Solomons Seal (8 page)

He nodded. ‘When he bought the farm, and again when he sold it and purchased the little place in Aldeburgh.'

‘What was he like?'

‘An odd-looking man, mixed blood, you see. Not very sure of himself. Quite out of his depth running a farm here in England.' He leaned back, his eyes half closed. ‘Can't recall him very clearly, only that there was something about his manner that was a little strange, and his features – the nose rather broad and without character, large eyes and a low forehead under a mop of brown hair. Thickset, but rather shrivelled. He wasn't at all well the last time I saw him, some disease of the tropics, hepatitis probably. He had a darkish skin that had a tinge of yellow in it. He died shortly afterwards. That's when Miss Holland came to see me.'

‘What nationality was her mother?' I asked. ‘English?'

‘No, Australian, I think. Captain Holland had been educated in Australia and had served in the Australian forces at the end of the last war. He probably met her then. At any rate, they were married shortly after.'

‘You say he had mixed blood?'

He nodded. ‘According to the information we dug out of the files, Colonel Holland's first wife died just after the Kaiser's war. The flu epidemic, I imagine. She would have been quite a young woman. Probably why he sold his ship-broking business and went out to Papua New Guinea.'

‘To see if he could discover what had happened to the ship that went down with his brother?'

‘Something like that, I imagine. It would have given him a purpose.' He hesitated, then said, ‘You're wondering about that young woman, I suppose. Well, no reason why you shouldn't know. Miss Holland's grandmother was from the islands, I can't remember which. She was the daughter of a French trader.' He said it as though that explained everything. ‘I suppose Holland was finding it pretty lonely up there in Papua New Guinea. He'd bought some land, a place called Kuamegu according to the photocopy of the deeds we have. That was in 1923 if I remember rightly, and he married this island girl the following year.'

‘Was Captain Holland the only child?' I asked.

‘No, there was a sister. She's married and lives in Perth.'

‘So why did he come to England?'

‘God knows. Probably because of his son, the younger one who had just left school.'

I asked him about Timothy Holland then, but he couldn't tell me much, only that he had failed at Sandhurst and had then gone out to Australia. ‘As you know, Australia became administrators for Papua New Guinea after the war, from I think 1952 until independence a few years ago. He was an officer in that Administration.'

‘She said he was a patrol officer. Was he on duty when he was injured?'

He shrugged. ‘I presume so.'

‘How did it happen? Was he attacked?'

‘No, it was an accident apparently. He was examining a ship while it was unloading and was hit by the cargo sling swinging on its boom. It knocked him into the hold. Just one of those things,' he murmured, finishing his drink and glancing at his watch.

‘Can you tell me anything about the elder brother?' I asked. ‘Have you met him?'

‘No, I've never met him. Why?'

‘My guess is she intends joining him. He's something to do with ships, I believe.'

‘Yes. Runs his own vessel, a landing craft if I remember rightly. The Hollands have always been interested in island trading.'

‘He was being financed by his father, I believe.'

He looked at me sharply. ‘Did Miss Holland tell you that?'

‘Yes. She said that's where all their money had gone.'

He nodded. ‘I advised against it, but yes, that's true I'm afraid. And now he's gone in with a rival
shipowner, a relative of some sort.' I asked whether he had any information about the man, but he said, ‘No, Captain Holland was very reticent on the matter. But I do know this, he wouldn't have approved of his son's involvement. Some sort of family feud.' He checked himself there. ‘I can't go into that, you understand, or into the financial details. But as far as Miss Holland's money is concerned, I tied it up as best I could so that she now has quite a large stake in this ship of her brother's. Something I'll have to look into, but I fear it'll take time and no way I can see of converting it into cash.' He got to his feet, muttering in a very petulant tone, ‘She should have told me what she was doing so that I could advise her.'

