Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

‘Hold on,’ said Stephen. ‘She’s Tony’s housekeeper. I’m sure she’s a very good cook, but it would hardly be appropriate.’

‘What do you mean, not appropriate?’ said Madeleine. ‘It would be lovely. And besides, who would care all the way up here?’

‘The servants, for one,’ said Stephen. ‘And me. And Sophie.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Stephen,’ said Sophie. ‘It would be wonderful to meet her, Tony.’

‘I’m not being absurd!’ said Stephen. ‘She’s a bloody housekeeper, for God’s sake. It would be all wrong. Sometimes I think you French let standards slip. Or have you been in America too long?’

Madeleine laughed. ‘Stephen, you have met Papa. He would never let standards slip. The poor man still hasn’t recovered from us marrying foreigners. And commoners at that.’

Stephen glared at his sister-in-law. He did not see himself as a commoner, whatever a minor French aristocrat might think. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t have invited Tony’s housekeeper to his chateau.’

‘Don’t be such an ass, Stephen,’ I said, allowing my slight Yorkshire accent to broaden. ‘If you can all put up with an oik like me, then you can put up with Luciana. What’s her pasta like, Tony?’

‘Out of this world,’ said Tony. ‘You should come back to Capri to try some.’

He beamed at Stephen with such bonhomie that Stephen was forced to smile back. ‘That’s an excellent idea.’

The pudding was cleared, a rhubarb crumble, and Sophie spoke. ‘Madeleine and I will leave you alone to enjoy your port.’

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ said Nathan. ‘And before you start, Stephen, I have something I want to say to all of you, and I think it would be best said over a glass of port.’

Stephen looked as if he was about to protest, but decided not to. He nodded to the butler, who returned a moment later with a decanter and a humidor. The other three men selected cigars, I pulled out my pipe and Sophie and Madeleine lit cigarettes. The decanter whizzed around the table.

‘I have an ulterior motive for bringing you together here,’ said Nathan. ‘A secondary motive. The first is, it is wonderful to see all of you together. It’s been far too long.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Stephen, knocking back his port and refilling his glass.

‘But something has come up that we need to think about and discuss. It relates to poor Alden’s death.’

The table went quiet.

‘Elaine has remarried. Her husband is a lawyer called Francis Brockman. Elaine told him what really happened to poor Alden, and he is of the opinion that as a result Alden’s will should be challenged.’

‘What, so she gets half the money?’

‘He claims Alden’s share of Wakefield Oil should have been divided equally between all the cousins and shouldn’t have gone to me alone.’

‘But that’s appalling!’ said Stephen. ‘How can she do that? We all agreed to stick to the same story. Is she going to admit she lied?’

‘Yes. And she is going to say that she was only sixteen and we all put pressure on her.’

‘But you saved my life, Nathan! I’m convinced Alden was going to cut my throat. Tony, can you speak to her?’

Tony laughed. ‘I could. It would just make things worse.’

‘Can’t you control your wife?’

Tony puffed at his cigar. ‘Honestly? No. Never could.’

Stephen snorted in disgust. ‘How can we stop her?’

‘I’ve thought about this hard,’ said Nathan. ‘And I’ve spoken to lawyers. We can’t stop her. If she decides to tell a court that she saw me kill Alden, we can’t stop her.’

‘Can you buy her off?’ said Stephen.

‘If it was just Elaine, I could maybe give her a gift of something to keep her sweet. But this guy Brockman would view that as a sign of weakness.’ Nathan sipped his port. ‘There is something we can do, but that involves your cooperation. All of you.’

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Tell whoever asks that Elaine is lying. Say that she was only sixteen and she was drunk. Say she’s just making it up. Four adults against one drunk child. They will believe us.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Stephen right away.

‘So will I,’ said Tony, much less enthusiastically. He avoided Nathan’s eyes, and stared at the ruby liquid in his crystal port glass. I remembered how Tony had initially been reluctant to go along with the plan.

‘Angus? It was your idea after all?’

Nathan was right. Having lied once, we would have to lie again. It was an inevitable consequence of taking that decision over twenty years ago. ‘And me,’ I said.

‘Madeleine wasn’t there, so it’s easy for her to back us up. That leaves Sophie?’

Sophie slumped back in her chair and stared at her glass of port.

‘Sophie?’

‘I’m not going to lie under oath.’

‘Oh, come on, Sophie!’ said Stephen. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘You won’t have to,’ said Nathan. ‘You’ll be lying to a lawyer. A greedy lawyer at that. He doesn’t care half as much about Alden as we do. He didn’t even know him; he just wants the money.’

‘No, I know,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s just that someone’s death is serious. It’s not the kind of thing you should lie about. We shouldn’t have lied in the first place.’

‘Sophie, you have to stick with the story,’ said Stephen. His voice was commanding. Aggressive. Threatening.

‘She doesn’t have to,’ said Nathan, calmly. ‘But I hope she will choose to. There is no one who regrets Alden’s death more than me. Every day, I wish I hadn’t killed him. Stephen shouldn’t have picked up the sword in the first place. Alden shouldn’t have taken the “duel” so seriously. There is a lot we got wrong. But not lying. We all know it was an accident. It wasn’t murder, and if the French police had arrested me, that would have been wrong. Unjust. Wouldn’t it, Sophie?’

‘They might have agreed it was an accident,’ she said.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Sadly, I don’t think you can necessarily trust the police in murder investigations, especially when there are foreigners involved. It would have been too easy for them to solve the crime and lock me up. Or chop off my head.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Sophie, still fiddling with her glass.

‘So will you support me? Us?’

‘I’m not saying I won’t,’ said Sophie. ‘But I’m not saying I will, either. I need to think about it.’

‘Don’t worry, Nathan,’ said Stephen. ‘She’ll do what she should.’

Nathan ignored him. ‘Have a think about it, Sophie,’ he said. ‘You’ve got all week.’

Sophie smiled her thanks. It seemed to me that Nathan’s approach was more likely to work than Stephen’s. It also seemed that now we all had no choice, even Sophie. But I did admire her attempt to be honest.

It had probably been a mistake to drink so much port. At least that’s what we all thought as we rose early the following morning for a day on the hills. Ferguson, the stalker, was initially put out that he had to change his initial plan to stalk the Wyvis Forest beat, but the beat further up Glen Glass would be almost as good. He lent me an Ordnance Survey map and pointed out a good circular route to climb the mountain via Fiaclach to the east, and then to descend further to the west, avoiding most of the bogs. It was going to be quite a hike. Mrs Ferguson provided us all with packed lunches, and Stephen, Tony and Nathan set off up the glen with Ferguson, his son Iain and two garrons — highland ponies who would carry the deer carcasses back to the game larder. Sophie and I headed the other way down the track along the shore of the loch.

After a couple of hundred yards we came to a wooden boathouse, and a little further beyond that we struck uphill on a narrow path through a wood. We passed a cottage in a clearing, no doubt housing one of the estate workers, and continued climbing, until we were out of the woods and on to the moor.