A Death of Distinction Read online

  A DEATH OF

  DISTINCTION

  Marjorie Eccles

  CHIVERS

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  This eBook published by AudioGO Ltd, Bath, 2012.

  Published by arrangement with the Author

  Epub ISBN 9781471310560

  Copyright © Marjorie Eccles 1995

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  Jacket illustration © iStockphoto.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  1

  ‘... what could well be the end of civilization as we know it. We are not only systematically destroying our own planet, we’re destroying our society. Drugs are endemic, rape and murder have become commonplace. But what is more unforgivable than the rest is the destruction of childhood innocence.’

  Jack Lilburne paused briefly. With undisguised love and a total absence of irony, his eyes rested on his daughter, Flora, sitting next to him at the dinner table. Eighteen years old, her mass of tumbling, tawny-blonde hair falling to her shoulders, her painted lips pouting invitingly, full, creamy breasts threatening to spill from her dangerously cut neckline.

  ‘Decadence is projected at our children every day from our television screens,’ Jack continued, a handsome, vital figure with thick white hair, lively brown eyes and still-dark eyebrows. ‘They are encouraged to believe that violence is the answer to every trivial disagreement, that even the most casual encounter between boy and girl must involve sex ...’

  Anthony Spurrier, uneasy in his hired dinner jacket and black tie, ran his finger round the inside of his collar, adjusted his spectacles and with an effort managed to drag his gaze away from Flora. Chasing crumbs of Bath Oliver and Stilton round his plate with a celery leaf, he looked covertly at his watch. Jack could be guaranteed for at least another ten minutes, though from one end of the long, shining expanse of mahogany to the other the guests were listening with every appearance of interested attention.

  Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? For one thing, nearly everyone present had a soft spot for old Jack. He could go on a bit sometimes, he was inclined to be somewhat overfond of the sound of his own Geordie-accented voice, but nobody doubted his sincerity, the passion of his involvement. And tonight, they were prepared to be indulgent, goodwill had marked every phase of the evening; even the controversial subject of the new wing had been tacitly swept under the carpet.

  Candles flickered against dark panelling and banked flowers, silver and napery gleamed, wine glowed in crystal glasses and wafts of the Mayoress’s statement-making scent drifted down the table. It was all very civilized, a polite gathering of colleagues and civic dignitaries invited to dine here in the municipal splendour of the Town Hall. A semi-official function, hosted by one of the town’s industrialists and given the blessing of the Mayor. A recognition of Jack’s OBE award in the New Year Honours list, for services as Governor of the Conyhall Young Offenders’ Institution, but recognition also because he was a respected figure in the local community, a friend and like-minded colleague. Nods of approval followed his words.

  ‘However,’ he continued, on a more optimistic note.

  Anthony had heard it all before, but it was the lingering echo of the word ‘sex’ which drew his gaze, as if with invisible strings, back to Flora’s cleavage, of which he had a full view, since she was sitting directly opposite him in her red, crushed velvet frock, tight and fashionably tarty. Sinking further down into his chair, as Jack showed no immediate signs of drawing to a close, he idly began to fantasize about removing the frock. He had reached the point where he was sliding down the zip when Flora’s mother, sitting correctly upright on the chair next to him, picked up her water glass and took a small, delicate sip. Immediately, Anthony too sat upright, sharply reminded to sublimate such thoughts. Dorothea had an uncanny knack of being able to guess what was in your mind – or at any rate, her laser gaze made you feel she did.

  Drawn the short straw again! Anthony had thought with a hint of unaccustomed temper, having hoped to sit next to Flora and finding instead that he’d been put next to her mother. OK, so it was an honour to be placed next to the governor’s wife, but Dorothea was hard work. Her hair done in a smooth, beige French pleat, all well-bred politeness but rarely smiling, she would field a conversational ball pleasantly enough, but never bat one of her own, so that there were long, intimidating silences while you were left searching for another opening. Especially tonight, when your other neighbour was Councillor Ponting’s ancient and very deaf wife, preoccupied with her food.

  The one topic which could be guaranteed to evoke a response in Dorothea Lilburne was anything on the subject of gardens, but that was soon exhausted, since Anthony scarcely knew a daffodil from a dandelion, whereas Dorothea’s gardening was in the RHS Committee Member class. The Mayor, on Dorothea’s other side, holding forth on a scheme for a new municipal rose garden, had done rather better than Anthony, whose nearest approach had been that all-time conversational low, the weather, and its effects on Dorothea’s herbaceous border. Dealt with in about five minutes, all permissible adjectives to describe the last appalling weeks having long since been used up.

  It had been the sort of spring which broke all records: curtains of rain had swept for weeks across the sodden landscape. The lower parts of the town had been flooded several times to the extent where the canal and the river, running parallel for some miles, had almost joined. It had been bitterly cold, though Anthony and Flora had scarcely noticed. They’d drawn the curtains in his room, lit the lamps, listened to the rain lashing the windows and turned up the gas fire to make love on the rug in front of it.

