The turnglass, p.28
The Turnglass, page 28
But Ken wasn’t waiting to be informed. He prised the two halves apart and found himself looking at a pair of miniature paintings, done in delicate touches of watercolour that must have taken a tiny sable brush. One was of the house in which they stood, seen from a distance under an evening sky and before the fire that had remodelled it without a deal of care. Its pair, set upside down, was of the house’s namesake on a cliff face in California, in broad daylight.
‘Tell me,’ Ken said.
‘My mother painted them sometimes. I have one. This must be Oliver’s. I don’t know why he put it here.’
No, that was the boulder of a question.
‘Maybe so it was with your mother. In a way.’ He was far from convinced that was the answer.
‘It’s possible.’
So, the room had held a secret all right. But it wasn’t something that Oliver had discovered; it was something he had left.
Coraline looked out of the room’s only window, which faced due south. Ken followed her line of sight down to the muddy shore at the tip of the islet, just visible in the moonlight. ‘I want to leave,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing else here.’ Nothing but bad memories, she could have added for accuracy.
She walked away, towards the stairs. Ken followed, but something occurred to him and he stopped. He reached into his knapsack and this time pulled out the coroner’s inquest minutes that he had torn from their bindings.
‘Wait,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘There is something here.’ He flicked through the report. ‘Yes, here.’ He stabbed his forefinger at the page. He read at double speed the words where Governor Tooke had said his wife had been suffering no mental imbalance on the morning of her death, and where the hatmaker who had visited had said Florence Tooke had seemed happy enough. Then to her maid’s evidence. ‘Look. Carmen’s statement to the court.’
‘So?’
‘Stay here. I’m going out onto the mudflats.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to signal to you with the flashlight. Shout when you see the signal.’ At that, he rushed out, leaving her in the room lit only by weak moonlight.
With the torch, he picked out his route down the stairs and out the front door. He shone the beam onto his footway. The ground grew soggier, slopping up the sides of his legs. He slowed, knowing exactly what could happen if he stumbled onto the wrong patch, maybe dropped the flashlight, got sucked down…
To hell with that. He’d been through too much to go the same way as Florence. He was coming through this, finding what had happened to Oliver and taking it out on whoever had blood on his hands.
And then the ground was more freezing mud than soil. The electric light fell on a brown expanse that could be the shoreline or a dirty sea. Three more steps and his feet sank. One more to be sure. And he was up to his knees in mud. He couldn’t risk another. And he turned to the house. He waved the torch left to right, right to left. Then up and down in a holy cross. ‘Coraline!’ he shouted. The sound echoed, even though there didn’t seem to be a single thing for it to bounce off. It was bouncing off desolation. He waved and shouted again.
And then he heard her voice, very distant.
‘Yes!’
He waved the cross once more, pulled his numb feet from the mud and stole back to the house. Up through the hall, leaving a filthy trail to the study.
‘What did you see?’ he asked as soon as he caught sight of her, sitting in the window.
‘Nothing.’
Exactly what he expected her to see. ‘I thought so. Carmen told the court that she was in here when she saw your mother wade across the mudflats. Quite a trick when the window faces the other direction.’ Coraline pursed her lips. ‘Tell me about Carmen,’ said Ken.
‘She’s been with us for my whole life.’
Well, that meant she knew more family secrets than a room full of their lawyers and bankers. ‘We need to speak to her when we get back. Do you trust her?’
There was a pause. ‘Who can you really trust?’
Yeah, that was true.
Chapter 12
‘I wonder what they do around here for entertainment of an evening,’ Ken said as they sat in the corner of the Rose.
‘Slaughter a cow, bury themselves alive. Don’t ask me.’
Coraline had to be feeling pretty cut up about the lies that were being uncovered. ‘Is there anything you want to do to take your mind off things?’
‘Like what?’
‘Cards? Or I think they play cribbage here.’
‘What is that?’
‘Something with matchsticks, I think.’
‘So neither of us knows how to play it.’
‘No. Gin rummy?’
