Mark Mills - Amagansett

The man dropped to one knee at the baseboard, pulled a knife from somewhere around his ankle and cut the telephone cable. Rising to his feet, he said, ‘I’m the man who’s going to mess you and your family up unless you put your ass in that chair this second.’

He pointed with the knife, its slender blade flashing in the sunlight slanting through the window.

Walter’s daughter began to sob. He glanced at his wife, her eyes wide with fear, and they both sat down.

‘That’s better.’

The man circled the table, examining the food.

‘Looks good.’ He leaned over and speared a shard of ham just sliced from the bone. ‘You want some, son?’

The ham hovered in front of Walter Jr’s face, the tip of the blade inches from his eyes.

‘Go on, I insist.’

Walter Jr’s bottom lip began to tremble. The man shrugged, then ate the ham off the tip of the knife.

‘What do you want?’ asked Walter, wishing there was more authority in his voice.

‘Conrad Labarde.’

Labarde—his four o’clock appointment—the tall man who’d come to see him with the interesting legal conundrum.

‘What about him?’

‘He came to see you. I want to know why.’

Walter was about to plead the sanctity of an individual’s relationship with his lawyer, when the man said, ‘And don’t give me any crap about client-attorney confidentiality.’

It was a principle Walter prided himself on upholding. And he abandoned it without hesitation. The man listened closely to his account of the discussion with Labarde, interrupting every so often to ask a question. Finally, he seemed satisfied.

‘Enjoy your meal,’ he said, making for the entrance hall. ‘Oh.’ He stopped and turned. ‘If you tell anyone about this conversation I’ll cut out your daughter’s lips and feed them to your wife.’

Later that evening, while discussing with his wife which real estate agent should handle the sale of their house, it occurred to Walter J. Scarlett that even if he had ignored the threat and gone straight to the police, he would have struggled to give them an accurate physical description of the man.

Thirty-Two

Manfred lay on his back in the darkness, torn between leaving and sliding into alcoholic slumber. He glanced to his right and the matter settled itself.

It was as though the moonlight washing through the window had melted her face. Her mouth sagged open, the flesh was slack and loose around her jaw, gathered in folds. She had lied about her age, he’d guessed that at the time, mentally topping up the tally by four or five years. Looking at her lying there, laid bare by sleep, he revised that estimate by another five years.

Where was she from? Savannah? Charleston? Somewhere down South. They had hardly spoken over dinner at the Maidstone Club, just enough to establish that she was staying with the Van Allens; not in their ghastly new house—the one that looked like the bridge of an ocean liner—but in the old guest cottage at the end of the garden. Manfred had taken the information as an invitation, and he’d been right to do so. But now it was time to leave.

He eased himself out of the bed, his head throbbing as he stooped to recover his clothes. He carried them into the living room, dressing there so as not to wake her, already working through the consequences of his actions.

He could rely on his friends’ discretion, he knew that. Not that it really mattered. It wasn’t as if his relationship with Helen was set in stone. Not yet, anyway. What would Senator Dale really do if he got wind of a one-night tryst?

Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. That was the truth.

Beneath the puff and the posturing, the Senator was a pragmatist. He knew better than anyone that his daughter’s union with Manfred was little short of a business deal: the Senator’s considerable political muscle in exchange for his daughter’s elevated status, one which would see the Dale name etched into the history books.

It was almost two in the morning when he returned to the house on Further Lane, and he was surprised to see the ground-floor lights burning bright through the trees as he wended his way down the drive. His father and Gayle weren’t due out till the following evening, and Richard was inclined to turn in well before midnight.

He parked near the front door and entered.

‘Hello.’

Silence. No. The dim sound of music—Beethoven—coming from the drawing room.

The room was empty, but the doors to the terrace were open.

‘Richard?’

‘Out here.’

He was seated in a rattan chair, staring out across the lawn. Manfred could tell immediately that something was wrong. The ashtray on the low table beside him was almost full, the wine bottle near empty.

‘Who was she?’ asked Wakeley without turning.

‘No one. You don’t need to worry.’

‘Oh, but I do. And so do you.’

There was a manic edge to his voice, uncharacteristic and worrying.

‘Richard…?’

Richard pointed to a chair. Only when Manfred had pulled it up and sat down did Richard turn and look at him.

‘It’s Labarde. He went to see a lawyer.’

Manfred felt breathless all of a sudden. ‘A lawyer?’

‘It looks like he might have some kind of document.’

‘What document? What are you talking about?’

‘Calm down.’

‘I am calm. What document, damn it!?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Our man…he managed to speak to the lawyer. It seems Labarde wanted to know what weight a document written by a dead person would carry in a court of law.’ He paused. ‘A document which had come to light since that person’s death, implicating the author and others in a crime.’

‘A diary? A letter? What?’

‘Labarde said it came to him via a lawyer. He didn’t have it with him, he didn’t say what exactly.’

‘A confession…’

‘That’s what it sounds like. Written to Labarde and to be delivered to him in the event of her death.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ He reached for one of Richard’s cigarettes and lit it. ‘He’s bluffing.’

‘Except he didn’t come to us, Manfred, he sought legal advice, not knowing he was being followed.’

He was right. It didn’t hang together.

‘No,’ continued Richard, ‘she saw what was coming.’

How? He had been so persuasive with Lillian, so masterful in his manipulation. When Justin first came to him with the news that she was wavering badly, he hadn’t gone in hard—going in hard with Lilly had always been counter-productive, ever since she’d been old enough to defend herself with fist or tongue.

No, he had approached her in a spirit of sympathy, laying his own torment on thick, even managing to squeeze out some tears. He had said he needed time to think about it, to figure how best to approach the issue of coming clean about the accident.

Christ, he had almost persuaded himself of his own sincerity. And she had seen right through it. Through him. As she always had done. She was the only person in the world who could make him feel naked, stripped bare. When she was present in the room he would find himself questioning and doubting every word he uttered, every opinion he held. She was like a mirror always lurking at the periphery of his vision. Every now and then he’d glance over and catch sight of his own reflection, and he’d falter and stumble.

She had always praised his talents, more than any other member of the family. What she disliked, as she’d told him many times, was his application of those gifts to the wrong ends. He sometimes wondered if she hadn’t struck up a relationship with Justin purely in order to stay close to him, to monitor him, setting herself up as his moral compass. He hadn’t resented this; he’d embraced the challenge, the debate, their continual sparring. He was happy to have her play at being his conscience, if only because it helped him believe he might actually have one. Besides, in the end her words were just that—words—they counted for nothing.