nearly all of you have a motive.'
'Irritating,' I agreed.
'That's the wrong word,' he said sourly. 'Where's your father?'
'Safe.'
'You can't stay in hiding for ever.' 'Don't expect to see us for a week or two. What chance is there of your solving the case?'
Enquiries were proceeding, he said with starch. If I came across any further information, I would please give it to him.
Indeed, I said, I would.
'When I was younger,' he said to my surprise, 'I used to think I had a nose for a villain, that I could always tell. But since then, I've met embezzlers I would have trusted my savings to, and murderers I'd have let marry my daughter. Murderers can look like harmless ordinary people.' He paused. 'Does your family know who killed Moira Pembroke?'
'I don't think so.'
'Please enlarge,' he said.
'One or two may suspect they know, but they're not telling. I went to see everyone. No one was even guessing. No one accusing. They don't want to know, don't want to face it, don't want the misery.'
'And you?'
'I don't want the misery either, but I also don't want my father killed, or myself.'
'Do you think you're in danger?'
'Oh, yes,' I said. 'In loco Moira.'
'As chief beneficiary?'
'Something like that. Only I'm not chief, I'm equal. My father made a new will saying so. I've told the family but they don't believe it.'
'Produce the will. Show it to them.'
'Good idea,' I said. 'Thank you.'
'And you,' he paused, 'do you know, yourself?'
'I don't know.'
'Guess, then.'
'Guessing is one thing, proof is another.'
'I might remind you it's your duty…'
'It's not my duty,' I interrupted without heat, 'to go off half- cocked. My duty to my family is to get it right or do nothing.' I said goodbye to him rather firmly and concluded, from his tone as much as his words, that the police had no more information than I had, and perhaps less: that they hadn't managed (if they'd tried) to find out where the grey plastic clock had come from or who had bought it, which was their only lead as far as I could see and a pretty hopeless proposition. It had been a cheap mass-production clock, probably on sale in droves.
Malcolm said on one of our car journeys, after I'd been telling him about Berenice, 'Vivien, you know, had this thing about sons.'
'But she had a boy first. She had two.'
'Yes, but before Donald was born, she said she wouldn't look at the baby if it was a girl. I couldn't understand it. I'd have liked a girl. Vivien's self-esteem utterly depended on having a boy. She was obsessed with it. You'd have thought she'd come from some dreadful tribe where it really mattered.'
'it did matter,' I said. 'And it matters to Berenice. All obsessions matter because of their results.'
'Vivien never loved Lucy, you know,' he said thoughtfully. 'She shoved her away from her. I always thought that was why Lucy got fat and retreated into poetic fantasies.'
'Berenice shoves off her daughters onto her mother as much as she can.'
'Do you think Berenice murdered Moira?' he said doubtfully.
'I think she thinks that having more money would make her happier, which it probably would. If you were going to think of any… er… distribution, I'd give it to the wives as well as the husbands. Separately, I mean. So they had independence.'
'Why?' he said.
'Gervase might value Ursula more if she didn't need him financially.'
'Ursula's a mouse.'
'She's desperate.'
'They're all desperate,' he said with irritation. 'It's all their own faults. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.'
'I dare say,' I said. 'The bell captain at the hotel gave me a tip for the fourth race.' Back to horses.
Another day, another journey. Malcolm said, 'What did Serena say, when you saw her?'
'She said you could stuff your money, or words to that effect.'
Malcolm laughed.
'She also said,' I went on, 'that Alicia told her you'd only tried to get custody of her that time so as to be cruel to Alicia.'
'Alicia's a real bitch.'
'She's got a lover, did you know?' I said.
He was thunderstruck. 'Who is he?'
'Someone else's husband, I should think. That's what she likes, isn't it?'
'Don't be so bloody accurate.'
Further down the road we were talking about the time-switch clocks, which had been an unwelcome piece of news to him also.
'Thomas was best at making them, wasn't he?' Malcolm said. 'He' could do them in a jiffy. They were his idea originally, I think. Serena brought one over for Robin and Peter which Thomas had made for her years ago.'
I nodded. 'A Mickey Mouse clock. It's still there in the playroom.'
'Serena made them a lighthouse of Lego to go with it, I remember.' He sighed deeply. 'I miss Coochie still, you know. The crash happened not long after that.' He shook his head to rid it of sadness. 'What race shall we choose for the Coochie Memorial Trophy? What do you think?'
On another day, I asked why Ferdinand didn't mind being illegitimate when Gervase did, to the brink of breakdown.
'I don't know,' Malcolm Said. 'Gervase always thinks people are sneering and laughing, even now. Someone rubbed his nose in it when he was young, you know. Told him he was rubbish, a mistake, should have been aborted. Boys can be bloody cruel. Gervase got aggressive to compensate, I suppose. Nothing ever worried Ferdinand very much. He's like me in more than looks.'
'Only two wives so far,' I said incautiously.
'Why don't you get married?' he asked.
I was flippant. 'Haven't met the one and only. Don't want five.'
'Don't you trust yourself?' he said.
Christ, I thought ' that was sharp, that was penetrating. That was unfair. It was because of him that I didn't trust myself: because in inconstancy, I felt I was very much his son. His imprint, for better or worse, was on us all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On Wednesday, the Beverly Wilshire came alive as Ramsey had prophesied and Ramsey himself blew in with gusto and plans. We would go to parties. We would go round the horse barns. We would go to a Hollywood Gala Ball.
The Breeders' Cup organisers opened their reception room where everyone concerned with the races could have breakfast and cocktails (together if they liked) and talk about horses, could arrange cars and tickets and talk
