Burial of Ghosts Page 5

  He didn’t answer but he dusted the sand from his feet and put on his socks and shoes. I followed him back up the track. When the house was in sight he gave me a wave and ran on, too fast for me to follow.

  Chapter Seven

  At the house Stuart Howdon was waiting for me. The crowd had thinned. A stream of people were making their way down the drive towards the village. I looked round for Dickon but didn’t see him. The solicitor was clearly impatient. He seemed grumpy and harassed. He didn’t bother any more to smile.

  ‘I don’t think we should talk here. I’ll take you to my office. No need to say goodbye to Joanna. I’ve explained I have to go back to work.’

  He bundled me into his fat, black car as if I were a mad relation causing a scene at a family party. It was obvious that he regretted asking me to the funeral. I thought I might look slightly scruffy with my damp, stained skirt, but hardly mad. He drove very quickly down country lanes, taking bends too fast, braking suddenly at junctions. I wondered if he was quite sober. The road between Wintrylaw and Morpeth was obviously familiar to him.

  In Morpeth it was late afternoon and shoppers were making their way home. There was a queue of cars in the main street, waiting to cross the narrow bridge south over the river. I had a sense of returning to the real world which left me depressed. It was like coming back to Newbiggin after my holiday in Morocco.

  Howdon’s office was in a smart terrace close to the library. There was a highly polished brass plate beside the door and a yard at the back with his name painted on the cobbles to mark his parking place. In reception a bored young woman quickly hid a magazine. She didn’t seem pleased to see us. I guessed she’d been planning to finish the article on holiday flings, then to slope off home early.

  ‘Tea please, Penny,’ he said. ‘Then you can leave us to it. I’ll lock up.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Howdon.’ She flashed a quick and grateful smile.

  The tea arrived very quickly. Howdon was still making himself comfortable. He’d taken off his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. There were patches of sweat on his shirt which made his back look like a map of the world. A leather-topped desk spread between us. Penny already had her bag over her shoulder and immediately after she left Howdon’s room I heard the outside door slam shut. The building was quiet. It seemed we were alone.

  ‘Where’s Mr Smith?’ I asked.

  ‘He died three years ago. There are a couple of junior partners . . .’ He caught himself being civil to me and scowled. ‘But that’s not really relevant. I’ve always dealt with Philip and Joanna’s business personally.’

  ‘I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.’

  ‘Nor do I!’ Perhaps he felt he’d betrayed his feelings too obviously, because he continued in a more measured voice. ‘Philip had some strange ideas, especially towards the end. But I’ve taken advice. I don’t think we can contest their legality.’

  He poured tea from a tarnished silver pot and lifted my cup and saucer so it was standing on the desk in front of me. As he stretched forward I smelt stale alcohol. It seemed to ooze from his pores. His hands were slender for such a big man, the fingers flexible. He lifted a sugar lump towards his own cup using a pair of old-fashioned tongs, dropped it, then watched the ripples in the liquid, mesmerized for a moment.

  ‘Mr Samson made me his executor,’ he went on formally. ‘He left instructions concerning you.’

  ‘If it’s money I don’t want it.’ Suddenly I was very angry. Not at Stuart Howdon, but with Philip. Had he thought I’d slept with him for what I might get out of it? ‘How did he trace me anyway?’

  ‘He was a magistrate,’ Howdon said smoothly. ‘Many of his friends were police officers. I imagine it wouldn’t have been difficult . . .’

  The rugby players, I thought. Some of them looked like cops. And no doubt they’d told him about the court appearances, that time in Blyth . . .

  ‘I don’t want his money,’ I said again. It upset me terribly that Philip had changed his opinion of me after hearing those stories. He hadn’t believed I could make it on my own, so he’d left me a tacky little reward in his will. He’d died thinking I was pathetic. Irrational anger bubbled up in my stomach again and spread to my hands. I wanted to slap Howdon’s smug face. I imagined the finger marks slowly fading like footprints in the wet sand at Wintrylaw. Instead I kept my voice reasonable. ‘It should all go to his children.’

