Plots and Errors Read online

  ‘When did your father die?’

  ‘Three years ago. I’ll be off the leash when I’m forty-eight, if I make it to forty-eight without any mishaps. He didn’t cut me out altogether because that might have made contesting it worthwhile. As it stands, I inherit all this, in theory, so contesting it would be a gamble, and I’ve no money to gamble with. The barrister thought it was possible that the court would simply say that it was up to me to choose whether or not to live at the family home in order to acquire the title to it in due course.’

  ‘What did your stepmother think about his will?’

  ‘She said that she would understand entirely if Paul and I did contest it, but that we had to understand that she couldn’t support us, because as far as she’s concerned, my father’s wishes are paramount. Paul wasn’t prepared to go ahead, so I’d have been on my own.’ He smiled. ‘And that means I’m stuck with it. And stepmother.’

  ‘Is it worth being in prison all over again?’

  He looked at her for a moment before he answered. ‘Could be,’ he said thoughtfully. Now that Sandie had arrived, it really could be. ‘And it’s no hardship sharing a house this size.’ He stood up. ‘OK, time to try out your technique. Do you remember what I told you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He watched her as she finned her way round the middle of the pool, eventually getting confident enough to move up to the deep end. It was clearly not coming naturally to her, but sooner than he had imagined she would be, she was finning along under the surface of the water, breathing easily through the snorkel. She swam to the steps, cleared the snorkel, and he helped her out.

  ‘Do you think you can jump in at the deep end?’ he asked, when she had had what he considered a long enough rest, though she was of a different opinion.

  She smiled. ‘I always do,’ she said.

  He fastened the weight belt round her waist. ‘That’s to help you descend,’ he said. ‘Your lungs and your wetsuit will give you the buoyancy to get back up again. Stand on the edge of the pool.’

  She didn’t like this much, he could tell. She stood on the edge, already holding her breath.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘Breathe normally just now. Once you’re kitted up, hold the mask so you don’t lose it when you go in, and don’t look down. Keep your legs straight. You’ll come back up of your own accord, but if you slowly move your fins backwards and forwards it’ll help you rise.’

  She looked at him, her eyes wide.

  ‘Don’t look so scared,’ he said. ‘Put on your mask, take a deep breath through your snorkel, and a big step out.’

  He watched her descend, and then start doing everything he’d told her not to do. She panicked; he jumped in and helped her to the surface, where she pulled off the mask and snorkel, letting them go, and gulped air. Then she swam to the steps, sitting on them, her chest heaving. Josh laughed; she pulled off the fins and threw them at him, first one and then the other, with deadly aim.

  He grinned, took a breath, duck-dived back down, and retrieved her various pieces of equipment, but he didn’t come back up; he finned under the water, doing as little as possible so that he could stay there as long as possible. When he felt that he really couldn’t stay under any longer, he surfaced, and swam over to her.

  She sat on the steps, still breathing heavily. ‘How can you do that?’ she asked. ‘It was only because I could see you moving about that I knew you hadn’t drowned.’

  ‘Practice,’ he said, as his breath returned to normal. ‘I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.’ He gave her back the mask and snorkel. ‘Before today’s out, I’ll have you jumping in wearing full diving kit, taking it all off, leaving it on the bottom, surfacing, then going back down and putting it all on again.’

  She looked appalled, but sheer determination, or pride, or a bit of both made her get kitted up again, and jump in again. This time, she didn’t panic, and she surfaced like a veteran. She swam over and sat on the steps. ‘What happens if you don’t make it to forty-eight without contravening the conditions?’ she asked, when she could speak.

  ‘Paul would get Little Elmley automatically.’

  ‘So if he’d seen you and me last Sunday . . .’

  ‘Suddenly, our father’s wishes would have been paramount to him too. He’d have had me in court by Monday morning. Not because he has any desire to own Little Elmley, of course. Just because.’

