The Unburied Past (23 page)

The vacuum cleaner hummed its way over the floor above, a reminder that at least she wasn't alone in the house.

‘Well, I suppose …' A little reluctantly she stood to one side, and they went past her into the hall and through the door she indicated, finding themselves in a large sitting room whose picture window took full advantage of its mountain view.

She hadn't invited them to sit, and the three of them remained standing.

Adam began his prepared speech. ‘I don't know whether you read about it at the time, but our family was holidaying in Penthwaite and both our parents were killed at their cottage, for no apparent reason. Their killers have never been caught.'

Marilyn's eyes widened. ‘They were your parents? I'm so sorry. There was an ad in the paper, but …'

‘I believe I'm right that you last saw your husband on Sunday the twenty-fourth of June that year?'

She drew in her breath, then nodded.

‘It was the same day as the murders,' Adam said.

Marilyn's hand went to her throat. ‘I'm not sure what you're implying.'

‘That while of course it could have been coincidence, our parents often went to Lake Belvedere and might possibly have met him there.'

‘It's possible, but I don't see that it's significant.'

‘They died on the same day,' Kirsty repeated. ‘Our father's camera was stolen, and the only explanation we can think of for their deaths is that they might have seen – and photographed – something they shouldn't have.'

Marilyn's eyes widened. ‘And you think Tony might have seen it too?'

They both stared at her. Incredibly, that possibility hadn't occurred to them.

‘He might,' Kirsty said after a moment.

‘You're not suggesting he was murdered too?' Her voice had risen and she was gazing at them in horror.

‘God, no!' Adam said quickly. But were they? Was it remotely possible that he had been?

Marilyn Vine made a sudden movement with her hand, as though dismissing the idea. ‘You'd better sit down,' she said. ‘I'll ask Heidi to bring us some coffee.'

She went out of the room and they heard her calling upstairs. Neither of them said a word until she came back and seated herself opposite them.

‘I did hear about the murders, of course,' she admitted then, ‘but I was out of my mind with worry about Tony, and I'm afraid everything else pretty well washed over me.'

‘Tell us about him,' Adam invited.

‘He was kind and funny and clever. I still miss him.'

‘If it wouldn't upset you too much, could you tell us about his last few days? Was there anything different about him? Had he any worries, for instance? Money, work?'

‘If you're suggesting he might have committed suicide, you can forget it,' Marilyn said firmly. ‘But yes, he had worries. Who hasn't? There was some problem at work – he didn't say what, and to be honest I wasn't that interested, but Ferrises were going through a bad patch – almost on the brink of bankruptcy, though I didn't learn that until later.'

There was a tap on the door and a woman wearing an apron came in with three mugs of coffee on a tray, gave them all a hesitant smile and left the room.

‘And it wasn't only Tony who was stressed out,' Marilyn added, handing them each a mug. ‘My brother-in-law had a stroke, that same day, as it happens, and was in hospital for weeks. Parts of his memory never came back.'

‘So three momentous things happened the same day,' Adam summarized, frowning. ‘Your husband disappeared, your brother-in-law had a stroke, and our parents were murdered. That's quite a tally for one day.'

Kirsty said, ‘Could you go through it, that Sunday, if it's not too upsetting? Was it a sudden decision, to go fishing?'

‘He brought me breakfast in bed, and told me then. I wasn't best pleased: as you say, it was Sunday and I wanted him to spend it with me. But I knew he needed to be alone when he'd problems to sort out, and fishing always seemed to calm him. And he said we'd go out for dinner that evening, to make up for it.'

‘So how did you fill the day?'

Marilyn smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘In my usual mindless way. I couldn't top up my tan – one of my favourite occupations – because it rained off and on all day, so I did my nails and watched TV.'

‘You stayed home alone? No one called or phoned or anything?'

She shook her head.

‘What time were you expecting him back?'

‘He hadn't put a time on it, but—' She broke off. ‘Wait a minute! Someone
did
phone! My God, I've never given it a thought from that moment to this!'

Adam leaned forward. ‘Who was it?'