  Flora. She was like a magnet. He could no more stop looking at her, only a candle flame away across the table, than he could fly: her skin flushed and downy, she was ripe as one of the out-of-season peaches piled in the centre fruit bowl. In her red velvet she glowed like Rembrandt’s Saskia against the mostly dowdy blacks of the other women; against her mother’s discreetly tasteful navy lace, the one she’d worn to the Palace with a matching hat and a silk coat when Jack had collected his OBE from Her Majesty.

  He was willing to bet Flora’s frock had received a chilly reception. Dorothea waged a low-key but persistent war of attrition against her daughter’s choice of clothes. Nothing so obvious as a clash of wills, because she would never descend to such – and anyway, Flora wouldn’t join in – but a constant disapproval that was intended to wear her down, though she must have known it would never succeed. You didn’t win with Flora.

  Anthony was only too aware of this. He was up to the eyebrows in love with her, and though they’d been sleeping together on and off for three months, he still couldn’t get her to say how she really felt about him, and could in truth see nothing coining of it, especially if her parents had any say in the matter. They w
ere from such utterly different backgrounds – Anthony from working-class Walsall, where his father was a foreman tool-maker and Flora ... well, Jack Lilburne himself was proud of coming from Northumbrian mining stock, but he’d escaped before he was out of his teens, got himself a scholarship to Durham University, then married Dorothea and come into comparative wealth and social standing. In his more charitable moments, Anthony allowed himself to believe that Jack must have fallen in love with Dorothea’s cool, patrician beauty, but Jack had a canny streak, and anyway, Anthony didn’t see anyone marrying Dorothea for anything other than her money and her position as a daughter of one of the county families.

  Flora, born latish in their lives, had never known anything but this privileged, nothing-ever-denied-to-her, lifestyle. Over which Anthony, on the lowest rung of his particular career ladder, quietly despaired. He’d come to the Prison Service after qualifying as a psychologist, and couldn’t aspire to anything likely to be acceptable to Flora’s parents in the foreseeable future.

  Jack finished his speech to a round of applause, glasses were raised once more, and the main purpose of the evening being over, guests were free to disperse, though most of them found it pleasant to linger. Chairs were pushed back, legs stretched, seats exchanged for a word with friends. The Mayoress, accompanied by Dorothea, sailed away in a cloud of Obsession to the end of the room, in order to inspect more closely the various splendid presentation gifts which Jack had received during the course of the evening, while Flora went to sit next to Anthony, giving him the full benefit of her radiant smile.

  ‘Poor love, you’ve been having a hard time with my mother.’

  ‘Not really.’ Anthony was embarrassed that his boredom had been so evident, but Flora only laughed.

  ‘She’s all right, you know. She just never knows what to say to people unless they know about gardens.’

  Anthony felt a rush of love for her. Nobody, seeing Flora for the first time, would imagine how kind and good-natured, how nice she was. He ought to try, like her, to see the better side of people. But even so, his imagination stopped short, trying to envisage an endless future with a mother-in-law who talked of nothing but chrysanthemums and compost.

  ‘D’you like my frock, Anthony?’

  ‘I like you in it,’ he replied diplomatically.

  Flora glowed; then made a moue. ‘My mother doesn’t. She wanted me to go and change, but it was too late. They’d sent a car with a chauffeur for us and it was waiting.’

  Clever Flora! But even Anthony had to admit the frock was a bit much, certainly for tonight – probably a recycled number from her own rather iffy little venture into business, called Mark Two. She and her partner, Charlotte Delamere, knew plenty of women who didn’t bat an eyelid at spending on designer-label clothes what would be a month’s wages for some people. To be worn only a few times and then sold, discreetly, to places like Mark Two, who advertised them as being for ‘women with more fashion sense than money’. No shortage of women like that in Lavenstock, but few who were able to afford even the second-hand prices of the clothes in Flora’s shop. Anthony was giving the enterprise another three months, with luck.

  Jack sat back with relief now that he’d done his bit, but with an unaccustomed feeling of anti-climax. He’d reached what most would regard as the pinnacle of his career: was there no way ahead then, except downhill? Retirement had been spoken of several times that night. He was only three years off sixty, the time when most people began counting the days, but he was looking towards it without much enthusiasm. He came from a long-lived family, his father had died digging potatoes at ninety-four. At that rate, he’d more than half the years of his present life yet to live.

  As yet he’d formulated no plans beyond a vague intention to write a book or two based on his professional experiences, or possibly to travel, preferably to remote parts of the world where Dorothea would not feel it incumbent upon herself to accompany him. A guilty thought made less guilty by telling himself that, enduring martyrdom away from her garden, she would indeed be a dreary companion. Secretly, he nourished a hope (not as secret as he thought) that sixty wouldn’t, in fact, bring a total severance from his present occupation: that some niche, somewhere, would be found for him. Work suited him. He didn’t want to be put out to grass, not yet. He still had a lot to offer: he was physically active and rich in experience, and second to none as an administrator; added to which, no one knew better than he how to handle the difficult youths who came under his care, having held the reins of Conyhall in his hands since a few years after its inception. His OBE had been an acknowledgement of the fact.

