Set in Stone, page 13
part #10 of Robert Goddard Series
“Some agency or other?” He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“What if it wasn’t through an agency? What if she approached them direct, specifically in order to inveigle her way into the household?”
“You’re more paranoid than I am.” He reached for the glass and took a gulp from it. “You want to watch that.”
“But if it was true…”
“Yeah? What if it was?”
“It would change everything, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, why don’t you go and ask her?”
“Go where?”
“Lisbon.” He leaned slowly back against the panelling on the far side of the bunk. “I still read the papers, even though nobody pays me to write for them. It’s a habit. Another one I can’t seem to kick. One of the Sundays had a splash on Lisbon a few months back. Recommended restaurants and the like. Where to go for the tastiest fish and the gloomiest fado. One of the places they wrote up was the Cristina. Eponymously named, apparently, after its charming proprietress, famed for her Brazilian specialities.”
“Cristina Pedreira.”
“Not a question. There was a photograph of her out front to clinch it. Horribly unchanged by the passage of time. Still looking good. And successful to boot. Doesn’t it make you sick? Still, success has one disadvantage. It means you’re conspicuous.”
“Tempted to go there and have it out with her?”
“Not for a single moment. But you seem to be, Sheridan. Yeah.” He smiled crookedly at me. “I’d say you were very tempted.”
“Who was H.D.?” I fired the question at him aggressively, keen to deflect his sarcasm.
“What?”
“Somebody Rosalind saw a lot of at Leeds University. Initials H.D.”
“How would you know who she saw at Leeds?”
“Strathallan mentioned it.”
“He’s never mentioned it to me. Anyway, I went up there enough weekends to meet all her friends. There weren’t many. And those there were didn’t hide behind initials.”
“Another man, maybe. Hence the anonymity.”
“Nice line in humour you have, Sheridan.” He scowled. “Must endear you to a lot of people.”
“Maybe you’ve just forgotten. Alcohol does that, I believe.”
“Fuck you.”
“Like I told you, Fisher, I read your stuff. Sharp, incisive, pacy. Sad it all comes down to this in the end.” His self-pity had riled me and now I was deliberately trying to provoke him into some kind, any kind, of reaction. “Like the dregs of a wine bottle: sour and messy.”
“You bastard.” He launched himself at me on the fuzzy memory of a lost machismo, but the edge of the table got in his way long before I did, and his lunge ended in a stumbling fall. The bottle of Lagavulin went with him, hitting the floor hard enough to smash, but contriving to remain intact. The whisky splashed out as it rolled away, and Fisher, lying crumpled in the opposite corner of the cabin, watched it in horror, even as he grabbed at his knee with a grimace of pain. “Jesus,” he exclaimed through gritted teeth. “Jesus Christ.”
I retrieved the bottle before it emptied itself and put it back on the table, then turned towards Fisher. “Want a hand up?”
“Fuck off.” He made an effort to sit up, abandoned it, either because his knee or his brain wasn’t up to it, and slumped back into the corner, panting and glaring at me.
“I’m only trying to do what you should have tried to do a long time ago,” I said, crouching down beside him. “Run the secrets of that house to earth.”
“You won’t succeed. I know, because I did try. Like you say. A long time ago.”
“There are things that don’t make sense.”
“Yeah. The world’s full of them.”
“Why did Posnan abandon architecture?”
“Nobody knows.”
“But he lived as a virtual recluse in Lisbon, didn’t he?”
“So they say.”
“Then how did Clarence Milner come to meet him?”
“The story was that Posnan got invited to an embassy do for ex-pats. Maybe he ran into some clerk in a bar. He spent a lot of time in bars, so we’re told. Anyhow, he went there, sounded off to Milner about Otherways and…bingo.”
“When did Posnan die?”
“Sometime in the Fifties, I think.”
“Is Cristina Pedreira old enough to remember him?”
“Wouldn’t have thought so. She was about the same age as Rosalind when I knew her.”
