‘I’ll do it,’ Fraser said.
Nobody wanted tea but they needed time, a pause before he could go on. Fraser went over to the kettle. He was glad to break away.
‘I went back to Boscombe Down,’ he began again, once the fresh cups had been brought. ‘And the next time I came home, I knew exactly which way the wind was blowing. Mary and Robert had pulled up the drawbridge. She never let go of him after that, not for a minute, and it was like they didn’t want to know me. I would have done my bit for my family, Mr Pünd, I swear I would have. But they never let me. Robert always said that I walked out on them but that isn’t true. I came home but there was nobody there.’
‘When was the last time you saw your son, Mr Blakiston?’
‘Saturday, 23 July. At his mother’s funeral.’
‘Did he see you?’
‘No.’ Blakiston took a deep breath. He had finished his cigarette and stubbed it out. ‘They say that when you lose a child, it brings you closer together or tears you apart. What most hurt me about Mary was that after Tom went, she never let me get close to Robert. She was protecting him from me! Can you believe that? It wasn’t enough that I had lost one son. I ended up losing two.
‘And part of me never stopped loving her. That’s the pathetic thing. I told you, I used to write to her on her birthday, at Christmas. I talked to her on the phone sometimes. At least she’d let me do that. But she didn’t want me anywhere near. She made that clear enough.’
‘Did you speak to her recently?’
‘The last time I spoke to her was a couple of months ago – but here’s something you won’t believe. I actually called her the day she died. It was the weirdest thing. I was woken up that morning by a bird in a tree and it was making this horrible noise, this cawing. It was a magpie. “One for sorrow.” Do you know that old song? Well, I looked at it on the other side of the bedroom window, black and white, an evil little thing with its glinting eye and suddenly I felt sick to the stomach. It was like I’d had a premonition. I knew something bad was going to happen. I went to the shop but I couldn’t work and no one came in anyway. I was thinking about Mary. I was convinced something was going to happen to her and, in the end, I couldn’t stop myself. I rang her. I tried her at the Lodge and then at the main house – but she didn’t answer because I was too late. She was already dead.’
He was playing with the cellophane from the cigarette packet, pulling it apart between his fingers.
‘I heard about her death a few days later. There was a piece in the newspaper … Would you believe it? Nobody even bothered to ring me. You’d have thought Robert might have got in touch, but he didn’t care. Anyway, I knew I had to go to the funeral. It didn’t matter what had happened. There’d been a time when the two of us were young and we’d been together. I wasn’t going to let her go without saying goodbye. I’ll admit, I was nervous about showing my face. I didn’t want to make a big thing of it with everyone crowding around me so I arrived late and I wore a hat pulled down over my face. I’m a lot thinner than I used to be and I’m nearly sixty years old. I thought if I kept well clear of Robert I’d be all right and that was how it turned out.
‘I did see him there. He was standing with a girl and I was glad to see that. It’s just what he needs. He was always very solitary when he was a boy and she looked a pretty little thing. I hear they’re going to get married and maybe if they have children, they’ll let me visit them. People change in time, don’t they? He says I wasn’t there for him but maybe, if you see him, you’ll tell him the truth.
‘It was so strange to be there, back in the village. I’m not even sure I like the place any more. And seeing them all again – Dr Redwing and Clarissa and Brent and all the others. It gave me a shiver, I can tell you. I noticed Sir Magnus and Lady Pye didn’t show up and that made me smile. I’m sure Mary would have been disappointed! I always did tell her he was no good. But perhaps it was just as well that he wasn’t there. I’m not sure what I’d have done if I’d seen him that day. I blame him for what happened, Mr Pünd. Mary fell down the stairs while she was skivvying for him so that makes two of them. Mary and Tom. They’d both be alive if it weren’t for him.’
‘Is that why you went to his house five days later?’
Blakiston bowed his head. ‘How did you know I was there?’
‘Your car was seen.’
‘Well, I’m not going to deny it. Yes. It was stupid of me but at the end of the week I went back. The thing is, I couldn’t get it out of my head. First Tom, then Mary, both of them at Pye Hall. Listening to me now, you probably think I’m owning up to it, that I went back to kill him. But it wasn’t like that. I just wanted to talk to him, to ask him about Mary. Everyone else who’d gone to that funeral, they’d had someone to talk to – but not me. No one even recognised me – at my own wife’s funeral! Was it so unreasonable to want to see him just for five minutes, just to ask him about Mary?’
He thought for a moment, then came to a decision.
‘There was something else. You’ll think the worse of me for it but I was thinking about money. Not for me. For my son. When someone dies in the workplace, it’s your responsibility. Mary had been working for Sir Magnus for more than twenty years and he owed her a duty of care. I thought he might have come to some arrangement with her – you know, a pension. I knew Robert would never accept any financial help from me, even if I could have afforded it, but if he was about to get married, didn’t he deserve some sort of start in life? Sir Magnus had always had a soft spot for him. I had this idea that I could ask him for help on Robert’s behalf.’ He stopped and looked away.
‘Please, go on.’