Country Plot (39 page)

Someone who drove a low black car, possibly a sports car.

Kitty was concerned, but it was not in her nature to fuss. She made Jenna sit down in the kitchen for a strong cup of tea for the shock. ‘Because you're quite white,' she said. ‘I think it upset you more than you realized. Poor Barney. He seems all right, though. I've pressed his ribs and he doesn't wince, so I don't think any of them is broken. And the cut isn't big enough for stitches. I think he'll be all right, poor old boy. People drive like such maniacs around here. Did you see who it was?'

‘No, it was all too quick. It went past like a bat out of hell, in a cloud of dust, and it was round the bend before I could take it in.'

‘Thank heaven it wasn't worse,' Kitty said. ‘If you knew the make of the car or the number, I'd report it to the police, because these people ought to be stopped, but without either I'm afraid it's a hopeless task.'

‘I really didn't see it,' Jenna said, truthfully. She stood up and, the bruise having stiffened, her first step was a limp which she tried unsuccessfully to hide.

‘Are you sure you're not hurt?' Kitty said with quick concern.

‘I fell over when I jumped out of the way, and banged my leg. It's just a bruise.' She had to distract her. ‘Are you sure we shouldn't take Barney to the vet?'

‘I don't think so,' she said, looking at the dog, who was sloshing up vast quantities of water from the big bowl by the door. ‘Look at him. He seems fine. But we'll keep an eye on him for the rest of the day. Should I have a look at your leg for you?'

‘No, I'm fine. Were there any phone calls for me while I was out?'

‘No. Were you expecting something?'

‘I thought Harry might ring. Do you know when Alexander is coming back?'

‘I'm not sure. He was doing sales on Saturday and Sunday so he should have come back today, but I think he said he was going to London on the way back, so it depends on how long he means to stay there. It won't be before tomorrow, anyway,' Kitty said, a little wistfully. ‘I hope he's going to come back in a better frame of mind about our scheme. He was very cool about it when I told him – and he could be such a help if he would throw himself into it.'

Jenna said tentatively, ‘I get the impression that Caroline's not keen on it, for some reason, so perhaps that's affecting him.'

She thought Kitty might pooh-pooh the idea, but she said, ‘Caroline thinks I'm too old and incapable for something like this. Wait until she gets to sixty and has people suggesting she needs help crossing roads.'

So Kitty had picked up the negative vibes, Jenna thought. It was good that she didn't seem too upset by them.

Kitty had gone to bed, and Jenna was sitting at the little wrought-iron table on the terrace with the dogs, having a last whisky in the hope of drowning out her bruise, which hurt like toothache. Though the sun had long set there was still light in the sky, against which the trees were cut out like black paper, and she was enchanted to see bats flickering about in the dusk – she had never seen one in the flesh before.

Both the dogs were lying at her feet, enjoying the cooler air, when suddenly Watch lifted his head and give a little wuff of warning, and both dogs got up and turned towards the gate at the end of the terrace that led to the stable yard. Someone was coming. She hadn't heard a car, and wondered for a thrilling moment if it was the mystery hit-and-runner come to finish her off. But the dogs were wagging their tails and there was no growling, so Jenna was not worried: whoever it was, they knew and liked the smell – and she didn't think they particularly liked Caroline.

The gate opened – not in a stealthy way – and a tall, dark shape came through, resolving itself, as it shook off the shadows, into Alexander. Her heart leapt in an unruly way, surprising her, and she forced herself to take some slow, deep breaths.
He's not for you, simpleton!

When he got close enough she could see that he was not smiling, and looked tired, even a little grim. The dogs ran up to greet him, looking up at his face for acknowledgement.

‘Hello,' Jenna said. ‘I didn't hear your car.'

‘I left it in the road,' he said. ‘I didn't want to wake Bill and Fatty.'

‘Kitty's gone to bed,' she said. ‘I was just enjoying the cool air and the bats.'

‘It was you I wanted to talk to,' he said, but there was nothing in his face to make her heart flip. He sat down on the other metal chair with the heavy movement of a tired or disappointed man.