“Who did James Milner send his confession to?”
“It has to be either his brother or his sister-in-law. Take your pick. But blood’s thicker than water, so Cedric’s my bet.”
“You implied in the Sunday Times piece that Daisy was favourite.”
“I was trying to put pressure on her. Nothing happened. She’s a tough nut to crack.”
“What did Garvey think?”
“That Cedric murdered Ann and James covered up for him.”
“Is Garvey still alive?”
“No. Died about ten years ago. Jean sent me his obit from the Mercury.”
“Do you go along with his theory?”
“It’s as good as the next one. If I wasn’t—what was it you called me? Sour and messy?—I might take another shot at old Cedric, now the KGB aren’t cotton-wooling him. But what would be the point? Nobody cares, Sheridan. Nobody’s interested.”
“I’m interested.”
“Why?”
“There are reasons, believe me.”
“Better make sure they’re good ones.”
“I’m already sure of that.”
“So was I.”
I stood up and looked down at him. He managed a rueful smile, aware of how squalidly pointless his life had become. But that awareness could always be drunk away. He seemed to take comfort from knowing that. And from knowing I knew it, too.
“Are you going after the Pedreira bitch?”
“Possibly. Want me to take a message?”
“No.”
“Or let you know how it goes?”
“No.” He winced and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to know how anything goes, Sheridan. That’s my message. I’m just surprised you haven’t got it yet.”
“I have,” I said, turning away, towards the stairs and the fresh evening air waiting outside. “Loud and clear.”
I should have waited till Monday and made all kinds of checks. I should have stepped back and thought carefully about what I was doing. But I didn’t want to wait or think. I wanted to trust my instincts. As you always said I should. “Be more impulsive, Tony. Make things happen. Don’t just let them happen.” Your words, Marina. Remember them? I do. I did. Good advice, I reckoned, even at the time, when I pretended to believe otherwise.
So, I didn’t wait. Till Monday, or for anything. Directory Enquiries gave me the number for the Restaurante Cristina in Lisbon, and the man who picked up the phone there spoke excellent English.
“Senhora Pedreira is not here this evening. She will be back tomorrow.”
“Fine. I’ll call again.” In person, I didn’t add.
I drove straight out to Heathrow, checked into one of the hotels strung along the A4 and booked a morning flight to Lisbon.
SIX
Lisbon was steamily hot and sweatily busy. I wish I could tell you about the architectural glories and the cultural delights, but the city was just a jumble of obstacles which stood between me and the discoveries I hoped would at last expose the truth about Otherways.
I took a taxi from the airport, straight to the Cristina. It was in the Lapa district of the city and, according to the driver, was a de prestigio establishment, catering for well-heeled businessmen and diplomats from the many embassies in the area. We passed several of them as we rumbled up, down and around the narrow cobbled switchback streets west of the city centre. Eventually, I was deposited outside a cream-fronted building, whose awnings bore the name Cristina in curlicued script. It was near the crest of one of the steeper streets, commanding a dazzling view of the Tagus in one direction and a hazy reach of the suburbs in the other.
Lunch was in full swing. The taxi-driver seemed to be right about the clientele: predominantly male, dark-suited and cosily confidential. Maybe things were different in the evening. The interior was cool, panelled in mellow wood. There were lots of big gilt-framed mirrors and masses of flowers, their fragrance drifting in and out of the aromas of cooking and cigar smoke. I stood at the bar, toying with a drink and a menu, and watched a woman move unhurriedly between the tables, smiling and greeting valued customers as she went. I heard her name used enough times to clinch her identity and went on watching.
She wasn’t slim and you couldn’t call her beautiful. Her face was sharp-featured, almost rapacious when she wasn’t smiling. Her hair was shoulder-length, sleek black, threaded with silvery grey. She used her hands a lot, touching, patting, gesturing. Her fingers were long and supple. She was wearing a powder-pink suit, with a very short skirt and a jacket cut to reveal a glimpse of black bra. It might sound like mutton dressed as lamb, but she had a poise about her, a knowingness that created an altogether different impression.
