House of the Hanged

The Albatross was the obvious choice but he decided against it, not wishing to curse the sloop by bringing a corpse aboard. This consideration came at a hefty price. He almost capsized his dinghy while trying to haul the package aboard, receiving a crack on the head from the boom for good measure, which almost blacked him out.

He short-tacked into the warm breeze blowing in from the southwest, relaxing a little as he cleared the bay. The sail still gleamed unnaturally white in the moonlight and the dinghy only made sluggish headway, but he was in open water now, the seabed dropping sharply away below the boat. He knew that it plunged to eight hundred metres or more in the channel between the coast and the islands, six or so nautical miles off, but he would have to content himself with maybe half that if he didn’t want to run into the fishing fleet. He could see their lights sparkling on the horizon like a swarm of fireflies.

When he was ready he lowered the mainsail, removed the tiller and the rudder then heaved the body up on to the transom. After his close call back in the cove, he knew that if he put it over the side the weight of it might cause the Scylla to heel over and capsize.

He eased the package off the aft. It didn’t sink at first, buoyed up by the pockets of air inside the tightly bound tarpaulin. However, these slowly filled with seawater and it finally dipped beneath the waves. Convention dictated that he mark the moment with some words, a token tribute, but he struggled to find the will. The Italian had gambled and lost. If he didn’t know the rules of the game he should never have taken to the field of play.

Raising the mainsail, Tom set a course for home.

Sleep was out of the question. His body was weary, aching, clamouring for rest, but his brain danced wildly in open rebellion. He wound up the gramophone and found himself reaching for the Goldberg Variations. The rigid, almost mathematical, structure of Bach’s masterpiece might help lend some order to his thoughts.

It didn’t. He knew the piece so well that every cadence ran ahead of the needle in his mind, and he sat hunched at the table on the terrace in stunned immobility. The coffee he had made for himself was cold by the time he even looked at the key in his hand.

It was a hotel key, and the oval metal fob was engraved with a room number: 312. The name of the hotel wasn’t marked. It didn’t need to be; he’d placed enough surplus guests at the Hôtel de la Réserve over the years to recognize the fob. The hotel was a grand affair that towered over the narrow beach. When alone in Le Rayol, which was most of the time, he would often wander down there of an evening for a cocktail and a bite to eat. He was known to most of the staff, and he could even count Olivier, the manager, as a friend. He certainly shouldn’t have any difficulty gaining access to Room 312. He was in possession of the key, and his presence in the hotel was unlikely to arouse too much suspicion.

This wasn’t what bothered him, though, and it was a while before he isolated just what it was that jarred at the back of his thoughts.

The man, the Italian sent to kill him, had known exactly where he slept. Moreover, when fleeing the bedroom he had reached unswervingly for the correct door. The door immediately to its right, also shut at the time, would have led him into the blind-alley of the bathroom. How had the Italian known which door to select? Surely a man in desperation would have tried both handles at the same time before making his choice. And how had he managed to negotiate the darkened corridors and staircases of the villa with such speed and confidence when making his escape?

Maybe Tom was underestimating the aptitude of his would-be assassin, but he was left with the uneasy feeling that the Italian had come armed with more knowledge than was natural. It didn’t make sense, not unless he had somehow managed to scout the inside of the villa before making his move, or he had been briefed by someone who knew the internal layout of the building. The first seemed unlikely; Tom had always been a stickler for security, much to Paulette’s amusement and annoyance. The second possibility implied that a friend or close associate was a party to the attempt on his life.

He shrugged this unwelcome thought aside, turning his mind to the larger issues. Who wanted him dead? And why? Unfortunately, there were a fair number of options. He had done some bad things in the name of King and Country over the years, and although that murky world was well behind him now, there was no reason why others should have been as eager as he to forget and move on with their lives.

Whoever they were, he had to assume they still wanted him dead, and the moment they realized they’d failed in their mission they would gather themselves to strike again. This gave him a small window of opportunity, maybe half a day in which to steal the initiative.

He hated them for leaving him no other choice. He hated them for the fear that had returned to his life. He hated them for what they had made him do. He had killed a man, not with his bare hands, admittedly, but as good as, driving him to his certain doom.

This, he realized, was what he really despised them for – for showing him that he was still the same man.

After more than five years, and despite his best efforts to improve on himself, he had barely changed.

