Hobby of Murder (2 page)

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘And you?’

‘Getting old,’ Andrew said. ‘Increasingly incompetent. And that makes life rather boring.’

They were walking towards the exit.

‘Well, we’ll try to keep you entertained while you’re here without involving you in anything too strenuous,’ Ian said. ‘Apart from that, be sure to do just what you like, as Mollie and I will get on with our normal lives. It’s very good to see you again. You don’t actually look any older than when I saw you last.’

This could hardly be true, for it was nearly two years since they had last met. It had been just before the Davidges had moved to Lower Milfrey. But Andrew allowed himself to feel flattered, accepting the intention behind the kindly lie. They settled into Ian’s car, a BMW, and started the seven-mile drive to the village.

It was along a twisting road through fields and woodland. The fields which had been harvested were mostly a pale brown, but no tinge of autumn had yet touched the leaves of the trees. A light breeze stirred them and the sky was a pale blue with a few small clouds drifting across it. Ian, it was obvious, would have liked to drive fast. He kept speeding up, then having to slow down because he had caught up with a van too wide to pass on the narrow road or some placidly slow driver. He talked a good deal as he drove, asking Andrew all the usual questions about his book on Robert Hooke and expressing the surprise felt by nearly all
Andrew’s friends that it was actually finished and asking him what he intended to do next.

‘Perhaps you’ll give me some ideas,’ Andrew said. ‘I believe you’ve taken up bird-watching, yourself.’

‘That’s right, but of course, I’m only a beginner,’ Ian answered. ‘The amount some of these chaps know is phenomenal. But I’ve joined the Rockford branch of the RSPB—that’s the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds—and I’ve made a few friends in it and sometimes go out with them. It’s been getting me into the habit of getting up early, which pleases Mollie. The times to go out are early in the morning, when the birds start singing, and late afternoon, when they feed. But I won’t drag you out with me. You can be as lazy as you like.’

‘I don’t usually need much tempting to be that,’ Andrew said. ‘But perhaps I might go with you sometimes if it wouldn’t be a nuisance. It’s always interesting to learn a little about what makes other people tick. How’s the garden? When I saw you last you were looking forward to having a garden.’

‘Still rather a mess, but I’m beginning to learn my way about in it. We’ve a neighbour who keeps an eye on me and gives me good advice. Did I tell you about our having a cottage as well as the house, and which we’ve let to an excellent tenant? At least, Mollie says she’s excellent. I find her a bit overpowering myself and when she gives me advice about the garden I get a perverse desire to do something quite different. But I try to control it, because it seems she really does know what she’s talking about.’

‘How is it you’ve this cottage besides the house?’ Andrew asked.

‘Well, the house was once a farmhouse, and the cottage was for a labourer. The land, of course, was sold off some time ago, leaving just a fair-sized garden round the house, with the cottage at the end of it. We tarted it up a bit when
we first moved in and now for about two months we’ve had this Miss Clancy living in it.’

‘Is it furnished or unfurnished?’

‘Oh, she’s got all her own things in it. But I don’t think she’s too well off. She’s told us she started life as a teacher. A games teacher, I believe.’

‘Retired?’

‘Yes, but not because of old age. She’s only about fifty. You’ll certainly be meeting her during the next few days. Look—there’s the cottage.’

They had just passed the notice at the side of the road that said that this was the village of Lower Milfrey and the first building that they came to was a low thatched cottage with white walls plentifully criss-crossed with dark beams. It had no front garden and only a step leading straight from the road to the front door. But a high wooden fence, on which a number of creepers were growing, among them a splendid purple late-flowering clematis, jutted out behind the little house and presumably enclosed a garden. A car, an old Renault, stood in front of the cottage. There was no sign of a garage, or any special parking space, so it looked as if the car must spend most of its life in the road.

As Ian drove past the cottage, the house came into view, and beyond it there were more houses, cottages and bungalows. But they were all on one side of the road and opposite them, on the other side of it, was an open green space, a common, Andrew supposed. A turnstile led on to it and a part of it had been turned into a children’s playground, with swings and slides. The Davidges’ house stood a little back from the road, with a square of gravel in front of it, across which a paved path led up to a white front door with an elegant fanlight above it. The house itself, which had a modest but Georgian look, was painted a pale grey. Its garden was enclosed by a high wall of mellowed red brick that had the door of a garage let into it. Some beech
trees showed from behind the house. Ian stopped the car at its door and tooted gently on his horn.

