First published by Raider International in 2010 in hardback, a paperback edition was published by CompletleyNovel in 2016 and again in paperback by Amazon in 2021.
The novel was praised by The Western Morning News as ‘A stylishly pacy novel.’ While an Amazon reviewer felt it was a ‘Really exciting story loved it.’
Here is a taste for you.
A story that goes back and forward in time as a son in 1976 tries to find out what happened to his recently deceased father in war time Italy. The third edition still available for you to enjoy.
Fowey, Cornwall, spring 1976
‘There you are, Mr. Tom. I’m not daft, you know; that ring killed your dad,’ said Doris.
Tom Faulkner examined the envelope. He noted the Italian stamps, and the post mark: Verona. It meant nothing to him. Doris Walker, home help for his late father, Jack Faulkner, continued to drone on in her light, Cornish accent.
‘It was the first thing he opened on the day he died. Died right here at his desk, I found him slumped here; didn’t even finish his breakfast.’
Jack saw the half-eaten cornflakes, and the mouldy green dregs in the coffee cup, which Doris had left to prove her point.
‘Yes, and the rest of the mail was unopened, that’s odd, Tom,’ said his younger sister, Anne.
‘Okay,’ said Tom, putting down the envelope, and picking up the signet ring. ‘But what does it prove, other than death by natural causes, which is what the Coroner said?’ He examined the ring closely. On its flat surface were two capital Ls, with what looked like a skull between them. The surface was worn, but he could still make them out. ‘What do you make of it, sis?’ he asked, handing the ring to Anne.
‘It wasn’t natural causes,’ said Doris.
‘You can’t know that,’ said Anne.
‘The police were happy,’ added Tom.
‘And what do they know?’ asked Doris, with a laugh. ‘Do you know Dr. Bolitho, your dad’s doctor? He was amazed by your dad’s medical file. For a sixty-five-year-old, there was nothing in it, apart from his army record.’
‘That’s true,’ said Anne. ‘Dad had wonderful health.’
‘Perhaps maybe all the more reason he should go as he did,’ said Tom.
Anne picked up a magnifying glass from the desk, which the three of them stood around, in her father’s study. The study window looked out onto a long, narrow garden at the rear of the large, terraced house on Polvillion Road, Fowey.
‘There’s an ‘N’ stamped on the back of the flat side of this ring,’ said Anne, handing ring and glass to Tom.
He squinted through the glass; then went closer to the window for light.
‘Don’t think it’s a hallmark; it does look like a single ‘N’. You’re sure this came in the envelope, Doris?’
‘I never saw it before, and, if it was not in that envelope, what was?’
Tom returned to the desk, and picked up the envelope again, checking inside with his fingers. There was nothing inside. He had to admit that he had never known his father to wear a ring, not even a wedding ring, or any jewellery come to that.
‘Shall I make some coffee?’ asked Doris.
‘Yes, please,’ said Anne. She was feeling dry after the church service at St. Fimbarrus in Fowey, and then the trip to Penmount, the crematorium near Truro. The church service had been attended by only a dozen people, including Tom, Anne and Doris. But then Jack Faulkner had lived in Fowey for only eight years.
The brother and sister were separated by two years. They were both tall like their father, but with their mother’s darker colouring, in complexion and hair, and her grey-blue eyes. It was still a mystery why their father, Jack Faulkner, had moved to Cornwall, away from the midlands, and Jaguar at Browns Lane, Allesley, near Coventry, for the car industry had been his life. He was already retired when their mother, Carol, had died in a road accident, and, within two years, he had sold up and moved. They had come to Cornwall on family beach holidays, but had stayed on the north coast at Mawgan Porth, with its expanse of sand, not to this small, south coast town.
Anne inattentively moved the few things about on the desk. She then sat in the big armchair behind the desk. Glancing down at the waste paper basket, she took out some screwed up tissue paper. ‘Bet that ring came wrapped in this,’ she said flattening the paper out on the desk. ‘You don’t send a ring through the post just in an envelope.’
Tom picked it up and felt it, as if it might convey something to him. ‘I think you’re right about that.’
‘Doris,’ said Anne, when she returned with a tray of cups and coffee. ‘This tissue paper in the waste paper basket must have been wrapped around the ring; it was the only thing in the basket.’
Doris looked closely at the paper. ‘You’re right; it was, because I emptied it the day before. Your dad must have put it there that morning.’
‘Which means,’ said Tom, ‘that Dad did not recognise that ring straight away.’
‘Still don’t mean it didn’t start his old ticker off,’ said Doris, pouring the coffee.
‘I think you could be right, Doris,’ said Anne, once more examining the ring.