Chapter Five

Lucy woke with a start. She was lying on top of the covers, still in her clothes, and her face was damp against the pillow.

Then she remembered. She remembered why she was dressed, why she had been crying.

She reached for the travel clock on the bedside table. It was early, not yet seven o’clock, but someone was already moving around downstairs, clattering about in the kitchen. It couldn’t possibly be Mother; she rarely rose before nine, not even for guests.

Mr Chittenden, most likely. He had announced over dinner that he was always up with the lark. These were some of the few words he had spoken all evening. For much of the time he had sat hunched in his chair, a look of benign befuddlement on his face, chortling every so often while his wife held forth.

Barbara Chittenden liked to talk. She maundered on and on as if her life depended on it, as if the moment she fell silent someone would put a bullet in her head.

Lucy had been tempted to do just that on a couple of occasions, especially when it had emerged that Barbara was a long-standing member of the Eugenics Society and held strong views on the sterilization of the unfit.

‘Although we now prefer to call them the “social problem group”. The unfit is so very . . .’

‘. . . offensive . . .?’ proffered Lucy, with studied innocence.

This brought a little chuckle from Mr Chittenden and a warning scowl from Mother.

‘Vague was the word I was searching for.’

Apparently, the ‘social problem group’ covered a wide range of hereditary and moral sins, everything from lunatics, idiots and the feeble-minded, through deaf-mutes and the congenitally blind, to tramps, prostitutes, inebriates and epileptics.

‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those extreme types calling for compulsory sterilization, although it seems to have worked a treat in the United States and Germany.’

‘Be careful what you say. Lucy is young and therefore liable to go up like straw if she doesn’t agree with you.’

Lucy bristled. ‘I didn’t realize you’d been won over to the cause.’

Mother fired back a pinched smile that said: You’re on your own, darling.

‘What’s there to disagree with?’ Barbara blundered on. ‘John Maynard Keynes, George Bernard Shaw, even the Cambridge Union . . . all have come out in favour of voluntary sterilization.’

‘Oh, that makes it all right, does it? The so-called intelligentsia are for it.’

‘Something has to be done. A biological disaster is looming. Reckless breeding by the “social problem group” is leading to an irreversible degeneration of the racial stock. The very future of civilization is at stake.’

Lucy fought hard to restrain herself. ‘I know some who would say that civilization has considerably more to fear from the self-interest and prejudice of the privileged classes.’

‘When she says “some” she means her godfather,’ chipped in Mother. ‘She likes to parrot his opinions.’

‘I happen to agree with some of them,’ retorted Lucy.

‘You mean Tom?’ exclaimed Barbara. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think so. I talked with him last night at some considerable length on the subject.’

‘And what did he say?’

Barbara Chittenden hesitated. ‘Well, not very much, as it happens. Although, I think I can safely say he was persuaded of my argument.’

Lucy found that hard to believe. ‘Oh really?’

‘Absolutely. He said that up until now he had never been fully convinced of the grave threat posed to society by the mentally deficient.’

Mr Chittenden erupted in a loud guffaw, and Mother only just managed to contain her own laughter.

‘What, Harold?’

Mr Chittenden, still heaving in his chair, waved her question away.

‘Ignore him,’ said Barbara. ‘He’s an archaeologist. All he cares about is stones and bones.’

The little dinner for four hadn’t been the most propitious start to the holiday, but at least it meant that things could only get better. The Chittendens would be leaving immediately after breakfast, motoring west to Spain, and Leonard would be back from Cannes in time for lunch. He liked to sneak off there from time to time with Yevgeny for a round or two of golf at the Old Course, and his return would offer a welcome buffer against Mother, who was on particularly malicious form right now.

The barbed and belittling comments were coming thick and fast, rising to a peak, the usual prelude to one of their explosive confrontations. This would be followed by a tearful reconciliation, which in turn would give way to a lengthy period of calm. Then gradually the comments would begin to intrude again – a small note of criticism here, a gentle reprimand there – the heat building once more by barely perceptible degrees.

This was the fixed pattern of their relationship, the drearily predictable cycle into which they had settled, though not by mutual consent. Lucy dreamed of an alternative future, one without the endless round of highs and lows, of war and peace. Tom was less hopeful. He had never known Mother to be any different, and not just with Lucy. They all suffered the same treatment at her hands. It was the price you paid for being loved by her.