  She nodded again, her eyes thoughtful. ‘What happens if your stepmother dies before your time’s up?’

  He could see the way her mind was working. Exactly as his had, when he had heard that will being read, which of course it had been, at the request of the testator, with full Victorian solemnity, to all interested parties. ‘Paul would get the capital from the Trust on her death anyway, and if she died before I’d completed my sentence, he would get Little Elmley too. And to anticipate your next question, if Paul’s already dead, or has disqualified himself from inheriting, anything remaining in the Esterbrook Family Trust would go to the Esterbrook Marine Research Fund automatically on her death. Including Little Elmley.’

  Sandie frowned. ‘Why? If your father was prepared to let you have it after fifteen years, why not let you have it if they both die before then?’

  ‘Because he didn’t want to give me an incentive for murder, since I am, after all, given to killing people. I told you he’d thought of everything.’

  ‘What if Paul dies before he gets to his silver wedding?’

  Josh grinned. ‘You won’t catch my father out that way,’ he said. ‘The seventy-five per cent share in IMG would go to Angela, and if she has predeceased him, it forms part of Paul’s estate.’

  She got to her feet, giving up trying to find loopholes. ‘What’s next?’ she said.

  He smiled. He doubted very much that she was enjoying any of this, or that she really wanted to do it at all. But she was going to do it, come hell or, appropriately enough, high water. He picked up the aqualung. ‘This,’ he said.

  SCENE XVIII – CORNWALL.

  Saturday, July 19th, 11.00 a.m.

  Angela’s Cottage.

  Angela was supposed to be working; she was sorting through her diaries, marking entries, but she couldn’t settle to it; her boys were giving her trouble, as they always had, each in their different ways. She was sitting at her desk, and swivelled round to look out of the open sitting-room window, from which she still had a view of the sea.

  The cottage was built on the widest part of a slender point of land, and once she had been able to see the sea both front and back, but the town had been built up since then, and there were buildings between the cottage and the harbour. But at the back, the big old tree and its treehouse still had their grey-green backdrop. It was more blue-green today; she liked it best on its wild black days. Today it just sat there, docile and uncomplaining, the surface barely rippling. Her husband had liked it like that.

  She missed Paul dreadfully. Oh, other people thought that he was strange and stiff and born out of his time, but he had opened her eyes to the world, made her believe in herself. He had had a terrible time with Josephine, but he had never once used that as an excuse. Rather the opposite. He had refused to use it, refused to leave her because of the way she was. Refused to let someone else deal with her, and release him from his vow to keep her in sickness and in health.

  But it was that unbending attitude that had caused all the problems; if he hadn’t been so strict with the boys, perhaps they wouldn’t have found ways of rebelling. If he hadn’t been so strait-laced, perhaps the rebellion would have been less dramatic. But he had always thought that punishment and the threat of punishment would keep them under control, despite the evidence to the contrary. His will threatened such severe punishment, should either of them transgress, that it was causing correspondingly severe problems and would continue to cause them for years and years.

  She just wanted the boys to do what their father had asked, and collect what was due to them; they wouldn’t
do that if one of them was having an affair with his personal assistant and the other was – well . . . behaving in a way not conducive to staying out of trouble, because that boy was not, in the eyes of the law, a consenting adult. But they were grown men, and they knew the stakes as well as she did. She wouldn’t interfere.

  Well – no more than was necessary.

  SCENE XIX – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, July 19th, 5.00 p.m.

  A Public Park in Barton.

  Elizabeth had looked in the Yellow Pages, and had been startled at the vast number of firms at her disposal.

  She didn’t know if they worked on Saturdays. She supposed by the nature of their job they worked seven days a week, but their offices might not be open on Saturdays. She had written down a few names and addresses and telephone numbers, and then had gone out. She wasn’t going to phone from the house, with Paul quite possibly listening in on an extension.