‘I'm having a malt whisky,' Jenna said when he didn't go on. ‘Can I get you one?'

He shook his head.

‘Or anything?'

‘I've got things to tell you,' he said, ‘and it's difficult. I want to run them past you, because you're an independent mind, in a way. You're not affected, so you can be objective. I'd like your judgement – if you don't mind?'

‘Shoot,' she said, and because he looked so unhappy, ‘I'd be glad to help.'

He leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs so that his hands dangled between his knees. Barney decided that what a man needed in this circumstance was a dog's cold wet nose in his palm, and provided one. Xander fondled the dog's ear absently as he spoke. ‘I don't know how much you know about Benson's planning application,' he began.

Jenna's heart sank a little. So he was suspicious already? But he would have to know sooner or later. ‘A little,' she said. ‘Benson wanted to sell his land with planning permission because he'd get more money that way. But the village objected because they didn't want a lot of holiday chalets on the land.'

‘In a nutshell,' Xander agreed. ‘And the DoE sent a planning officer, John Purcell, who turned down the application at appeal and that was that.'

‘Except that it wasn't?' she hazarded.

‘On Wednesday morning,' Xander said, ‘I was at Belminster to pick up a package, and as I went past the station I saw Purcell getting out of Derek Sullivan's car. Looked as if he was dropping him off for the train. You know who Sullivan is?'

She nodded. ‘He must have stayed the night with Sullivan after the meeting,' she mused.

‘It's possible. But obviously there's some kind of connection between them, and I've never liked or trusted Sullivan, so it made me suspicious about the whole planning thing. So that evening I got hold of old Benson and took him for a drink. He's never hard to persuade into a pint or two at The Castle, especially if someone else is buying. He's famously tight-fisted. We went into the snug and I plied him with Covington Best.'

‘And it loosened his tongue?'

‘He hardly needed encouraging,' Xander said. ‘He told me that it was Beale Cartwright that had been going to buy his land, but only with the planning permission in place.'

‘Why wouldn't they apply for the permission themselves?'

‘Because – according to Benson – they'd had trouble over some unsympathetic developments in other parts of the county and didn't think they'd get it, whereas he might. Once outline permission is granted, it's much easier to get it expanded afterwards. If Benson got permission for ten chalets, they could work it up later into something bigger.'

‘So what did they really want the land for?'

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? But it didn't matter because it was turned down anyway. Benson was furious because now he was faced with selling the land as farmland. He'd already received an offer, he told me, and it was peanuts compared with what Beale Cartwright would have paid.'

‘And the offer – did he tell you who it was from?'

‘English Country Homes,' said Xander. ‘But I couldn't think what they wanted it for. It's useless without planning permission. That's what I went to London for, to do a little research at Companies' House. It turns out that ECH's two main shareholders are Derek Sullivan and Roger Beale. Derek Sullivan is also a shareholder in a company called BC International, which turns out to be the parent company of Beale Cartwright.'

‘So Sullivan and Mr Beale were in it together,' Jenna said, glad he had got there on his own steam. ‘But what's it about?'

‘That's what puzzled me. I couldn't see where the collusion got them. ECH was going to get the land Beale Cartwright was interested in for next to nothing, but neither could build on it. And then I started wondering about Purcell, the planning officer. So I did a bit more research, and I found out that Purcell has recently changed his address, from the cheap bit of Battersea to a nice part of Highgate. And Purcell's immediate boss is the junior minister in the DoE whose name is Culver, who just happens to be Derek Sullivan's brother-in-law.'

‘No!' Jenna breathed.

‘Sullivan's wife has a PR firm where she goes under her maiden name of Shirley Culver.'

‘So Purcell was primed to reject the planning permission?' Jenna hazarded. ‘And paid a lot of money, with which to buy a big new house in a nicer part of town?'

‘It's a supposition. But that can't be all there is to it. Once you've got a tame planning officer, you don't just use him to turn down one application. Turning down's the easy bit.'

Jenna was there. ‘Yes, and it's popular with the locals. Makes you look like a good guy.'

