The Colonel's Daughter by Rose Tremain Read Free Book Online Page A

plane. Neither has slept for long. They wear their sunglasses and sit in silence behind the Swiss chauffeur who drives with ease and politeness, trying not to jolt his passengers from side to side on the sharp corners.
    As they leave the mountains and the road straightens monotonously, Amelia brings out a little scented handkerchief, blows her nose and sighs: ‘What an end, Duffy.’
    Duffy coughs. His military mind had planned their holiday with the precision of a campaign. To sacrifice seven and a half days of that campaign has annoyed him deeply. And all night his mind has repeated the clipped utterances of Detective Inspector Pitt. Pitt – ‘whoever this damn Pitt is!’ – also annoys him deeply, because he, who prides himself on his knowledge of men, has marked Pitt for a dissembler. ‘You see,’ he explains now to Amelia, ‘the British police are utterly bamboozled in ninety per cent of British robberies, Amelia. They have no more clue as to who did what than your average orang-utang, your average Maasai warrior. Less, in fact. But in this case, Pitt knows .’
    â€˜Knows what, Duffy?’
    â€˜He’s trying to pretend he doesn’t, but he does.’
    â€˜Does what?’
    â€˜He knows who broke into Sowby. He just isn’t saying.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜That’s precisely it, Amelia.’
    â€˜Well, I can’t see that it matters much who did it. They say they’ve found the paintings and the jewellery, thank goodness.’
    â€˜So why is Pitt insisting that we cut short our holiday?’
    â€˜Well, poor Garrod. They want to stop this kind of thing happening again.’
    â€˜Oh don’t be silly, Amelia.’
    â€˜Well, how do I know, Duffy?’
    â€˜You mean you haven’t been working it out?’
    â€˜Working what out?’
    â€˜Who robbed us.’
    â€˜How could I work it out? That’s the job of Pitt, or whatever he’s called. And I’m not even in England.’
    â€˜I’ve worked it out.’
    â€˜I can’t imagine how.’
    â€˜It all fits: Pitt’s lying, the summons home . . .’
    â€˜What fits?’
    â€˜It was Charlotte.’
    Amelia is rigid in the car. Her mouth is a little scar of puckered lines. Duffy looks away from this petrified face. Yet he feels relief. She had to know. He, not the policeman, had to be the one to tell her.
    Minutes pass. The car sways on. Lush fields flank the road. Amelia blinks and blinks behind her glasses. No, she promises herself, this can’t be right. Because this would be it – the ending. The ending she has feared for years, the ending like a death, the death of all hope that the child she brought up in an English paradise would come home to thank her and save her. Save her from what?
    â€˜Ohh . . .’ she wails, ‘Ohh, Duffy . . .’
    From guilt.
    From her terrible neglect.
    From the useless buying of bronze statuettes.
    From the language of cliché and cruelty.
    From flower arrangements and servants.
    From indifference.
    From her proud blood . . .
    â€˜Ohh . . . Duffy . . . I simply cannot believe that . . .’
    Duffy puts a wide hand out to Amelia. He feels lumpen with dread, in need of comfort himself.
    â€˜I could be wrong, old thing,’ he says in a choked voice.
    So of course, in her agony, Amelia is cross: ‘Then why on earth did you even suggest it? How could you imagine Charlotte doing a thing like this? She’s not a criminal!’
    Duffy sighs, removes the gift of his pink hand.
    â€˜In this society,’ he says slowly, ‘she is.’
    *
    Death. As she leaves the hospital in the police car, Charlotte has not imagined death. To Jim Reese, she had wanted to offer a birthright. This offered birthright would, she had decided, engender a birth: a birth of self-respect, a birth of energy and purpose. In other words,