By the time they found me a table, most of the lunch parties were winding down. Senhora Pedreira was saying her farewells to favoured patrons. The waiters were beginning to relax. I sat waiting, knowing the moment would come.
It was just a sidelong smile and a faint nod when it did. I wasn’t a regular and didn’t warrant any special attention, just a courteous acknowledgement and a sparkle of fleeting eye contact as she walked past my table.
“Senhora Pedreira,” I said quietly.
I’d tried to keep my tone neutral, but she seemed to detect something odd in it straightaway. She stopped and looked at me, with a slight eyebrow twitch of curiosity.
“Could I speak to you?”
“Certamente. You are English?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you are being well looked after.”
“Everything’s fine.”
“How can I help you?”
“My name’s Tony Sheridan. I’ve come a long way to meet you.”
“I am flattered.” She didn’t look it. She was in fact just beginning to look suspicious.
“It’s about Otherways.”
“Otherways?” Now the suspicion had turned to caution.
“And Emile Posnan.”
“A long way, you say? A long time also.”
“Won’t you join me?” I indicated the spare chair at my table. “For a moment.”
“It can only be a moment.” She sat down, crossed her legs and looked enquiringly at me. The directness of her gaze challenged now, where before it had charmed. “I am a busy woman.”
“So I see.”
“What exactly do you want, Mr Sheridan?”
“Information. Any information that can begin to make sense of what goes on in that house.”
“That house?”
“Otherways. Come on, Cristina. Can I call you Cristina? Strathallan does. To him, you’re still the uppity au pair who got too friendly with his daughter, not the sophisticated restaurateur who gets write-ups in the weekend press.”
“You seem to know quite a lot.”
“But not enough. That’s why I’m here.”
The waiter approached with the fish I’d ordered. Cristina waited while he served it, then spoke to him in Portuguese. She seemed to be asking for coffee and a cigarette. When he’d gone, she said, “What is your connection with Otherways…Tony?”
“Friends of mine live there.”
“You are here…on their behalf?”
“In a sense. Mostly on my own behalf.”
“Why?”
“I think you might have some answers.”
“To what?”
“Questions. Starting with why Rosalind Strathallan killed herself.”
“It is more than twenty years. An old tragedy better to forget, I think.”
“If only that were possible.”
“Why is it not?”
“I’ve seen her.”
“Who?”
“Rosalind.”
She said nothing. Only a quick little lick of the lips betrayed any reaction at all. Her coffee and cigarette arrived. She looked at me, frowning in concentration as the cigarette was lit. She took a long, stalling draw on it.
“You heard what I said?”
“Rosalind is dead.”
“I know.”
“You saw her ghost?”
“If that’s what you want to call it. In her old room. At Other ways. Strathallan showed me a photograph. I’ve no doubt it was her.”
“You live at Otherways?”
“I’ve been staying there. With my friends.”
“Who are they?”
“Matt and Lucy Prior.”
“The Strathallans have left?”
“Duncan Strathallan has. Jean died there, last year.”
“Why have you come to me?”
“Strathallan seems to think you were an unhealthy influence on Rosalind. Likewise Martin Fisher.”
“They would.”
“But are they right?”
“I tried to understand. They liked not to understand. That is all.”
“A diary of Rosalind’s has come to light. For the last year of her life. She writes about ‘they’ as some kind of shorthand for whatever was tormenting her. Any idea who ‘they’ were?”
“Some.”
“Care to share it?”
“Rosalind was my friend. She trusted me. I do not break a trust. Except for a very good reason. You have not given me that reason, Tony.”
“I can only tell you I have to find out what’s behind the strange things that have happened at Otherways. To me. And to other people.”
“A ghost at Otherways is maybe not so strange.”