‘However it might mean that it took Dad time to recognise something about it,’ Tom said, helping himself to sugar for his coffee. ‘And we know Dad corresponded with Don Carlo for years.’
‘Is that the priest?’ asked Doris.
‘Yes, Dad knew him even before the war,’ said Anne.
‘If it had been Carlo, he would have sent a note with the ring,’ said Tom.
‘Don’t think it was him, Mr. Tom. His letters were stamped Pisa, different envelopes, coarser, not so expensive.’
Tom took a sip of coffee and put his cup down. ‘Did you notice something else odd about the funeral?’
They both looked at him blankly.
‘The wreaths.’
Again, they did not respond.
‘I looked at them closely. Two were from Italy.’
‘What… the flowers?’ asked Anne.
‘No, no they would never last that long,’ said Tom. ‘Hang on… They are in my coat pocket, the cards; the funeral director gave them to me. I forgot about them with all this talk about murdering rings.’ Tom went to the hall where his overcoat was hanging, and returned with the cards.
Anne read, ‘From the directors and staff of Alfa Romeo, Portello, in deepest regret for your loss of our dear friend, Jack Faulkner. Not so strange, Tom; he spent years in the motor trade.’
‘Okay, but did you ever hear him speak about Alfa Romeo?’
Anne shook her head. ‘No, never, but you know as well as I do that we never knew him that well, sometimes it was like living with a stranger.’
‘What about this one?’ asked Doris. ‘The Communist Party, Milan. In deepest sympathy. You’re not telling me your dad was a comrade, and how would they have found out, in Italy, that your dad had died?’
‘A communist, that’s a laugh; he was a committed capitalist,’ said Tom. ‘They might find out from our press. Did Dad have any close friends in Fowey, Doris?’
‘Friends, hmm, well only one really, the Major, Gilbert Harris, lives down on the Esplanade, at the Gunport, typical man, what a daft name for a house. Think they used to go to the British Legion Club on the quay.’
Doris took the cups away, and washed them, then made her excuses and left, saying, ‘Mind you lock up properly; your dad was hopeless at that.’
‘She’s remarkable,’ said Tom, after Doris had gone.
‘The short-sighted pensioner, who doesn’t miss a thing, ye Gods, her glasses must be an inch thick. And I think she’s older than Dad anyway. I wonder where Dad found her. Come on, Tom, let’s go, this place is beginning to give me the creeps.’
‘What, do you think that Dad’s going to haunt it?’ said Tom.
‘No, I don’t but I never liked this house you know.’
Brother and sister put on their coats against the chill, March wind, blowing in off the sea, locked the front door of the terraced house and made their way into the town, through a nearby deserted council estate. Then down steeply toward the harbour, they passed the grand Fowey Hall Hotel, screened by tall Monterey Pines, home for dozens of noisy rooks.
Tom glanced at his watch. ‘Look, sis, it’s only a quarter to four; what do you say we call on Major Harris, might find something out?’
‘I’m starving, Tom.’
‘Well nothing’s going to open yet for a while.’
‘All right, I just hope it’s not uphill; you’ve got to be a mountain goat to live here.’
Major Gilbert Harris, Gilly, to his friends, late of the Royal Artillery, opened the door of the Gunport, on the Esplanade to Tom’s knock, on the knocker which was shaped like a cannon barrel.
Major Harris sized Tom and Anne up quickly. ‘Ah, kids of Jack, thought I might see you.’
‘We were wondering,’ said Anne, ‘if we might talk to you, Major Harris, about Dad.’
‘Certainly, my dear, anything for a pretty face; call me Gilly,’ he said, stewarding them through a passage, into a large living room. ‘Just in time for gunfire, take a seat.’ Then he disappeared.
‘Gunfire?’ asked Anne.
‘Army slang for tea, I think,’ said Tom.
‘What a view, Tom; look at this,’ said Anne, having moved down the long room to a large bay window. The window encompassed the expanses of Fowey Harbour with dozens of boats, bobbing at their moorings, and the sun making the water glisten. On the far shore was the village of Polruan, clinging, even more steeply than Fowey, to its headland.
Gilly returned with a tray of things. ‘Ah! Enjoying the view, good oh! Something I never tire of. Your father was the same. Of course, he knew Fowey before me, came here in the thirties, years before I did.’
‘Dad knew Fowey that early?’ asked Anne, pouring the tea at Gilly’s request. In comfortable armchairs, they all sat in front of the picture window.
‘Let me think, yes, it was MG Cars for the Italian race that came down here by rail from Abingdon, and were loaded on the S.S. Florentine, as deck cargo for Genoa. Your dad was involved in the loading; then sailed with them. The Florentine used to be a regular cargo ship between Fowey and Genoa, mostly with China clay from the mines around St. Austell; took twelve days to get there.’