  If the truth were told, he didn’t want to relinquish those reins at all, though choice in the matter wasn’t an option. A new governor would be appointed willy-nilly, and he was unlikely to be consulted. Someone with stiffer ideas about discipline, no doubt. It was quite possible that the person chosen to head the team of governors who ran Conyhall could be a woman. The next logical move for someone like Claudia Reynolds.

  She was seated at three removes, on the same side of the table as he was, so that he couldn’t see her without craning forward, but he was aware of her, as a strong personality and as an attractive woman. Pity about her ... However – he comforted himself with the thought – Claudia was a matter of indifference to him, and her promotion would certainly mean relocation.

  ‘Ten-thirty tomorrow morning, then, Jack?’

  Denis Quattrell, his bank manager, had slipped into the Mayoress’s vacant chair. He was a long, thin, desiccated man, who said little but, one had to assume, thought a lot. The type, in any case, to have as friend rather than foe. Jack had been careful to cultivate Quattrell. The decision on whether or not the new wing should be built couldn’t in any way be his, but as Chairman of Conyhall’s Board of Visitors, his support and recommendations on the need for more administrative space would go a long way. Also, as a member of Lavenstock Town Council, he could be invaluable in stemming the tide of local opposition. An unofficial, friendly meeting between himself and Quattrell could do no harm, Jack knew, to the fulfilment of his plans.

  ‘Half past ten, Denis. I’ll look forward to seeing you.’

  Quattrell said carefully, ‘Don’t count chickens, but no doubt there’s room for coming to some – mutual accommodation.’

  Jack felt triumphant. He knew it! It had made sense, all along, in these difficult times, to add a new admin block to the present building, old as it was, rather than spend Government money on new premises. There was a vociferous element locally, who objected to the scheme on the grounds of what they saw as the gradual encroachment of the prison buildings towards them – disregarding the fact that the proposed new wing would be well within the Conyhall boundary, and on Prison Service land.

  But such protest groups were listened to more and more, and Jack knew he couldn’t afford to disregard them. He was sure, however, that some solution, other than direct confrontation, would be found. He felt himself riding on a crest of optimism at the moment, when everything was undoubtedly going his way. For a moment, remembering recent troubling events, he had a flicker of doubt, but once more he put it out of his mind.

  2

  Taking a short cut through the narrow lane at the back of the Town Hall had been a mistake: Marc was wedged in between a following car and a big truck being loaded with huge pots of flowering plants. Probably from the previous evening’s function, he decided, and now being transported back to the Parks Department glasshouses. He waited impatiently, but it wasn’t long before the driver gave him the thumbs up and he could get past. It hadn’t really delayed him much, he made good time and his mother was still there when he arrived.

  The resiny smell of new wood filled her small flat as he carried in the planks, shouldering with ease the six three-foot lengths of three-quarter-inch-by-nine. Good, sturdy shelves that he left leaning just inside the door while he ran back down the narrow stairs to fetch his saw, plane, drill and sander, the Rawlplugs and screws. He’d always
been good at practical things, and he was eager to prove his carpentry skills, to get on and see the results. They’d be just the job when he’d finished them, three shelves in each of the alcoves either side of the small cast-iron fireplace that was only just big enough to house a barely adequate gas fire. Even so, she wouldn’t have enough books to fill them, or even any small ornaments and such to make up the spaces. He wondered what had happened to them all, and whether she missed such things.

  The tiny flat, once a bedroom floor, just this one room partitioned off to make provision for somewhere to cook and wash up, plus a minute bathroom and a shoebox-sized bedroom, was sparse and comfortless.

  ‘I could get you a few pictures, some cushions,’ he’d suggested. ‘A cat? Even a budgie. Something, at any rate, to love.’

  ‘No! No, thank you. I have everything I want.’

  Her refusal was quiet, but uncompromising, as if through the need to convince him that she’d grown away from the necessity for luxuries. He thought of her Spartan bedroom, its walls bare except for the crucifix above the narrow bed, seeming to dominate the room. It made him uncomfortable, this reminder of the faith that, despite everything, was still the main principle of her life.

  He’d left the door propped open while he went for the tools, and when she heard him return she called to him from the kitchen area.

  ‘Please – don’t call me that,’ he said, leaning against the doorframe, watching her as she moved quietly from one task to another. ‘You christened me Marc, and that’s who I am.’

  She was silent for a moment, her head bent as she folded the tea towel and placed it neatly over the rail, revealing neither pleasure nor displeasure as she lifted her head and looked at him. ‘If that is what you prefer.’ He saw the shadows in her eyes, shadows that he’d come to accept were permanent now. The thought both saddened and enraged him, it had all been so bloody pointless and unnecessary. Then a sudden rush of tenderness swamped his anger, and with it came an ever greater determination to look after and protect her, as though their positions were reversed, and she was the child, he the parent.