  ‘It’s not quite that simple.’ Howdon lifted his cup, wet his lips, set it back on the saucer, then paused. ‘Look, perhaps I should just read the instruction left to me by Philip. As I’ve explained, it’s witnessed and it’s legal, but you’re under no obligation to undertake his commission. As far as I’m concerned it would be better all round if you didn’t. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. It’s Joanna and the children I’m concerned about in all this . . .’

  I remembered Dickon’s words: ‘I hate Mr Howdon . . .’ It was hard to take the fat solicitor’s concern seriously. Why had he made such an impression on the boy? He opened a drawer in his desk, removed an A4 envelope, then shook out a sheet of typescript.

  ‘“To Lizzie Bartholomew of Sea View, Newbiggin, I leave £15,000, £10,000 as a gift to establish and equip an office for her self-employment . . .”’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted. ‘I told you . . .’ But I was moved, despite myself. While Philip was dying, he was remembering our conversation in Marrakech.

  Howdon held up a hand to urge my patience, then continued, ‘“And also a fee of £5,000 for the first commission in that employment, the details of which are to follow. These payments only to be made should Miss Bartholomew attend my funeral of her own free will. The gift is not dependent on her accepting the commission.”’

  ‘But he knew I wouldn’t accept it without the work,’ I said softly. Howdon looked up uncertainly. He hadn’t made out what I’d said. ‘What is this commission?’ I asked more loudly.

  He continued to read. ‘“To trace Thomas Mariner, lately of 63 Priory Way, North Shields”.’

  I interrupted. ‘What happens when I find him?’

  ‘Philip asks that I give him money. Discreetly. The bequest doesn’t appear in the will.’

  ‘Why me? Why can’t you trace him?’

  ‘I’m sure I could. But Philip wanted you to do it. Besides, there’s more.’ He turned back to the paper, though I had the impression he knew the words by heart. ‘“Further, I ask that she assists, advises and befriends him. She will understand the importance of this commission to Thomas and to me.”’

  It was a lot to ask, that. Friends are made, not bought. But it was flattering that Philip had felt I could do something so important.

  ‘Who the hell is Thomas Mariner?’

  ‘I suspect,’ Howdon said reluctantly, ‘that he’s Philip’s son. An illegitimate son. This information was left with the letter of instruction.’ He passed a second sheet over the desk towards me. ‘It’s a copy. You can keep it if you decide to accept his commission.’

  The details were scrappy. Philip, it seemed, hadn’t got very far in his search for his missing son. But then he’d left it for twenty years and waited until he was dying, so it was hardly surprising.

  Name: Thomas? Mariner.

  God, he wasn’t even certain about the first name. After Mariner he’d added in brackets Samson. Somehow it was very touching, like a young girl practising the signature of her boyfriend’s surname.

  Date of birth: c. 22 December 1984. Mother: Kay Mariner of 63 Priory Way, North Shields.

  Was that where she was living now? Or where she’d been living twenty years ago?

  ‘There’s not much to go on.’

  He shrugged. ‘Then don’t bother. As I said, let sleeping dogs lie. You get the £10,000 anyway.’

  ‘Does Joanna know about Thomas?’

  ‘God, I don’t think so.’ The thought seemed to horrify him. ‘I certainly hope not.’

  ‘Philip and his wife didn’t have that sort of rela
tionship, then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They didn’t discuss everything?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He was scathing. ‘Who does?’

  ‘How well do you know them?’

  ‘Well enough.’

  He paused, and I thought I’d get nothing more out of him. Despite the late-afternoon sunshine on the tile roofs outside, the room was dark. There was a heavy mahogany cabinet against the wall, the drawers too narrow to contain documents. It held a butterfly collection perhaps. He had the hands of a collector. Or fossils. He would be precise and careful arranging his specimens. The wallpaper was a heavy sludge green, the curtains velvet in a similar but darker shade.

  Then Howdon started to talk and I realized he was even more drunk than I’d suspected. Or perhaps it wasn’t the drink. Perhaps he was on the edge of a breakdown. The thoughts seemed to fizz in his head and the words couldn’t quite keep up with them. Perhaps he was haunted by daydreams too.

