‘Have a good journey,’ he said, and replaced the receiver.
A few minutes later Kenneth Mallinson picked up his overnight bag and let himself out of the flat. No wife to smile a farewell on the threshold. He had never felt the impulse to marry. The deep channels of his emotions had always been directed towards his mother, the youthful energies of his affections had spent themselves in trying to ease the silent unhappiness of her existence, to make up to her in some tiny measure for the huge error of her marriage to Henry Mallinson, a man whose cold strong nature could not even begin to comprehend how a woman with a warm and loving nature might shrivel and wither from simple lack of the caressing hand of love.
It had taken Kenneth years to recover from his mother’s death – if he had ever truly recovered. He had come in the end to accept the fact that she was gone, that things hadn’t after all come right for her, that she had died at last from nothing more complicated than a broken heart. By the time he had contrived to construct a shield of armour around his inner turmoils, he was approaching forty and as far as marriage was concerned it was already too late.
He eased the car out on to the main road and pointed it towards the south, towards Rockley and Whitegates. I suppose I’ll have to see David, he thought, staring out through the windscreen. And that wife of his, Carole.
He had seen the photographs in the newspapers, the pretty, fair-haired girl standing demurely smiling beside her new husband. Father would like a daughter-in-law like that, he thought, a quiet, compliant girl, one who would fall in with his wishes, play her part in the Mallinson scheme of things, provide him in due course with grandchildren to carry on the family business long after he was dead and gone.
The early-morning traffic began to thicken. As he drove through the outskirts of a town he saw the first sleepy shopkeepers beginning to raise the blinds, to attack the windows with wash-leathers and buckets of water.
‘Thirty pounds!’ Tim Jefford stared at the proprietor of the tiny shop with horrified disbelief. ‘Thirty pounds for one miserable coin!’
‘Guineas,’ said the proprietor smoothly. ‘Thirty guineas. You won’t do better elsewhere. Fine condition and a rarity of course. You’d be hard put to it to find another like it in the whole of London.’ He didn’t waste time addressing the wild-looking young man as Sir. Hardly likely that a fellow like that, greasy jeans and a shirt very little acquainted with the wash, would spend thirty guineas on a Roman coin. He yawned delicately into his hand.
‘Twenty-five pounds,’ Tim said desperately. ‘Not a penny more.’ No use in buying anything cheaper, the coin had to be a rarity if it was to serve any purpose at all.
The shop-keeper flicked up his eyes with new interest.
‘Twenty-seven pounds ten,’ he said briskly.
‘Twenty-five,’ Tim repeated, regretting now that he hadn’t started bidding at twenty. ‘I’ve only got twenty-five.’
‘Twenty-five it is,’ the shop-keeper said at once, recognizing the truth when he heard it. The fellow thrust his hand into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a fistful of notes, a scattering of coins. When he had counted out the money there were only the coins left on the counter, a few shillings at most. Paint-stains on the long fingers with their grimy nails. A sudden access of sentimentality took the shopkeeper by surprise, carrying him back all at once to the far-off days of his own youth, to his stall in the street market, his poverty-stricken cronies for ever dabbing at canvases with oils, for ever tapping out their immortal novels on ancient typewriters, hacking in unquenchable optimism at great lumps of stone.
‘You can have it for twenty-two pounds ten,’ he said abruptly, astounded at his own folly. The fellow looked as if he hadn’t eaten three good meals a day since he’d left home, whenever that might have been.
Tim snatched back the two pounds ten before the shopkeeper could change his mind.
‘Thanks,’ he said with a grin. ‘You’ve saved my life. Could you put the coin in a box? Something impressive-looking?’
The man nodded and groped on the shelf behind him, restraining himself with difficulty from enquiring why his customer should be willing to spend every pound he had on a coin of a long-dead empire.
And now for the public library, Tim thought, standing on the pavement again. A book about coins, two or three books perhaps. He’d have to study them on the way to Rockley, pore over them in his room at the pub, if he was going to be able to make any kind of showing with old Mallinson.
He walked along the busy street, whistling. A dark grey suit – he knew a lad who still had a dark grey suit, hadn’t yet parted with it for a few pounds to a second-hand shop. And he knew where he could borrow a couple of near-white shirts. And a decent suitcase. Pyjamas, he remembered suddenly. Better have a pair of pyjamas. He frowned and ceased his whistling. He’d better try and lay hands on a dressing-gown too.
He glanced down at his shabby shoes. A dead giveaway those shoes. He let out a long breath of dismay. Things were getting a trifle more complicated than he’d bargained for. Who on earth did he know with a newish pair of shoes? And a second pair to wear while he lent Tim the newish ones? One of his friends might know some college kid, some lad still with the remnants of his parent-bestowed wardrobe. He couldn’t afford to be too fussy about the size.
His face took on a grim expression as he turned into the public library, envisaging the long agony of the next few days with his tortured feet squeezed into size seven or slopping awkwardly around in number tens.
Life isn’t merely a battlefield, he thought, going up to the crowded shelves. It’s a ruddy massacre.
‘I HAVE TIME for a quick cup of coffee,’ Richard Knight said, smiling at Gina. He would never do more than smile at her in front of the maid who had answered his ring at the door and who was still hovering in the hall, giving the secretary an enquiring glance. The servants at Whitegates were by now all quite certain that romance was brewing between Miss Thorson and Dr Burnett’s young partner. They viewed the developing situation without envy, with interest and pleasure. A pleasant young woman, Gina Thorson, one who had seen hard times somewhere, not a girl to give herself airs with the domestic staff – not like Mr David’s wife up at Tall Trees, who fancied herself more than somewhat in spite of the fact that she had apparently sprung from nowhere at exactly the right moment to catch Mr David and marry him.
‘Could we have some coffee, please?’ Gina smiled at the maid, making an ally of her, as was her way. ‘Dr Knight hasn’t much time.’
‘Certainly, Miss Right away.’ The girl disappeared in the direction of the kitchen quarters.
‘I’m just off on my rounds,’ Richard said. He slid an arm round Gina’s waist and dropped a light kiss on her cheek. She was aware as always of a slight distance between them. Until his ring was actually on her finger he would always treat her with a trace of reserve and formality. ‘How’s the old man?’ he asked, walking up to the great fireplace and looking down at the logs burning in the grate.
Gina followed him. ‘He seems to be doing very well. He’s getting restless, I suppose that’s a good sign.’ Richard gave a little nod. ‘Doctor Burnett was in earlier this morning, Mr Mallinson was pestering him to let him get up.’
Richard raised his head. ‘And is he going to let him?’
‘Yes, for a very short time this afternoon, Mrs Parkes said. Just to sit in a chair in his room. I don’t suppose that will satisfy him for long, though.’
The maid came in with the tray of coffee. Gina began to pour it out. ‘Kenneth Mallinson is here,’ she said. ‘Did you know?’
‘I knew he’d been sent for, I didn’t know whether or not he’d arrived.’
Gina