I was standing beside him, downing the rest of my drink, when he continued, speaking slowly, almost reflectively, ‘If you're right about Miss Holland going out to join her brother, then I am afraid it will be a difficult journey for her, a very unhappy one. I can't help wondering … ' He shook his head, and when I asked him what he meant, he pursed his lips and murmured something about its being no place for a young woman. ‘It means she's going back to the very island where her mother was murdered, where she herself was injured.'

‘What island is that?' I asked.

‘Madehas, near Buka. And it was in the Buka Passage that Timothy Holland had his accident.' He shook his head again. ‘Her grandfather, too. It's not been a lucky place for the Hollands.'

‘And that's where her brother is now?'

‘I suppose so. His base anyway. The last I heard he was living on board his ship. He had just the one, and he was running it himself, trading in the islands and around Bougainville.' He seemed to think he had said enough, for he turned to leave. But then he paused. ‘Those stamps you mentioned. Are they worth anything?' I told him she should clear at least £2,000, and he seemed pleased. ‘That's good. I'd like to think she had some money coming to her.' And then with his usual caution he added, ‘I take it you have a buyer.'

‘Two,' I said, ‘so it may pay to auction them. I'll be going up to London on Friday, and if I have time, I'll look in on a dealer I know and get his advice.'

He nodded. ‘Well, I'm sure you'll do the best you can for her.' He was turning to go, and I reminded him about the house and that I'd need the key. ‘Ah, yes, I should have told you. She left it with a Mrs Clegg next door, a house called Wherry Haven.' And he added, ‘Have a good lunch, and if you're being asked to deal with anything local, you might remind Rowlinson we did the conveyance on his present residence.'

It was well past one when I got to the factory on the Maldon road. They were standing around in the boardroom, and a girl was serving drinks. All the directors were there, including Chips's wife, Bessie, a nice homely woman, but with a very good head for business. Shortly after they were married, the two of them had begun smoking salmon in a shed attached to their cottage on the Blackwater, using the traditional oak chips, which was how he got his nickname. That
was the start of it all, and now even the new factory was too small for them. The board meeting had been considering details of the latest expansion programme, and they asked me about the availability of the adjoining land and its probable cost.

It was when we were having coffee that Bessie Rowlinson drew me aside and said, ‘You realise what this means. That sheep station will have to go. Chips is needed here. He can't go out and see to the sale himself.'

And later, when I was leaving, Chips took me by the arm and saw me to my car. ‘Bessie had a word with you, did she? When do you think you can leave?'

‘As soon as I've got my visa.'

‘Your firm agrees?'

‘Not exactly.' And I told him the result of my interview with the senior partner.

‘I see.' He looked at me, a sly little smile. ‘But you're not worried.'

‘No, not really. It's time I moved on.'

He nodded. ‘Good. I'll dictate a letter of agreement for you this afternoon.'

Three hours later I had cleared my desk and was on the A12 driving north to Aldeburgh. It was a bright, still evening, and the house when I reached it looked less neglected with its brickwork glowing in the slanting rays of the sun. Wherry Haven was only a few yards down the road. I had phoned Mrs Clegg that afternoon, and as she handed me the keys, she said, ‘I'll be glad when it's sold. My husband didn't think I should be saddled with the responsibility, not
at my age, but I couldn't very well refuse. First her father, then that poor brother of hers. She needed to get away.'

She was grey-haired, her hands showing signs of rheumatism, but her eyes were bright and intelligent, her movements still energetic. ‘How long have you known the Hollands?' I asked.

‘Let me see now. We came here when my husband retired. He was very keen on sailing. That was just over four years ago, and they came soon after.'

‘You knew her father then?'

She nodded. ‘He used to walk down to the yacht club and chat with us while we were working on the boat. We had a small twenty-footer then. He had lived a lot of his life abroad. In Papua New Guinea.'

‘He came to England when his wife died, I believe.'

