The Benefits of Death Read online

  Leithan stubbed out his cigarette. “I want another opinion.”

  “You’ll be wasting your money. The chap we had last time was the leading bloke on the subject.”

  “I don’t give a damn. Try someone else. No one’s infallible.”

  Enty scraped the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. “It’s your money and why should I dissuade you too heartily when my profits depend on your generosity?”

  “The trust talks about the guilty party. What happens if the two sides are held equally guilty?”

  “There, my dear Charles, you have the kind of situation that ensures good digestions to us solicitors for years. Dammit, the litigation could be almost endless.” Enty stroked the bushy moustache that seemed to broaden his already broad and rather fleshy face.

  Leithan was aware that his present anger was quite illogical — he had known all the answers before he had put the questions.

  Enty looked at his wrist-watch, a large gold one, with thick gold straps. “My throat never lets me down. It’s drink time. Come and have a couple and a bite at the club?”

  “Thanks, but Evadne’s coming back from Town for lunch.”

  “There must at least be time for a drink?”

  “All right.”

  Enty grinned amiably. “I’ll just tell myself that that was said with wild enthusiasm. You know, old man, you may be thinking in terms of the trust as a real cow, but don’t forget the size of the fortune.” He stood up. “I don’t mind saying that if my father had had half the business sense of yours, I’d burn joss-sticks to his memory no matter what the terms of the trust. Just think what I’d get my golf handicap down to!” Leithan wondered what easy solution the other would have given to his present conflict of interests?

  *

  Evadne Leithan arrived home in a bad temper and this was not improved when she cross-examined Sarah Pochard and discovered that Nemean had not been wormed. Illogically, she rudely blamed the kennel-maid for not carrying out an order and then her husband for forgetting to give the order. Leithan retired to the study on the pretext of work.

  During tea, when he had reluctantly joined her in the sitting-room, she said abruptly: “Did you go to the club last night?”

  Leithan added sugar to his tea. “No, I didn’t.”

  “You said you were going to.”

  “I changed my mind in the end. I was afraid I might meet Jim.”

  “Did you go out, then?”

  “I went out in the car and had a couple of pints down in the Marsh at the Black Bull.”

  She cut herself a thick slice of the chocolate cream cake she had bought at Fortnum and Mason. Her thick and unsightly fingers lifted the cake on to her plate and the large solitaire diamond flashed ice-cold blues as her wrist turned. “Did you go on your own?”

  “I hardly had time to import the chorus from The Windmill.”

  She ate a mouthful of cake and her jaws chomped up and down. Irresistibly, he was reminded of a Cuenca eating. As if that were Stymie’s cue, the dog snuffled across to a couple of crumbs on the floor and licked them up.

  “You might have taken that Breslow woman out.”

  He stared at her in shocked surprise. “Why pick on her?”

  “You’re friendly with her, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Whenever you meet her at a cocktail party, you two always seem to huddle in a corner and have the world to talk about.”

  “That’s natural. We both write.”

  “She surely doesn’t flatter you enough to call your stuff ‘writing’?”

  “She thinks I’m reasonably good,” he said stiffly.

  “She’s a slut.” She finished the cake and then gave herself another large slice. On the floor, Stymie waited with bulging eyes for more crumbs.

  “She’s nothing of the sort,” he snapped, unable to remain silent.

  “They say she entertains half the males of the district and that if they don’t leave something larger than a fiver on the mantelpiece, there’s a hell of a row.”

  “That’s a bloody lie.”

  “How would you know?”

  He drank some tea and wondered bitterly what thoughts were tearing round in his wife’s mind?

  “Did you see her at all?” she persisted.

  “No. Why should I have done?”

  “Never know.” She ate more cake. “The Marshes are fools.”

  He eagerly accepted the change of subject. “What’s happened?”

  “They tried to buy the Prestons’ vote whereas if they’d an ounce of common sense between them they’d have known the Prestons live inside Georgina’s pockets.” She finished the cake, hesitated, and then with deep satisfaction cut herself a third slice.

  “Well?”

  “The Prestons are going to report to Georgina.”

  “I said it was a damn fool thing to do: you can’t go around bribing people.”

  “Don’t get in a panic. Marsh had just sufficient wit to insist the money would only be for expenses and so Georgina won’t be able to prove anything if she tries to take it to the Kennel Club.”

  “At least it will have put her on her guard.”

  “And small good that’ll do her since she’s as poor as a church mouse. And if she says anything to smear my name I’ll have her up in court and she knows that. She’s a fool — she won’t admit she’s beaten. We’ve over half the members promised to our side now; and there’s still some to come. There are a couple in Yorkshire, those poisonous people we met at Crufts; Marsh reckons he’ll be able to persuade them down.” She finished her cake and put the plate on the table. “I’ve been thinking. Georgina isn’t really the right kind of person to have as president of the club.” She looked across at him.

  “Don’t forget she and her friend started it.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s fit to be president. You can’t have someone who daren’t put her hand to a cheque book.”