‘Someone for Tony,' Marilyn said slowly. ‘I don't think he gave a name, just asked to speak to him, and I said he wasn't in. And then he asked, as you just did, when I was expecting him back. That's what rang a bell.'

Kirsty's heart had started to hammer. ‘And what did you tell him?'

Marilyn's hand shook suddenly and she put down her mug. ‘I said I wasn't sure –
because he'd gone fishing
! Oh,
God
! You don't think …?'

Adam tried to keep his voice level. ‘The caller didn't leave a message?'

She was still chasing her own, suddenly frightening thoughts, but after a moment she shook herself. ‘Sorry. What did you say?'

‘Did he leave a message?'

‘No, I don't think so. God, why can't I
remember
?' Her hands gripped the sides of her head. ‘Something about trying again later, I think.'

‘But he didn't? Try again later?'

She shook her head.

‘Then it couldn't have been anything important,' Adam said firmly, anxious to dispel any suspicion she could have contributed to her husband's death. He cast around for a change of a subject, and his glance fell on a photograph on a side table, a smiling couple outside a church, the bride – Marilyn – in a suit, clutching the arm of a tall, dark man.

‘That's your second husband?'

‘Dean, yes. It was taken after our Blessing.' She paused. ‘People were shocked when we married so quickly, but I don't think I could have survived those months without his help. And it was a very quiet wedding – not at all like my first.' She smiled ruefully. ‘I still have photos of that, too, upstairs in a drawer. It didn't seem fair on Dean to leave them out, especially since he's not too happy about my keeping Tony's anniversary and insisting on dinner at the George. That's where we should have gone, that evening.'

‘We're staying there,' Adam said.

Kirsty glanced at the photograph. Dean Ferris's face was a strong one, firm chin, challenging dark eyes, thick black hair springing back from his forehead. She wondered if Marilyn's description of Tony – kind, funny and clever – also applied to him, and somehow doubted it.

She said, ‘We've taken up quite enough of your time, Mrs Ferris. I hope it hasn't been too upsetting for you.'

Marilyn shrugged. ‘I'm afraid it's not shed any light on your parents' deaths.'

‘It was always an outside chance,' Adam said, ‘but if anything should occur to you later, perhaps you could call me.' He stood up and handed her a card. ‘Thanks for the coffee, and for going through everything with us. It was very good of you.'

‘It brings it all back,' Marilyn said sadly. ‘How long are you up here for?'

‘Just till Friday. It's beginning to look like a wasted journey.'

‘At least you tried,' she said.

‘That might well be our epitaph,' Adam remarked, when they were back in the car. ‘
At least they tried
.'

‘Oh, come on!' Kirsty protested. ‘It's still only Monday!'

‘Actually, something she said made me wonder: when I was going through the
Gazette
archives there was an article about a local firm in difficulties. I skipped it at the time, but I'd like to check back and see if by any chance it was Ferrises.'

‘Does it matter? We know they were.'

‘True, and since I only researched those few months, there'd be nothing on how and when they began to climb out of it.'

‘Again, does it matter?'

‘It might; after all, they're part of our research now, with the Vine/Ferris tie-up.'

‘A very nebulous part, I'd have thought.'

Back at the hotel, he took out his tablet and checked through the notes he'd made prior to their visit.

‘Yes, here it is – and it
was
Ferrises.' They read the article together and it made dismal reading – falling sales figures, lost contracts, trouble in the work force.

‘They must have had an enormous stroke of luck,' Adam commented, ‘to be able to turn things round after being that low.' He looked up, staring unseeingly across the room. ‘I wonder …'

‘What?'

He grinned, his face suddenly boyish. ‘A sudden inspiration! If we're to find out how they did it, an oblique approach is called for. But it will be a strictly men-only exercise.'

‘What exactly are you planning?' Kirsty asked suspiciously.

‘A wooden horse strategy, tomorrow evening sometime.'

‘Why can't I come?'

‘Because you'd stick out like a sore thumb.' He raised a hand as she would have questioned him further. ‘You'll have a blow-by-blow account in due course.'

And with that, she had to be content.

