dark eyes, but nevertheless intensely English. Perhaps there was something of the woman he knew as Natalie Arno in the broad brow and pointed chin.
‘She had cancer. She was only forty-five when she died. It was a terrible blow to my poor brother-in-law. He sold their house in Pomfret and built that one in Kingsmarkham and called it Sterries. Sterries is the name of the village in Derbyshire where my parents had their country place. Kathleen and Manuel first met there.’
Camargue and his wife were together among the photographs on the table. Arm-in-arm, walking along some Mediterranean sea front; seated side by side on a low wall in an English garden; in a group with a tall woman so like Camargue that she had to be his sister, and with two small dark-haired smiling girls. A ray of sunlight, obliquely slanted at three on a winter’s afternoon, fell upon the handsome moustached face of a man in the uniform of a colonel of the Grenadier Guards. Rupert Mountnessing, no doubt. A little bemused by so many faces, Wexford turned away.
‘Did Sir Manuel go to the United States after your niece went to live there?’
‘Not to see her . I think he went there on a tour – yes, I’m sure he did, though it must be ten or twelve years since he gave up playing. His arthritis crippled him, poor Manuel. We saw very little of each other in recent years, but I was fond of him, he was a sweet man. I would have gone to the memorial service but Miranda wouldn’t let me. She didn’t want me to risk bronchitis in that terrible cold.’
Mrs Mountnessing, it seemed, was willing to talk about any aspect of family life except her niece. She sat down again, blinking back non-existent tears, held ramrod stiff by her corset. Wexford persisted.
‘He went on a tour. Did he make any private visits?’
‘He may have done.’ She said it in the way people do when they dodge the direct affirmative but don’t want to lie.
‘But he didn’t visit his daughter while he was there?’
‘California’s three thousand miles from the east coast,’ she said, ‘it’s as far again as from here.’
Wexford shook his head dismissively. ‘I don’t understand that for nineteen years Sir Manuel never saw his daughter. It’s not as if he was a poor man or a man who never travelled. If he had been a vindictive man, a man to bear a grudge – but everyone tells me how nice he was, how kind, how good. I might say I’d had golden opinions from all sorts of people. Yet for nineteen years he never made an effort to see his only child and allegedly all because she ran away from college and married someone he didn’t know.’
She said so quietly that Wexford hardly heard her, ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Her voice gained a little strength but it was full of distress. ‘He wrote to her – oh, ever so many times. When my sister was very ill, was in fact dying, he wrote to her and asked her to come home. I don’t know if she answered but she didn’t come. My sister died and she didn’t come. Manuel made a new will and wrote to her, telling her he was leaving her everything because it was right she should have his money and her mother’s. She didn’t answer and he gave up writing.’
I wonder how you come to know that? he asked himself, looking at the crumpled profile, the chin that now trembled.
‘I’m telling you all this,’ said Mrs Mountnessing, ‘to make you understand that my niece is cruel, cruel, a cruel unfeeling girl and violent too. She even struck her mother once. Did you know that?’ The note in her voice grew hysterical and Wexford, watching the blinking eyes, the fingers clasping and unclasping in her lap, wished he had not mentioned the estrangement. ‘She’s a nymphomaniac too. Worse than that, it doesn’t matter to her who the men are, her own relations, it’s too horrible to talk about, it’s too . . .’
He interrupted her gently. He got up to go. ‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Mountnessing. I can’t see a sign of
‘She had cancer. She was only forty-five when she died. It was a terrible blow to my poor brother-in-law. He sold their house in Pomfret and built that one in Kingsmarkham and called it Sterries. Sterries is the name of the village in Derbyshire where my parents had their country place. Kathleen and Manuel first met there.’
Camargue and his wife were together among the photographs on the table. Arm-in-arm, walking along some Mediterranean sea front; seated side by side on a low wall in an English garden; in a group with a tall woman so like Camargue that she had to be his sister, and with two small dark-haired smiling girls. A ray of sunlight, obliquely slanted at three on a winter’s afternoon, fell upon the handsome moustached face of a man in the uniform of a colonel of the Grenadier Guards. Rupert Mountnessing, no doubt. A little bemused by so many faces, Wexford turned away.
‘Did Sir Manuel go to the United States after your niece went to live there?’
‘Not to see her . I think he went there on a tour – yes, I’m sure he did, though it must be ten or twelve years since he gave up playing. His arthritis crippled him, poor Manuel. We saw very little of each other in recent years, but I was fond of him, he was a sweet man. I would have gone to the memorial service but Miranda wouldn’t let me. She didn’t want me to risk bronchitis in that terrible cold.’
Mrs Mountnessing, it seemed, was willing to talk about any aspect of family life except her niece. She sat down again, blinking back non-existent tears, held ramrod stiff by her corset. Wexford persisted.
‘He went on a tour. Did he make any private visits?’
‘He may have done.’ She said it in the way people do when they dodge the direct affirmative but don’t want to lie.
‘But he didn’t visit his daughter while he was there?’
‘California’s three thousand miles from the east coast,’ she said, ‘it’s as far again as from here.’
Wexford shook his head dismissively. ‘I don’t understand that for nineteen years Sir Manuel never saw his daughter. It’s not as if he was a poor man or a man who never travelled. If he had been a vindictive man, a man to bear a grudge – but everyone tells me how nice he was, how kind, how good. I might say I’d had golden opinions from all sorts of people. Yet for nineteen years he never made an effort to see his only child and allegedly all because she ran away from college and married someone he didn’t know.’
She said so quietly that Wexford hardly heard her, ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Her voice gained a little strength but it was full of distress. ‘He wrote to her – oh, ever so many times. When my sister was very ill, was in fact dying, he wrote to her and asked her to come home. I don’t know if she answered but she didn’t come. My sister died and she didn’t come. Manuel made a new will and wrote to her, telling her he was leaving her everything because it was right she should have his money and her mother’s. She didn’t answer and he gave up writing.’
I wonder how you come to know that? he asked himself, looking at the crumpled profile, the chin that now trembled.
‘I’m telling you all this,’ said Mrs Mountnessing, ‘to make you understand that my niece is cruel, cruel, a cruel unfeeling girl and violent too. She even struck her mother once. Did you know that?’ The note in her voice grew hysterical and Wexford, watching the blinking eyes, the fingers clasping and unclasping in her lap, wished he had not mentioned the estrangement. ‘She’s a nymphomaniac too. Worse than that, it doesn’t matter to her who the men are, her own relations, it’s too horrible to talk about, it’s too . . .’
He interrupted her gently. He got up to go. ‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Mountnessing. I can’t see a sign of
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