'You reckon? Took a day and a half as I recall back in sixty-three. Don't see why it should take more than a minute and a half now.' 'For confirmation of my guilt, you mean?' 'You admit it, then?' I never denied it, remember?' She looked towards Westropp.
'Jamie, there hasn't been a day for twenty-seven years that I haven't thought about little Emily.' 'Really?' said Westropp. 'I won't lay claim to quite such a distinguished record.' The true test of the English upper classes is not the blueness of their blood but the coldness of their cut. Westropp's was permafrost. Dalziel saw something in Kohler freeze at its touch. But when she resumed speaking, her voice was at the same quiet monotone. 'The papers made it sound as if there was something deliberate in it, like throwing someone to the chasing wolves. That at least you must have known as absurd. Mr Dalziel, you were there. Did I look as if I were trying to run? Where would I run to?' She turned to him in appeal. She'd chosen the wrong court. He said, 'Oh, you were trying to get away right enough, luv. I saw you flip that canoe over like a matchbox in a bath.' And now the cracks began to show, as her face screwed up in an effort at memory and then came apart like a weakened dam as the memories poured through. She said, 'I just wanted to be somewhere quiet and think… and the children were so good… they fell asleep in the heat… and there was only me and the willow branches and the sunlight dappling through… and it was almost like I could hide in there forever. Then suddenly there was this voice. It bellowed my name, it seemed to come booming across the water like thunder. And I knew then there was nowhere to hide. I paddled out from under the trees. The voice called again. I could see the margin of the lake was lined with figures… black silhouettes like a frieze around an urn – and I couldn't face them…' Now there were tears, flowing like the first in all those years. But the voice somehow remained quiet and even. 'You were right, Mr Dalziel, I was trying to escape. Can you believe I forgot about the children? There was just me and the voice and this one figure above all at the end of the jetty, and the water.
Cool, dark, deep. I went over and in. Then I remembered the children.
I started searching… I could see nothing… I glimpsed something sinking, turning… I didn't know it was Pip, I just grabbed him and came up… the canoe was upside down, there was nowhere to put him while I dived for Emily… Pip was spluttering in my arms and trying to cry… the water erupted beside me and this man came up holding Emily, and for a moment I felt such joy, everything else was forgotten… then I saw her face… and I saw your face… it was you, wasn't it, Mr Dalziel?' 'Oh yes. It were me,' said Dalziel.
She nodded. 'I've often seen your face in my dreams,' she said. ‘It's the kiddie's face I remember,' said Dalziel grimly. The tears had stopped as suddenly as they'd begun. She spoke again to Westropp.
'I've never remembered that properly before. There was a time in the beginning when I genuinely could remember almost nothing. Except that I needed no longer worry about making a decision. I was willing to write anything the police wanted me to write. There's a sort of selfishness in doing something for love, isn't there? But self doesn't come into it in the same way when what you're doing is expiation.' “Expiation?' echoed Westropp, mockery in his voice to hide his pain. That's right. I've learned all the long words. Remember you used to laugh at me, saying that Americans only used long words when short ones would do? Well, now I've had time to get me a proper English education.' ‘I wasn't commenting on your remarkable vocabulary, merely trying to catch your drift.' Dalziel was suddenly sick of both her soul-searching and his cold control. He said, 'Look, luv, we're both a bit short on time, him 'cos he's going to snuff it, me 'cos I want me lunch. So why not spit it out, whatever you've come here to say?' They both turned to him, momentarily united in shock and Marilou Bellmain who had not stirred these several minutes took an angry step forward.
The doorbell rang. 'Saved by the bell,' said Dalziel. Marilou shouldered past him and went into the entrance hall. They heard the front door open. 'Pip!' said Marilou. 'I'm glad you've come.' Then, her tone modulating from genuine to formal welcome, 'And John too. How nice.' 'We met at the gate,' said a young man's voice. 'How 's Dad?'
'Fine. He's got visitors so maybe you should…' But her stepson had already moved by her into the doorway. 'Dad, hi…' he began.