  A private detective. She had once thought that no one could stoop lower than to have someone followed, snooped on. But Paul’s behaviour with that girl on the boat had hardened her heart. He was deliberately flaunting his infidelity, hoping to humiliate her into leaving him, and releasing him from his strait-jacket. She had thought he would be away this weekend too, which was why she had waited until now before looking for someone.

  She had got into the car, and driven off, but she hadn’t really known where she was going. She had thought she would just go to whoever could see her straight away. If she made an appointment, she might chicken out, let it all drift again, and she didn’t want to do that. Not after the way he’d behaved. Not after the way he’d spoken to her this morning. But all that had happened was that she had afternoon tea in the café in the park, then sat on a bench and watched the children play.

  She would have liked to have children, but Paul had always wanted to wait, in the days when they still had a relationship, of sorts. She still could have a baby, but Paul wanted nothing to do with her, and she certainly wasn’t going to get involved with someone else. There was nothing Paul would like better than to be able to divorce her for adultery.

  She should have gone through with it, she told herself, as the children’s shadows grew long, and people started packing up the debris of their picnics, and whistling for their dogs. She should have gone through with it. She would. On Monday, when their offices were bound to be open. She would go to . . . she held the list in her hand, closed her eyes, and pointed.

  Ian R. Foster, Private Enquiry Agent.

  SCENE XX – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, July 19th, 8.00 p.m.

  The Little Elmley Grounds and Reservoir.

  Sandie had done it. She would never have believed it, never have put one penny on her chances, when she had been sitting on the steps, throwing her fins at Josh for laughing at her. She was here because she wanted to be with Josh, not because she wanted to do this. But she didn’t want to let him down, so she had done it. She had learned how to get in and out, how to move about under the water, how to surface, and, bit by bit, she really had done what she now knew was called a ditch and retrieve, just as he had promised she would. She had been scared to death, but she had done it. Then he had shown her life-saving techniques, a reminder, which she hardly needed, that there were a lot of dangers inherent in swimming about in deep water, and now they were leaving the building.

  ‘It isn’t dangerous if you know what you’re doing,’ Josh said.

  Sandie smiled. She hadn’t the faintest idea what she was doing, or why she was doing it, but she was damn sure it was dangerous, whatever it was. Josh wasn’t doing all this for Paul’s sake.

  ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was very, very tired. There was more theory first thing tomorrow, about the bends, and panicking, and nitrogen narcosis, which seemed to be a risk of temporarily losing your marbles on deep dives. She strongly suspected that she had already lost hers, because after all that her day-long sheltered diving instruction would begin.

  ‘Now I’ll show where you’ll be doing that,’ he said.

  She followed him wearily as he led her past the terrace towards the high hedge. She glanced at the weeping willow, but he didn’t; he just strode towards a gate, and they were walking along a wooden jetty, down to a landing-stage, where a rubber dinghy sat at the edge of the reservoir.

  He helped her in, then rowed out a little way, and headed it round the curve of the banking. He didn’t speak; the sturdy little boat took some handling, but he wasn’t bothering with the outboard motor. As the boat rounded the shoreline, Sandie could see a structure rising out of the water, close to the sloping shore. Josh let the boat ride the gently rippling water, and Sandie lit her first cigarette of the day.

  ‘When you do a sheltered-water dive, you’ll start off from the shore, walking down the slope to the diving platform, getting used to the water pressure as it comes up to and over your chest. Then you’ll let yourself down the pole. But Howard will be with you, so don’t worry about that.’

  ‘Who’s Howard? Won’t you be diving with me?’

  ‘No. I’ll be on the shore. Howard’s an experienced diver, so you’ll be fine. Later on, you’ll learn how to dive from the boat, out in the middle, where it’s really deep, and I’ll be diving with you then. Howard will look after the boat.’

  She nodded. ‘Are there really houses down there?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at her. ‘But you won’t see them this time round.’ He looked a little concerned. ‘Does the idea of going under there scare you?’