He looked at her and nodded to her grasp of the situation. ‘And gives you a reputation for being impartial.'

‘So that when you later give approval to another scheme on the same land . . .'

‘Meanwhile the development company has been able to get the land for a fraction of the price,' Xander concluded. ‘And I don't suppose Purcell's usefulness – or maybe we should call it Culver's usefulness – will end there.'

‘Roger Beale has given Derek Sullivan money towards his campaign expenses,' Jenna said. ‘If he gets into Parliament, he'll have a lot more influence in a lot of other ways.'

Xander looked at her sharply. ‘How do you know that?'

‘Harry told me. He – found out,' she said unwillingly.

An obscure expression of hurt crossed his face. ‘Oh, Harry. Of course, I forgot you were so close to him.'

She had to distract him. ‘He's had the same suspicions as you about the Benson business, triggered by the fact that he saw Purcell getting into Sullivan's car after the meeting.'

‘Why didn't you tell me that?' Xander said sharply.

‘Well, he only
thought
it was Sullivan's car – only had a glimpse and didn't see the number, so it wasn't police-grade evidence. But he's been hunting around for information since then. And he was turned out of his flat on Saturday – his father lets various business colleagues use it from time to time, as a sort of . . . sweetener, I suppose.'

‘Yes, I know about that,' Xander said, as if he didn't approve.

Blimey, wait till you know the rest
, Jenna thought in dismay.

‘Don't tell me – it was Purcell,' Xander continued.

‘No,' Jenna said, a little reluctantly. ‘It was Sullivan.'

Xander frowned. ‘What did he want to stay there for? He lives in Wenham St Olave, which is only about six or seven miles from Belminster. Why couldn't he go home?'

‘Well, he was meeting someone,' Jenna said.

‘Oh,' Xander said. ‘I suppose it was an assignation of some sort, then. A woman. The usual sort of thing. Unless –' his expression sharpened – ‘it was for a business meeting. It would be more private than a hotel.'

‘No, it was a woman,' Jenna said sadly.

He shrugged. ‘I'm not surprised. Sleazy in one respect often goes with sleazy in another. It's not his wife one minds about so much, but they have two children – and children always find out in the end.'

She wanted to fling her arms round him and ease the pain, but she could only sit still and watch him suffer. The moon, which had been edging up from the trees, finally cleared its lower rim and sailed out into the luminous sky like a great gold-white soap bubble.

‘It's full tonight,' Xander said absently.

‘It's beautiful,' she said quietly. Barney gave up on caresses, since Xander's hands had forgotten him for the last few minutes, and he lay down on his side on the warm terrace stone with a huge sigh which could have been content or disappointment.

Xander frowned. ‘Just a minute,' he said. ‘How did Harry know Sullivan was meeting a woman there, and not a business colleague or even his father?'

Best, she thought, to get it done now, in the quiet of this moonlit garden, where he didn't have to look at her face or reveal his own.

‘There are security cameras in the sitting room – in case of burglary, I suppose. Harry's an electronics wiz. He was able to access the tapes, and he saw Sullivan opening the door to the visitor and sitting with them and – stuff.'

Xander was not looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the dark tree-line below the moon.

He knows
, she thought.
He's guessed
.

‘Did he recognize her?' he asked softly.

‘Yes,' she said. She looked at his averted profile, and was puzzled. ‘But . . . how did you guess? Have you suspected something?'

‘Not really – not that. But it was obviously something you didn't want to tell me, and what else could it be?' Then he looked at her sharply. ‘But Harry could be lying. I know he doesn't like her very much. Or he might be mistaken. Often with these security cameras you can't really identify the person clearly.'

‘No, you can see it's Caroline all right. There's no mistake.'

His mouth turned down with pain, and he looked at her almost with dislike. ‘You've seen the film?'

‘He made me some stills. He thought I'd need convincing.'

‘Show me,' Xander commanded.

Jenna shrugged. It was all going to come out now, anyway. He might as well see, or he'd think she was just trying to blacken Caroline's name. She got up to go and fetch them. When she came back, he said, ‘Why are you limping?'