‘What does that have to do with any of this?’
‘For me, almost everything. Tell me what went on at the theatre. Did someone die? Were you responsible?’
‘It’s a long time ago. I was just a young man. It doesn’t matter now.’
‘It still matters to me.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because you made me lie to the policier. Do I have to tell lies to Caurer for you too?’
‘No — everything I’ve told you about Esla is true.’
‘Then tell me the truth about the other matter.’
‘No. I can’t.’
‘Then I can’t go off and look for this woman.’
I suppose I had expected the old dark Chaster to burst out again, to threaten me, wheedle at me, use some kind of blackmail or other manipulation on me, but on that day I realized he had finally and for good buried the old destructive demon.
He sat in the chair across from me and he seemed to slump. He cried briefly. He wiped his eyes, stood up, left the chair and leaned against the window, staring out into the street. He did not react when Hisar briefly entered the room — she left when she realized who was there with me and that something difficult was happening between the two of us.
‘I’m sorry I troubled you, Woll,’ he said suddenly, and moved towards the door. He would not look across at me. I stood up. ‘I won’t ask you again. I’ll find her some other way.’
‘Chas, this other thing at the theatre still stands between us.’
‘Let it go,’ he said.
‘I can’t.’
‘And I can’t understand why everyone is still so fascinated by all that.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Esla kept asking about it too.’
I should have realized then what that woman had been doing at my brother’s house, but because I did not I said nothing.
Chaster left, and if anything I felt worse about him than I had done before.
The years that followed, broadly speaking, were a stable period for us all. Chaster presumably pined for his lost love, and he must have got over it eventually. Hisar told me that the trickle of his women literary adherents continued to arrive in the town, so I imagine he was able to find relief from his sorrows with some of them. I know not, and I care not.
Chaster went on writing, because books of his continued to appear. Our children slowly grew up and we suffered and relished the various crises and triumphs of a growing family. Hisar and I took several long holidays off- island. My job continued. All seemed well.
I decided it was time I caught up with Chaster’s novels, so I read them all, slowly and carefully, in the order in which he had written them.
They were not, I must say, the kind of fiction I normally like to read. I prefer a strong storyline, a range of interesting and successful characters, a colourful or exciting background. I like adventures, intrigues, brave deeds. Chas’s novels seemed to me to be about losers or failures: no one could succeed at anything in his stories, doubts were constantly expressed, the language was understated or ironic, everyone went in for perplexing actions that took them nowhere. As for the background, all the books seemed to be set on Piqay, and in the town in which I lived, but I found it hard to recognize the places I knew. One book even contained a mention of the street where my house was, but almost every detail was wrong.
One of the novels did briefly interest me, because it described a violent death that had taken place in a theatre. My attention focused sharply, but it soon became clear that this novel was much the same as all the others. If there were any clues in it about what had happened to Chaster in the past, I missed them all.
I was glad to finish reading his books but I felt my conscience was now clearer. At least I knew what he had written, even if within a day or two I could remember hardly any details about them.
I had almost forgotten about Caurer and her disruptive impact on Chaster, when unexpectedly she burst back in on his life.
The background to it was the execution of a mentally subnormal young man, for a murder he was alleged to have committed. This had happened several years before.
I had not taken any special interest in what happened, although I did remember the controversy that surrounded his execution. Capital punishment is not common in the Archipelago, but there are several islands where it is still carried out. It’s a subject that always causes heated argument. I am personally against the idea of state- sponsored killing and always have been, so whenever I hear the news that another hanging or guillotining has taken place I get a sick feeling in my stomach, wish that it had not happened, but try to console myself with the thought that due process must have taken place and all appeals would have been exhaustively heard.
In this respect, the guillotining of Sington was little different from others. I knew from news reports that the evidence was overwhelmingly against him, that he had made a full confession, that he showed no remorse, and that on his island group the law and its remedy were clear. Beyond that, I knew few details.
Caurer, a famous liberal reformer and campaigning writer, had for some reason taken it upon herself to re- open the case and investigate whether Sington had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Her conclusion, unsurprisingly, was that he had.
I saw her book on the subject discussed in the press and felt interested and pleased that this might persuade more people to my point of view. But because of Caurer’s brief but disruptive impact on my brother’s life, I could no longer treat anything by or about her with complete neutrality.
One day, not long after her book had been published, Chaster turned up at my house. It had been more than a year since we had seen each other, but by that time separations of several months at a time were not unusual. He did not stay long.
‘Have you seen this?’ he said loudly, holding aloft a hardback book with a pale cover. ‘Why has she done this to me?’
He tossed the book towards me but as I tried to catch it, and failed, he was already heading back towards the street.
I picked up the book from the floor, and saw what it was.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘Read it, and you will. I can’t believe I fell for that woman. I should have realized what she was up to, coming to my place that time. All those questions about the job I had in the theatre. Had I seen anything that happened? Did I know anything? I thought she was different from the others but I was a damned fool and besotted. I was taken in by her.’
‘Let me read it,’ I said, already sensing that the book contained information about my brother. ‘Does it damage you in any way?’
‘Just read the thing then throw it away. I never want to see it again.’
After he had stormed out I sat down immediately and read the book from beginning to end. It was not particularly long and was written in a terse, attractive style that I found readable and unusually compelling.
Caurer told the story of the killing that had led ultimately to the execution of Kerith Sington. She went into a great deal of background detail about the victim, a theatre performer called Commis, and also about the theatre where Commis’s death had occurred.
Her skill in reconstructing the scene was remarkable. She followed the policier investigation carefully, referring back to original statements and interviews wherever they were available. Then she moved on to the story of Kerith Sington, how he had become involved, how a certain amount of circumstantial evidence incriminated him.
In the longest chapter in the book Caurer went into Sington’s childhood and psychological background, and the kind of deprived and socially chaotic world in which he lived. She produced several examples of other, less serious offences in which he had been involved, how he had been secretive about them at first, then bragged to impress his friends. After she had analysed his alleged confession in detail, the reader could have been left in no doubt that Sington had been wrongly accused. She certainly convinced this reader that an innocent man had died for