The door opened immediately and Mollie Davidge came running out. As Andrew got out of the car she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him warmly.

‘It’s such ages since we’ve seen you!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why has it been so long?’

She was a small woman, a good deal younger than her husband. She was his second wife and his marriage to her when he was in his late fifties had taken all his friends by surprise. His first wife had died of a stroke, which had kept her paralysed for the last two sad years of her life, and after her death Ian had waited for three years, then had married his secretary. Mollie was slender, delicately built, but full of energy and stronger than she looked. Her face was small and pointed, with big long-lashed eyes of an unusually brilliant blue and a small, pouting mouth. Her hair was fair and straight and cut very short. No one would have called her beautiful, but she gave an impression of great charm. She was wearing black jeans and a scarlet shirt.

‘Why
has
it been so long?’ she repeated, linking an arm through Andrew’s and drawing him into the house while Ian followed with Andrew’s suitcase.

The answer, Andrew thought, was simply that the Davidges had been so fully occupied with settling into their new home that they had not thought of inviting him, though when they had done so, they had implied that he ought to have invited himself.

However, he answered, ‘Time flies, doesn’t it? And it seems to go faster and faster with advancing age. You’re happy here? You’ve settled in all right?’

‘Oh yes, I feel as I’ve lived here all my life,’ she said. ‘We did just the right thing to come, though d’you remember how doubtful of it I was when Ian first suggested we should move to the country? I thought he’d be terribly
bored. And in fact he’s so busy he has hardly a minute to spare. Now, you’d like some tea, wouldn’t you?’

Mollie had led Andrew into a long room, with a great open fireplace along one side of it, though there were radiators too for when real warmth was needed, for most of the heat from the fire, when it was alight, would certainly go straight up the wide chimney. There were two tall windows, one of which overlooked the road and the other a moderate-sized garden that consisted mostly of lawn and the beech trees that Andrew had seen from the road, though a rose-bed was making a fine show of September blossoming. There were several comfortable-looking chairs in the room, in gaily flowered covers, one or two small tables, a corner cabinet filled with china that Andrew thought was Spode, a bookshelf filled with obviously well-read paperbacks, a floor of dark polished oak with one or two rather homemade looking rugs on it, and no pictures but two or three framed embroideries on the walls. Indeed, a muddle of a room but with a friendly air about it, one in which it would come naturally to relax.

Andrew said that some tea was just what he was wanting and Mollie went off to the kitchen to make it.

‘Perhaps you’d sooner go up to your room first,’ Ian said. ‘It’s small, but it’s got a bathroom of its own and we’re rather proud of it. In fact, as you may have gathered, we’re rather proud of the whole place. It’s a great improvement on the flat in Holland Park. And it’s funny that Mollie should have been afraid of my being bored, because, as she told you, I’ve never been so occupied, while my fear was that Mollie might be bored and not make many friends. After all, she’d lived in London most of her life. But she’s joined in a number of village activities, including an embroidery circle run by a woman who’s really a professional, and its turned out Mollie has an aptitude for it.’

‘Are those her works up there?’ Andrew asked, nodding
at the framed embroideries that he had noticed on the walls.

‘That’s right,’ Ian began, but broke off, looking out of the window that faced the road to call out, ‘Mollie, we’ve got a visitor.’

Mollie came into the room carrying the tray, put it down on a table and went to the front door, just as the bell rang. The woman she brought into the room was about fifty, tall, slim, in a somewhat bony way, with strong, bony features in a long, tanned face. She had small, dark, deep-set eyes and dark brown hair which was cut in a heavy fringe across her forehead and bobbed round the rest of her head, so that it looked rather like a cap. She was wearing black jeans, like Mollie, and a black and green tartan shirt. Long green plastic earrings dangled from under her thick cap of hair and she was carrying a jam jar filled with something dark, which she held out before her.

‘Chutney,’ she announced. ‘Peach chutney. I hope you like it.’