“There have been other things. Weird, vivid dreams. Unexplained events. Uncharacteristic…behaviour.”
“Your behaviour?”
“To some extent. But look”—I was eager to block that particular road before we went down it—“to give a concrete example, what about a bath that fills itself? In the bathroom attached to Rosalind’s old bedroom.”
“The room you have been sleeping in?”
“Yes. I found the bath filled with warm water. In the middle of the night.”
She paused and sipped her coffee. “Perhaps you should stay with different friends.”
“I need your help, Cristina,” I said in sudden exasperation. “I can’t force you to give it. I can only ask. That’s what I’m doing.”
“What makes you so sure I can help?”
“A hunch. Based on your affinity with Rosalind and your connection with Emile Posnan.”
“What connection?”
“This city. Where he died and you were born. Around the same time, I believe.”
“It is a big city. Many people die and many are born in it.”
“I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.”
“I did not say it was.”
At last, she’d admitted something, albeit obliquely. I looked at her as openly as I could, spreading my hands to indicate that I could say no more. Either she would tell me what she knew, or she wouldn’t.
“I need to think.”
“I can wait.”
The wait amounted to several minutes, while she finished her coffee and cigarette. She leaned forward to grind out the butt in the ashtray, sat back again and finally said, “Come back at six o’clock. It will be quiet then. Ring the bell on the side door. I live above.”
“All right.”
“In the meantime, I want you to visit a house in the Bairro Alto. Rua do Bispo, number ten.”
“Why?”
“Emile Posnan died there, in a rented room on the third floor, in 1959.”
“You do know about him, then?”
“Go see it.” She smiled. “And I will expect you at six.”
I took a taxi down to modern-hotel land: a traffic-choked drag north from the centre, called Avenida da Liberdade. After booking into the first one with a vacancy, I got the concierge to mark Rua do Bispo on a map for me and set off straightaway.
The city was an oven by now, with several unsavoury ingredients cooking in the enveloping heat. I rode a funicular up to the heights of the Bairro Alto district and followed the map through a tangle of narrow streets to 10 Rua do Bispo, the end house in a crumbling eighteenth-century terrace. The terrace had apparently had at least one more house in it once, because the side wall of number 10 was supported by massive wooden props, planted in a shelving patch of wasteland.
I gazed up at the façade of peeling stucco and rotting wood, and wondered which of the third-floor windows had been Emile Posnan’s vantage point on the world. There was a bank of bell-pushes at the top of the steps, with most of the nameplates either blank or indecipherable. I tried one at random, waited for someone to answer, then tried another.
The door was opened by a small, weary-looking old woman in a stained dress. When I said I was looking for somebody in a flat on the third floor, she clearly didn’t understand, so I pointed and mimed as best I could. She shook her head violently and repeated one word emphatically. “Ninguem. Ninguém.” She was still repeating it when I dodged past her and started up the stairs.
Her meaning became fairly obvious when I reached the first-floor landing and looked on up. The higher floors were empty and derelict, a dusty spiral of stripped walls and splintered floorboards. I retreated, telegraphing a futile apology to her as I went.
I stopped on the doorstep and turned back to ask, just for the hell of it, “Do you remember Emile Posnan?” But she shook her head in an all-purpose denial. If she did remember him, she wasn’t about to admit it.
It was all very different back at the Restaurante Cristina at six o’clock—quiet, shuttered, elegantly subdued. The side door had a polished lion’s-head knocker and a state-of-the-art entry phone. Cristina released the lock, apparently without checking it was me. Maybe there was a camera concealed in the door. Or maybe she just trusted my promptness.
She was waiting, holding the door of her flat open, when I reached the top of the stairs. She’d changed into jeans and a striped shirt and had tied her hair back. She could almost have been a different person, so dramatic was the contrast with her lunchtime outfit. There seemed to be an amused acknowledgement of this in her gaze as she greeted me.
