The Cuckoo's Child (31 page)

Empson hesitated, and looked at Laura. ‘Have I your permission to speak of personal matters, Miss Harcourt? Your mother . . . the fire?'

‘I think it's more than time they were spoken of. In any case, it's no secret now who my parents were. All of us here know.'

Womersley glanced towards the waitress, who had been making several impatient sorties from the back room. They were going to be turned out any minute. ‘Give us a bit longer, love?' To Empson, he said, ‘Come on, then, we'd better have the whole story.'

‘If you insist. Though there's not a great deal to tell, after all.' He steepled his hands. ‘It happened over twenty years ago, when Lucie Picard and I were guests at Farr Clough.' Briefly, he stated the circumstances of their arrival, and how Lucie had come to be employed to look after the twins. ‘We were there right until the time of the fire.' His eyes closed for a moment. ‘That terrible night has stayed with me ever since, as I'm sure it has with all those others who were present.'

‘And they were?' Womersley prompted.

‘Ainsley and his daughter-in-law, Amelia Beaumont, the doctor, and Whiteley Hirst. They met regularly to play cards. Sometimes I was asked to take the place of one of them, which did not always please Amelia, especially when I was lucky, as happened that night. She was annoyed and showed it by being particularly irritating, amusing herself by interrupting and peeping over our shoulders to see the cards. I was partnering Whiteley Hirst against Dr Widdop and Mr Beaumont, and we were all rather glad when she left the study to bring some refreshments from the other wing, the part of the house she and her husband, Theo, occupied.'

‘Where was he?'

‘Oh, he never joined us.' He paused so long he seemed to have forgotten they were all there.

‘Well, Mr Empson?' Womersley said impatiently.

Empson said flatly, ‘The fire started, and destroyed all in its path. A brave man perished. What else is there to say?'

‘How did it start?'

‘What does it matter? How it ended was what mattered, with Lucie and the children's lives saved.'

But then, as if the memories wouldn't be contained, the words tumbled out. ‘It was a wild night, a wind with scatters of rain on it tearing across the moor as it does up there, and howling down the chimneys. We were absorbed in our play and none of us noticed how long Amelia had been gone, half an hour, maybe much longer. Then the door crashed open and one of the servants rushed in, shouting that the wing was on fire, and they couldn't find Mrs Theo anywhere. We rushed outside and found pandemonium, shouting and panicking, flames sky-high, Sugden working like a Trojan on the hoses. But the wind was fanning the flames and it was clear the fire had too great a hold, and anyone in there would have no chance. Then, like a miracle, Theo appeared in the doorway, carrying Lucie. Somebody took her – the doctor, I think – and Theo rushed straight back into that inferno – for that's what it was by then. At the same moment one of the maids appeared with Amelia – God knows where she'd been, her hair was wild, and when she saw Theo going back into the house she shrieked like a lunatic and tried to follow . . .'

When his voice was steady enough he went on, ‘The next thing we knew, Theo appeared at an upstairs window with the babies in his arms. He dropped each one safely out of the window for us to catch. Then . . . then he disappeared.'

For a long time no one said anything.

‘How
did
it all start?' Laura whispered.

‘Who knows? It was thought the curtains caught alight, from an overturned lamp. At any rate, it went up like a tinder box. The whole house might have gone, God knows, if the rain hadn't started to come down in earnest.'

‘What do you think Mr Beaumont meant by repercussions?' Womersley said at last. ‘I think you must know.'

Empson gave no answer until he had thought it over. ‘Do as we've all done, Inspector. Let sleeping dogs lie. It was a terrible tragedy – but twenty years have gone some way to heal those old wounds. Why open them again and cause more misery?'

Because, Womersley thought, there came a time when sleeping dogs had slept long enough and had to be awakened and let loose.