Then his eyes registered Dalziel and Kohler and the smile froze on his lips. 'What the hell are you two doing here?' Dalziel regarded him with interest. Seen in this context he was unmistakably Westropp's son, the same thin features, the same dark good looks. He was also the young mugger Dalziel had knocked out in his New York hotel, the young CIA man who'd stolen Kohler's Bible. But the surprises weren't finished. 'Pip, it's OK, calm down,' said Westropp. 'John, good to see you. You're looking well.' Behind Philip Westropp, Jay Waggs had appeared. Kohler looked from him to Westropp and back again. 'John?' she said. 'Who the hell are you? What's going on?' Waggs said, 'I would have told you before we came if you hadn't jumped the gun. I might even have caught up with you but I got sort of held up.' He smiled faintly at Dalziel who was scratching his ursine neck in the same way a cat starts washing itself to show the world it's not in the least surprised. 'So who am I? Hell, Ciss, you've dandled me in your arms! And I told you true, Mr Dalziel, when I said I was mixed up in this business out of family loyalty. You got the wrong family, was all. That's right. I'm John Petersen, Pam Petersen's boy, and I've come to visit my poor sick stepdaddy in the hope that I may find out at last exactly who it was killed my dear dead mother.'
FOUR
'In the day when all these things are to be answered for, I summon you and yours… to answer for them.' The least surprised person in the room seemed to be Cissy Kohler. She nodded as if in confirmation of Waggs's statement and said, 'You never felt like kin but you felt familiar.' 'You took me in the park a few times,' said Waggs. 'I was five or six. I fell in love with you. Don't worry. I got over it after I decided it was really your fault when my mother dumped me and took off to England with step- daddy here and the squalling brats.' 'We left you because you'd just started school and it seemed silly to uproot you till I knew where my next posting would be,' said Westropp. 'I explained all that.' 'So you did. A great explainer, my stepfather,' said Waggs, addressing Dalziel. 'You've been in touch all these years?' said the Fat Man. 'No. Not directly. My Aunt Tessa who brought me up told me my mother had died in an accident and that my stepfather lived a long, long way away, but still sent money to help with my upbringing. I didn't find the truth till I was in my teens.'
'And what was the truth?' asked Dalziel after a pause in which he assessed that the others were quite happy to leave him in the interrogator's chair till they collected their wits. 'Might as well ask, what was the time?' said Waggs. 'That's one thing I learned in Hollywood. But back in Ann Arbor in the 'seventies, truth was that Mom had been murdered by Cissy here and some English creep. And the other English creep who took her away paid a bit of conscience money through a Washington lawyer.' 'John, I thought this was settled between us long ago,' said Westropp. 'What's happened to change things? Do I gather you had something to do with getting Cissy released?' 'You could say that.' 'But why…?' 'Hang about,' said Dalziel. 'Me, I'm a tits-first man, everything in its proper order. What did you do when you found out this truth?' He glared at Cissy Kohler as if defying her to deny that the truth had been found, but she made no effort to speak. 'I'd always been a bit wild. Now I had a reason, so I guess I did the whole mixed-up teenager bit. As well as all the usual stuff, I started using my old name, my real name, John Petersen instead of Jay Waggs. I must've been a real pain. I guess my aunt was glad to see me go to college. I messed about there, changing courses, trying anything and everything, not knowing what the hell I was doing.
I found it useful having two names though, one backed up by a birth certificate, the other by the adoption documents my aunt and John Waggs took out on me. It meant you could put a bit of space between you and your screw-ups. There were times when I even acted as my own referee and credit reference!' So you were a right brainless young shit,' said Dalziel. And you decided to make contact with Westropp here so's you could tap him for a bit of money, right?' 'No!' exploded Waggs. 'It wasn't like that. There was a car pile-up. Aunt Tessa and old John got killed. I didn't realize how much I needed them. John was so laid back, didn't give a fuck about anything I did as long as I didn't wreck the car. Ironic, huh? But I really liked him. No pressure. As for Aunt Tessa… You know, I used to call her mom till she told me what really happened, then I stopped. God, that must have hurt her. What a shitty thing to do. When I wake up in the night and start feeling rotten about things, that's always the first thing in my mind. I stopped calling her mom.' 'Bloody hell!' said Dalziel.
'No wonder you buggers don't win everything any more. You've gone beyond contemplating your navels, you've got your heads stuck up your own arseholes.' Westropp said, 'You're sure you're not from the Foreign Office, Mr Dalziel? I can confirm John's statement. His motive in contacting me wasn't financial. Not the first time anyway.' He glanced at his stepson and raised what would have been a quizzical eyebrow if the chemotherapy had left him
