Kemp disliked talking to any man’s back so he opened the study door and walked into the hall, leaving Frobisher no alternative but to follow. Eventually he did so, but with reluctance.
‘I like your taste in houses, Mr Kemp, like your choice of books, old-fashioned but very correct. A good image for a solicitor … Can’t afford a blot on the escutcheon. Leatown, wasn’t it?’
If it was meant as a disabling shot it misfired – Kemp was ready for it.
‘A good reporter does his homework, Mr Frobisher, and I can see you’ve done yours. But that story’s been dead for twenty years, and if you’re thinking of bringing it back to life I would remind you of the little matter of difference between libel as a tort and libel as a criminal offence. You’re a well-read man, Mr Frobisher, so I shall detain you no further on the subject – nor on any other.’
‘No offence meant, squire – and none taken, I hope. Homework always was a bind but it had to be done. From what I gathered, you had a rough time of it back then … And you’ve helped put away a few villains since you came to Newtown. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that.’ There was even a hint of admiration in Frobisher’s voice as he flipped out a card. ‘Call me any time.’
‘Thanks.’
Slightly mollified, Kemp took the card as he opened the front door.
‘That’s a fine new bit of timber you’ve got there, but it’s not a patch on the old one,’ Frobisher remarked as he went down the step. ‘Some say we need neighbourhood-watch schemes … Newtown’s always had ’em, neighbours watching robberies like it was television only not so exciting …’
Though cynical, the observation was apt. Kemp had also found the people of Newtown anxious to keep themselves to themselves, like the three monkeys, when it came to cooperation with the forces of law and order, an attitude which did little to diminish the crime figures.
He thought of this, and of other things, as he closed the door and went back to his study to ponder on the interview. Was Daniel Frobisher as smart as he made out, or had he merely picked up a few tricks of investigative journalism with which to dazzle the natives? At his age he should have wider scope than his present job on a local weekly mostly given over to weddings and obituaries, and only occasionally enlivened by reported rows in the council chamber.
‘He was thorough,’ Kemp told Mary over lunch. ‘I’ll say that in his favour.’
‘Thoroughly bad.’ Mary held to a definite opinion. ‘I didn’t like him one bit.’
‘You hardly saw him.’
‘I saw enough. He gave me a passing glance and decided I wasn’t pretty enough to bother with …’
‘He didn’t get as far as your ankles. Anyway, you can’t blame him for simply overlooking you. I wouldn’t want someone like him taking an interest.’
‘Neither would I. It’s lucky for you, Lennox, that you married a plain woman. Those who are fair of face have significance for men, they start wondering where the husband got hold of her and what’s she like in bed.’
Kemp watched his wife as she peeled an apple. Everything Mary Madeleine did she did with the same quiet intentness, as if all that mattered was the here and now. She was the most concentrated person he had ever met. Yet she could let her mind fly, and her words, too, when the fancy caught her as it had just done.
‘Do you know who he’s married to?’ she said.
‘I never thought to ask.’
‘Amy Robsart.’
‘Not Leicester’s love? Shut up in Cumnor Hall so lone and drear?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Mary went on cutting up her apple. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Amy’s the daughter of the Robsarts at the corner shop where we get our papers.’
Kemp had to shift gear to keep up with her.
‘Someone else has been doing their homework … How did you come by this gem?’
‘I was paying our account when Mrs Robsart did a tut-tut about that item in the Gazette. Terrible thing, Mr Kemp getting them poison-pen letters … So I said we’d a Mr Frobisher in the house right now helping us with our enquiries. Don’t they call that a euphemism?’
‘They do, and it’s got nothing to do with euphony, which means harmony.’ He knew Mary’s concern for the niceties of the English language, a topic barely skimmed in her American school – admittedly a fairly low-grade one where her attendance had been erratic. Coming late to academic learning, she was saved from error by natural wit and from pretensions by wide experience of life at ground level. She thought of herself as a slow thinker; in Kemp’s view she could outstrip the field if the stakes were the survival of the fittest.
‘Well, there was little harmony in the Robsart household when Mr Frobisher seduced their youngest a few years back. Apparently he fought shy of fatherhood but Mr Robsart’s an ex-boxer himself so the nuptials duly took place. Naturally, it’s no good word they’re saying of their son-in-law.’
‘How did you get all that out of Mrs Robsart? She’s always been pretty taciturn with me.’
Mary considered it for a moment, then she said: ‘People in Newtown don’t know how to place me – in the English sense – so, because I’m ordinary, and nothing much to look at, they take me as one of themselves … They like to talk and I’m a good listener.’
And you have the common touch, thought Kemp. Loving her as he did, he meant nothing derogatory, rather that it was an attribute too rarely given the place it deserved. He had had it once himself when he had been struck off by the Law Society and the only job he could get was as an enquiry agent in the East End of London. He wouldn’t have survived for long in Walthamstow had he lacked the common touch.
‘And I got more …’ said Mary, as she piled the plates neatly, one on top of the other. ‘I was asking Mrs Robsart about the times her boys deliver the papers in the morning, and she told me one of the lads saw a person at our door last Thursday about half past seven but they scuttled off so fast he couldn’t say whether it was man or boy, or even a girl … What it is, there’s a bit of rivalry in the paper rounds, the newsagents from up in the town trying to butt in. The Robsarts get up in arms if they think there’s poaching on their ground so the paperboys are told to report back if they see anything …’
‘Why the hell didn’t they tell the police?’
‘Oh, Lennox, when will you ever learn? They don’t talk to the police. Some of the lads, they’ll be underage … But they’re desperate for the job.’
‘All the same, I’ll pass the word … Might get a description. Boys have bright eyes.’
‘They’ll keep them skinned in future; Mrs Robsart, she’ll see to that. All this one got was a glimpse of a flapping raincoat and a cap pulled down over the ears.’
‘Still, it’s better than nothing. Tell your tale to John when he comes this evening, and I’ll give him those letters handed over by our friend, Frobisher.’
‘Let me have a look at them when I’ve finished the washing-up.’
‘They’re not the most dangerous,’ she decided, when Kemp had spread them out on the study table. Nevertheless, she shuddered. ‘I hate to think of that Paul Pry reading them, especially that bit …’
She pointed to it:
You was found wanting once before. Sticky fingers in the till, wasn’t it? You got six years for that. Nothing to what you’ll get from me one dark night …