Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

610 Park Avenue

NY

January 10

Dear Alastair,

Thank you for your sweet letter about Nathan’s death. Despite your last meeting, I know how much Nathan treasured your letters over the years. You were a good friend to him in a life, which although so successful on the surface, encompassed a series of such dreadful tragedies.

I am still in shock from what you told Nathan and me when you last saw us. I suppose it must be true, but I cannot accept it.

As you can imagine, the last couple of months have been very trying for me. The double shock of your visit and Nathan’s death has been difficult for someone of my age — yes, I must admit that I am eighty-five! And although Nathan retiredfrom the board eight years ago, he and I are still the major stockholders in Wakefield Oil, and there is a lot to attend to there. I suppose money helps — we have so much money — but now I come toward the end of my life, it doesn’t seem to matter. Sophie matters still, as do you and Stephen and Nathan.

So please, for my sake, do not republish “Death At Wyvis”. I understood that when the book first came out you wanted to set the record straight. But then Stephen was in prison for a crime he did not commit, and Sophie’s murder was still part of the lives of the rest of us. But now Tony, Elaine and poor Nathan have gone, it’s just you, me and Stephen. My understanding is that Stephen wants to forget the whole thing. I would much rather leave it buried. Sophie’s children never wanted to know, and I don’t think her grandchildren even know she was murdered.

So it’s just you, Alastair, who would like to see the book republished. Please, I beg of you, don’t do it.

Amitiés

‘They are both pretty clear about not wanting to see a second edition,’ said Clémence.

‘I bet I didn’t listen to them,’ said the old man.

‘Maybe you sent the exercise book to a publisher, after all?’ said Clémence. ‘Who published the original book?’

‘Woodrow and Shippe,’ said Callum. ‘I’ve never heard of them.’

‘Perhaps they don’t exist any more,’ said Clémence. ‘What is it, Alastair?’

The old man was thinking. Deeply. Had he remembered something?

‘Madeleine wrote that I spoke to Nathan and her about something that shocked them both in New York last year. Didn’t she?’

‘She did.’

‘Yet at lunch in the pub she said she didn’t know what I had told Nathan.’

‘That’s right,’ said Clémence. ‘And it sounds as if you told both of them who had killed Sophie. And it wasn’t you.’

‘I hope it wasn’t me,’ said the old man. ‘It looks that way, but we can’t be absolutely sure of that yet. What I want to know is, if Madeleine was with Nathan when I told him who killed Sophie last year, why hasn’t she told us any of this? Why did she pretend she knew nothing about it?’

Clémence and the old man exchanged glances. Why indeed? Clémence thought it was pretty clear now that the old man was innocent of her grandmother’s death, but she could understand his reluctance to take anything for granted after the confusion of the last forty years.

They heard a car climbing the hill up to the cottage.

‘God, is that Jerry?’ cried Clémence as she dashed to the window.

It was a taxi. And inside Clémence could dimly make out the figure of a man. An old man. Another old man.

‘It’s Grandpa! What’s he doing here?’

‘Is that Stephen?’ said the old man.

Stephen pulled himself out of the taxi and paid the driver. He was tall with white hair and a stoop, but nevertheless he had presence. He turned to the cottage and then for some reason looked up and saw Clémence and the old man at the window. He had a strong rectangular face, doughty chin and long nose. His forehead and cheeks were ravaged by a warren of wrinkles, like a trench system abandoned after a long war. He held their eyes for a moment, his face expressionless, before turning to the front door as his taxi drove away.

Clémence ran downstairs and opened the door. She wanted to hug him, but his tall, stooping presence was forbidding. She jumped on him anyway, and kissed his leathery cheek.

‘Goodness me,’ he said gruffly. ‘Is the old bugger here? I thought I saw him with you upstairs?’

‘The “old bugger” is here, Grandpa. Come in. Can I get you some tea?’

‘Got any whisky?’ said Stephen, following Clémence into the sitting room.

‘And this is my boyfriend, Callum,’ said Clémence. Callum was hovering on the bottom step.

‘Hello, Mr Smith,’ said Callum, holding out his hand.

Stephen looked at it, and for a moment it seemed as if he wasn’t going to shake it, but then he clasped it briefly. ‘Trickett-Smith,’ he growled.

Clémence found Stephen a seat. There was a bottle of Famous Grouse on a little table by the door and she fetched a couple of glasses from the kitchen, and put on the kettle.

Alastair shuffled into the living room. ‘Hello, Stephen.’

Stephen ignored him but collapsed into a chair. Alastair sat down opposite him. Clémence watched as the two old men stared at each other under impressive eyebrows.

Alastair examined the old man opposite, his former friend, former rival, former enemy. He didn’t recognize the features in front of him, the unkempt white hair, the ravaged face, the wayward bristles sprouting from nostrils and ears. But he recalled the fair-haired, handsome airman with the Roman nose, grinning at him in black and white from a wartime cinema screen. And then he remembered the picnic in Capri with Sophie and Stephen and Elaine. And the tall, immensely charming undergraduate working his way through a bottle of hock in an ancient wood-panelled room that must have been Alastair’s at their college at Oxford.

Clémence handed Stephen his whisky.

‘I’ll have one of those,’ said Alastair.

As she poured a second glass, Stephen spoke. ‘And where is the interfering old bat?’

‘Do you mean Aunt Madeleine?’ said Clémence.

‘Of course, I mean Madeleine. Who else is an interfering old bat?’

Clémence handed Alastair his whisky. ‘Can you make me a cup of tea, Callum?’ she asked.

‘Sure thing,’ said Callum.

‘We had lunch with her in Dingwall,’ Clémence said. ‘She’s at the airport now, probably, waiting for a flight to London.’

‘Good,’ said Stephen. He sipped his whisky. ‘So you fell down the stairs? Those stairs, presumably?’

‘Yes,’ said Alastair.

‘Hit your head? Can’t remember anything, Clémence tells me.’

‘Virtually nothing. Some things come back eventually, hazily.’

‘Didn’t it occur to you that that was a good thing?’ Stephen said. ‘That you should bugger off back to Australia and leave things best forgotten forgotten?’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Alastair, calmly. ‘I didn’t know what I had forgotten. I didn’t even know who I was. That’s what Clémence did, help me find out who I was.’

Stephen snorted. ‘That must have been an unpleasant discovery.’

‘Yes,’ said Alastair, holding Stephen’s eyes, refusing to be provoked. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘What are you doing here, Grandpa?’ Clémence asked.

Stephen looked away from Alastair and up to his granddaughter, who was still standing. ‘When I realized what you and Alastair were up to, reading that bloody book and everything, I thought it would be easier all round if I came up here and told you all you want to know. Then you’ll go back to St Andrews, and he will piss off back to Australia.’

‘Thank you,’ said Alastair. He felt his hopes rising. It sounded as if he was at last going to get to the truth, or close to the truth. And whereas previously the truth had frightened him, now, with Clémence’s support, he felt braver about facing it, even hopeful.