  ‘They were a golden couple, Joanna and Philip.’ He looked up at me. ‘Do you know what I mean? Magic. Like something out of a fairy tale. Too good to be true.’ His voice was bitter, as if he meant that literally, as if in his experience no relationship lived up to expectation. ‘I brought them together. Old Stu Howdon playing fairy godmother. What do you make of that?’ He chuckled. It turned into a splutter and then a cough. ‘Philip was a new estate manager at one of the places I look after. He was young, bright, but not the usual public school, county type. He’d been to comprehensive school, taken a degree in agriculture from Newcastle. The only interest he had in gardening then was the plot behind his house. He kept it organic, ferreted about for traditional species, talked about planting an orchard. A hobby, I thought. A good thing. Men need their hobbies to keep them out of mischief.’

  Howdon spluttered again. It could have been a laugh.

  ‘Joanna’s parents had died and she was an only child, left to cope with the house, inheritance tax. They’d run the place down. I did my best for her, helped her through it. At least I thought that I did.’

  He stared at the half-drunk tea, which had gone cold in the cup, and I thought, He fancied her, Philip was a rival.

  ‘The only sensible thing to do was to sell the house and she refused to do that. Too many memories, she said. And she had a responsibility to keep it in the family. She’s passionate about the place.’

  ‘Did she work?’ I felt weird when I asked the question. Like I’d been in the situation before but now the roles were reversed. This time I was the shrink and he was a patient.

  ‘Mm?’ He looked up.

  ‘She was young, unattached. I presume she could earn her own living.’

  ‘She was a photographer. Not weddings and kiddies’ portraits. She’d probably have made more out of that. It was more arty stuff. Black and white. Landscapes. She had exhibitions. Some of her pictures went into books.’ He paused again. ‘She talked about developing the house as a country hotel. It might have worked. She had the drive and the spirit, plenty of the right sort of contacts. Then she met Philip and the idea was abandoned. The old place is still falling down.’

  ‘You introduced them?’

  ‘At the county show. You know what that’s like. You bump into half the people you’ve ever met in the world, everyone you went to school with at least. Philip was there on behalf of the estate, Joanna was taking pictures for a glossy magazine. I introduced them, then got caught up with some old bore of a farmer. When I went to find them half an hour later they were sharing a bottle of fizz and a bowl of strawberries, and I didn’t like to interrupt. It only took six months for them to marry. She asked me to give her away.’

  Poor, sad bastard. I almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘They brought out a book together – traditional gardens in the north of England. She took the pictures, he did the text. When no one would publish it, they brought it out themselves, hawked it round all the local bookshops, took it down to London. One of those daytime television programmes got interested. They were an attractive couple and Philip stirred up a bit of controversy knocking contemporary designers. He said their gardens were too sculptural, too minimalist. He liked a landscape that was extravagant and overblown, overcrowded even. The programme challenged him to design a place somewhere in East Anglia. He did. Everyone raved about it. After that he never looked back. Like I said, the golden touch.’

  Until he got cancer, I thought, remembering the envy of the rugby player back at Wintrylaw.

  ‘You stayed friends?’

  ‘Marjorie and I had them round for dinner occasionally. We went there. To make up the numbers, provide local colour when their London friends were visiting. If I met him at the rugby club, we’d have a few beers. He never mentioned a son, if that’s what you mean. We weren’t on those terms.’

  ‘Why didn’t he look for the boy before?’ It came out as a wail, pathetic and desperate.

  Howdon looked at me uncertainly. Mad cow, he was thinking. ‘Why would he? Lovely wife. Two children. Why would he rock the boat? Later there was guilt, I suppose. He knew he was dying and wanted to get his affairs in order.’

  I sat there wondering how Philip could have messed with me like this. How could he be so dumb? Would I like my father to come looking for me? Of course I would. It was what I fantasized about when I lay awake in the early mornings. Someone making the effort to find me. But I didn’t need this. Christ, I was screwed up enough already. I didn’t care about Thomas. Really, I didn’t. But even as I was thinking that, I had the picture of another boy in my head. Not Thomas but Nicky.

