Читать книгу Recalled to Life - Reginald Hill - Страница 12

‘I am like one who died young. All my life might have been.’

Cissy Kohler lay on a patchwork quilt and thought: The way I feel, this ought to make me invisible. Bits and pieces of past lives, some hers, some not, stitched together in a show of wholeness. Through the chintz curtains she could see the branches of a wych elm swaying in the wind. In the room below she could hear voices but she didn’t strain her ears, for she knew they couldn’t be saying anything that mattered.

‘Charming place,’ said the tall man in the dark suit whose impeccable cut was a foil to a stringy tie which looked as if it had been dropped in a bowl of Brown Windsor and wrung out by hand.

‘Yeah, very quaint,’ said Jay Waggs. ‘How can I help you, Mr Sempernel?’

‘Belongs to Jacklin, I gather? Decent of him to let you have it.’

‘I figure it’ll be on his bill.’

‘What? Oh, quite. These solicitors. But it’s ideal. Good security. Just the one track down. And that wall behind. Perfect.’

He was looking out of the window into the small rear garden.

The cottage stood in the U-shaped nook which some peasant who knew his rights had indented in the twelve-foot boundary wall of an extensive country estate.

‘Perfect,’ agreed Waggs. ‘The wall and the guard, they make Cissy feel really at home.’

‘Ha-ha. Droll. Though the guard, as you call him, is of course positioned here to keep the media hounds out, not to keep Miss Kohler in.’

‘So she’s free to come and go.’

‘But naturally. Within the limits of our agreement, of course, which I do not doubt that Mr Jacklin has spelt out in tedious detail. Nevertheless, let me recap. Miss Kohler’s early release –’

‘Early!’

‘Indeed. HM Government has agreed for humanitarian reasons to anticipate the proper legal process, but not without undertakings on your part. These are principally that Miss Kohler has agreed that neither she nor her advisers will make any public comment, nor publish any form of memoir of this unhappy business, without the approval of the authorities. In return for this undertaking, HM Government has indicated it will offer no resistance to any legitimate claim for compensation.’

‘Big of them.’

‘I think so. Also Miss Kohler has agreed to remain in this country until the completion of the official inquiry into the circumstances leading up to this unfortunate miscarriage.’

‘Which could take years!’

‘No. I assure you matters are moving fast. Deputy Chief Constable Hiller whom you have met has the business in hand and we anticipate a speedy conclusion. Incidentally, Mr Hiller tells me that if by chance Miss Kohler had kept any written record of the events at Mickledore Hall, sight of it, on loan of course, might speed matters up and obviate the need of any further interview with her.’

Waggs laughed.

‘Come on, Sempernel! You know there’s no record. You guys went through her cell like a pack of rats before she got out.’

The long man smiled thinly.

‘The papers seem to think she may have had some ally through whom such a memoir may have been smuggled out to a place of security.’

‘Like me, you mean? Well, I don’t deny that, given the chance, I’d have been glad to help. But I wasn’t and I didn’t.’

‘I’m happy to accept your word on that, Mr Waggs,’ said Sempernel. ‘There are other possible sources of assistance, of course. She was after all inside for a long time, and could hardly avoid forming relationships. The unfortunate Miss Bush, for instance …’

‘That was long before my time,’ said Waggs. ‘The only memoir I’m aware of is in Cissy’s head and I don’t know how easy it’s going to be to pry that out.’

‘No? You’ve met with quite a lot of success so far,’ murmured Sempernel. ‘Rest, quiet, and above all time are great healers. They are all at your disposal here. Enjoy them.’

He made for the door, stooping to avoid the sagging lintel. Beneath it he paused, looking like Alice in the White Rabbit’s house.

‘One last thing,’ he said, ‘Jacklin has, I hope, made it clear that any grant of a Free Pardon will be in respect of the Mickledore Hall affair only. In respect of the killing of Daphne Bush, there is no doubt about Miss Kohler’s culpability. Her release from that sentence is therefore merely under licence which may be revoked in the event of any breach of its terms. You follow me, Mr Waggs?’

‘You mean you’ve got a string you can twitch whenever you feel like it? I follow.’

‘Good.’ Sempernel passed through the doorway and straightened up so that his face was visible only from the long nose down. ‘I’ll say cheerio, then.’

Protected from the Englishman’s watery gaze, Waggs pushed his middle finger into the air as he said, ‘Yeah. Goodbye.’

He watched from the window till he saw the lanky figure negotiate the muddy path, then he picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Mr Jacklin, please. It’s Jay Waggs. Jacklin? Hi. How’re you doing? We’re fine. Yeah, she’s resting. Listen, Sempernel’s been here. Lots of that slippery Whitehall stuff, but all he’s doing is making sure my thick American mind understands the ground rules. Just thought I’d let you know. How are things your end? No change? That’s good. Well, keep in touch. Ciao.’

He listened for a while longer before putting the receiver down. It might be mere neurosis to imagine he heard significant clicks, but Sempernel struck him as a good man to be neurotic around. And if the phone, then why not everywhere?

He went into the kitchen, blew a kiss at the kettle and switched it on.

A few moments later he tapped on the bedroom door and entered with a cup of coffee.

Cissy Kohler had sat up on the bed and was reading her Bible.

‘Thought you might like this,’ he said. ‘It’s not home style, but near as I can get. How’re you feeling?’

She closed the book, laid it on her lap and took the cup.

‘I’m OK.’

‘Sempernel was here.’

‘Who?’

‘The one like a straightened out hairpin. He was just checking we knew the rules.’

She drank her coffee with her eyes closed as though taking in visions with the steam. He studied her face and wondered just how much of what was happening she really grasped. At least, if there were listening ears, it made role-play that much easier.

He said, ‘He was asking about your memoirs, Cissy.’

She opened her eyes.

‘Memoirs?’

‘Yeah. There are these stories in the Press that you wrote up everything that happened at Mickledore Hall, everything that happened afterwards in jail. Somehow you got them smuggled out and they are waiting to be picked up somewhere.’

He knew what the answer would be. They’d had this conversation before.

‘It’s not true,’ she said without heat. ‘They’re making it up.’

‘That’s what I told him. But if there were any memoirs, Cissy, it’d make things a lot easier for me. The book, the film …’

‘Which book? Which film?’ She regarded him blankly.

‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said gently. ‘It’s early days. We’ll talk when you’re rested.’

‘How long will we stay here, Jay?’ she asked suddenly. ‘You said we’d go home soon. You said –’

This was dangerous. He cut her off, saying, ‘We will, Cissy, I promise. Just as soon as Mr Sempernel says it’s OK. Don’t you like it here?’

She shook her head and said, ‘Not much.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I don’t know. It feels so old … so English …’

‘Yeah. It shouldn’t be for long. You rest now, OK?’

Her cup was empty. He took it from her hands and she lay back on the patchwork quilt, with her hands crossed over the old leather Bible on her stomach. Her eyes were still open but he got no impression that they were seeing him. In fact he had a strange feeling that if he stayed here much longer he would stop seeing her.

He turned and left the room.