Стивен Бут - Drowned Lives

George thought he’d ended the feud when he married Mary, but he was wrong. And I was the one who made him wrong. I prolonged the feud myself by breaking them up.

I know that your father Arthur was made bitter and cruel. For this, I apologise, as for everything else. And so it passed on to you, Christopher. And to how many more generations that follow? It has to be stopped. Once my own son was dead, it was already too late for me. But the Buckley name can’t be allowed to die.

There is only you left, Christopher. Don’t leave me to take the blame for destroying the Buckleys altogether. I’m giving you the power to stop it.

While I sat and stared at the letter, Rachel had carefully cleaned and oiled the third key. She also dripped some oil into the empty keyhole of the canal owners’ box and insisted on waiting for it to work.

‘So this is the third key,’ she said.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s the first.’

‘What?’

‘Remember Samuel’s will? He said he’d left me the second key and “the third was in the lock”. It didn’t make any sense at the time.’

‘But it does now?’

‘Of course. This is the first key. It’s William Buckley’s key.’

I was fidgeting with impatience, despite the fact that I’d waited so long already. I told myself there wouldn’t be anything in the box anyway. But I didn’t quite believe it.

Finally, Rachel allowed me to turn the key. It moved stiffly, but it moved, until it clicked into position with its two companions. Slowly I lifted the lid, marvelling at the smoothness of the action, the craftsmanship that had produced this object. I hardly dared to look in the box when it was open.

It was almost as empty as I’d feared — but not quite. In the bottom lay a sheet of what my mother would have called greaseproof paper, faded like parchment. And just showing through was something I recognised. A red blob of wax, with the image of a pit-head and a stylised beam-engine. The Ogley and Huddlesford Canal Company’s seal.

‘What can it be?’ asked Rachel.

We unfolded the paper and pulled out the documents that nestled inside. The contents made me sit back on my heels before I’d even begun to take in the details. They were recent, and devastating. There were letters, a contract full of mind-boggling figures and copies of certificates listing the directors of companies. I’d never heard of the companies, but some of the directors’ names were familiar, as were the signatures on the letters.

‘Well, that’s it. It looks as though we’ve got the complete evidence on the Parkers.’

‘And Lindley Simpson,’ said Rachel. ‘It doesn’t come as a surprise any more that MPs should be tied up in shady financial dealings.’

‘When the new link road goes through, they both stand to make a great deal of money.’

‘But Simpson is in the Ministry of Agriculture, isn’t he? Could he have any influence on the road scheme?’

‘I don’t know. But that’s probably beside the point. In the present climate, the mere fact that he’s in the government would be enough to create a scandal. He’d be hounded into resigning if this became public knowledge. It was what Andrew Hadfield was concealing. Leo Parker can hardly deny being involved. So Andrew had three people to protect — his uncle, his mother, and his future stepfather. No doubt he was deep into it himself somehow — there’s enough money in the pot to make them all millionaires.’

‘It was about money after all,’ said Rachel. ‘Not family.’

‘They must have found out that Samuel had this information, and they thought he was going to publish it. Parker and Simpson needed to stop the book to make sure their scheme went through.’

I realised Great-Uncle Samuel must have gone to great lengths to get hold of the material he’d hidden in the box. Probably he’d poured much of his resources into employing private investigators. Maybe he’d paid bribes to obtain some of the confidential documents. But they’d been important to him. They were what this was all about — obtaining the power to destroy the Parkers. He’d dedicated the last years of his life to it. And finally he’d laid his plans to pass the information on to me.

Rachel looked at me, and at the papers I held. ‘So what are you going to do, Chris? Send them to the newspapers? That would complete your revenge.’

‘Yes, it would.’

I thought about it for a long while, clutching in my hands the means to hit back at the Parkers. I pictured Leo Parker’s face, his impotent rage when it all came out, the disgrace of Lindley Simpson, the sensational stories in all the papers. And I felt a physical glow of satisfaction, the thrill of knowing that I’d brought retribution on behalf of my family. I smiled at the thought. It would be the culmination of everything Samuel had worked for, a justification for everything I’d gone through. Revenge. It was a sweet concept.

But then I met Rachel’s eyes, and the vision vanished abruptly. What was the point? What would I achieve by perpetuating the feud? I would ruin the final years of a sick old woman, and store up more animosity and bitterness for future generations to deal with. Presuming, of course, that there were going to be future generations of the Buckleys. Events had focused my mind on this issue like never before. When you lose your parents, you’re suddenly in the front line.

Meeting my grandmother had changed my perspective too. The Buckleys and Parkers no longer seemed like two rival families locked in conflict over the generations. As Leo himself had said, we weren’t just related, but inextricably entangled. I’d even been back to his house in Hints to visit Mary again, and had taken her some flowers for her room, hoping for a flicker of recognition, desperate to draw back the curtains and let in the sunlight.

And I knew that a continuation of the feud wasn’t what Samuel had wanted. He’d given me the power to stop it. That was exactly what his letter said. Two hundred years were enough. Instead of a weapon to be used, he’d bequeathed to me a deterrent that would ensure peace. All I had to do was reconcile myself to keeping quiet about the dealings of Leo Parker and Lindley Simpson, and the true motives of Andrew Hadfield. It was a sacrifice. But it was nothing compared to the sacrifice that Samuel had made himself.

And he hadn’t just given me this power, had he? He’d given me the choice to use it, or not. Was this what it had all been about? Great-Uncle Samuel had forced me to grow up, to take responsibility and make my own decisions. Caroline said he’d been keeping an eye on me. And perhaps he was still watching over me now.

‘No, they won’t go to the newspapers,’ I said. ‘I think a safe deposit box in a bank somewhere would be the answer. And a carefully drawn will. No doubt Mr Elsworth could help me with that.’

‘So that’s it, then?’ asked Rachel.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ I said. ‘It’s all over.’

A few days later I was in London to see the editor of a new magazine covering ‘green’ issues, trying to persuade him that my services would be valuable to him. It seemed as though I’d convinced him with my presentation, and I came away with a small clutch of commissions that would mean a few hundred pounds in my pocket. With the book selling well back home, things were starting to look up for my future career as a freelance writer and journalist.

I’d set off from Trent Valley Station that morning on the 7:59, the direct service via Tamworth Low Level and Nuneaton, taking an hour and forty-five minutes to Euston. I’d been intending to catch the 17:25 to get back to Lichfield, but there was another train later, and I had nothing to rush back for.