A Dark and Stormy Night (26 page)

I lay down, cloth at the ready, and said, ‘All right, what's this little charade all about?'

‘Mostly, I wanted to get out of there. It's the first time I've ever been on the receiving end of a group interrogation, and I had no idea how wearing it is on the nerves.'

‘Most unfair of you to pull rank that way. Unfair to the others, I mean.'

‘Indeed. But the other thing was, I wanted you to know that they're taking Laurence away—'

‘Alan!'

‘Keep your voice down! You're ill, remember? Not to arrest him. I knew you'd think that, and I wanted you to know before you learned it from someone else. The police doctor is worried about that head injury and wants him in hospital, at least until they're sure there are no permanent brain injuries. He'll have a constable with him, if only because he might possibly remember something else.'

I wanted to ask if Laurence was still under any suspicion, but there was no point. We would just repeat everything we'd said before. So I just smiled and said, ‘That's good. I've been worried all along about the poor man going without medical attention.'

Alan patted my hand. ‘And the other news is, Dave Harrison died of drowning – there's water in his lungs – and was almost certainly pushed into the river, probably with a tree branch or something of the sort. There's a small but nasty bruise in the middle of his back, slightly abraded.'

‘So that settles that, at least. He was murdered.'

‘That seems to be the inescapable conclusion.'

‘But what a clever way to do it! His murderer never got close enough to leave fibres or let Dave scratch him – no DNA to match up.'

‘And every single one of us was manhandling tree branches that day, so evidence of bark or wood fibres on the hands is worth sweet Fanny Adams. As for the weapon, it's probably part of a fine dam somewhere downstream by now. Yes, it looks like the perfect crime. And that, my dear, is why I wish I could get you away from here. We know for certain, now, that there's a murderer on the loose in this house, and you could so easily annoy him into . . . something unpleasant.'

‘Or her,' I said in an odd bit of feminism. Insist that the murderer could just as well be a woman? Maybe not quite in the spirit of the thing. And besides – ‘So you find me annoying, do you?'

‘Terribly.' He moved over to nuzzle my ear. ‘And extremely distracting. It's a pity—'

The knock on the door sounded peremptory. We sprang apart as guiltily as if we were a couple of teenagers caught necking on the front porch. ‘Come in,' he said, reaching for a tie to straighten – except he was wearing a turtleneck and sweater.

‘PC Bryan, sir, just checking on Mrs Nesbitt.'

‘Mrs Martin, Constable,' said Alan with a straight face.

‘Oh, yes, sir?' The young woman's face reddened slightly as she looked around the room so obviously occupied by two.

I was pleased to see that the young could still blush, but it was a shame to tease her. ‘I kept my own name when we married, Constable. It confuses many people.'

‘Yes, ma'am. I hope you're feeling better, Mrs Martin.'

Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. I had completely forgotten our little ruse. I picked up the cloth, which had left a wet spot on the bedspread, and dabbed at my temples with it. ‘Thank you. My medication is usually quite effective, if we catch the headache in time.' Which was the absolute truth.

‘Um . . . good. I came to tell you, Mr Nesbitt, that we've had a call from Superintendent Westley.'

‘Oh, the mobiles are back in service now?'

‘Yes, sir. We told him that Mrs N— Mrs Martin is ill, and he said you may both leave if you wish. I'm afraid it won't be possible to drive out for some time, but the rail service from Shepherdsford has been restored, and there's a direct line to Sherebury.'

There was our dream come true, just like that. Home. Away from this dreadful funhouse with its skeletons and mummies that popped out on every occasion, with its murderer happy in the knowledge of having committed the perfect crime.

This house with its unhappy host and hostess, facing years, probably, of repairs and rebuilding that would never erase the memories of this weekend. This house with its complement of other guests, all of whom wanted to get home every bit as badly as we did.

