A few minutes later she returned and climbed back into bed. They held hands beneath the sheets.
‘I knew you’d ask me to stay the night in here,’ Michael said, surfacing from some private train of thought.
‘Women usually find you irresistible, do they?’
‘No, but it happens in the film, you see. Almost exactly this situation. That was when I had to leave the cinema. And now that it’s actually happened, it’s almost as if … a spell’s been broken.’
‘All sounds very fatalistic to me. I suppose I had no choice in the matter, then?’
‘There is a film, you know,’ Michael insisted. ‘I wasn’t making it up, whatever Hilary may have thought.’
‘I believe you,’ said Phoebe. ‘Anyway, I’d heard about it before.’
‘You had? When?’
‘Joan mentioned it once: don’t you remember? That night when she made us all play Cluedo, and there was a terrible storm.’
All at once the memory came back to Michael in vivid detail. The four of them clustered around the table in Joan’s sitting room … Graham laughing at him because of the misprint in his review … And the feeling he’d had — a premonition, you might call it — when he’d found out that his character, Professor Plum, was the murderer, and it had no longer been possible to think of himself as detached, disinterested … To find yourself suddenly at the centre of things …
Then he remembered Tabitha’s last, enigmatic words, and light dawned.
‘I thought I was supposed to be writing this story,’ he said, ‘but I’m not. At least not any more. I’m part of it.’
Phoebe stared at him. ‘What?’
Michael sprang to his feet, saying: ‘God, I’ve been slow. Of course I’m part of it—that's why Tabitha chose me.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.’
‘She said I had his eyes: my father’s eyes. There’s only one person she could have been talking about. My mother said the same thing. That was what made me so angry in the restaurant. Even Findlay noticed it. He said they were like … blue velvet, or something. And I thought he was just trying to get me into bed.’
‘You’ve lost me, Michael. Completely lost me. Who on earth’s Findlay?’
‘He’s a detective. Tabitha hired him, years ago. Listen.’ He made Phoebe sit up, and explained: ‘Tabitha had a brother called Godfrey, who was killed in the war. Shot down by the Germans.’
‘I know all that. And she also had a brother called Lawrence, who she hated, and when she went mad she started accusing him of murder, or something.’
‘That’s it. Only she was right: he did tip the Germans off about Godfrey’s mission, and that was why he got shot down. I’m almost certain of it. But there was also a co-pilot, who didn’t get killed. He was put in a POW camp and after the war he came back to this country. He drifted around and went to seed a bit, and did all sorts of jobs under different names. John Farringdon was one of them, and Jim Fenchurch was another.’
‘Yes, and what about him?’
‘Well I’m his son.’
Phoebe’s eyes widened in disbelief.
‘You’re what?’
Michael said it again, and she let out a cry of exasperation. ‘Well, don’t you think it might have been a good idea to share this with us earlier?’
‘But I’ve only just realized. In fact, I’m going to have to ask Tabitha about it right now.’ He got up, turned the light on, and began dressing as quickly as he could.
‘Michael, it’s five o’clock in the morning. She’ll be fast asleep.’
‘I don’t care. This is urgent.’ He squeezed himself clumsily into his shoes. ‘You know, I don’t think Tabitha’s mad at all. I think she’s been playing a very clever game.’ Opening the door, he concluded dramatically: ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, she’s as sane as I am.’
‘Saner, perhaps,’ said Phoebe. But not loud enough to hear.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Back Room Boy
MICHAEL needn’t have worried about interrupting Tabitha’s sleep. There was a light coming from her room, the door was unlocked, and she was sitting up in bed, knitting and listening to a transistor radio placed on the bedside table.
‘Why, Michael,’ she cried. ‘You’ve come even sooner than I expected! Is it time for our little chat already?’
‘John Farringdon,’ he said, coming straight to the point. ‘He was my father, wasn’t he?’
‘So, you’re there at last, are you? Well done, Michael. Very well done! Although, to be perfectly frank with you, I was expecting you to get there a little earlier. How long has it taken you now? Nearly nine years, I think. And yet, from reading your books, I’d formed the impression that you were quite an intelligent man.’
Michael drew up a chair next to the bed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I know you’re playing with me now. Have you been playing with me all along?’
‘Playing with you, Michael? That’s not a very nice accusation to make. I’ve been helping you. I’ve always wanted to help you. It’s been my only thought.’
‘Look — I’ve had no help from you: none at all. You never even contacted me in all that time.’
‘I’ve given you rather a lot of money, none the less. Hasn’t that been of any use?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Michael blushed, ashamed to be reminded that he hadn’t even thanked her for her generosity in this area. ‘Of course it has. But how was I to — I mean, if it hadn’t been for Findlay, I would never even have got near the truth of this whole business.’
‘Findlay? Surely you don’t mean Mr Onyx? Mr Findlay Onyx, the detective? Is he still alive, Michael?’
‘Certainly he is. Alive and in prison even as we speak.’
‘And I can guess what for!’ said Tabitha, laughing merrily. ‘Oh, he was a naughty little man. Very naughty indeed. But most professional, I have to admit. It was Mr Onyx who managed to locate your father for me, of course. He told you all about that, I take it?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘So you know that your father was killed by Lawrence, in this very house? The night of Morty’s birthday party?’
Michael nodded.
‘I was very disappointed, I must say,’ said Tabitha. ‘I really thought that Mr Farringdon would have had no difficulty finishing my brother off. But clearly one should never take these things for granted. I was in extremely low spirits when Mr Onyx came to see me the next morning.’ She shook her head, smiling. ‘He was a most conscientious man. Most reliable. He came — at some risk to himself, I must say — to deliver an envelope, containing some of Mr Farringdon’s effects. Among which, I found—’
‘—a photograph?’
‘Exactly, Michael! A photograph. Perhaps you’re not quite as slow as I thought. A photograph of you, sitting at your desk and writing. You can only have been about … eight years old, would you say? There was a little girl in the picture as well. Not very pretty, I’m afraid. Rather prominent teeth. Mr Farringdon was very attached to this photograph, anyway. He’d told me all about it, in one of our long conversations at the Institute, where he had been kind enough to come and visit me on a number of occasions. Oh, yes, those were pleasant afternoons. We talked about all sorts of things. One day, I remember, we had a long and most stimulating discussion about the Lockheed Hudson. I’d always been concerned, you see, about the high amount of magnesium alloy used in construction. It seemed to me that it made the aircraft very vulnerable to fire, particularly if the integral fuel tanks were to rupture. Now, of course, Mr Farringdon had never flown one himself, but …’ Her eyes had glazed over, and she now turned to Michael with a look of bewilderment. ‘I’m sorry, dear, what was I saying?’