Long Time Coming: A Novel - By Robert Goddard Page 0,2

be sarcastic.’ She spooned tea into the pot. ‘And don’t call him an ex-con.’

‘But that’s what he is, isn’t it?’

‘He’s not here at the moment. He goes to Torquay most days. I think he finds it more … sophisticated … than Paignton.’

‘I suppose he has a lot of sophistication to catch up on.’

Mum sighed. ‘I’m sorry it had to come out of the blue, Stephen. I really am. It’s not my fault. Your father was adamant. So was your grandfather. They were ashamed of Eldritch. And what was I to do? I’d never even met him. I had no idea what it was all about.’ The kettle had come to the boil as she spoke. She poured water into the teapot and rattled the lid back into place. ‘They said he’d never be let out. So, it was better to pretend he was dead.’

‘But now he has been let out. Unless you’re going to tell me he’s on the run.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear. He’s an old man.’

‘How did he wind up here?’

‘He had nowhere else to go. I wrote to the Irish Prison Service when your father passed away, asking them to let Eldritch know. That’s how he was able to contact me. He wrote just before Christmas, saying they were going to release him and could he come and stay here until he’d found his feet. Well, I couldn’t turn him down, could I?’

‘That depends.’

‘What on?’

‘What he was in for, to start with.’

‘Well, I really don’t know.’ She spoke airily, as if the nature of Eldritch’s offence was a trivial matter. But I’d mulled it over on the train and couldn’t see him serving such a long stretch for anything short of murder. ‘Your father never said. I’m not sure he knew either.’

‘He must have done.’

‘You’d think so, I agree. But …’

‘But what, Mum? Tell me you’re sure you haven’t got a mass murderer living under the same roof.’

‘Oh, he didn’t murder anyone, dear. I can set your mind at rest on that. Now, cut yourself a slice of cake and bring it into the sitting-room.’ And at that she set off with the tea tray.

The gas fire was wheezing into action when I caught up with her, the tea already poured. I took a sip and swallowed a mouthful of cake.

‘What kind of food do they have in Texas, dear?’ Mum casually enquired as she stroked Bramble, who’d plonked himself on the sofa and showed no sign of moving on this time.

‘Don’t try to change the subject, Mum. How do you know Eldritch didn’t murder anyone?’

‘He told me so.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Well, he obviously thought I might worry about it, so he made the point in his letter. “I didn’t kill or injure anyone.” His exact words. You can read the letter if you want. I kept it.’

‘I’d like to see it, yes. But how can you be sure he’s telling the truth, since apparently he didn’t go on to say what he had done?’

‘Well, they censor prisoners’ correspondence, don’t they? They wouldn’t have let him lie to me.’

My mother knew as much as I did about the Irish Prison Service’s censorship policy, of course: precisely nothing. But there was nothing to be gained by pointing that out. I tried an appeal to reason. ‘Doesn’t it seem odd to you that he won’t say what he did to land himself behind bars for … however many years it was?’

‘Thirty-six, dear. Well, nearly. July 1940 until this January. A long, long time.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Your father and grandfather were never informed of the particulars, you see. Only that Eldritch had been imprisoned indefinitely for … offences against the state. Your father thought … well, he was afraid … his brother might have been … spying for the Germans.’

‘What put that in his mind?’

‘I don’t know. He never said.’

And my mother, with her undentable insouciance, had evidently never asked. ‘Ireland was neutral in the war, Mum. What would Eldritch have been spying on?’

‘I can’t imagine.’

I couldn’t suppress a sigh of exasperation. ‘For all you know he could be a member of the IRA.’ I didn’t really believe that, but I reckoned the suggestion might snap Mum out of her complacency. The papers I’d read on the train had been full of IRA bombings and shootings. I’d forgotten while I’d been away just how murderous their campaign was.

She shook her head. ‘Nonsense.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I’m not quite as naïve as you seem to think, Stephen,’ she replied. ‘I was actually intending to press