Peter Dickinson - Some Deaths Before Dying

Jeff’s technique was to talk much as he would have to anyone else, a little more slowly but no louder, and if the old boy got hold of the wrong end of the stick, not to correct him, but either to carry on or, if it looked more promising, to go off in the new direction. He said you never knew how much Uncle Albert would pick up, but he would spot it at once if you were trying to make things easy for him.

“I’m sorry Jeff couldn’t come,” she said. “So’s he. It happened only this morning. In fact we were still asleep when the phone rang. The thing is, Jeff had a row with his immediate boss and walked out. Or he was sacked—it depends how you look at it. Anyway, the call was from someone who works for the top guy in the whole company, saying the big man wanted to see Jeff today, in Birmingham, about the row. It looks like being his one chance to put his case…”

He was peering at her, frowning.

“Dyed your hair, then?” he said.

“No, it’s always been this colour.”

“Not since I’ve known you, it hasn’t, and then you were just about so high. You took after your dad, that way. Comes of living in America. They’re always messing around with how they look, Americans. Your lad’s not coming today, then? What’s his name? I’ll get it in a minute.”

The gnarled fingers groped for the memory.

“Jeff,” she said. “He had to go to Birmingham all of a sudden. He sent his love.”

“That’s right, Jeff. A good enough lad. You’ve done very well by him, Penny.”

Jenny grasped the nature of the confusion, shrugged inwardly, and settled for the moment into the role of being her own mother-in-law.

“I’m glad you think so,” she said. “I’m very proud of him.”

“Jeff,” he said, frowning again. “There’s something—you tell him—something he’s looking after for me.”

He fell silent, staring at her with obvious distrust. Jenny didn’t hesitate. If she pretended ignorance now, what if he remembered that when she admitted knowledge later? Anyway, she wanted to get it over.

“Your pistol, you mean?” she said.

The stare hardened to chilly ferocity. He hadn’t done this to her before. It was as if an old family myth of Jeff’s, a quirk from his childhood, had stalked living and potent into the room.

“What do you know about that?” he said in a quiet, level voice, seeming to bite each word off to separate it from the next. “Who the hell are you, anyway, coming here making out you’re my niece. You’re not.”

“I’m Jeff’s wife, Jenny,” she said. “Look, I’ve brought the pistol to show you it’s all right, and Jeff’s still got it.”

She took the parcel out of her shoulder bag and gave it to him. He opened the box, checked that the pistol was there, closed it and put it on the table beside him, all without acknowledgement or comment.

“Do you want me to tell you what happened?” she said.

“If you think you’ve something to say for yourself, miss, say it.”

His tone was unmollified.

“Jeff put it carefully away, like you asked him,” she explained. “I found it when I was looking for something else. I didn’t know what it was, so I left it out to ask him about when he got home. Then…”

His look didn’t soften as she told the story. She couldn’t guess how much he was taking in, but if she paused he nodded to her to carry on.

“…so when Jeff got home I told him what had happened, and he said I’d better come and see you, and tell you. I’m sorry, Uncle Albert. Of course I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known it was yours.”

He continued to stare at her, conceding nothing, but she remained unquelled. She could see how this look might once have awed paraded regiments, but it had no effect on her. It lacked the password to her controls.

“What about Dick Matson, then?” he said. “Put you up to this, did he?”

“No. He showed up on my doorstep the evening after he’d seen you and tried to persuade me that the pistol belonged to him. I didn’t believe him. I thought he wasn’t telling the truth about several things.”

“He’s no good. Never was. Scum. What did he say to you?”

She told him, still slowly and carefully, getting the impression now that he was listening with something like comprehension, though for a while he simply watched her as before, in silence. She wasn’t expecting it when he broke in.

“Hold it there. She’s still alive, Mrs. Matson,” he said.

“Yes, but I gather she’s not very well.”

“I want to see her. Where is she? Still at Forde Place, eh?”

“He didn’t say. Where’s that, Uncle Albert?”

“Forde Place, Matlock, Derbyshire.”

He was heaving himself to his feet, a little tottery after long sitting.

“Derbyshire’s too far, Uncle Albert. We can’t go now. We’ll have to ring up and see if she’s there, and ask if she’s well enough to see you.”

“I’ll just get my coat.”

“No, Uncle Albert. You can’t go today. It’s too far.”

She took his arm, but he shook her off and started for the door. She ran to bar the way, but the pulse of energy died and he let her lead him back to his chair and settle him dejectedly down.

“Listen,” she said. “I’ve got a few days off, and so has Jeff. I’ll try and find out where Mrs. Matson is and talk to whoever is looking after her, and if they say she’d like to see you we’ll find a way of getting you up there. Is that all right?”

“Have to be, won’t it?”

“I can call Directory Enquiries, I suppose, but…Have you got an old address book? Only they’ll have changed the number. Can I look in your papers, Uncle Albert?”

“Carry on. Bottom drawer.”

He sounded beaten, indifferent, exhausted. Jenny knelt by the chest of drawers and pulled out the lowest one. Most business correspondence came to Jeff, and Marlings redirected anything that came there except the obviously personal. Jeff made copies and then took the originals over on his next visit, went through them with Uncle Albert and then “filed” anything that Uncle Albert took it into his head that he needed to keep. It was mostly pointless, but Jeff said it helped feed the sense of orderliness and control which was part of what kept Uncle Albert in such good shape.

The filing was done in large brown envelopes, each labelled and dated in Jeff’s elegant, slanting hand—so much more characteristic, Jenny thought, of his inward self than was most of his outward mien. She tried “Keepsakes.” It was mostly postcards, including, she was amused to see, one from Jeff on their honeymoon on Teneriffe. Otherwise it was letters and clippings from newspapers—what, she wondered, had moved Uncle Albert to preserve a photograph and report of an agricultural steam machine rally?

The “Personal” file was no better, but the “Military” produced the goods, a list of addresses, stapled into a booklet, of the Cambi Road Association (Patron Mrs. J. J. Matson). She glanced through it. There were forty or fifty names, and at the end a dozen short obituaries. Everyone was listed by military rank with regiment: RSM A. D. Fredricks, 2nd Derbyshire, c/o Pilcher, 238 Ashford Road, Maidstone. Mrs. Matson was the one civilian. Her address was still given as Forde Place.

“Here you are,” said Jenny, showing him. “Just like you said.”

She pointed at the line. His eyesight was remarkable. He had spectales, but could read print without them by holding the paper only an extra few inches away.

“Right,” he said. “I’ll be taking the train.”

Again, but much less decisively, he started to rise.

“No, it’s much too late,” she said, coaxing him back down. “Look, as soon as I get home I’ll ring the secretary—his number’s here, Mr. Stadding…”