She shrugged in acceptance. Ken borrowed a deck of cards from the landlord and dealt. They attracted a small crowd of locals, who asked them how to play and then joined in. By the end, they were part of the regular crowd at the inn and everyone treated Ken as a pal and Coraline with respect. He felt guilty about it, but Ken actually enjoyed those few hours in the Old Country with her and their new-found friends. And he could tell that the flickering fire in the grate and their jostling mates had warmed her a little. She smiled at some of the jokes and drank something near to a pint of the pub’s gin. It was so watered-down you would need a barrel to get anywhere near drunk, but Ken suspected even the full-strength stuff would have barely touched her.
* * *
In the night, he woke with a start. But his dream still flooded his vision: Coraline in the red bathing costume she had worn on Oliver’s boat the day they had all been carefree on the ocean. Only this time his fingers weren’t handing her a cocktail, they were reaching for the laces that tied her costume at the back. The laces unfurled themselves like snakes and curled around his wrists, binding him.
In the dark of his bedroom, he could feel his chest heaving and his hands stretching out.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered to himself.
Chapter 13
Ken woke properly before eight. It was too early for breakfast to be served so he took out Oliver’s book and began to re-read the story, taking time over it. There was a hell of a lot more to it than lay on the surface, that was for sure. He found himself thinking about how the Simeon character discovered a novel called The Gold Field about a Californian travelling to England to find the truth about his mother. It was a reflection of Oliver’s own quest; that was a no-brain deduction for anyone who knew his family history. Yeah, Oliver’s book was a message to those he had left behind.
Ken read it line by line, checking every word like it was new in case he missed something, while the sound of the publican sweeping up and shifting chairs around drifted up from the pub below. And when he came to the description of Simeon’s first days in the house on Ray, something chimed in his brain. He flicked back and forth looking for a passage about the servants at the house. Then he found it. It was an echo on the page of something he had heard in real life, something he had heard said in the pub. He snapped the book shut, let out a laugh and thumped it down on his bed before hurrying to Coraline’s room.
‘Come downstairs with me,’ he said. ‘There’s someone we need to meet.’
She checked her wristwatch. ‘Is it the mailman?’
‘Just come.’ They descended to the tap room. The landlord was sharing a dirty story with a barman who was helping him set the place straight, and didn’t bother cutting it short when he saw Coraline. ‘There was a man here last night,’ Ken said, when the tale was over. ‘Red hair. His name was Pete.’
‘Pete Weir?’ the landlord said warily.
‘If you say so. He’s a Quaker, isn’t he? Conscientious objector.’
‘How d’you know that?’ He sounded even more than before like he wasn’t keen on anyone asking questions, let alone Americans who claimed to have come for the oysters, which was about as believable as them claiming to have come for the scenery.
‘That woman gave him a white feather, and she was talking about his church being cowards.’
‘He’s a Quaker, aye,’ the barman relented. ‘Nothing wrong with that.’
A fine Quaker who frequented pubs, but Ken wasn’t going to make a point of it. He rapped on the bar, pleased at the confirmation because this might just send them on a trail that led somewhere, instead of just-about-nowhere like the others they had followed so far. ‘We’d like to speak to him.’
‘What about?’
‘Nothing important.’ The landlord’s eyebrows were eloquent in their scepticism. ‘Where could I find him?’
The man wiped down the grimy wooden counter thoughtfully, deciding whether it was safe to share the information with outsiders who were here for some reason that really wasn’t an out-of-the-way vacation. ‘His house is down on the Hard. On Mersea.’
‘Thanks. How will I know which one?’
‘Got a sign outside offering oysters for sale.’ Ken thanked him again and the landlord looked at the barman. The other man shrugged, as if the ways of Americans were always hard to understand. Ken was making for the door when the landlord called out, ‘He won’t be there now.’
‘No?’
‘Out on his boat, harvesting. Oysters don’t just walk out of the sea and into pots.’
‘I’m sure. Do you know when he’ll be back?’