Twenty-Two

Toiling up that dispiriting hill yet again to Farr Clough the following afternoon, with Rawlinson three steps ahead, Womersley told himself that evidence must be out there somewhere, if only they could find it. Within reach
had
to be the answer to the question of just what it was that had created a situation that still cast its shadow over the present – if only he could grasp it. Ainsley Beaumont had told Empson he had determined to put a stop to something which had gone on long enough. As long as twenty years? Had what actually happened at the time of the fire been enough to warrant the old man's murder? Had the fire even been started deliberately, for purposes as yet unclear?

He would talk to them all, the survivors of that terrible night, beginning with Amelia Beaumont. A delicate business that would be, not least because she was the one who must have suffered most, losing her husband, even though she knew he had been faithless to her and had fathered another child on the young woman who looked after his own children. If she had known what was going on between them before the fire, emotions must have been running high – and from what he'd seen of her, Womersley was prepared to bet the bitterness of it was still with her.

‘I have told you all I know,' Empson had said, but Womersley was not so sure. There had been a certain reserve, a hesitation about that statement. But he'd made no demur when Laura Harcourt had offered to hand over to Womersley that manuscript he had written as a young man, though both had insisted he would find nothing more than had already been told. Maybe not, but Womersley wanted to see it, anyway.

Amelia Beaumont was not in, they were told on arrival at Farr Clough, but she was expected back within the hour. At Womersley's request, Jessie Thwaite let them into the study to wait. He had heard that her father had suddenly died, and although it had been obvious he was a very sick man when they had spoken, he was sorry. He had liked the man. At the same time, he cursed that moment of sympathy which had stopped him from pressing Thwaite more about who or what he'd seen on the morning Beaumont was killed.

‘I expect you'd like some tea,' she said.

‘Thank you, we would, lass.'

‘Don't know about tea, hot water bottles wouldn't come amiss,' Rawlinson observed when she'd closed the door behind her. ‘Keep your overcoat on, sir, I should, unless you want to freeze to death.'

Previously the study had been a comfortable and restful sort of place. You could feel the difference now. Already it had a melancholy, abandoned air, not helped by the absence of any fire. The ashes had been cleared but no new fire laid, just a fan of pleated paper placed in the grate. Womersley wasn't given to fancies, but the room was not only cold, it was soulless, no heart in it, as though something, and not only its master, had stopped breathing.

It was Laura Harcourt who brought in their tea, and a roll of ribbon-tied papers. ‘Here's Ben Kindersley's story – Mr Empson's, I should maybe say. I'll leave it with you, but he would like it returned when you've finished with it.' She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. ‘Is there any chance I can go back to London now?'

He thought she looked strained, her pretty hair carelessly gathered up, her eyes shadowed. ‘Yes, but leave an address where we can get in touch with you.'

‘Thank you.'

Womersley unrolled and read the manuscript. She was right. There was nothing in it to throw light on the present situation, except for the revealing sentence at the end which showed Kindersley had been aware that something was going on between Lucie and Theo Beaumont.

He passed it over to Rawlinson and held his teacup in both hands for warmth. A room without a fire was like a clock without a tick. Well, of course! That's what it was! Not only the lack of a fire that made the room so unwelcoming, but also the absence of that slow, regular tick-tock in the background. The long case clock had stopped, and likely not of itself: they must have neglected to wind it. In all probability that was a job the master had seen to – and Womersley, who liked clocks and had formed a particular admiration for this one, clucked and went over to set things right. He couldn't see that anyone would object to him performing this domestic duty. It did a clock no good to be left unwound and run down.

Opening its door, he bent to retrieve the weights at the extent of their long chains, now almost touching something that had been placed below them, a box of some sort. He lifted it out and put it to one side while he wound the clock, supporting each heavy weight in his hand as he pulled its chain, adjusted the time and set the pendulum swinging. Only when the clock had resumed its regular tick did he nod, satisfied. Ridiculously, the room seemed warmer.

Now he turned his attention to the box. It wasn't large, just a dull, metal cash box that he might have missed but for the glint of the brass handle on the lid. It was locked. So the old man might not have been so very certain about his family's lack of inquisitiveness into his private affairs as they had thought. A cash box left around might have excited some curiosity. Funny place to hide it, though – but effective.

