'No, not really. I was just wondering about him. It's like being tone deaf. Some people can't really feel any pangs of guilt or remorse, or even regret for their actions. Jacko didn't.'
'No,' said Leo, 'Jacko certainly didn't.'
'And I wondered about Micky,' said Philip. He paused, and then went on in a detached voice. 'Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir? How much really do you know about the background of all this adopted family of yours?'
'Why do you want to know, Philip?'
'Just curiosity, I suppose. One always wonders, you know, how much there is in heredity.'
Leo did not answer. Philip observed him with bright-eyed interest. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'I'm bothering you asking these questions.'
'Well,' said Leo, rising, 'after all, why shouldn't you ask them? You're one of the family. They are at the moment, one can't disguise it, very pertinent questions to ask. But our family, as you put it, were not adopted in the usual regular sense of the term. Mary, your wife, was formally and legally adopted, but the others came to us in a much more informal manner. Jacko was an orphan and was handed over to us by an old grandmother. She was killed in the blitz and he stayed with us. It was as simple as that. Micky was illegitimate. His mother was only interested in men. She wanted 100 down and got it. We've never known what happened to Tina's mother. She never wrote to the child, she never claimed her after the war, and it was quite impossible to trace her.'
'And Hester?'
'Hester was illegitimate too. Her mother was a young Irish hospital nurse. She married an American G.I. shortly after Hester came to us. She begged us to keep the child. She did not propose to tell her husband anything about its birth. She went to the States with her husband at the end of the war and we've never heard any more from her.'
'All tragic histories in a way,' said Philip. 'All poor unwanted little devils.'
'Yes,' said Leo. 'That's what made Rachel feel so passionately about them all. She was determined to make them feel wanted, to give them a real home, be a real mother to them.'
'It was a fine thing to do,' said Philip.
'Only — only it can never work out exactly as she hoped it might,' said Leo. 'It was an article of faith with her that the blood tie didn't matter. But the blood tie does matter, you know. There is usually something in one's own children, some kink of temperament, some way of feeling that you recognise and can understand without having to put into words. You haven't got that tie with children you adopt. One has no instinctive knowledge of what goes on in their minds. You judge them, of course, by yourself, by your own thoughts and feelings, but it's wise to recognise that those thoughts and feelings may be very widely divergent from theirs.'
'You understood that, I suppose, all along,' said Philip.
'I warned Rachel about it,' said Leo, 'but of course she didn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She wanted them to be her own children.'
'Tina's always the dark horse, to my mind,' said Philip. 'Perhaps it's the half of her that isn't white. Who was the father, do you know?'
'He was a seaman of some kind, I believe. Possibly a Lascar. The mother,' added Leo dryly, 'was unable to say.'
'One doesn't know how she reacts to things, or what she thinks about. She says so little.' Philip paused, and then shot out a question: 'What does she know about this business that she isn't telling?'
He saw Leo Argyle's hand, that had been turning over papers, stop. There was a moment's pause, and then Leo said: 'Why should you think she isn't telling everything she knows?'
'Come now, sir, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?'
'It's not obvious to me,' said Leo.
She knows something,' said Philip. 'Something damaging, do you think, about some particular person?'
'I think, Philip, if you'll forgive me for saying so, that it is rather unwise to speculate about these things. One can easily imagine so much.'
'Are you warning me off, sir?' 'Is it really your business, Philip?' 'Meaning I'm not a policeman?'
'Yes, that's what I meant. Police have to do their duty. They have to enquire into things.'
'And you don't want to enquire into them?' 'Perhaps,' said Leo, 'I'm afraid of what I should find.'
Philip's hand tightened excitedly in his chair. He said softly: 'Perhaps you know who did it. Do you, sir?'
'No.'
The abruptness and vigour of Leo's reply startled Philip.
'No,' said Leo, bringing his hand down on the desk. He was suddenly no longer the frail, attenuated, withdrawn personality that Philip knew so well. 'I don't know who did it! D'you hear? I don't know. I haven't the least idea. I don't –1 don't want to know.'
Chapter 17
'And what are you doing, Hester, my love?' asked Philip.
In his wheeled-chair he was propelling himself along the passage. Hester was leaning out of the window half-way along it. She started and drew her head in.
'Oh, it's you,' she said.
'Are you observing the universe, or considering suicide?' asked Philip.
She looked at him defiantly.
'What makes you say a thing like that?'
'Obviously it was in your mind,' said Philip. 'But, frankly, Hester, if you are contemplating such a step, that window is no good. The drop's not deep enough. Think how unpleasant it would be for you with a broken arm and a broken leg, say, instead of the merciful oblivion you are craving?'
'Micky used to climb down the magnolia tree from this window. It was his secret way in and out. Mother never knew.'
'The things parents never know! One could write a book about it. But if it's suicide you are contemplating, Hester, just by the summer-house would be a better place to jump from.'
'Where it juts out over the river? Yes, one would be dashed on the rocks below?
'The trouble with you, Hester, is that you're so melodramatic in your imaginings. Most people are quite satisfied with arranging themselves tidily in the gas oven or measuring themselves out an enormous number of sleeping pills.'
'I'm glad you're here,' said Hester unexpectedly. 'You don't mind talking about things, do you?'
'Well, actually, I haven't much else to do nowadays, said Philip. 'Come into my room and we'll do some more talking.' As she hesitated, he went on: 'Mary's downstairs, gone to prepare me some delicious little morning mess with her own fair hands.'
'Mary wouldn't understand,' said Hester.
'No,' Philip agreed, 'Mary wouldn't understand in the least.'
Philip propelled himself along and Hester walked beside him. She opened the door of the sitting-room and he wheeled himself in. Hester followed.
'But you understand,' said Hester. 'Why?'
'Well, there's a time, you know, when one thinks about such things… When this business first happened to me, for instance, and I knew that I might be a cripple for life…'
'Yes,' said Hester, 'that must have been terrible. Terrible. And you were a pilot, too, weren't you? You flew.'
'Up above the world so high, like a tea-tray in the sky,' agreed Philip.
'I'm terribly sorry,' said Hester. 'I am really. I ought to have thought about it more, and been more sympathetic!'
'Thank God you weren't,' said Philip. 'But anyway, that phase is over now. One gets used to anything, you know. That's something, Hester, that you don't appreciate at the moment. But you'll come to it. Unless you do something very rash and very silly first. Now come on, tell me all about it. What's the trouble? I suppose you've had
