Decider - By Dick Francis Page 0,87

sort of way, but William said young men were put off when they got to know her and she felt more and more rejected and hated everybody, and then she fell for this gypsy and let him have sex with her.’ Perdita shrugged, sighing. ‘William said he wasn’t even a proper Romany, just a rough wanderer with a police record for thieving. William said he couldn’t understand Hannah, but it was low self-esteem, dear. Low self-esteem.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, she got pregnant, of course. And this gypsy, he knew a good thing when it was shoved under his nose. He turned up on Keith’s doorstep demanding money, else he’d go round the village telling everyone how he’d got Keith’s posh daughter in the family way, and Keith knocked him down and kicked him and burst one of his kidneys.’

Hell, I thought, I’d been lucky.

‘Keith told William. Those three boys always loaded their troubles onto their father. William paid off the gypsy, and it cost ten times as much as the gypsy had been asking from Keith in the first place.’

‘Dire,’ I said.

‘So Jack was born, and he didn’t have much chance either of growing up decent. Hannah dotes on him. William, of course, paid and paid for his upbringing.’

‘William told you all this?’

‘Oh yes, dear. Not all at once, like I told you. In little bits. Sort of squeezed out of him, over the years. He would come to me very tired of them all, and unburden some of his thoughts, and we’d have a little gin and – if he felt like it, well, you know, dear – and he’d say he felt better, and go off home

She sighed deeply for times past.

‘Conrad,’ she said surprisingly, ‘years ago, he got addicted to heroin.’

‘Can’t believe it!’

Perdita nodded. ‘When he was young. Kids nowadays, they know they face terrible dangers all the time from drugs. When Conrad was twenty, he thought it a great adventure, William said. He was at university. He was with another young man, both of them injecting themselves, and his friend had too much, and died. William said there was a terrible stink, but he got Conrad out and hushed it all up and sent him to a very private and expensive clinic for treatment. He got Conrad to write him a letter describing his drug experiences, what he felt and saw when he was high. William didn’t show me what Conrad wrote, but he still had the letter. He said Conrad had been cured, and he was proud of him. Conrad didn’t go back to university, though. William kept him at home on the estate.’

Ah, I thought, that was Marjorie’s hammer-lock. Even after so many years, Conrad wouldn’t want his youthful indiscretion made public.

Perdita finished her gin and poured some more. ‘Freshen your glass?’ she asked me.

‘No, I’m fine. Do go on, I’m riveted.’

She laughed, talking easily now. ‘When Keith was about that age, when he was young and handsome and before all these really bad things, he spanked the daughter of one of the farm workers. Pulled down her knickers and spanked her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. He said he wanted to know what it felt like. William paid her father a fortune – for those days – to keep him from going to the police. It wasn’t a case of rape, though.’

‘Bad enough.’

‘Keith learned his lesson, William said. After that he only beat and raped his wives. You couldn’t get done for it, then.’

The fun went out of her face abruptly, and no doubt out of mine.

‘Sorry, dear,’ she said. ‘I loved Madeline, but it was all forty years ago. And she did get out, and marry again and have you. William said Keith never forgave her for despising him.’

Perhaps because I couldn’t help having it on my mind, I said, ‘Keith said yesterday that he’s going to kill me. Forty years on, he’s trying to get even.’

She stared. ‘Did he mean it?’

‘He meant it when he said it.’

‘But dear, you have to take him seriously. He’s a violent man. What are you going to do about it?’

I saw that she was basically more interested than anxious, but then it wasn’t her life or death problem.

‘It’s the sight of me that enrages him,’ I said. ‘I could simply go away. Go home. Trust to luck he wouldn’t follow me.’

‘I must say, dear, you take it very calmly.’

I’d spent my own semi-wakeful night thinking about it, but I answered her casually. ‘It’s probably because it seems so