‘Four or five, probably.’
That was frustrating, but there was little to be done. ‘Okay. Thank you.’
The barman nodded in reply.
‘What’s this all about?’ Coraline asked, taking Ken aside.
‘There’s a servant in the book,’ he explained. ‘Peter Cain. He’s a red-haired Quaker who knocks back the drink. Just like Pete Weir. It’s quite a coincidence – too much, I think. Maybe Oliver did it consciously, maybe it was unconscious, but he put Pete Weir in The Turnglass. We need to find out what he has to say. We’ll see when he gets back.’
So they ate their breakfast of mackerel and heavy bread. Then they returned to Turnglass House. It looked better by day, but not by much.
‘The fire really did a number on it,’ Ken said.
‘I wish it had been knocked down.’
It was true that the house was crying out for a bulldozer more than anything else. They explored again, the daylight illuminating more than the flashlight they had had the previous night, but they found nothing more of use and left empty-handed.
Half an hour later, they had padded their way right across Ray and onto its sibling, Mersea. Mersea had a few shrubs and trees, which made it look like a garden paradise compared to scrub-faced Ray. The ground lifted higher above sea level, too, making it large enough to pretend it was a small town. There were a couple of churches, a short street of sad shops and the beach – the Hard, as the locals called it, as if another syllable would have killed them. It was a shingly stretch, deep enough to land fishing boats, with a natural harbour that had been reinforced with a breakwater.
A number of fishermen’s cottages stood on the seafront, where men were hurrying to and fro with pots and nets. A few of the houses had boards outside offering wares, but only one was advertising oysters: a single-storey weatherboarded building. This was Pete Weir’s, but no one was home, as the pub landlord had told them to expect.
What to do to kill time? They weren’t spoiled for choice, and so opted for walking about the town, looking into the churches, watching the fishing boats come and go and trying Weir’s cottage from time to time without success. ‘I grew up by the ocean,’ Coraline said, sitting on a concrete bench. ‘I found it comforting. Not so much now.’
‘I can understand that.’
When late afternoon rolled in, they decided it was time to call on Weir again.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Coraline asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, you’re attaching a lot of importance to a detail in Oliver’s book.’
He had been thinking a lot about that book, even while they had sat on the seafront watching the boats unload their catches.
‘They call it a roman à clef: a novel with a key. The book itself unlocks the truth. And I only just realized something else.’
‘Which is?’
‘That the “enquiries agent” character – I suppose that’s a detective to us – calls himself Cooryan when he wants an alias. I can only guess that’s meant to be my surname. I think Oliver left it as a sign to me in case something happened to him. He wanted me to let people know the truth if he couldn’t himself.’
She sat for a moment, considering it. ‘You think he knew what was coming?’ she asked.
‘I think he knew it was a possibility. How does that make you feel?’
She stared out to sea. ‘Responsible.’
* * *
This time, when they approached the little fisherman’s cottage, the curtain had been drawn back from the window. Through a cracked pane, Ken could see Pete Weir at a tiny table in a corner, nursing a glass of milk and a plate of pickled fish. It was a single room with a few matchsticks of furniture and an area curtained off to create a sleeping space. Weir was pushing the fish around with his fork, no appetite on show. Ken tapped on the window – afraid it might cave in – and the man jerked up, looking left and right, amazed at the interruption to his routine. Gingerly he beckoned them to enter.
The room smelled powerfully of the sea. ‘It’s Pete, isn’t it?’ The man nodded, a little suspicious. He wasn’t a man people sought out. ‘My name is Ken Kourian. Would it be all right if I asked you something?’ Weir grunted something that was probably an agreement. ‘Thanks. Tell me, have you lived on Mersea all your life?’ He grunted again. ‘That’s something. Where we come from, people are always moving. It must be fine to have a home and know it’s your home.’
‘It is, Mister Kourian.’ Weir seemed confused by the strange name and pronounced it very carefully. But it appeared that few people chatted to him, and he was settling a bit now, so was keen to keep up some conversation. ‘Are you here on honeymoon?’ Coraline burst out laughing. Ken stifled a smile. Weir looked bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Kourian. Have I…?’