‘You mean the Mille Miglia, the road race?’ asked Tom.
‘That’s the one, although I don’t think your dad took part, he was part of the technical side.’
‘Have you ever seen this before?’ asked Tom, handing Gilly the signet ring, which he examined closely.
‘No, never seen it before.’
‘You know Doris Walker?’ asked Tom.
‘I should think most people in Fowey and Polruan know Doris.’
‘Well, she thinks that ring came in the post on the morning that Dad had his heart attack, and somehow caused it,’ said Tom.
‘Doris said that? Well, she’s nobody’s fool.’ Gilly fetched a magnifying glass and went over to the window to take a closer look at the ring. ‘They say you can have a heart attack any time. However, I was surprised by your dad; he was so fit for his age, used to leave me standing on our coastal walks, like a greyhound, he was. I’ll tell you something about this ring, too. The skull between the two Ls, I’m fairly sure, is the symbol of the Italian fascist party, and the crossbones below have been just about worn away.’
Anne and Tom looked at each other, then at Gilly.
‘Have I said something profound?’
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘But the envelope that ring came in was marked Verona.’
‘Verona, ah I see, but all the same, it does not amount to much, hardly enough to hang anybody.’
‘But there were wreaths from Italy as well, how did they know?’
‘From Italy,’ Gilly said, passing the ring back to Tom. ‘I should imagine that they read about your dad in the English dailies. Jaguar press office would have put a piece in about him. No conspiracy there. And he told me he was a POW in Italy during the war. Although, now I mention it, he was always a bit vague about it; or rather more so about when and how he left the POW camp. Now, what was it called? No good, can’t remember the name, but I know that it was near Florence.’
‘Well, Gilly, we have taken up enough of your time,’ said Tom, getting to his feet. Anne got up more reluctantly.
‘Why do you think the Communist Party should send a wreath?’ asked Anne.
‘The commies; now that is strange my dear, no idea. I tell you what, though; I will miss your dad.’
With that Gilly saw his guests to the door and they said their goodbyes.
* * *
Yet it was not the last time Tom and Anne saw Major Gilbert Harris in Fowey. That evening, they were sitting at a table, snug beside a fire in the Ship Inn, where they had stayed over the period of the funeral on bed and breakfast. It was here that Gilly found them.
‘Hope I’m not disturbing you people, what with mourning and all.’
‘No, of course not; sit. Can I get you a drink?’ asked Tom.
‘Oh! Yes, why not? Pint of best bitter, old man; goes down nicely.’ Tom went to the bar to get the drinks, pints for him and Gilly, and a shandy for Anne. He was back quickly; the pub was quiet on a Tuesday night.
‘Oh great,’ said Gilly, and downed half of his pint in a couple of gulps. ‘Lovely. Now, I did not come looking for you just to cadge drinks. I found out the name of that POW camp that your dad was in, written it down. Now where have I put it?’ With that, he started searching the pockets of his tweed jacket, finally locating the slip of paper in the breast pocket. ‘There we are; it was Campo 12, the Castle Vincigliata, near Florence. It was for officers, so I don’t quite know why Jack was there, but I’m sure that’s the one.’
Tom and Anne were stuck with Gilly then, for most of the evening, during which he consumed beer at a huge rate, toasting the memory of Jack Faulkner several times. It was apparent to both of them that Gilly was in mourning far more than they were.
‘So, you two did not really know your dad all that well?’ queried Gilly, when the alcohol gave him courage to ask what he had been thinking.
‘No, to be honest,’ said Anne, ‘I don’t think we did. Mum said Dad changed when he came back from Italy and the war; he was ‘distant’ was all she would say. However, that was before we were born. He was a good provider; then Mum died, and, within two years, he came to Fowey. We thought he was trying to hide down here, but now I think, perhaps, he was looking for something.’
They all fell silent for a while with their own thoughts of Jack Faulkner.
‘Another drink, Gilly?’ asked Tom.
‘Well…’ He looked at his watch. ‘Why not, a night cap old man, double whisky?’ The whisky did not last long with Major Gilbert Harris; he got up to leave, and, even then, he was steady on his feet.
‘I wish you both good fortune,’ he said, shaking Tom’s hand and kissing Anne on both cheeks. ‘They say all roads lead to Rome. Well, in your case, if you want to know about your dad, it would appear that all roads lead to Italy.’
Tom lay awake, well into the early hours, having drunk too much, and his mind turned over what Doris and Gilly had said. The ring and the envelope, and his father’s friendship with Carlo the priest, had always been mysterious. And what Gilly had said: ‘all roads lead to Italy’, and Doris: ‘that ring killed your father’, nagged him.
Three Editions
