Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

‘What about me?’ asked the old man. ‘Did I know?’

‘We never discussed it,’ said Madeleine. ‘But you were no fool. I bet you knew.’

‘So when you visited us in Morocco when I was little, you knew you were my grandfather?’ said Clémence.

‘Apparently,’ said the old man. ‘And presumably I thought that your father was my son.’

‘That must have been weird.’

‘Rupert was furious,’ Madeleine said. ‘He didn’t know you were his father, but he had read the book, so he did know you had killed his mother. He told me you showed up out of the blue. He only let you stay a few hours — the whole thing was terribly awkward.’

‘Do you remember any of that?’ Clémence asked.

The old man frowned, but shook his head. ‘Just the beach. And the camel.’ He allowed himself a quick smile. ‘And you.’ He turned to Madeleine. ‘What did I do afterwards? After 1959?’

‘You ran away to Australia. You ended up working as a doctor in a small town in the hills above Perth. You married a woman called Helen in 1968, I think. We came to your wedding in Perth.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Small. Blonde. At least ten years younger than you. Very pretty. A little bossy, Nathan and I thought.’

‘And we got divorced?’

‘After Death At Wyvis was published. I don’t think she liked being married to a murderer. I can’t blame her, really.’

‘No,’ said the old man.

‘Is Tony still alive?’ asked Clémence. ‘No one has ever mentioned his name to me.’

‘He died five years ago on Capri. A heart attack. He never did marry Luciana, but she was with him at the end. Nathan and I went to his funeral. It seemed like the whole island was there.’

‘He sounded like a nice guy,’ said Clémence.

‘He was,’ said Madeleine. ‘Elaine wasn’t, though. She drank herself to death some time in the seventies. She and her husband tried to make a fuss about Alden’s death in 1959 but Nathan’s lawyers shut them up. After the book came out, Elaine was quoted in that article in the British Sunday newspaper, but when Nathan sued successfully, she had to keep quiet. She died soon afterwards.’

‘How did the book sell?’ the old man asked.

‘It caused a little bit of a stir when it came out. It was published here but not in the States, nor in Australia, actually. But it’s been out of print for years. I don’t think the publisher even exists any more.’

‘I wonder why I came back to Britain last year,’ said the old man. ‘Do you know?’

Madeleine closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Alastair, this has taken it out of me. I’m beat. Can we talk about something else until Davie gets back? I will tell you what I know, I promise. But maybe tomorrow?’

‘Actually, there is someone we need to see in Dingwall,’ said Clémence, thinking of Pauline Ferguson, the old stalker’s wife. ‘So maybe we can drop into your hotel tomorrow morning?’

‘Yes, why don’t you do that?’

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ said the old man, but just as he was speaking, they heard the sound of a car drawing up outside.

‘That’ll be your taxi,’ said Clémence.

‘Good,’ said Madeleine, hauling herself out of the sofa with a grunt. ‘I’ll see you both tomorrow.’

As Clémence saw her great-aunt to the door, the old man escaped to the lavatory. He was dying for a pee, and he also wanted to be by himself, if only for a minute or two. He knew he deserved the contempt and disgust of Madeleine and Clémence, but it was good to get away from it for a minute. He lifted the lid, unzipped his fly, and let go. He raised his eyes to the small window.

Something moved.

It was something long and thin in a bush up the wooded slope about thirty yards from the cottage.

It was the barrel of a rifle.

The old man’s sight wasn’t too bad at distance. He squinted. The barrel moved again, and he could see a face. A bearded face. Jerry Ranger.

The American was staring at the front of the cottage, where the old man could hear Madeleine bidding goodbye to her niece. The old man flinched as Jerry glanced quickly at the cottage, and then back at the taxi outside the front door. The old man was pretty sure that Jerry hadn’t spotted him in the tiny window.

He zipped himself up and hurried out of the lavatory. Clémence was shutting the front door in the hallway.

‘Clémence!’ the old man said in a loud whisper. ‘That American is outside with a rifle! I know this sounds silly, but he looks like he’s staking out the cottage.’

Clémence frowned. ‘That’s ridiculous. He must be stalking a deer or something.’

‘It really didn’t look like it,’ said the old man. Although maybe that was what he was doing when he was interrupted by the taxi arriving to pick up Madeleine. No. That didn’t seem right.

Uncertainty crossed Clémence’s face. ‘I had a weird conversation with him this morning. About you. And he had a copy of Death At Wyvis on his bookshelf with notes and underlinings in his own handwriting. Yet he said he’d never read it.’

The old man and Clémence exchanged glances. The uncertainty each felt fed off the other.

‘I know we are going to look foolish, but maybe we should sneak out the back. Just in case.’

Clémence hesitated. Then she nodded. ‘OK.’

‘Lock the front door. And get your coat. In case we are outside for a while.’

Clémence locked the door and then ran up the stairs to her room. The old man pulled on his boots and grabbed his own coat from the hook in the hallway. Clémence joined him and they moved towards the back door.

The doorbell rang.

‘Who is it?’ Clémence called.

‘It’s Jerry!’

Clémence hesitated and then shouted. ‘I’m in the bath. Wait two minutes and I’ll be down!’

Not bad, thought the old man, although Jerry would be able to figure out it was unlikely Clémence could have jumped into the bath that quickly after her aunt left. But it should give them a minute, maybe two. And from his position outside the front door Jerry couldn’t see the back of the house.

Quietly the old man opened the back door and they slipped out. They moved as rapidly as the old man could over the scruffy back lawn to the trees at the rear of the garden. They climbed up the slope, and paused at the crest of a small bank, on the other side of which a burn ran down through the woods towards the loch.

‘Let’s wait here and watch,’ said the old man. ‘If he goes away, we will know we just imagined it.’

‘All right,’ said Clémence. ‘He probably will.’

They crouched down and watched the cottage. ‘Do you think we’re being silly?’ Clémence said.

‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,’ said the old man with a grin.

‘Clémence!’ They heard Jerry’s voice ringing out. ‘Clémence, are you OK?’

‘Of course I’m OK,’ muttered Clémence to herself. ‘I’m getting out of the bath. Be patient!’

But Jerry wasn’t patient. Thirty seconds later he appeared around the side of the house, with the rifle slung over his shoulder. He peered into a couple of windows and then came to the back door. He studied it for a moment and then turned the handle. They had left it unlocked: it opened.

‘Let’s go!’ said the old man. He was damned sure that a man with a rifle entering a house uninvited through the back door was a problem.

They scrambled down the bank to the burn, and Clémence took the old man’s hand and led him down the hill towards the track running along the side of the loch.

‘No,’ said the old man. ‘He’ll be expecting that. And he’ll be faster than us. Let’s go uphill. That way we’ll lose him.’