Barry Maitland - The verge practice

‘Do you have children, Sergeant?’

‘No.’ Kathy was aware of being probed, while Mrs Verge made up her mind whether it would be more productive to groom or attack her.

‘Perhaps you’re wise. They are a blessing, of course, but also a heartache.’

Especially if they go around stabbing people, Kathy thought. There was something odd about all this, something she was missing. ‘But this seems a wonderful refuge for Charlotte,’ she said. ‘Is it just a coincidence that it’s so close to where you used to live?’

‘Not exactly. Charlotte was born a couple of years after Charles built Briar Hill for me, and when she was a child she had so many happy memories of staying with me there that when her relationship broke down she decided to get out of London and come to live in the area. Charles helped her financially, and now when I come to stay with her we go for drives and catch sight of the house again, and remember those happy days. Someone else owns Briar Hill now, of course. Charles sold it to a Spanish artist, a friend of his, on the condition that she promise to change nothing.’

Not only odd but a little spooky, Kathy thought, as if his mother and his daughter had decided together to live in the past, before all of this unpleasantness had happened. ‘I can understand her resenting me for invading her privacy here to question you about her father.’

‘She does rather regard the police as the enemy, I’m afraid. She thinks you believe the worst of her father, but I tell her that we must try to do everything we can to help you come to the truth of the matter, that Charles is the real victim in all this.’ There was such a calm certainty in the way she said this that Kathy was impressed, despite her conviction that the woman was deluding herself. ‘So how can I help you? And may I say that I was most impressed by your Mr Brock. Much more intelligent than the last fellow. I feel more confident now that we can make some progress at last.’ She smiled.

Grooming then, Kathy thought. ‘I’ve brought a copy of your earlier statements, Mrs Verge, and I’d like to go through some of the points you raised there, but mainly I’d like to get to understand Charles better, as a person.’ Madelaine Verge beamed. Nothing would delight her more, her only regret being that most of the photograph albums were in her London flat, a fact for which Kathy was silently grateful.

When Charlotte returned they were deep in conversation about Charles’s boyhood, his sense of mischief, his stubbornness, his enthusiasm for competitive sports, his oddly inconsistent school results until he suddenly blossomed just in time to get decent A-levels. Charlotte poured the coffee then said that she had work to do.

‘Before you go, dear,’ her grandmother said, ‘would you please fetch me the family album in my room?’

‘It must have been difficult for you, bringing him up on your own, Madelaine,’ Kathy said, the intimacies of Charles’s childhood having brought them to first-name terms.

‘I always felt that I had his father, Alberto, at my shoulder, guiding me. He was a very special man, an Olympic athlete and a very gifted architect. I never made any attempt to guide Charles into his father’s footsteps, but Alberto was always there as a shining example, and I was thrilled when Charles announced that he would become an architect, too. And it soon became obvious that the gift had been passed down, undiminished.’

Charlotte returned with an old photograph album, then disappeared again. It contained pictures from Charles’s childhood, mostly bland and remote, but there was one that caught Kathy’s attention for its strangeness. In it, the small boy was standing encased in some kind of tall, thin construction which Kathy couldn’t make out. It looked something like a giant condom or a syringe, daubed with spots and surmounted by a crown, his face peering out from a hole cut in the middle.

‘Oh, that’s a favourite of mine,’ Madelaine chuckled. ‘He won first prize.’

Kathy looked perplexed.

‘A fancy-dress competition! He went as the Empire State Building.’

Kathy got it now. The spots were windows, and the crown formed the famous silhouette. It was hard to make out what little Charles was thinking, but he didn’t look happy.

Madelaine went on to talk about the early years of his practice, when Charles had returned from graduate school in America with a young fellow-graduate as his wife and had put out his shingle in London, penniless but filled with confidence. She then glowingly related the critical success of Briar Hill, its publication in Architectural Design and Casabella, and the triumphs of the middle years.

‘The break-up with his first wife must have been hard, with her having been so much a part of all that,’ Kathy said, trying to move the story forward.

Madelaine Verge took a deep breath, as if reluctant to come to that episode, then turned her head sharply at the sound of feet on gravel. ‘Ah, George!’ she cried as a man came round the corner of the cottage, carrying a garden fork and hoe. ‘Did you get the plants you wanted?’

‘Most of ’em, Mrs V. They were out of onions.’ He lifted his cap to the women, squinting suspiciously at Kathy. He was a stocky figure, of late middle age, with a deeply lined face and wisps of fair hair across his pate, dressed in old clothes for garden work. He replaced his cap, picked up his tools and moved towards a freshly dug bed on the far side of the small lawn. As he turned away Kathy saw that the left side of his face was badly scarred.

‘George is one of Charles’s projects,’ Madelaine whispered, leaning towards Kathy. ‘He was in prison at the time Charles was doing research for the Marchdale project-are you familiar with that? Yes, well, Charles learned a great deal from George about prison life, so much so that he engaged him as a consultant and then, when he was released, Charles took him on as a general handyman to look after my little garden in town and to get this place into shape for Charlotte. It really was a mess when he bought it for her, but within a few months George had repaired the roof, knocked out a wall, put in a new kitchen and bathroom, redecorated, and now he’s reorganising the garden.’

‘Very handy.’

‘And very honest and loyal. We trust him absolutely, despite his past. He is a real vindication of Charles’s faith in him.’

‘What happened to his face?’

‘The story is that he had a pan of chip fat spilled on him when he was young. He has had a very tragic life.’

‘We were talking about Charles’s divorce.’

‘Oh…yes.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Well, I think the truth of the matter is that Charles simply outgrew Gail. The split was inevitable, really.’

‘Outgrew her?’

‘In professional terms. Oh, Gail was very supportive in the early days, very clever with designing the details, Charles used to say. But as the practice grew, it really became far too demanding for Gail’s abilities. She had to take a back seat, and I’m afraid that had its effect on their personal relation ship. Charles was very sad about it, of course.’

‘He had a breakdown?’ Kathy ventured.

‘No, no, that’s putting it far too strongly. It was a setback, yes, and at a sensitive time for Charlotte, at sixteen. Gail…well, I’m probably biased, but she let a lot of people down, walking out like that.’

‘But then Charles met Miki Norinaga.’

Silence for a moment, then the elderly woman said primly, ‘Not immediately. There was an interval of a couple of years.’

‘That must have been difficult for Charlotte too, her being not much younger than her new stepmother.’

Madelaine Verge turned a stern eye on Kathy. ‘If you’re trying to suggest some kind of family crisis arising from Charles’s second marriage, you’re quite wrong. Charlotte was starting at university, she had a new life of her own to focus on.’