The Running Grave полностью

‘In it, Allie stipulated that, if he died, he wanted to be buried at Chapman Farm. Made me think Mazu already expected him to die young. Wanted control of him, even in death. Damn’ near broke m’wife’s heart. They shut us out of the funeral. Didn’t even tell us when it was happenin’. No goodbye, nothin’.’

‘And how was Allie’s estate left?’

‘Everythin’ went to Daiyu,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘There wasn’t much to leave, presumably, as he’d got through his inheritance?’

‘Well, no,’ said Colonel Graves with a sigh, ‘as a matter of fact, he had some stocks and shares, rather valuable ones, left to him by m’uncle, who never married. Allie was named after him, so he, ah –’ Colonel Graves glanced at Nicholas ‘– yerse, well, he left it all to Allie. We think Allie either forgot he had the shares, or was too unwell to know how to turn them into cash. We weren’t in any hurry to remind him about them. Not that we were stintin’ Mazu and the baby! The family trust was always there for anythin’ the child needed. But yerse, Allie had a lot of investments he hadn’t touched, and they were steadily accruin’ in value.’

‘Can I ask what they were worth?’

‘Quarter of a million,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Those went straight to Daiyu when Allie died – and she was also in line to inherit this place,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘Really?’

‘Yerse,’ said Colonel Graves, with a hollow laugh. ‘None of us saw that comin’. Lawyers wanted to go through everything after Allie died, and they dug out the entail. I’m certain m’grandfather meant the house was t’go to the eldest son in every generation. That’s what was usual at the time, y’know – the place has come down from m’grandfather to m’father and then to me – nobody had checked the paperwork in decades, never needed to. But when Allie died, we dug the papers out, and blow me down, it said “eldest child”. ’Course, over generations, the first child had always been a son. Maybe m’grandfather didn’t imagine a gel coming first.’

The sitting room door opened and Mrs Graves and Phillipa returned to the room. Phillipa assisted her mother to resume her seat while Strike was still writing down the details of Daiyu’s considerable inheritance.

‘I understand you tried to get custody of Daiyu, after Allie died?’ he asked, looking up again.

‘’S’right,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Mazu was refusin’ to let us see her. Then she married Wace. Well, I was damned if Allie’s daughter was goin’ to grow up there to be whipped and abused and all the rest of it. So, we initiated custody proceedin’s. We got O’Connor back on the case and he tracked down a couple of people who’d been for meditation sessions at the farm, who said the children at the farm were bein’ neglected, underweight and runnin’ round in inadequate clothin’, no schoolin’ and so on.’

‘Is this when Mazu started claiming Wace was Daiyu’s real father?’ said Strike.

‘Know that already, do yeh?’ said the colonel approvingly. ‘Huh. Trust a Red Cap. Trust th’army!’ he said, with a smirk at his son-in-law, who looked ostentatiously bored. ‘Yerse, they started claiming she hadn’t been Allie’s child at all. If we got her back, they lost control of those shares, y’see? So we thought, “Fine, let’s prove who the father was,” and pressed for a DNA sample. We were still tryin’ to get the DNA when the call came through. It was Mazu. She said, “She’s dead.”’ Colonel Graves mimed putting down an invisible telephone receiver. ‘Click… We thought she was being malicious. Thought maybe she’d taken Daiyu somewhere and hidden her – playin’ a game, d’yeh see? But next day we saw it in the newspapers. Drowned. No body. Just swept out to sea.’

‘Did you attend the inquest?’ asked Strike.

‘Damn right we did,’ said Colonel Graves loudly. ‘They couldn’t stop us goin’ to the coroner’s court.’

‘Were you there for the whole thing?’

‘All of it,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding. ‘All of them arrivin’ to watch, in their robes and what have you. Wace and Mazu turned up in a brand-new Mercedes. Coroner was concerned about the lack of a body. She would be, of course. Hardly usual. It was the coroner’s neck on the block if she got it wrong. But the coastguard confirmed they’d had a strong rip tide around there for a few days.

‘They brought in an expert witness chap, search and rescue type, who said bodies can sink in cold water and not come up for a long time, or get caught up in somethin’ on the seabed. Yeh could see the coroner was relieved. Made it all nice and easy. And witnesses had seen the gel, Cherie, takin’ her down onto the beach. The retarded boy—’

‘It’s “learning disability” these days, Archie,’ said Nicholas, who seemed to enjoy correcting his father-in-law, after his crack about the army’s superiority to the navy. ‘Can’t say things like that.’

‘Comes t’the same thing, doesn’t it?’ said Colonel Graves irritably.

‘You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with the bloody education system any more,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’d be in a lot of trouble there for callin’ a spade a spade.’