‘Yes. But he never talked about that. She was killed, you see. By the natives. It was a very primitive place, and they had some sort of cult. Something to do with ships and cargo.' She hesitated as though trying to remember something, then went on: ‘The Hollands were a shipping family, that's why he was interested in boats. He'd have a drink with us sometimes, and then he'd talk about the incredible blackness of the people, the incessant rain and the war, when his father had lived close under an active volcano and had fought the Japanese, things like that. It was all very interesting and colourful. But he never told us what happened. He was a strange man, very withdrawn, very nervy. And that poor boy. You'd never think they were father and son, would you?'

‘I never met either of them,' I said, wondering what she meant.

‘Oh, well, if you'd seen them together. The father was quite a dull little man, very English in his manner. But that son of his with his red hair, those strangely flattened features, and the eyes … you've met Miss Holland, haven't you?' And when I nodded, she said, ‘Yes, I thought I saw you here about a fortnight ago, before she left. She has something of the same features. Very striking, don't you think – unusual?' She was suddenly silent, as though she had been trying to convey something to me and was at a loss for words. ‘Oh, well, I mustn't keep you. You'll bring back the keys.' And she added, ‘I hope it's sold soon. I never liked the house – inside, I mean. All those terrible carvings.'

The first thing I noticed when I went into the house was that the carvings had gone, and most of the pictures, too. I went through it quickly, noting down the rough measurements of the rooms and drafting out the sale notice. The reddening sun cast a lurid light, and the empty, abandoned feel of the place made even a professional visit seem like an unwarranted intrusion. It didn't take me long to check the contents against the inventory I had made on the previous visit. All the furniture was still there, but she had cleared out every drawer. No papers, no photographs, nothing to show the sort of people who had occupied the place. She had made a clean sweep of everything. Even the loft was empty. The trunk she had mentioned was gone, presumably into store. The place was dusty, still
hanging in cobwebs, and in a corner close under the rafters my torch picked out a small pile of books. They were most of them old Army manuals, a copy of Queen's Regulations, some pictures of Sandhurst, one of a group of cadets, several dinner menus. And then, tucked into the pages of a book called
Black Writing from New Guinea
, I found the photograph of a man in khaki shirt and shorts, a black and white picture taken against a background of round thatched huts exuding smoke in the shadow of sombre mountains.

I took it down with me to the window of the room that had been her bedroom. The picture had been taken in the fading evening light when the cooking fires were burning in the thatched village, the whole scene very dark, no humans, only that single figure and a pig with its tail up scurrying away from him. But some trick of the light, a shaft of sunlight perhaps shining through a gap in the mountains, illumined the man's face. He was a young man, clean-shaven, hair standing up like a brush on his bare head, and the face rather square, a jutting jaw and wide-set eyes above a flattened pugilistic nose. It was a face that was both pugnacious and gentle, the nose and jaw contrasting oddly with the appearance of almost childlike innocence, the overall impression one of clean-living boyishness.

I looked up from the picture and saw her as I had last seen her, sitting on the window ledge staring out to sea, the same brooding, dreamy look, the same nose and jaw, only the hair different. They must have been very alike, the way twins are; I knew why she had
gone then, understood her purpose, and it scared me, so that without thinking I stuffed the picture into my pocket and hurried downstairs, out into the fresh air, closing the front door behind me.

The sun was setting now, the sky cloud-galleoned and flaring red. The stillness and the brilliance, the peace of an East Anglian summer evening – my mood changed. The sense of something appalling and beyond my comprehension that had clung to those empty walls was gone. Like a bad dream, I could not even recall what it was that had so disturbed me, just the memory of her face and how she had stared out towards the sea.

I still had to calculate roughly the acreage of the garden, and I went round the back of the house to pace it out. At the far end, where it backed on to the garden of the house in the next street, there was a toolshed. I checked the contents, adding them to my list, then continued my pacing. A garden fork was stuck into the ground by the remains of a bonfire. I pulled it out and was about to put it in the shed where it belonged when I realised that the heap of ashes in front of me was not an ordinary bonfire. There were charred scraps of paper scattered around it. This was where she had burned the contents of the drawers, all the papers and rubbish that had accumulated in the loft.