  ‘No.’ No, it didn’t scare her, not now she knew more or less what to expect. But right now, she didn’t think she ever wanted to immerse herself in water again, especially if she was going to be diving with someone else altogether. Maybe she would feel better in the morning.

  A fish jumped with a tiny plop.

  ‘Are you really going to sit it out here until you’re nearly fifty?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘I think you have other plans.’

  ‘What plans? I have no option but to serve my sentence, and hope that they both stay in good health.’ He grinned, and nodded at her cigarette with mock disapproval. ‘Neither of them smokes, I’m glad to say, so there’s a chance they’ll survive.’

  Sandie flicked ash into the water. ‘I presume a two-thirds share of IMG is worth having?’

  ‘It’s worth at least half a billion pounds,’ said Josh.

  Sandie’s eyebrows rose. She had known they were rich, but she hadn’t realized how rich. ‘That explains why he’s paranoid about getting caught,’ she said.

  ‘It doesn’t explain why he does it in the first place, though.’

  Sandie dropped her cigarette end in the water, where it landed with a hiss, and Josh rowed back, tied the boat up at the landing-stage, and walked ahead of her up to the house.

  SCENE XXI – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, July 19th, 9.00 p.m.

  The House at Little Elmley.

  He cooked this time; she had produced lunch, which had been pretty good, if she said so herself, but they ate from the freezer now that he was in charge. And in Angela’s kitchen, as they had at lunchtime. She had yet to see his part of the house, and her reference that morning to the business under the willow tree had been the only time it had been mentioned since it had happened. He had felt like behaving inappropriately, and she had afforded him the opportunity, that was all. It hadn’t meant anything. That disappointed her, but it didn’t surprise her.

  But the business about the will surprised her; it seemed to suggest that the brothers were more alike than she had thought. Paul would sit it out until he got his share of the business, using elaborate subterfuge to avoid being caught breaking the terms of the will, but Josh? She couldn’t really believe in Josh’s quiet acceptance of his lot, his preparedness to live for the next twelve years with his stepmother in order to inherit Little Elmley. It didn’t sit well with the recklessness of a fatal arm
ed robbery, with the ownership of a revolver, with the deliberately inappropriate behaviour of last Sunday.

  After dinner, she lit her second cigarette of the day, picked up her coffee, and looked at him. ‘Why do you hate your stepmother?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I get on very well with Angela. A lot better than her son does, whatever impression he likes to give.’

  Sandie took the tiny opening she was being offered. ‘Why doesn’t he get on with her?’

  ‘He’s never really got over being uprooted at the age of six. Taken away from his friends, his school, the sea – and brought to live with a man who thought that sparing the rod spoiled the child.’

  ‘Literally?’

  ‘To start with it was smacked legs, or a slipper, if you’d been naughty enough to deserve it. Then a cane, when he deemed us old enough. About eleven, I think.’

  ‘What did your stepmother think of that?’

  ‘She didn’t believe in corporal punishment. But I told you – his word was law, so the cane stayed. Don’t misunderstand – it was never excessive, or ritualistic. He just came looking for you, grabbed your collar, whacked you a few times, and then told you why.’ He grinned. ‘Well, I came in for a bit more than a few whacks at times – you can tell how successful his method was, can’t you?’

  ‘Didn’t you resent it too?’

  ‘I was used to it. Practically every time I saw him he had some implement in his hand to beat me with. And when we got too old for that, it was stopped allowances, but by that time, unlike me, Paul was doing well at school, taking his advice about an army career, and becoming the apple of his eye.’

  She could detect a note of jealousy, still.

  ‘Paul’s problems started at some party they were having here. Paul senior thought Paul junior had run out on the guests, went up to his room to remonstrate with him, and found him rogering their friends’ seventeen-year-old daughter senseless, and so engrossed in the task that he didn’t even know he had been seen.’