‘Where did you put the key you found in that folder, Jack?'

The little brass key had become mixed up with all the other unidentified ones in the desk drawer and Rawlinson offered up three likely looking candidates before they found the right one. Inside, however, there was nothing more exciting than a cheap penny notebook with shiny, soft red covers and, secured to it by a rubber band, an envelope, personally addressed to Ainsley Beaumont at Farr Clough, marked strictly confidential, originally sealed with wax and registered.

The envelope had been opened, the seal broken, and the letter inside was headed with the name of the Beckinsale private detective agency, with an address in Leeds, just off the Headrow. A report was clipped to the letter, also a bill, which was hefty. Mr Everard C. Beckinsale, who signed his name in flowing script, wrote a somewhat rambling letter, consisting mostly of assurances that the ‘subject' had no suspicions that enquiries had been made about him and his affairs. Womersley skimmed through the report with a quick stab of excitement, and tossed it over to the sergeant.

‘Well,' he said when Rawlinson, too, had finished reading. ‘Well. What d'you think of that?'

‘Whiteley Hirst! Who would have thought it?' Rawlinson grinned but he was clearly as flabbergasted as Womersley.

If the facts of Mr Beckinsale's report were verifiable, as no doubt they would be, then Whiteley Hirst was in deep trouble. To the tune of seven hundred and fifty pounds, plus interest, owing to a moneylender who was threatening to take proceedings to recover his dues. ‘I have not yet been able to ascertain,' wrote Mr Beckinsale, ‘why the subject needed to borrow this money, but in the event that you wish me to continue further with the enquiries, I look forward to hearing from you.'

Womersley sat back and sucked on a mint. ‘Hirst,' he said thoughtfully. ‘He has a lot of authority down there at Cross Ings, more than you'd expect from his position. Beaumont evidently trusted him – so what the heck prompted him to have him investigated?'

Rawlinson shrugged. ‘Who knows? But if he owed that amount of money, Beaumont's death couldn't have come at a better time for him. He knew there was something for him in the will, admitted as much, didn't he?'

What had Hirst been up to? Obviously, Ainsley Beaumont had had reason not to trust him. Yet he had left money to him in his will. Womersley shook his head. ‘It doesn't make a lot of sense.'

His first excitement subsided. He reached out for the little red exercise book, and saw when he opened it that it wasn't going to offer any clarification, either. Only the first page had been used, where a list of names had been written, each with a date beside it. Women's names. It was meaningless – unless Beaumont had found out that Hirst had been a secret womanizer, and the money had been borrowed to support this? Someone putting pressure on him over it, for instance? Maybe one of the women themselves?

His eyes rested on the last name on the list.

For a while, it didn't register, then with a rush of adrenaline, all the vague suspicions present at the back of his mind, the unrelated facts and the half-remembered conversations began to come together. It was as if a candle had been lit, illuminating the dark corners of a room, as if the clock had started ticking again. Charlie Womersley was not normally an intuitive man, but this time he knew with absolute conviction that this was why Ainsley Beaumont had been killed, this notebook was what the killer had been looking for when he had attacked the old man, ripping the inside pocket of his jacket in his haste. All for nothing, since the notebook had been here all the time, locked in the cash box.

His death still amounted to murder.

Womersley should have been exultant, but he felt strangely saddened, without any satisfaction that the case was coming to a close, a job well done, the perpetrator responsible being brought to justice. This was different. There had been many years of friendship, however it had been expressed, between the victim and his killer. Murder born of desperation was a sorry affair, yet just about comprehensible, but for a man to murder his friend was, in Womersley's book, loathsome beyond the pale.

‘So, we
were
on the wrong tack with a random killing,' Rawlinson said, wanting to justify himself.

For a long time, Womersley didn't answer. ‘It looks as though we've been on the wrong tack about a lot of things, Jack,' he said heavily at last.