On Friday after lunch I went to the Marblehill Golf Club and found Donald in the clubroom placating a foursome who had arrived late and missed their game.
‘Go over to the house,’ he said when he saw me. ‘I can’t talk here.’ He turned decisively back to the problem in hand and I did what I was told, like a good little brother.
Helen was resigned more than annoyed to see me. ‘Ferdinand said you would come, and we had the police here yesterday. Not that we could tell them anything, or you either.’
She was wearing a painter’s smock over jeans and looked dressed by Dior. She took me into the sitting-room and pointed to a chair, and with unconscious grace sat herself half-on, half-off a polished table, raising her wrists to keep her paint-smudged hands away from the furniture.
Donald came bustling in, telling me he could give me ten minutes. ‘Don’t see what you can do,’ he said. ‘Leave it to the police.’
‘What did they ask you?’
‘About Fred blowing up the tree stump. I said yes, of course we’d been there. Helen and I weren’t then married. It was the first time she’d met Malcolm, she was staying the weekend.’
‘Saturday morning,’ she said, nodding. ‘The gardener came in specially to blow up the tree trunks. Not something one would forget, seeing him knocked flat. I took a photograph of the tree roots afterwards. It’s still in one of our albums.’
‘And the time-switch clocks, do you remember those?’ I asked.
‘Naturally,’ Donald said.
Helen added, ‘Dear Thomas made two for our boys for their birthday once, when they could just tell the time.’ She had said Dear Thomas, I noticed, as if she had meant it, not as Berenice said it. ‘They got lost in one of our moves.’
‘Where’s Malcolm?’ Donald asked brusquely.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re lying,’ he said, but for once I wasn’t. Malcolm and Ramsey Osborn had left the Osborn residence, according to the female voice on the line the evening before, and had given her no number at which they could be reached. I could try again tomorrow, she said. Mr Osborn should have let her know by then; he usually did.
‘Did either of you,’ I asked, ‘trace Malcolm to Cambridge the weekend he was put in the car?’
I hadn’t expected any answer but negative, but the question came at them unexpectedly and Helen practically jumped.
‘Did you?’ I said to her.
‘No, of course not,’ Donald said quickly. ‘We had no way of knowing he would go to Newmarket Sales, if that’s what you’re inferring.’
‘The hotel at Cambridge said three people - two men and a
woman - had asked if Malcolm was staying there,’ I said. ‘One was Norman West, who were the others? I’m not saying you went to Newmarket Sales, just did one of you trace Malcolm?’
They looked at me glumly. Then Helen said, ‘I suppose so.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
Donald cleared his throat, I needed his signature on a guarantee.’
‘Go on, what guarantee?’
‘For a temporary bank loan.’ He swallowed. ‘I thought he might…’
‘We had to have the money in a hurry,’ Helen said. ‘The bank manager told Donald we could borrow it if Malcolm would guarantee it. Then we couldn’t get hold of Malcolm. We had to think where he might be, and he’s always going to Cambridge. Donald and I just talked about it, guessing, wondering… And then, well, Donald went over to the club house and I just picked up the AA book and found those hotels in Cambridge, and without really believing in it I tried two… only two… and he was there, at the second. When Donald came home I told him and the extraordinary thing was, he’d had the same idea and got the same result.’ She paused. ‘We were pretty desperate, you see.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Donald said.‘ “Desperate“ gives the wrong picture.’
‘What did you need the money for?’ I asked.
They looked at each other, foreheads wrinkled in worry. Finally, reluctantly, but as if coming to a decision, Donald said, ‘We had some interest to pay unexpectedly. I had negotiated three months’ deferment of interest on a loan, or at least I thought I had, and then I got a threatening demand. I had to pay at once or they’d start proceedings.’ The desperation he said wasn’t there, definitely had been; it still echoed in his voice, i couldn’t have it getting around the golf club, could I?’ he demanded. ‘No one in the family could lend me a large sum in a hurry. Our