A life without worry or want, that’s been Robert’s downfall. How might he have coped under different circumstances? Had he been born into an ordinary house, in an ordinary town, with ordinary parents who didn’t pack him off to school at the age of seven? Robert suspects he would have fared badly. Not bright enough, not funny enough, not handsome enough.
Not anything enough. Robert feels he has ended up exactly where he deserves. Cold and alone in a house that mocks him, surrounded by portraits that judge him. Not that they’re in any position to. So many of those stern faces were fools; they were just fortunate not to still be around when the money finally ran out. Robert was not only mediocre; he was also unlucky.
No, not unlucky. He had simply outlived his luck.
So what to do? With no one to help him, no one to clear his path? There had always been teachers and bosses and wives and mechanics and travel agents and physicians to tell Robert exactly what was expected of him. But now?
Robert gazes up at the family crest. He remembers looking at it the day he left for school. His father had sent his mother from the room; they were to have a chat ‘man to man’. Robert wasn’t a man then and, looking up at the crest now, realizes he still isn’t. Masculinity is forged in hardship, isn’t it? No such luck for Robert.
His father had stood behind him and taken him by the shoulders. ‘The family motto, Robert, that’s all you’ll ever need to know. Stick to that and you won’t stray too far from the path.’
Aut neca aut necare.
Kill or be killed.
It had not helped Robert a single whit over these many years. If he thought of it at all, it was just as a memory of his father, and of his father’s furious cruelty, hacking his way through life.
But what if his father was right? His father had died old and wealthy and unrepentant. And look at Robert. Kill or be killed. What if that was the trick he’d always failed to grasp?
Enough is enough. Robert Townes needs to take charge of his situation. It’s all very well sitting and waiting if you’re in a comfortable chair, with a good cigar, but what’s the use in sitting and waiting if you’re cold and lonely, and no one is coming to save you?
Which is why Robert Townes picked up the phone yesterday and rang The Compound.
There’s still time to change his mind, of course, but Robert doesn’t think he will. After a lifetime of stepping to the side, it’s finally time to step forward.
Wednesday morning, then? Kill or be killed.
Let’s see if his father was right all along.
For the first time since Holly Lewis and Nick Silver came to see him, Lord Townes feels in control.
39
Joyce
On a Monday evening on TV they have a lot of quizzes. They have Mastermind, which I can’t do, then they have Only Connect, which I can’t do, and then they have University Challenge, which I can’t do. Ibrahim usually comes over and brings a bottle of wine while I heat something up.
He sits forward, hand on his chin, and happily shouts ‘Anne Boleyn’ or ‘Argentina’ or, if it’s football, ‘Gary Lineker’ at the screen all evening. Sometimes he gets things right and he looks at me as if to say, ‘Well, there we have it, Joyce,’ and, in fact, sometimes he actually says, ‘Well, there we have it, Joyce.’ When he gets things wrong, he makes a fuss and says the quiz has got the answer wrong, and then he goes on Google and we hear no more about it. He enjoys himself, and I enjoy myself because I get to potter in the kitchen and occasionally shout out ‘Marilyn Monroe’ or something, and Alan enjoys it because there are two people to stroke him, and when he can tell you’re getting bored, he swaps over.
On Mastermind this evening one of the specialist subjects was Call the Midwife, which infuriated Ibrahim because he doesn’t think anything after 1950 should be allowed on Mastermind, but was fun for me. I didn’t get any right, because it goes too quickly, but I enjoyed hearing words I recognized for once. The next contestant did Middlemarch, and Ibrahim was much happier. I didn’t hear him get any right, but he nodded an awful lot.
Joanna left a long message while I was out with Elizabeth today, wanting to know if there were any developments. Paul has had no more messages from poor Nick Silver, which tells its own story.
We are having to work quickly on this investigation, which is quite fun. I went to a stately home today. I think it’s the first time I have ever been to a stately home that didn’t have a gift shop.
You can tell that Lord Townes – he says to call him Robert but can you imagine? – needs money, but he was very convincing otherwise. Though lords are convincing, aren’t they? I suppose that’s how they become lords.
Davey Noakes seems a far likelier candidate for the murder. I was saying this to Ibrahim earlier, but he hushed me because there was a question on earthquakes and Ibrahim is now interested in earthquakes because he listened to a podcast.
If you ever visit Ibrahim now, he is listening to a podcast. His favourite one is a scientist and a priest who argue about things but seem to get along. If you see him walking through Coopers Chase, he’ll take his headphones out of his ears and say, ‘The History of Finland’ or ‘Clouds’ or something. Perhaps there is a podcast I might enjoy, but I don’t know where to get podcasts from. I asked Joanna and she said something about ‘downloading’ and I switched off. I think Radio Sussex suits me better than podcasts, because I know the people.
Perhaps I am being naive about Lord Townes. Perhaps because he’s a lord and Davey Noakes was a drug dealer I have made assumptions. People tell you not to make assumptions, but they often save a lot of time. Clever people, by which I mean Ibrahim or Elizabeth, are happiest when something is unusual, or unexpected, or not at all what you think, but normal people, me and Ron, that sort of person, like it when a tree is a tree and a shoe is a shoe, and a drug dealer is a murderer.
The way I see it – again, I tried to say this to Ibrahim but there’s no point – Holly and Nick visited Davey Noakes to ask his advice about the Bitcoin, Davey Noakes thought this might be his last chance to get his hands on the money and saw pound signs, or Bitcoin signs, took out the phone book and got someone to kill Holly Lewis. He must have found out Holly’s code from somewhere, and is probably getting someone to torture Nick Silver’s code out of him as we speak.
In the end I had to say all of this to Alan.
In University Challenge one of the students was originally from Egypt, and every time she got a question right Ibrahim would nod and say, ‘There we go,’ and ‘Quite right, quite right.’ At one point they had a round about flags and I said ‘Venezuela’ for each one, because I always say ‘Venezuela’ for questions about countries. It drives Ibrahim mad.
Anyway, this evening, the third flag they showed actually was Venezuela, and I said to Ibrahim, ‘I told you so,’ and he wasn’t at all happy with me. I whooped and Alan barked and Ibrahim, who had said ‘Ecuador’, said, ‘Venezuela and Ecuador have very similar flags,’ and I said, ‘Similar, but not the same,’ and he started stroking Alan so hard that Alan had to look to me for reassurance.
Sometimes I ask Ibrahim if he doesn’t find our Monday-evening quiz night too stressful, and he says it’s his favourite night of the week.
As Ibrahim was leaving, I finally had his full attention, and I told him that Davey Noakes is our man, I was sure of it, and he shook his head and said, ‘Joyce, don’t rule out Lord Townes or Nick Silver. Surely we’ve learned to look beyond the obvious by now,’ and I said, ‘Well, I was right about Venezuela, wasn’t I?’ and he very slowly and very politely said, ‘Good evening, Joyce,’ and he walked out into the night, putting his headphones in his ears as he went.