Page 351 of The Hallmarked Man
Who can patch union here? What can there be
But everlasting horror ’twixt us two,
Gulfs of estranging blood? Across that chasm
Who can extend their hands?
Matthew Arnold
Merope: A Tragedy
The large, twisted trees lining the road and the stretches of prime farmland were like a landscape seen in a half-forgotten dream. Strike tried to take consolation from the magnificent indifference of nature to all human concerns, but the strategy was so ineffective it was almost a relief to turn up the side road leading to Heberley, and focus his mind on what needed to be done.
The tall wrought-iron gates loomed up before him, set between stone pillars on top of which were carved salmon in tribute to the Legard family arms and, perhaps, the River Tyne, which flowed past the house. Strike got out of the car and approached an intercom, which was new: the old one, he remembered, had been rusty. He pressed the bell, and a woman with an Eastern European accent answered.
‘Who is, please?’
‘Cartier,’ said Strike into the intercom, and by the time he’d got back to his car, the iron gates were slowly opening.
Rhododendrons lined the drive, but it was too early in the year for them to be in flower; instead they formed a dense, glossy dark green guard of honour as he drove up an incline. When the BMW crested the top of the hill, Heberley House came into view in the distance: an enormous rectangular block of reddish ashlar, with longwindows and pillars in the Greek Doric style. Strike still had half a mile to cover, the track running through the deer park, where vast mature trees spread welcome pools of shade on sunny days, and the Legard family, if sober enough, had enjoyed the occasional picnic lunch, which wasn’t a matter of scratchy blankets, Tupperware and hard-boiled eggs, as Strike had experienced with Ted and Joan, but involved staff setting up trestle tables with snowy cloths, and carrying silverware across the lawn.
He parked on the gravel forecourt and as he approached the front door it opened to reveal the woman he assumed was a housekeeper: short, thin, light-haired and wearing a black dress. He didn’t recognise her, but hadn’t expected to. If there had ever been aged family retainers at Heberley House, they’d all peeled away since the arrival of Tara, who was notorious for an inability to hold on to staff who had to interact with her regularly.
‘You have necklace?’ said the housekeeper curiously, eyeing Strike’s empty hands.
‘It’s locked in my car,’ he said, pointing at the BMW. ‘I’m not supposed to get it out until Lady Jenson’s present.’
This implausible story seemed to satisfy the housekeeper, who turned to lead him into the marble-floored hall, which had changed very little since Strike had last been here. More carved salmon served as finials at the bottom of the wide staircase, and the eighteenth-century chairs he remembered were still set in front of an enormous stone fireplace.
Strike waited until she’d disappeared from sight, then, as stealthily as he could manage, headed firstly towards the drawing room door, which he opened so he could cast a sweeping look over the interior, before crossing the hall to look in on the dining room. He’d just seen what he’d come for when he heard footsteps again, and returned to stand beside the fireplace.
Tara was descending the staircase and talking as she came.
‘I thought you must be delivering something from my son, but—’
She stopped mid-sentence, still six stairs from the floor, staring at Strike.
Once as dark and breathtakingly beautiful as her dead daughter, Tara’s hair was now dyed blonde. Her face had been lifted, probably more than once, so that she had odd horizontal creases on either side of her mouth where the skin had been stretched upwards. Fillerdistorted the proportions of her face. She was as thin as she’d always been, wearing her expensive interpretation of country clothing, which in this case meant a silk blouse and tweed trousers. Had she been able to move her face properly, Strike knew it would have been wearing an expression of fury.
‘What thefuckare you doing here?Why did you let him in?’ she demanded of the housekeeper, who’d just returned to the hall, possibly to offer refreshments.
‘He said he from Cartier,’ said the housekeeper, looking terrified.
‘Did you ask to see his ID?’
‘No,’ said the housekeeper, looking as though she might cry.
‘It’s not her fault,’ said Strike.
‘Youshut up,’ snapped Tara. ‘In fact, get out. Fucking get out,now, or I’ll get one of the groundsmen todragyou out.’
‘Unless you want to see Sacha plastered all over the papers for receiving stolen goods, I’d advise against doing that,’ said Strike. ‘And before you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ve just seen it on the sideboard in the dining room.’
For a few seconds Tara glared at him, then she barked ‘coffee!’ at the housekeeper, who scuttled away. Tara descended the stairs without looking at Strike, swung around in exactly the same way Charlotte, when drunk, had turned her back on those who were annoying or boring her, and strode into the drawing room. Strike followed and was in time to see Tara take a cigarette out of an ivory box, light it, then drop into a low brocade armchair.
The room had been redecorated at some point in the nine years since Strike had last been in it, when the walls had been of a pale, silvery blue. Now they were dark green and some of the pictures had been rearranged, although the same Augustus John portrait of Sacha Legard’s bored-looking great-grandmother hung over the mantelpiece.
‘I don’t know how you’ve got thefuckingballs to walk in here,’ sneered Tara.
