Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“Who?” asked Mary. “Who’s getting closer?”

“The hangman. I don’t even know his name, but he knows me. Sometimes I think he’s watching me through the eyehole in the door, and I stand up against the wall so he won’t see me, but it’s useless. I can’t get away from him, and he knows that.”

“Yes, you can,” said Mary, looking Stephen in the eye for the first time since they’d started talking. “The policeman’ll find something and it’ll be okay. You’ll see. It’ll be okay.”

But Stephen didn’t seem to hear her. “I just wish I knew why,” he said with a suddenly renewed anger. “There’s someone out there who killed my father and now he’s going to kill me, and I don’t know who it is. I’ll go to my death not knowing. Every night I lie in my cell with my eyes closed, not sleeping, just thinking about the past, trying to make sense of all that’s happened. And then you keep coming into my mind for some reason. Like last night. There was a full moon outside, and it made me remember that evening when I first saw you in the cloister at New College. And you said nothing. Just stood up and walked away into the night. What were you doing there, Mary? Were you waiting for me?”

“Things don’t always turn out as we intend them,” said Mary, getting to her feet and wiping away the tears that had begun to form in her eyes. She was ashamed of herself, of her inability to say what she had come to say. “I told you, Stephen. The policeman will find something,” she repeated. “You’re going to be okay.”

“How do you know that?” asked Stephen, suddenly turning white as he began to take in the meaning of her words.

“I just know it,” she said quietly. “Leave it at that. I came here to tell you something, but I can’t seem to find the words, and I’m sorry for that, Stephen; sorry for everything I’ve done to you. More sorry than you can know. I should have stopped this a long time ago. I see that now. But what’s done is done, and now I’ve got to go. And I won’t ever see you again. Do you hear me? This is over, and it’s important you understand that. So don’t come looking for me. You’re young, Stephen. You’ll get over all this.”

It was a strange thing to say. Mary was actually a few months younger than Stephen, but now it seemed like she was years older. It suddenly seemed to him as if all he had ever really known of her was the actress.

He had sat in a state of shock while she was speaking, and it was only now, when she was almost at the door, that he made a move toward her. But his anger was too obvious, and the burly warder got up and stood in his way, pushing him back and preventing him from following Mary out of the room.

Two strong hands pushed Trave deep down into his own armchair, and a moment later the light went on overhead. Mary Martin was sitting opposite him on the other side of the fireplace with a pistol in her hand.

She held the gun trained on the centre of his forehead, but for a moment he didn’t take it seriously. It made him angry to be manhandled, threatened in his own house. It was a violation, and he started back up out of the chair in instinctive protest. But he was hardly able to take a step before the man by the door pushed him back, pinning him down with one hand while he smacked him twice across the face with the back of the other.

Trave stroked his stinging cheeks and looked his attacker in the eye. He had never seen him before. He’d have remembered if he had. Paul Martin’s narrow grey eyes were completely cold. The violence had been switched on and off quite effortlessly, and once it had achieved its desired effect, he returned to his original position by the door.

“I’m sorry about that, Inspector,” said Mary, glancing angrily toward her accomplice and looking genuinely pained by what had just happened. “Paul has a tendency to overreact, but he won’t touch you again, I promise, if you don’t do anything stupid.”

“What do you want?” Trave demanded, refusing to be mollified. “Why are you here?”

“Isn’t it usually the one with the gun that asks the questions?” she countered quietly. “Even if you are the policeman.”

Mary’s voice was unnaturally calm, and it struck Trave that she was in fact making a supreme effort to keep control of her emotions. However, the only outward sign of her inner turmoil was the way in which the gun shook slightly in her hand.

“All right,” said Trave, breathing deeply to regain his composure. “Have it your way. What do you want to know?”

“How was France?” She made it sound as if she was asking about a recent holiday, not a police investigation.

He didn’t answer at once, partly because he was so shocked by the change in the woman he had once known as Mary Martin. At the time of Cade’s murder she had been part of the background. Never more than that. She was obviously attractive, but she didn’t seem to have anything very interesting to say. She answered all the police questions without any fuss, but she didn’t volunteer any information. Really the most significant thing about Mary Martin had been her lack of significance, and Trave was shocked now by how stupid he had been to accept her at face value. She was an actress, and Stephen Cade was infatuated with her. That ought to have been enough to make him want to find out more, but instead he’d done nothing, seduced by the mountain of evidence against her boyfriend. What a fool he’d been!

Her clothes were more expensive than he remembered-a black Chanel dress and a cashmere coat that hung down below her knees-but otherwise she was the same. Except that now, for the first time, he was aware of the force of her personality. She was no longer a shy young girl; instead she was a woman capable of premeditated murder. The change left Trave temporarily off balance, at a disadvantage in their conversation.

“All right, let me put it another way,” she said after a moment. “How much did you find out while you were away?”

“I found out who you are,” he said, rising to the challenge.

“I’m impressed. So who am I?”

“Marie Rocard. And you’re wanted for the murder of John Cade at Moreton Manor House last June.”

“Wanted for questioning?”

“That’s right.”

“Because, without my help, you haven’t got enough to save Stephen from the rope. That’s the truth, isn’t it, Inspector?”

“I don’t know,” said Trave, trying not to sound defeated. “Maybe.”

Mary looked over toward Paul, and Trave was again aware of the tension between them.

“Paul doesn’t think we should be here at all,” she said. “But don’t worry, Inspector. Paul and I have had our argument, and I’ve won the day. This is my party now. Paul’ll make us some coffee. Won’t you, Paul?” she asked, slowing down her English to speak to her companion.

Trave could sense the Frenchman’s reluctance to leave the room, but finally, without a word, he moved away from the door, and Trave could hear him farther down the hall, opening drawers and cupboards in the kitchen.

“I saw Stephen today,” said Mary, biting her lip, and Trave couldn’t help noticing the break in her voice.

“That must’ve been interesting,” he said noncommittedly.

“No, it was horrible. I’m not proud of what I’ve done to him, you know.”

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be a comfort to him to know that.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course it won’t. He hates me now, which is as it should be, but for some silly reason I wish he didn’t. We were happy together for a while before all this happened.”

“How could you be happy? You were using him to get to his father.”

“Yes, and I don’t regret that. I had no choice. It was framing him afterward that was wrong. I didn’t realize that until after Stephen was arrested, but planning something isn’t the same as watching it happen. Paul thinks I’m crazy, but I’d give almost anything to put the clock back.”