I didn't immediately restart the engine. I said, "Is it Alicia that's causing Gervase to drink?"
"Oh!" Ursula gulped, the flow of anger ending, the misery flooding back. "It's just… everything. I can see he's unhappy, but he won't let me help him, he won't talk to me, he just talks to her, and she makes it worse."
I sighed and set off towards Grant Street. Alicia hadn't quite reached sixty: the worst of the witches could outlive them all.
"I shouldn't have told you all this," Ursula said, when I stopped at the door. "Gervase won't like it."
"Gervase won't know what you've said."
She fished a handkerchief out of her handbag and blew her nose. "Thank you for the lunch. Did your mother tell you we've had lunch a few times in London, she and I? She gives me good advice. I can't tell Gervase, he'd be furious."
I nodded. "Joyce told me you were friends."
"She's awfully catty about Alicia. It cheers me up no end." She gave me a wan smile and got out of the car. She waved as she opened her front door: I waved back and drove away, and covered the few miles to Cookham.
I thought it might be interesting to see what Norman West had made of Alicia, and I searched through the notes until I came to her. West had written:
Mrs Alicia Pembroke (59) refused to speak to me at all on my first visit and was ungracious and edgy on my second.
Mrs Alicia lives at 25 Lions Court, London Road, Windsor, a block of flats. She still maintains she can't remember what she was doing on the Friday or the Tuesday: she was pottering about, she says. "One day is much like another." I think she's being obstructive for the sake of it.
Mrs A. drives a big silver/ grey Fiat. Clean, no damage. Mrs A. antagonistic to me personally because of my following her in Mrs Joyce's divorce case, although in the end she benefited. Twenty- eight years ago! She remembers every detail of that time. Can't remember last Tuesday…
I asked her if she had ever engaged me to work for her. She said no. (?)
Mrs A. has changed from the Miss A. I followed. Miss A. was full of giggles, very little-girl. Mrs A. still dresses very young, acts young, but is embittered. Odd how some women flower in love affairs and wither in marriage. Seen it often. Seems as if the spice of secrecy and naughtiness is what they love, not the man himself.
Mrs A. very bitter on subject of Mr Pembroke spending money. Mr Ian's name brought angry looks. Mrs A. turned me out. End of enquiry.
Short and un sweet I thought.
I couldn't face going to see Alicia at that moment. I didn't think her physically capable of carrying Malcolm while he was unconscious, and I didn't think her efficient enough to construct a bomb: good enough reasons for avoiding something I wanted to do as much as jump into a crocodile-infested swamp.
I didn't want to talk to Gervase either, but that couldn't be as easily avoided.
I drove back to Grant Street in the early evening and parked along the road from No 14 waiting for the master to return. It wasn't until I was sitting there that I remembered Norman West's advice about defence. Pepper… paint… I couldn't see myself throwing either in Gervase's eyes, or anyone else's for that matter. Gervase was, goddammit, my brother. Half-brother. Cain killed Abel. Abel hadn't had his pepper ready, or his paint.
Upon that sober reflection, Gervase came home.
His Rover turned into his house's short driveway and pulled up outside the garage. Gervase, carrying a briefcase, let himself in through the front door. Five minutes later, I walked along the road and rang the bell.
The door was opened by one of the children, who called over her shoulder, "It's Ian."
Gervase, still in his City suit, came immediately into the hall from his sitting-room, looking inhospitable and carrying a cut- glass tumbler half filled with what I expected was scotch.
"Ferdinand phoned me," he said authoritatively. "It's the police's business to look into the bombing of Quantum, not yours."
"Malcolm asked me to," I said.
"You'd better come in, I suppose." He was grudging, but pointed me to the room he'd left. "Do you want a drink?"
"Yes, please."
He poured from the scotch bottle into a duplicate tumble rand handed me the glass, gesturing to the matching jug of water which stood on a silver tray. I diluted my drink and sipped it, and said, "Thanks."
He nodded, busy with his own. There was no sign of Ursula, but I could hear the two girls' high voices in the kitchen and supposed she was with them. They would tell her I had come, and she would be worrying about her lunch.
"Ferdinand told me about Malcolm's new will," Gervase said with annoyance. "It's ridiculous putting in that clause about being murdered. What if some random mugger bumps him off? Do we all lose our inheritance?"
"Some random mugger is unlikely. A paid assassin might not be."
Gervase stared. "That's rubbish."
"Who killed Moira?" I said. "Who's tried three times to kill Malcolm?"
"How should I know?"
"I think you should put your mind to it."
"No. It's for the police to do that." He drank. "Where is he now?"
"Staying with friends."
"I offered him a bed here," he said angrily, "but I'm not good enough, I suppose."
"He wanted to be away from the family," I said neutrally.
"But he's with you."
"No, not any more."
He seemed to relax a little at the news. "Did you quarrel again?" he said hopefully.
We were still standing in the centre of the room, as the offer of a drink hadn't extended to a chair also. There were fat chintz- covered armchairs in a stylised flower pattern on a mottled grey carpet, heavy red curtains and a brick fireplace with a newly-lit fire burning. I'd been in his house about as seldom as in Ferdinand's, and I'd never been upstairs.
"We haven't quarrelled," I said. "Do you remember when old Fred blew up the tree stump?"
He found no difficulty in the change of subject. "Ferdinand said you'd asked that," he said. "Yes, of course I remember."
"Did Fred show you how he set off the explosive?"
"No, he damn well didn't. You're not trying to make out that I blew up the house, are you?" His anger always near the surface, stoked up a couple of notches. "No," I said calmly. "I should have said, did Fred show you or anyone else how he set off the explosive."
"I can only speak for myself," he said distinctly, "and the answer is no."
Gervase was heavy and, I thought, getting heavier. His suit looked filled. I had never quite grown to his height. He was the tallest and biggest of all Malcolm's children and easily the most forceful. He looked a strong successful man, and he was cracking up for lack of a piece of paper that no one gave a damn about except himself. Perhaps, I thought, there was something of that obsessive ness in us all. In some it was healthy, in others destructive, but the gene that had given Malcolm his Midas obsession with gold had been a dominant strain.
Gervase said, "Will Malcolm ante up anything before he dies?" His voice was as usual loud and domineering, but I looked at him speculatively over my glass. There had been an odd sub-note of desperation, as if it weren't just of academic interest to him, but essential. Norman West's notes recycled themselves: "lost his nerve and was selling only gilts. Too much playing safe was bad stockbroking…" Gervase, who had seemed comfortably fixed, might all of a sudden not be.
I answered the words of the question, not the implications. "I did ask him to. He said he would think about it."
"Bloody old fool," Gervase said violently. "He's playing bloody games with us. Chucking the stuff away just to spite us. Buying bloody horses. I could strangle him." He stopped as if shocked at what he'd more or less shouted with conviction. "Figure of speech," he said, hard-eyed.