‘It’s not fair. I have to tell them. They have to know.’
‘Papa, do you want me to call the nurse?’
‘No!’ He was suddenly angry, as if he knew that there were only minutes left, that there was no time for delay. At the same moment, a sort of clarity came into his eyes. Later on, Dr Redwing would say that he had been given this one last gift at the end of his life. The dementia had finally retreated, leaving him in control. ‘I was there when the children were born,’ he said. His voice was younger, stronger. ‘I delivered them at Pye Hall. Lady Cynthia Pye. A beautiful woman, daughter of an earl – but she wasn’t strong, not built to give birth to twins. I was afraid I might lose her. In the end it all went well. Two children, born twelve minutes apart, a boy and a girl, both healthy.
‘But afterwards, before anyone knew what had happened, Sir Merrill Pye came to me. Sir Merrill. He wasn’t a good man. Everyone was afraid of him. And he wasn’t happy. Because, you see, the girl had come first. The estate was entailed on the firstborn child … it was unusual but that’s how it was. Not the eldest male child. But he wanted it to be the boy. He’d got the house from his father who’d got it from his father before him – it had always been boys. Do you understand? He hated the idea of the whole estate passing to a girl and so he made me … he told me … the boy came first.’
Emilia looked at her father with his head resting on the pillow, his white hair forming a halo around him, his eyes bright with the effort of explaining. ‘Papa, what did you do?’ she asked.
‘What do you think I did? I told a lie. He was a bit of a bully, Sir Merrill. He could have made my life a misery. And at the time, I told myself, what did it matter? After all, they were just two babies. They didn’t know anything. And they would both grow up in the house together. It wasn’t as if I was hurting anyone. That was what I thought.’ A tear trickled out of the corner of his eye and made its way down the side of his face. ‘So I filled in the form the way he wanted it. 3.48 a.m. – a boy and 4.00 a.m. – a girl. That’s what I wrote.’
‘Oh Papa!’
‘It was wrong of me. I see that now. Magnus got everything and Clarissa got nothing and I often thought that I should tell her, tell both of them the truth. But what good would it do? Nobody would believe me. Sir Merrill is long gone. And Lady Cynthia. They’re all forgotten! But it’s haunted me. It’s always haunted me. What I wrote was a lie. A boy! I said it was a boy!’
By the time Arthur Redwing returned with the coffees, Dr Rennard had breathed his last. He found his wife sitting in shock and assumed, obviously, that it was due to the loss. He stayed with her while the matron was called and the necessary arrangements made. Dr Rennard had taken out funeral insurance with the well-known company of Lanner & Crane and they would be informed first thing in the morning – it was too late now. In the meantime, he would be transferred to a small chapel within Ashton House that was reserved for such occasions. He was going to be buried in the cemetery at King’s Abbott, close to the house where he had lived. He had made that decision when he retired.
It was only as they were driving home that Emilia Redwing repeated what her father had told her. Arthur, behind the wheel, was shocked. ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you sure he knew what he was saying?’
‘It was extraordinary. He was completely lucid – just for the five minutes you were gone.’
‘I’m sorry, dear. You should have called me.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I just wish you’d been there to hear it.’
‘I could have been a witness.’
Dr Redwing hadn’t considered that – but now she nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘What are you going to do?’
Dr Redwing didn’t answer. She watched the Bath Valley slipping by, cows dotted here and there, grazing on the other side of the railway line. The summer sun hadn’t set but the light was soft, the shadows folding themselves into the sides of the hills. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, at length. ‘In a way, I wish he hadn’t told me. It was his guilty secret and now it’s mine.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to tell someone. I’m not sure it’ll make any difference. Even if you had been there, there isn’t any proof.’
‘Maybe you should tell that detective.’
‘Mr Pünd?’ She was annoyed with herself. It had never occurred to her that there might be a connection, but of course she had to pass on what she knew. Sir Magnus Pye, the beneficiary of a huge estate, had been violently murdered and now it turned out that the estate had never been his in the first place. Could that be the reason why he had been killed? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose I had better let him know.’
They drove on in silence. Then her husband said, ‘And what about Clarissa Pye? Will you tell her?’
‘Do you think I should?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’
They reached the village. And as they drove past the fire station and then the Queen’s Arms with the church just behind it, they were unaware that they were both having the same thought.
What if Clarissa had already known?
8
At exactly that moment, inside the Queen’s Arms, James Fraser was carrying a tray with five drinks to a quiet table in the far corner. There were three pints of beer – for himself, for Robert Blakiston and for Inspector Chubb, a Dubonnet and bitter lemon for Joy Sanderling, and a small sherry for Atticus Pünd. He would have liked to have added a couple of bags of crisps but something told him that they would be inappropriate. As he sat down, he examined the man who had brought them there. Robert Blakiston, who had lost both a mother and a mentor in the space of two weeks, had come straight from work. He had changed out of his overalls and put on a jacket but his hands were still covered with grease and oil. Fraser wondered if it would ever come off. He was a strange-looking young man, not unattractive but almost like a bad drawing of himself with his badly cut hair, his over-pronounced cheekbones, his pale skin. He was sitting next to Joy, quite possibly holding her hand under the table. His eyes were haunted. It was obvious that he would have preferred to be anywhere but here.
‘You don’t need to worry, Rob,’ Joy was saying. ‘Mr Pünd only wants to help.’
‘Like he helped you when you went to London?’ Robert was having none of it. ‘This village won’t let us alone. First they said it was me who killed my own mother, not that I would ever have laid a finger on her. You know that. And as if that wasn’t enough for them, then they start their whispering about Sir Magnus.’ He turned to Atticus. ‘Is that why you’re here, Mr Pound? Is it because you suspect me?’