  ‘I don’t think I’m the right person to do this,’ I said evenly.

  ‘Philip thought you were absolutely the right person. You read what he said.’ He returned the paper to the envelope as if he didn’t care one way or the other what I decided.

  I intended to turn him down, to tell him where to stick his money. Then I thought what I could do with £15,000. I could kit up the empty room in Sea View with a computer, a phone line and a fax. It would buy me time to decide what to do next. Only rich people have the luxury of not taking cash into consideration. And it wouldn’t be like being paid for sex, would it? It would be a legitimate business deal.

  We sat for a moment in silence, staring at each other. I was still thinking I could just walk away. Then Howdon reached down, pulled open a drawer in his desk and took out a brown padded envelope. I could tell from the way he lifted it that it was heavy. He pushed it across the desk to me. It hadn’t been sealed and it was full of £50 notes.

  I reached out my hand towards it. He smiled. He knew he’d won. I was as greedy as he was.

  Chapter Eight

  There was still a Mariner living at 63 Priory Way. It was in the phone book, right at the top of the list: A. Mariner. Some relation? Or had Philip even got the name of his child’s mother wrong? I called from Jess’s, waiting until she was out before using the phone. When I returned from Philip’s funeral I’d just said a friend had left me some money in his will. She didn’t pry. It wasn’t her style. I hadn’t explained what I had to do to get the money. I’m not quite sure why. Because it was between me and Philip, because I wanted some success to report before I told her what was going on.

  The phone rang for a long time before it was answered and I was about to give up. Then an elderly woman repeated the number. I crossed my fingers.

  ‘Could I speak to Kay, please?’

  ‘Eh, pet, she’s not lived here for years. Who’s speaking?’

  My brain went into slow motion. I hadn’t prepared any sort of cover story. ‘Jess,’ I said. ‘An old school friend.’

  ‘I don’t remember any Jess. The high school, was it?’

  ‘That’s right. Could you let me know how to get in touch with her?’

  She paused, not really suspicious but protective. Perhaps her daughter was strong on privacy. ‘Give me your number, pet, and her dad or I will tell her that you called.’

  Then I panicked
and replaced the phone, glad that I’d dialled 141 before the number to stop the call from being traced.

  Priory Way was one of the tidy streets near the Linskill Centre, the old school where Tyneside kids go for their music lessons, close to the overgrown waste of Northumberland Park. North Shields must have a thriving place once, with the ship building and the boats going out to the fishing, but nothing much seems to happen there now. Lots of the shops in the town centre were boarded up. There were posters everywhere for the Fish Quay Festival. The place had come alive for the bank holiday weekend with bands on the Quayside and street theatre and fireworks, then it had slid back into a coma.

  I visited the Mariners during the day. If they had a teenage grandchild, I thought they’d have retired and be at home in the afternoon. The woman I’d spoken to on the phone certainly sounded elderly. This time I was better prepared.

  Along the street there was a row of trees, all in blossom. Occasional snatches of breeze from the river scattered the petals over the pavement. I’d got the bus into Newcastle, then the metro out towards the coast. I’d looked at the A–Z on the train, so I walked down the street now as if I knew precisely where I was going, very purposeful and businesslike in my linen jacket, carrying the black nylon bag I’d got at a conference on teenage violence and which I’d used as a briefcase ever since. I could almost believe I was a competent professional.

  The house was part of a terrace halfway down. More care had been lavished on it than on most of the kids I grew up with, but it’s daft to be jealous of a house. The windows had been polished and the nets were so bright that they gave you snow blindness. The front steps had been swept recently. Only a light scattering of pink petals covered the path. I stepped on them and knocked at the door.

  After a moment, a woman of about seventy opened it. She’d left the chain on and I had a glimpse of a round face and tight white curls.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Miss Bartholomew. Social services.’ Hoping she wouldn’t recognize the voice from one brief phone call, I flashed the pass which had never been taken from me. She looked at the photo, peered at me and smiled. It had been issued by Northumberland, not North Tyneside, but she seemed not to notice. She unhooked the chain and opened the door wide. She was leaning heavily on a stick and it took her a while.