young chap? I didn’t relish him much, he acted too high and mighty for me. He made no offer – not in my hearing – but he was disappointed when Bob said he wasn’t set on selling, and he spoke pretty sharpish to Bob until his wife shut him up.’
‘His wife!’
Hannaford smiled. ‘Well, I wouldn’t swear to that – he showed me no marriage lines – but I reckon it was his wife or, maybe his sister, perhaps.’
‘Did he give a name?’
‘That he did. Now, what was it? Hall? No, that’s not it. Steadman? Nooo. Wait a minute and I’ll get it.’ His big red face contorted with the effort of remembering and suddenly smoothed out. ‘Halstead – that was it. Halstead was the name. He gave your brother his card – I remember that. He said he’d get in touch again when the tray was valued. Bob said he was wasting his time and that’s when he lost his temper.’
I said, ‘Anything else you remember about it?’
Hannaford shook his head. That’s about all there was to it. Oh, Mr Gatt did say he was a collector of pieces like that. One of these rich American millionaires, I expect.’
I thought that rich Americans seemed to be thick on the ground around the Cott. ‘When did this happen?’ I asked.
Hannaford rubbed his jaw. ‘Let me see – it was after they printed about it in the Western Morning News; two days after, to my best recollection. That’ud make it five days ago, so it was Tuesday.’
I said, ‘Thank you, Mr Hannaford. The police might be interested in this, you know.’
‘I’ll tell them all I’ve told you,’ he said earnestly, and put his hand on my sleeve. ‘When’s the funeral to be? I’d like to be there to pay my respects.’
I hadn’t thought of that; too much had happened in too short a time. I said, ‘I don’t know when it will be. There’ll have to be an inquest first.’
‘Of course,’ said Hannaford. ‘Best thing to do would be to tell Nigel as soon as you’re sure, and he’ll let me know. And others, too. Bob Wheale was well liked around here.’
‘I’ll do that.’
We went back into the bar and Nigel caught my eye. I put my tankard on the bar counter and he nodded across the room. ‘That’s the Yank who is staying here now. Fallon.’
I turned and saw a preternaturally thin man sitting near to the fire holding a whisky glass. He was about sixty years of age, his head was gaunt and fleshless and his skin tanned to the colour of well worn leather. As I watched he seemed to shiver and he drew his chair closer to the fire.
I turned back to Nigel, who said, ‘He told me he spends a lot of time in Mexico. He doesn’t like the English climate – he thinks it’s too cold.’
IV
I spent that night alone at Hay Tree Farm. Perhaps I should have stayed at the Cott and saved myself a lot of misery, but I didn’t. Instead I wandered through the silent rooms, peopled with the shadowy figures of memories, and grew more and more depressed.
I was the last of the Wheales – there was no one else. No uncles or aunts or cousins, no sisters or brothers – just me. This echoing, empty house, creaking with the centuries, had witnessed a vast procession down the years – a pageant of Wheales – Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian. The little patch of England around the house had been sweated over by Wheales for more than four centuries in good times and bad, and now it all sharpened down to a single point – me. Me – a grey little man in a grey little job.
It wasn’t fair!
I found myself standing in Bob’s room. The bed was still dishevelled where I had whipped away the blankets to cover him and I straightened it almost automatically, smoothing down the counterpane. His dressing-table was untidy, as it always had been, and stuck in the crack up one side of the mirror was his collection of unframed photographs – one of our parents, one of me, one of Stalwart, the big brute of a horse that was his favourite mount, and a nice picture of Elizabeth. I pulled that one down to get a better look and something fluttered to the top of the dressing-table.
I picked it up. It was Halstead’s card which Hannaford had spoken of. I looked at it listlessly. Paul Halstead. Avenida Quintillana 1534. Mexico City.
The telephone rang, startlingly loud, and I picked it up to hear the dry voice of Mr Mount. ‘Hello, Jeremy,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d tell you that you have no need to worry about the funeral arrangements. I’ll take care of all that for you.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, and then choked up.
‘Your father and I were very good friends,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I’ve ever told you that if he hadn’t married your mother, then I might have done so.’ He rang off and the phone went dead.
I slept that night in my own room, the room I had always had ever since I was a boy. And I cried myself to sleep as I had not done since I was a boy.
It was only at the inquest that I found out the name of the dead man. It was Victor Niscemi, and he was an American national.
The proceedings didn’t take long. First, there was a formal evidence of identification, then I told the story of how I had found the body of Niscemi and my brother dying in the farmhouse kitchen. Dave Goosan then stepped up and gave the police evidence, and the gold tray and the shotguns were offered as exhibits.
The coroner wrapped it up very quickly and the verdict on Niscemi was that he had been killed in self defence by Robert Blake Wheale. The verdict on Bob was that he had been murdered by Victor Niscemi and a person or persons unknown.
I saw Dave Goosan in the narrow cobbled street outside the Guildhall where the inquest had taken place. He jerked his head at two thick-set men who were walking away. ‘From Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘This is in their bailiwick now. They come in on anything that might be international.’
‘You mean, because Niscemi was an American.’
‘That’s right. I’ll tell you something else, Jemmy. He had form on the other side of the Atlantic. Petty thieving and robbery with violence. Not much.’
‘Enough to do for Bob,’ I said viciously.
Dave sighed in exasperated agreement. ‘To tell you the truth, there’s a bit of a mystery about this. Niscemi was never much of a success as a thief; he never had any money. Sort of working class, if you know what I mean. He certainly never had the money to take a trip over here – not unless he’d pulled off something bigger than usual for him. And nobody can see why he came to England. He’d be like a fish out of water, just the same as a Bermondsey burglar would be in New York. Still, it’s being followed up.’
‘What did Smith find out about Halstead and Gatt, the Yanks I turned up?’
Dave