‘Miss Tooke,’ she said.
His face fell. After a moment, his jaw opened and moved as if masticating. ‘Miss…’
‘Tooke. Coraline Tooke. The name means something to you.’ Weir looked about the room, seemingly worried that someone had overheard. ‘Yes, I can see it does.’
‘What does it mean to you?’ Ken stepped in. ‘Pete?’
The man stretched leathery fingers towards his drink, then thought better of it and withdrew his hand. Ken wondered if there was more in the glass than milk alone. ‘I worked for your family,’ he mumbled.
‘Do you remember me?’ Coraline asked. He shrugged, as if that would let him off the hook. ‘I think you do.’ She paused. ‘Do you remember my brother Oliver?’ At that, Weir’s eyelids lifted, then fell again. ‘He’s been here, hasn’t he?’ Another moment of dead air between them. ‘What did he say?’
‘Pete? Please tell us.’
Silence for an age. Then he broke it. ‘Asked me about your ma.’
Ken felt a jolt. There it was, the fork in the road that would take them from ‘nowhere’ to ‘somewhere’.
‘What about her?’ Coraline demanded. This time, Weir’s hardened fingers made it all the way to the glass and he tipped what remained into his mouth. ‘Pete?’
‘Please. I don’t want to be involved.’
Ken met Coraline’s glance. He was about to speak when she put her hand in her pocket and drew out her purse. She unclipped it and drew out a five-pound note. She placed it on the table. It was probably a week’s earnings for Weir. He sighed.
Five pounds was all it took. It would probably have taken much less. ‘Not what he said, is it? It’s what I said. What I saw.’
The truth was in sight now.
‘And what was that?’
‘Shouldn’t say.’
‘I think you have to now,’ Ken told him.
Weir nervously rolled the glass in his fingers. ‘It was after they said she drowned.’ He briefly looked up to Coraline, then dropped his gaze, ashamed. ‘The day after.’
‘What was?’ Ken demanded.
‘I was in the Rose.’
‘So?’ Ken tried to hurry him to the point.
‘A car arrived outside. Big car. Didn’t recognize it.’
‘Go on.’
And then the punch. ‘I saw the mistress’s maid, Carmen, carrying some things to it.’
Ken started to comprehend. ‘What sort of things?’
‘Dresses. The mistress’s dresses. Other things. Her vanity set. Not everything she owned. Just the essentials.’ And his eyes went to Coraline’s for the last time. ‘If she’d drowned, where were they going? Tell me that.’
Tell me that. Ken thought of Governor Tooke’s continued visits to England and looked to the daughter of a drowned woman who still needed her clothes. A woman whose body had never washed up on the shallow coastline. A woman whose loyal maid had lied to a coroner’s court about witnessing her death.
‘She’s alive,’ Coraline breathed.
And Ken thought of the part that Florence’s dresses played in Oliver’s novel too, bringing her back to a semblance of life. Perhaps Oliver had thought about his mother’s gowns so much that they had made it onto the page.
‘I’ve thought about it a lot,’ the leathery man muttered to himself.
‘I’ve thought about it more,’ Coraline told him.
‘Did you ever tell anyone? Speak to anyone?’ Ken asked.
‘Never said a word.’ He sounded truly remorseful. ‘Family business. Didn’t seem my place. ’Til your brother came asking.’
Ken probed more, but the man told him nothing else of use. In the end, they went out into the late Mersea afternoon.
‘Where is she?’ Coraline asked as they walked back.
‘I don’t know. I think Oliver did. But look. Your father came once a year. He wasn’t visiting the place of her death, he was visiting her alive. So we presume it’s still in England – London, probably, so he could get there easily. And she’s being held there, we also presume.’ And once again he thought of the book. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and thumbed the pages. He knew the chapter he needed. It detailed a hunt through London, an incarceration and a secret revealed.
