Стивен Бут - Drowned Lives

‘Driving home, friend? No? Pity. You might have ended up in a ditch. You’d be no loss to anybody, from what I’ve heard.’

I rolled my eyes nervously over my shoulder, but didn’t really need to see him to know it was Simon Monks.

‘What do you want?’ I said.

‘Only one thing. You’ve caused enough grief in Caroline’s life already. Stay out of it from now on, okay? I don’t want to hear that you’ve been doing anything to upset her. Anything.’

He remained standing close behind me, making no pretence of being there for a genuine purpose. My flow of urine was reduced to a trickle as my bladder contracted with apprehension.

‘Are you threatening me?’ I asked feebly.

Monks laughed as if I were the star act in the cabaret. Then he leaned closer to speak into my ear, a repulsively intimate gesture that brought his hot breath onto the back of my neck. ‘Just remember, if Caroline doesn’t want you to publish this book — it means no book . Nothing.’

I closed my eyes, waiting for something to happen. But after a shaky moment, I heard the door close and realised he was gone.

I waited a few minutes after Monks had left, trying to control my breathing and splashing cold water on my face. To regain a bit of self-respect, I had to walk back out of the pub without my legs giving way. But amazingly, by the time I got outside a smile was creeping back onto my face. While I’d been thinking about how I could safely show Monks that I wasn’t so easily intimidated, a very tempting prospect had suddenly opened up in my mind, involving Laura Jenner.

To my surprise and delight, she was still waiting for me, leaning on a rail to watch the water.

‘Laura,’ I said. ‘I wonder if you’d be willing to help me?’

‘What with?’ she said, turning to stare at me.

‘The book, of course. Samuel Longden’s book.’

‘Why do you want help?’

‘I need some family research doing. And since you’re in London anyway and at a loose end — I mean, between jobs — you could do a bit of research for me at Somerset House, or wherever.’

‘Registers of births, marriages and deaths haven’t been kept at Somerset House for a long time,’ she said. ‘They’re at the Family Records Centre now.’

‘There you are, you see,’ I said triumphantly, as if her knowledge had clinched the argument.

She didn’t answer directly. ‘So you’re definitely taking the project on?’

‘Yes, I am. It’s what Samuel wanted. He said so in his will.’

‘I suppose there’s a lot to do.’

‘Absolutely. And I can’t do it all on my own. I need somebody to follow up leads, do the research, talk to people. You’d be good at that, I’m sure. I wouldn’t be able to pay you until the book was published, though.’

‘I don’t want money,’ she said.

‘Are you willing, then?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing I had in mind. It’s a bit parochial.’

I was hurt at that. ‘It could be really interesting. Following the development of a family through two centuries, charting the rise and fall of six generations. It’s like a snapshot of social history over the last two hundred years, with a human perspective.’

She laughed. ‘It’s nice to hear somebody being so enthusiastic about a project. But then you’re personally involved, aren’t you?’

‘Did you come in your own car, Laura?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Will you do one thing for me?’

‘What is it?’

‘I came here on the boat, and I left my car at Hopwas. Will you drive me back there and let me talk to you about it a bit more?’

‘All right.’

The sight of Laura’s car surprised me. I’d never imagined that television researchers had well-paid jobs, but her lime-green Mercedes made my Escort look sick.

The combination of the cold, the brief exercise and the encounter with Simon Monks had sobered me up, but when we got into Laura’s Merc I felt a bit dizzy again. Cars come to smell of their owners after a while, and I became very aware of her heady scent in the enclosed space, as well as the proximity of her hand as she operated the gear lever. By the time we were headed away from Fradley towards Lichfield, I was amenable to anything. But Laura began to give me a thoroughly professional grilling.

‘So how far have you got, Chris? With the book, I mean.’

‘Not far. I haven’t had the chance, to be honest. What with the will and the funeral, not to mention the police, it’s all been a bit of a whirl this past week.’

‘The police? How do they come into it?’

‘Well, don’t you know how Samuel Longden died?’

‘A car accident, wasn’t it? It was in the paper.’

‘Yes, but not an ordinary accident. A hit and run. They’ve never traced the driver, as far as I know. The police interviewed me because I was one of the last people to see him alive. In fact, it was the police who broke the news to me that Samuel was dead, when they came to see me next morning. It was quite a shock.’

‘But they haven’t bothered you since?’

‘N-no. I had to go to the police station to make a statement. But I only saw some PC, not the detectives who came to my house.’

I was hesitant because of the tone of my meeting with DS Graham, which gave me the impression they hadn’t eliminated me entirely. I’d been expecting a second visit. I’d even begun to imagine that people passing in the street or sitting in cars in Stowe Pool Lane were watching me. Under surveillance, wasn’t that the expression?

Probably someone taking an objective view would say my reaction was the result of a guilty conscience. I desperately wanted to ask the police about the witness who’d seen the accident, but I had enough sense to realise that such an enquiry from me would immediately raise their suspicions several notches. And no police officer in his right mind would give the identity of a witness to a suspect. It was a frustrating fact, because the woman the car park attendant had seen standing on the corner might be the key to the whole thing.

‘But you’ve read Samuel’s manuscript, haven’t you?’ asked Laura. ‘You must have had time for that.’

‘Only the early stuff about the canal company proprietors and the appointment of William Buckley as resident engineer.’

‘William Buckley, yes. The manuscript is a long way off being finished, though, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? I don’t know. What makes you say that?’

‘Well, it must be. Otherwise why would Samuel want you to continue it?’

‘Hmm, true.’

‘And there are other documents?’

‘Yes, lots.’

‘Letters?’

‘Some.’

She nodded. ‘Good.’

‘Why?’

‘Letters are true contemporary documents. A direct record from the time, unlike anything that might have been written since. They’re original source material. Very valuable.’

‘They’re rather difficult to read,’ I said. ‘I’ve asked Rachel to transcribe them for me.’

She braked suddenly, as if a cat had run out into the road. I didn’t see any cat, but I’d been admiring Laura’s profile all the time she’d been speaking, and wondering how she’d got the scar. I hadn’t even realised that we were already approaching Whittington.

‘Who’s Rachel?’ she said.

‘My next door neighbour. She can type, you see. She was interested in the project, and I thought she could be helpful transcribing the letters. That’s all. It’s not a problem.’

I wasn’t sure why I was sounding defensive about Rachel. Could I really be imagining that Laura was jealous? Were two helpers one too many?

‘Is that all she’s doing, Chris?’

‘Well... she did say she’d do some family history research for me. The Buckley family, I mean. Rachel is a trained librarian.’