Marilyn stood just inside the front door till she heard their car drive away. Then she went up to her bedroom, opened a drawer in her tallboy and took out the topmost of a stack of photograph albums – not their wedding one, but that containing the last snaps she had of Tony. She sat back on her heels and slowly turned the pages, tears trickling down her face as she revisited happy days now long past. It was he who usually took the photos so there weren't many of him, and she lingered over the few she had – posing in a paper hat in front of the turkey that last Christmas; leaning against the rail on a boat trip on Loch Lomond; falling asleep in the garden over the Sunday papers.

Seven years they'd had together, that was all. She'd already been married to Dean over three times as long.

She started as the cleaner's voice reached her from downstairs. ‘I go now, Mrs Ferris.'

‘Thank you, Heidi. Your money's on the hall table.'

‘I have it. I see you Wednesday.'

‘Yes.'

The front door closed. She was alone – and she didn't want to be. She replaced the album with an affectionate pat and, going to the bedroom extension, called her sister-in-law's mobile.

‘Viv, I know it's short notice, but are you free for lunch? I'm … in need of company.'

‘Are you all right, Marilyn? You sound odd.'

‘I've had a rather unsettling experience and I'd like to tell you about it.'

‘How intriguing! I can spare an hour if we meet near my office. The Bistro at twelve thirty?'

‘Perfect. Thanks. See you there.'

‘How very strange,' Vivien commented when Marilyn had related her visitors' story. ‘And how rotten for you, to have it all brought back again. Daphne said there'd been an ad in the
Gazette
asking for information. I suppose they must have put it in.'

‘Do
you
remember those people being murdered?'

‘I can't say I do. But at the time, remember, I was distracted too, with Barry being in hospital. I didn't hear the news or see a paper for weeks.'

Marilyn sipped her spritzer. ‘It
is
extraordinary, though, that everything should have happened on the same day – Tony drowning, Barry's stroke, their parents' murders, and no explanation for any of it. I could never get my head around Tony falling overboard; a cousin of his had drowned as a child, and he'd always been obsessively careful around boats.'

‘These things happen, and tragic though they were, they were three quite separate events. You're surely not wondering if there's a link?'

Marilyn sighed. ‘I don't see how there can be. It's just strange, that's all.' She smiled at her sister-in-law. ‘Sorry to have dragged you into this, but I had to talk to someone and Dean's in Germany all week negotiating a contract.'

‘That's OK. Not sure I've been any help, though.'

‘You were a sounding board, which was what I needed. Now I'll try to put it out of my mind.'

But if Marilyn succeeded in forgetting the episode, Vivien did not. Nor did she hurry back to her office, but went to sit in the municipal gardens, endlessly replaying the story she'd heard – a story that had resurrected half-formed, unacknowledged suspicions she'd been ignoring for more than twenty years.

All on the same day
. It had never struck her as starkly as that, but she still couldn't see the relevance of that couple's murder. Where in the name of heaven did they fit in? There
couldn't
be a connection – of course there couldn't. And yet … She'd never got to the bottom of where Barry and Dean had been that afternoon, why they hadn't, as usual, returned home after their game of golf. Where, exactly, had Barry suffered his stroke? That had never been clear, and had some specific trauma instigated it, rather than a build-up of stress over the business? At the fête the previous day, she remembered suddenly, there'd been that curious atmosphere between the brothers, and Dean's uncharacteristic snapping at Pauline.

That had been the first instance of his unusual behaviour, but he'd acted even more oddly in the days that followed, paranoid about being at Barry's bedside when he emerged from his coma. Why? Brotherly love, or fear of what he might say as he came round?

She shook herself, but this time the doubts wouldn't go away. It seemed that while, all those years ago, these questions had been worrying her, Marilyn in turn had found it difficult to accept that Tony drowned accidentally. Could she be right? And if so, what other explanation could there be? She'd a horrible, creeping fear that everything came back to Tony. There was no denying it had been his invention that miraculously turned the fortunes of the firm, just when it seemed there'd been no option but bankruptcy. But Tony was a staff member; surely it would have come to them anyway, under the terms of his contract? His death couldn't profit anyone.