Alan and I have been married only a few years, a second marriage for both of us, but we have achieved in that short time a certain level of wordless communication. I looked at him and he at me, and I made my decision. ‘Please tell the Superintendent that it's very good of him, and we're grateful, but I really am feeling much better, and we would just as soon stay until . . . that is, until the drive and the roads are open.'

Alan squeezed my hand.

‘I expect we'll be back downstairs shortly.' I smiled at the constable, and she smiled back and left to pass the word.

‘I couldn't, Alan. Not when I'm really fine. It wouldn't be fair to the others. And besides—'

‘And besides, you want to unravel the rest of this tangled web.'

‘Do you mind too much?'

‘I'd rather have you safe. I'd always rather have you safe, but I can't cage you up.'

‘Anyway, love, with all the police in the house, I feel as safe as the Queen. No one but a fool would try anything with all those minions of the law around.'

‘As an American police officer I once knew was fond of saying, however, “most criminals are not rocket scientists”.'

‘You're saying he – she – the murderer might try to strike again, even with all the cops around.'

‘You have to consider his – for convenience' sake, let's stick to a single gender – his state of mind. If he doesn't know for certain that we now know Harrison was murdered, he must realize we soon will. He thinks he's committed the perfect crime, but doubts and fears will keep nagging at him. What if he left something at the riverbank, something incriminating? What if someone saw him? Worst of all, he knows
why
he committed the crime – and
he doesn't know if we've figured it out
.'

‘We haven't. Or at least I haven't, and I've been thinking of nothing else all the time we've been here.'

‘But he doesn't know that. He may think we're about to close in. Whoever he is, he's in a state of extreme nervous tension, the worse since he must conceal it. He's like one of those rockets we didn't get to set off Sunday night – just ready to explode. That's what I meant, Dorothy, when I said you might annoy him. You ask questions, you know. Lots of questions. You might just ask them of the wrong person, and set fire to that fuse, and then . . .'

‘Maybe I'd better let you ask the questions.'

‘That would certainly be more sensible, but I have no confidence at all that you'll remain meekly one step behind me. You have too much in common with the cats, and with the Elephant's Child. Just be very, very careful.

‘And now I think your headache must be just about gone, so let's rejoin the rest, shall we?'

TWENTY-NINE

I
t all looked so peaceful when we got back to the library, so normal. Pat sat reading one of the classics, Ed an art book. Mr Leatherbury, looking rested, had found that book of sermons I had brought back downstairs and was reading it with every appearance of enjoyment. To each his own.

Tom and Jim sat at a chess game, playing at that glacial speed that characterizes real experts. They were, now that I came to think of it, both extremely successful businessmen, which I suppose requires something of the chess-player's mind. Joyce and Lynn, in front of the fire, were studying an old piece of needlepoint, apparently with an eye to repairing the frayed bits.

Just a normal group of people, intelligent, well-to-do, with nice manners and varied interests.

And one of them – one of us – was a murderer.

Who, who? Well, it wasn't Alan, and it wasn't I. And Tom and Lynn are some of my oldest friends. Scratch them.

That left our host and hostess, the Bateses, Ed, Pat and the vicar.

Take the easiest one first. I suppose the saintly old vicar was the least likely suspect, so there ought to be a reason why he was the villain of the piece. But for the life of me I couldn't find one. He really was the vicar, known to Pat and the Moynihans, and had held the living for years.

Suppose, though . . . I glanced at Alan, deep in last week's
Times
. I wished I could have this conversation with him, instead of just with myself, but the presence of the policeman in the corner of the room, unobtrusive though he was, effectively stopped any open speculation about the crimes.

Suppose, then, that Mr Leatherbury had known all along about the skeleton – that his predecessor had told him about it. Never mind, for now, how the previous vicar had found out. Suppose the present vicar had known all about it, including who put it there.

But, the more logical part of my brain insisted, one or the other of them would have gone to the police with the knowledge.

