising.

‘Glad to have you with us,’ he said. ‘I hope Anya asks you again. Grose will get the conveyance under way.’

He found Anya in the kitchen bathing her son’s knee. The boy’s face was screwed up in mock agony.

‘I must be off,’ said Jaysmith. ‘It’s been a splendid day.’

‘Are you coming to Carlisle with us on Saturday?’ asked the boy.

Jaysmith raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

‘There’s a soccer match,’ said Anya gloomily. ‘He’s conned his grandfather and me into taking him as a pre-birthday treat.’

‘Birthday?’

‘That’s the following Saturday. Fortunately Carlisle United are playing down south that day, so he’ll have to make do with a party instead.’

‘Please come,’ urged the boy.

‘Well, I’d love to come to the party, if I’m asked, but I can’t make the match. I’ve got to go down to London tomorrow and I may have to stay away a couple of days.’

He thought Anya looked disappointed but it may have been wishful thinking.

‘I’ve been to London,’ said Jimmy. ‘Granddad Wilson lives there.’

‘And Mr Hutton will soon be living up here. He’s buying Great-Aunt Muriel’s house.’

The boy digested this.

‘Is Great-Aunt Muriel dead?’ he asked.

‘No, of course not! She’s just moving down into the village. Jay, if you can hang on till I finish with this monster, I’ll see you out.’

Jaysmith said, ‘I’ll use the bathroom if I may.’

He went upstairs and swiftly checked the landing windows. They were double glazed and fitted with what looked like new security locks. He had already noticed an alarm box high up under the eaves. He opened a bedroom door at random. It proved to be Anya’s. The straw handbag she’d been carrying in Keswick was tossed casually onto the bed. He opened it and was amazed at the quantity of bric-à-brac it held. After a little rummaging, he came up with a key ring which he bore off with him into the bathroom. He locked the door and sat on the edge of the bath. Ignoring the car keys, he carefully made prints of the three others in a large cake of soap. It was a process he had seen used in television thrillers but not one he’d ever had occasion to try for himself. Carefully he wrapped the soap in his handkerchief, removed all traces from the keys, flushed the toilet and unlocked the door. Swiftly he made for Anya’s bedroom but stopped dead on the threshold.

Anya was standing by the bed in the process of shaking out the contents of her handbag onto the coverlet.

‘Hello,’ she said, becoming aware of his presence. ‘Won’t be a sec. I wanted my car keys and as usual they seem to have sunk to the bottom. I keep far too much rubbish in here.’

She resumed her shaking. He stepped into the room, put his hands on her shoulders, and spun her round to face him. He drew her to him and kissed her passionately as he dropped the keys onto the bedspread. It was more successful than his attempt on the Crinkles in that she did not thrust him off but nor did she return the kiss and when he broke off she said calmly, ‘Is it the sight of a bed which brings out the brute in you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I think I just wanted to assure you that I’d be coming back.’

‘Why should I doubt it? After all, you are buying a house up here. Oh, there they are.’

She had turned away from him and seen the keys.

‘Am I moving too fast?’ he asked gently.

‘Not as long as the finance is in order, no,’ she said judiciously. ‘Aunt Muriel won’t want to hang about, you know.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I’ve only met you three, no, four times,’ she replied passionately. ‘How on earth should I know if I know what you mean? Or care for that matter?’

She left the room and he followed her down the old creaking staircase. In the hallway he said lightly, ‘You’re well protected, I see.’

She glanced at him to see if he was being ironical, then followed his gaze to the alarm junction box on the wall behind an old-fashioned coat rack.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit of a nuisance. I keep forgetting.’

Idly he reached up and flicked the box open.

‘It looks pretty new.’

‘It is. We got burgled a couple of months ago. They didn’t take much, but they made a lot of mess and it was rather frightening, being so isolated. So pappy got a firm of security specialists in to tighten things up.’

‘Still here, Hutton? Goodbye once more.’

Bryant had come back into the house and was standing in the doorway of what looked like a study or office.

‘Mum, can I have my tea now?’ demanded Jimmy, appearing at the kitchen door.

Jaysmith looked at the three of them. They appeared as a formidable family group, each splendidly individual perhaps even to the point of willfulness, but very united too. He guessed that it was going to be hard to get one without the approval of the others.

Soon he might have to decide how much he really wanted that one.

But as he followed Anya out of the shady entrance hall into the ambered warmth of the autumn sunlight, and she turned and offered him her hand with a slightly crooked smile which mocked the formality of the gesture, he knew he had decided already.