  “Or are you determined to knock her out of the way because she’s been brave enough to stand up against you?”

  “You’ve no right to say that.” Evadne’s voice rose. “I’m only interested in one thing and that’s the good of the club. Why d’you think I’m fighting for the retention of tri-colours?”

  “To make Stymie the first champion. You don’t give a solitary damn about the good of the club.”

  “You…how dare you say that.” Her face became heavily flushed. “You like believing the very worst about me. You go out of your way to misrepresent me. You never worry about my feelings, never.”

  He was silent.

  She put her right hand to her neck and tried to give the impression she was finding it difficult to breathe. “You know the specialist said I wasn’t to be excited, but you go out of your way to excite me, don’t you? I think you want me to have another attack.”

  “I think chocolate layer cake is likely to be more effective.” He stood up and as he stepped clear of the seat his shoe accidentally brushed Stymie. She yowled so piteously that she might have been disembowelled.

  “You swine,” shouted Evadne, “trying to take your temper out on the dog.” She bent down and took hold of Stymie and when the latter showed signs of wanting to go to Leithan, she dragged it backwards by its tail. “Poor little Stymie,” she crooned. “Did he kick you hard because he was in such a terrible temper? Has the poor little doggie been injured and shall we send for the vet? Come on Mummy’s lap and have a piece of cakie.” She cut a large slice of cake and put it on her plate which she then took back from the table. She gave Stymie one twentieth of the slice and the remaining nineteen twentieths she ate herself.

  Leithan walked to the door.

  “You don’t worry about me, do you?” she shouted.

  He left the room. He could faintly hear her talking to Stymie, heaping endearments on the dog’s head. Yet they both knew whom the dog would always prefer to be with, if only given the chance.

  He went into the hall and tried to shed so
me of his anger. The old part of the house had been built somewhere between 1550 and 1600, and it had the typical sloping roof that, on the south side, came down to within six feet of the ground; originally, this had provided the outshut under which the animals had been tethered. Because of this slope, the hall was triangular in shape, with the right angle against the inside wall; this was fifteen feet high and timbered with beams that were black with age and pierced by myriads of woodworm holes. Between the beams, on specially made hooks that were carefully set in the original plaster of lime, sand, bullocks’ hair, cow-dung, and road scrapings, hung his collection of old revolvers and pistols. He stared at them and remembered some of the fun he had had in collecting them. Because he had been a wealthy man, he had set himself a limit of twenty-five pounds for any one piece. Twenty years ago, it had been relatively easy to buy good examples for that price, but now the experts would be quick to say it was impossible. Nevertheless, he still occasionally managed it.

  He went out of the front door, paradoxically at the back of the house, and stared across the garden at the low brown-leaved beech hedge, the sloping field on which some of the Jerseys were slowly making towards the milking parlour, and the far woods. It was not a view of distance, but to him it had immense depth. It was a quintessence of the English countryside.

  He looked to the south, and his mind flashed past Shadoxhurst and fetched up at the woods before Shap Cross. He wondered what Pam was doing at that moment? Writing answers to the letters of the frustrated, curious, or frantic readers of the women’s magazines? She worked on a freelance basis. When she had begun the job and he had read some of the letters, he had laughed at the writers: but very soon he had been upset by the multitude of tragedies there were in life.

  *

  Sarah Pochard quickly discovered that Cuencas were smelly, snappy, fussy, adenoidal, delicate, and psychotic, and that infection of their anal glands was their most common complaint. She wondered what had made her leave her last kennels, where they had kept Borzois and Salukis.

  She was no more enamoured of her employers than she was of their dogs. Leithan worried her because she was never certain whether he meant what he was saying: Mrs. Leithan worried her because Mrs. Leithan was a human bitch. Sarah’s mother had been a bitch and she was well up on the breed.

  She began to cut up the paunch and tried not to smell it. It beat her that in a home where money obviously had no meaning, they should feed such muck. Green and slimy, it was enough to upset a delicate young woman’s stomach for life. Respectable people fed their dogs on dried meat.

  When she had finished, she began to apportion the cut paunch into the plastic bowls, but almost immediately a lot of the pieces fell on to the floor. Cursing fluently, she picked them up.

  The dogs were yowling because they were hungry and one of them — she didn’t try to remember any of their ridiculous names — sounded hysterical. In a fit of temper, she went into the passageway between the sleeping compartments and the runs. “Shut your bleeding mouths,” she shouted, and she kicked the wire mesh of the first door. Nemean’s bulging eyes gazed at her with frantic hate.

  She went back to the tack room and collected the bowls of food, then put one bowl in each compartment except the third one, empty because they kept that dog in the house.

  She left the kennels and slowly walked in the field towards her cottage in which, incredibly, there was no television. When she was abreast of the garden, she heard the Leithans talking and she stopped to listen. She realised, with pleasure, that they were having a row.

  “You saw her the day before yesterday.”

  “I’ve already said I didn’t.”

  “You lied. You did see her. I know you did, because your car was parked outside her house.”

  “And some kind neighbour rushed to tell you?”