But maybe not, if . . . if the murderer – the original murderer – had something to do with the church. A curate? A chorister? The churchwarden? A major benefactor?

That last was the most likely. Let's see. Mr Upshawe – Laurence's father – kills his nephew so that he will inherit Branston Abbey one day. The vicar finds out. Mr Upshawe tells him that it was more-or-less an accident, really, and he – Upshawe – will leave the parish a large sum of money to replace the church roof if the vicar tells no one.

Oh, good grief. That one was as full of holes as the roof of the cloisters. For one thing, that particular Upshawe had little money. Sure, he was going to inherit the Abbey, and the estate, but it would probably take every cent he could put together just to keep the Abbey's fabric in good repair, never mind the parish church. And he didn't leave anything much in the way of money to his son, remember. Laurence had to pension off the servants because he couldn't afford to keep them on.

If Laurence was telling the truth. Always if Laurence was telling the truth. And Laurence had displayed an ability to lie.

Well, but there could have been little money left because Laurence père gave a lot of it to the church. And that was easy enough to check. Find out if the church, fifty years or so ago, had a new roof put on – or any other major repairs, I reminded myself; the roof was a figment of my imagination.

As was the whole of this scenario. Not only that, but even supposing the idea had some basis in fact, why would that give Mr Leatherbury a reason to kill Dave Harrison? I sighed and started off on another tack. Pat Heseltine.

Pat really was, on the face of it, a possible candidate for the role of Second Murderer. (I had to concede that she was too young to have done in the skeleton and/or the mummy, unless everyone was wrong about when those two unfortunates met their demise.) Pat was intelligent. She was an attorney, with the means and, I thought, the will to find out everything about everybody in Branston. Such people are dangerous, even when they don't have a face and body Helen of Troy might have envied.

She could have known about the skeleton. In fact, with the exception of Laurence, she was by far the most likely person to have known about the skeleton. The only thing was, suppose she did. Suppose she knew when and how and at whose hand the owner of the skeleton had perished. Why then would she need to kill Dave?

As for Ed Walinski – I looked at him and shook my head. Ed was a foreigner who had probably never heard of Branston Abbey until he met Jim and Joyce. How had they met, by the way? I'd never asked, but it was irrelevant. Ed was a photographer, devoted to his art. I could, just, imagine him taking pictures of the scene by the river as it played out, but I couldn't imagine him taking part. No, I should have made him the least likely suspect. Even my devious mind could not come up with a reason for Ed to kill Dave Harrison.

The trouble was, why would anybody kill Dave Harrison, except on the grounds that he was insufferable?

Well, now, there was actually an idea. I nudged Alan, who gave a start and opened his eyes.

‘Aha! I thought you were much too interested in week-old news.'

He yawned. ‘It's a fair cop. What's on your mind, love?' He gestured with his eyebrows in the direction of the constable.

I nodded to show I understood his warning. ‘It's just that I was thinking about Julie. Are any of these stalwarts out looking for her?'

‘I should think so. You remember that I have no role in this investigation.'

And it's killing you, I thought but didn't say. I contented myself with a sympathetic smile. ‘But you told them she was missing, right?'

‘Yes, dear,' he said, in the tone husbands have been using since Eve first asked Adam a silly question.

I kept my voice very low. ‘It's just that I wondered – I mean, a spouse is usually—'

The warning look was more pronounced. ‘I'm sure the detectives are taking all possibilities into account,' he said rather more loudly than necessary. ‘And isn't it just about time for tea?'

It was well past teatime, actually, the police activities having disrupted our normal schedule, and I was hungry, but I couldn't get Julie out of my mind. It was terribly frustrating not to be able to talk about her to Alan, or anybody else, for that matter. But nobody could stop me thinking about her.

Where could she be – if she was still alive? Alan's idea about the tunnel was a good one, but it hadn't worked out. All the outbuildings had been checked, including the shed where she had hidden the first time. The house had been searched.