‘For us? Oh, how sweet of you!’ Mollie exclaimed. ‘Eleanor, this is an old friend, Professor Basnett. Andrew, this is Eleanor Clancy, our tenant.’

Giving the jam jar to Mollie, Eleanor Clancy held out a hand to Andrew.

‘Of course I’ve heard about you, Professor, from Mollie and Ian,’ she said. ‘They told me you were coming.’ She had a gruff voice and a singularly penetrating gaze, which she fastened on Andrew as if she were trying to fix an image of him lastingly in her memory. ‘I must say they told me the truth, you’ve a splendid head. Splendid. Don’t look so surprised. It’s the first thing I notice about people. But perhaps they haven’t warned you about me.’

Andrew, who had just sat down before the visitor’s arrival, had risen to his feet to shake hands with her and said rather nervously, ‘No, I don’t think they have.’

‘You see, I’ve gone crazy about photography, specially portraits, ever since I retired down here,’ she explained. ‘And the moment I saw you I thought: I’ve got to get him to come and sit for me. You will, won’t you? Tomorrow or the day after or any time, but you will come?’

‘Well, I … I don’t think … I don’t really feel …’

‘This chutney,’ Mollie said, doing her best to rescue Andrew from his embarrassment, ‘you made it yourself, of course.’

‘Oh yes, and it’s to a very reliable recipe,’ Eleanor Clancy said. ‘And I’ve made some raspberry jam. Pounds of it from my garden. Great fun. I’ll bring you some of it too.’

Mollie, from what Andrew remembered of her, probably already had pounds of jam in her store cupboard, but she only said that that would be lovely and that Eleanor would like a cup of tea, wouldn’t she? Eleanor said that indeed she would, and Mollie disappeared to the kitchen to fetch another cup. Eleanor dropped into an easy chair, crossing her long legs. Andrew and Ian also sat down and she at once returned to the attack.

‘I can see you’re one of the people who’re afraid of being photographed, Professor,’ she said. ‘Some people enjoy it, but some feel sure they’ll only show the worst side of themselves to the camera. It’s just self-consciousness, of course, but you really needn’t feel like that with me. I won’t sit you down in some carefully planned position and tell you to smile or say “cheese”. We’ll just have a comfortable chat and from time to time I’ll point my little camera at you and click, it’s done, almost before you know it’s going to happen. It’ll probably be when we’re talking about something that really interests you. What are your interests? Music? The theatre?’

‘As it happens,’ Ian said with a chuckle, ‘one of Andrew’s interests is cheese. He believes that it’s important to start the day with some protein, and that it’s much easier to get
himself a lump of cheese to eat than to boil himself an egg.’

‘How wise,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’m sure that’s very sensible.’

‘My own opinion about it is that it’s almost certainly a superstition,’ Andrew said, ‘and the truly sensible thing would be to break myself of the habit. That’s all it is now—a habit. I don’t actually believe in it at all. I hope Mollie hasn’t gone to any trouble about it.’

‘I happen to know she’s got in half a pound of the best Cheshire,’ Ian said, ‘so you’d better eat it when she brings you your breakfast. Breakfast in bed is one of our rules for visitors, incidentally, because I may be out early after my birds and have my coffee and my toast when it happens to fit in with that, and Mollie likes to have some quiet time to herself, doing
The Times
crossword.’

Mollie came in as he spoke with the fourth cup and poured out tea for them all. There was a sponge cake that looked homemade on the tray, and some chocolate biscuits. Andrew was not accustomed to eating in the middle of the afternoon, a cup of tea being as much as he really wanted, but the cake looked tempting.

‘Of course you’re coming to our party tomorrow evening, aren’t you, Eleanor?’ Mollie said. ‘Andrew, that’s something else we haven’t warned you about, besides Eleanor’s photography. We’ve a few people coming in for drinks tomorrow evening. I do hope you don’t mind.’

‘I’m sure I shall enjoy it,’ Andrew said, hoping that he did not sound too dubious. Once he could have said those words with sincerity, but as age had crept up on him, he had found himself more and more reluctant to face numbers of people whom he had never met before, particularly if he knew that he was never likely to see them again.

‘Sam and Anna Waldron are coming,’ Mollie went on. ‘They’re just back from Scotland. You haven’t met them yet, have you, Eleanor?’