  “Do you admit it?”

  “All right. I went over and saw her in the afternoon.”

  You’re stupid, thought Sarah Pochard scornfully. Fancy admitting it. Now the old bitch would really go to town!

  “Why did you lie?”

  “For goodness’ sake, quieten down, Evadne. You don’t want them to hear you in Ashford.”

  “I don’t care who hears. In any case, Ashford already knows. You’ve turned me into a laughing stock. Whenever I go away, you run straight to your little whore.”

  “She isn’t.”

  Not much, thought Sarah Pochard.

  “You’ve tried to make a fool out of me, Charles, but it’s you who’s the fool. I’ll divorce you, and you know what’ll happen then.”

  “You haven’t any cause to divorce me.”

  “No cause! That’s amusing. I’ve cause enough and you’ll lose all your money; you won’t get a penny from the trust. And it won’t be any good coming to me because I shan’t give you anything. You’ll have to go begging to her and see what she’ll give you.”

  More than you can, thought Sarah Pochard.

  “I’m not going to keep on being treated like this. Why d’you keep seeing her?”

  “I thought you’d already reached a firm conclusion on that point.”

  “I’m your wife, not her. What’s she offering you that I can’t?”

  How stupid can you get, wondered Sarah Pochard?

  “We discuss books.”

  This time, Evadne Leithan’s comments matched the hidden listener’s thoughts. “What d’you take me for? She ought to be on the streets of London.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I know my rights and I’m going to have ’em. Don’t make any mistake there. If you want to run after that tart, you’ll just have to keep on running.” There was a harsh laugh. “You won’t think it’s quite so worth-while when you haven’t got a penny to your name. You don’t think you’ll count for anything when you’re poor, do you? You won’t know what’s hit you. You’ll fold up and collapse because you haven’t an ounce of backbone. D’you hear me, you’ll collapse.”

  “Stop getting so excited.”

  “You’ll be chucked out of this farm. You’ve thought about that, haven’t you? The farm, the house, and the cars, all belong to the trust. So what about your precious cows? I’ll send them all to the knacker’s yard, I’ll chuck salt over the grass you’re always talking about, I’ll rip out all the trees you’ve planted.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Let’s see what you call me when everything’s mine. Let’s see how proud you are when you’re begging me to take you back. What will you call me and what will you call your whore?”

  “For the last time, she isn’t my mistress and never has been.”

  “I’ll get proof. Don’t flatter yourself on that score. You’re not nearly as clever as you think, and I’m not the fool you’d like me to be.”

  “What the hell’s the use of explaining?”

  “That’s right, go away to bury your head in the sands. You’re a complete failure, Charles, but because of your father’s money you’ve never had to realise it. Now, you’re going to learn. You won’t keep her on the money you make from your scribbling.”

  Sarah Pochard’s main thought became one of surprised interest. She was astonished to discover that Leithan had the courage to have a mistress.

  Chapter V

  Leithan paced the floor of the study. The house had belonged to him — the trust — for only thirteen years, yet it had come to mean as much to him as if it had been in the family’s possession for centuries. Now, he was threatened with its loss.

  Surely he could live without being wealthy? His writing would improve as Pam always swore it would, and he would make enough money to maintain the two of them and the family that she longed for. He saw himself working with a new vigour and urgency, producing work that really mattered and that therefore people wanted to read. Then, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and he visualised his editor, at the best of times humourless and lugubrious, shaking his head and saying that the state of fiction was getting even worse, that commercial libra
ries were now things of the past, that hardly any bookshops were left, and therefore, although the latest MS. was good, it would very regretfully have to be rejected… Leithan suddenly suffered the absolute certainty that his writing wasn’t any good. It was the hobby of a man who did not know what it was to have to earn a living. In a panicky manner, he tried to imagine what he would do if his writing failed him. What business or industry would take on a man of forty-two who possessed no qualifications beyond an M.A. obtained in the dim and distant past? Journalism? He was hardly made for the cut and thrust of that life. Farming? There was a world of difference between hobby farming, even if it did pay, and farming for a living. And where would he get the capital? With a sense of terrible isolation, he knew he dare not face the challenge. If that made him a coward, he was a coward.

  But he had to face the challenge…unless he was ready to lose Pamela. Could he suffer such loss when she meant everything to him? Would he ever dare to leave Evadne and the trust fund?

  He lit a cigarette. The agony of making a decision which he dare not make. What in the name of hell could he do?

  *

  The November fog covered much of Kent, and Lympne and Lydd airports were temporarily closed; the train services were running late, and all the roads south of Farningham were potential death traps.

  Belinda and William O’Connell, driving from New Romney to London, gave the fog best at Kingsnorth. They stopped and were about to turn back for home when Belinda suggested calling in to see the Leithans. William O’Connell said that was a darned good idea, since the Leithans’ daily woman could cook to some tune and Charles had a wine cellar that fairly made one’s mouth water. The O’Connells had three children to educate and thus were seldom able to enjoy the pleasures of expensive living.