Jeremy glanced sideways. ‘Don’t worry about me, Father dear – get the bottle from your pocket and let the final damage begin.’ The dog deserved a chance; this fellow deserved nothing. ‘We had a dozen Johnnie Walker Black Label delivered to your rooms as a welcoming gift. By the way, the less you eat, the better. Your demise is eagerly anticipated by many, so please feel free to achieve it as swiftly as possible.’
There was no answer, would never be an answer. They were giving him a free hand, their full permission to destroy himself. And Jean had put them up to it, of that Richard was certain. This was all because of one miserable mistake, one occasion on which he had taken a drop too many and had lost control. The woman who died had been of no real significance, just a servant. But, like the dog, Sally Foster had been unduly appreciated by those who should have seen themselves as her betters.
The car swept past the gatehouse and up the driveway of Chandlers Grange. The moment Richard Chandler had waited for was here at last. He was free. Wasn’t he? Oh, she didn’t wear a wimple and a long black dress, but Jean was every inch the nun. By her side would stand a reformed whore – he tried not to laugh. Whores never reformed. Anna was on hand, too, would be throwing in her own tenpenn’orth at every opportunity. As for his children – they were probably his biggest enemies.
He climbed out of the car and surveyed the domain that had stopped being his. Father was no longer contained; the mad old bugger would be having the life of Riley while Richard was expected to inhabit the old man’s rooms. Why should he? Why wouldn’t Henry die?
Pol, neat and thinner in a good grey suit, came out to greet him. ‘Hello, Mr Chandler.’ Her voice was as tidy as she was, the rougher edges honed smooth. ‘Follow me, please.’ She turned and walked back into the house.
Too stunned to do otherwise, Richard pursued her at a leisurely rate. She led him into a small sitting room that now contained bedroom furniture and an extremely well-dressed Henry. The old man gazed steadily at the unwelcome arrival. ‘You are bypassed,’ he stated baldly. ‘It is all settled – we have found written proof of your fraud and you will not inherit the grange. The house will go to my grandchildren. There are rooms for you and food will be provided. That’s all. You may go now.’
You may go? Richard opened his mouth to reply, closed it when he saw the expression in Pol’s eyes, a mix of hatred and triumph whose proportions seemed almost equal. She stood behind Henry’s chair, a proprietary hand resting on one of his shoulders.
Richard heard a sound and swivelled. Jean hovered in the doorway, hair nicely done, face almost free of make-up, hands clasped at her waist. ‘Ah, you are home,’ she said.
‘Of course,’ he managed. ‘That is obvious, even to you.’
Jean’s eyes met Polly’s as she reached out to gather strength from the other woman. She inhaled deeply before continuing. ‘Jeremy is on the telephone enquiring after the dog you wanted him to abandon. You tried to kill me and you managed to kill Sally. I survived and I hope the dog thrives, too. You are here because your father allows you to be here. I should rather see you in prison, but I have my children to consider.’ She nodded curtly and left the room.
Richard stared at his father and the whore. Anna was absent and for that small benefit he thanked fate. They had prepared themselves thoroughly, it would seem. With the will changed, with Anna back, with his sons and daughter poisoned against him, Jean would be very well pleased.
‘Ah, Richard.’
Damn and blast, the whole coven was here. ‘Aunt Anna,’ he answered curtly.
She descended upon him, steel in her eyes, a false smile widening thin lips. ‘Welcome home,’ she trilled, sarcasm plain in the words. ‘Jeremy says the dog has a chance – Peter rang to tell him. Isn’t that wonderful, Richard?’ She paused, moved her head to one side. ‘After all, every dog has his day – isn’t that right, Henry?’ She looked at her brother. He was frail and old, yet misfortune had strengthened him, while Polly Fishwick was like a dose of magic medicine.
She repeated the words slowly, directing them at the room in general. ‘Remember that, Richard. Every dog, every single dog, has his day. I believe you have had yours.’ Then she left the room.
ELEVEN
Peter was suddenly an unwilling assistant to a veterinary surgeon; there was no-one else, so, clad in a green cotton smock and a white cap, he was forced to watch while the dog was shaved and opened up. ‘My wife should be back soon,’ the vet said repeatedly, but nobody came to relieve Peter. The operation had to be done immediately, as the animal was inches from death.
The vet, a middle-aged man named Donald Baines, was impressed by Peter’s ability to remain alert and helpful while vessels were clamped, while blood was sucked out of the abdominal cavity, while stitching was completed. ‘Now it’s in the lap of the dogs,’ announced Donald when he had done his best.
‘Don’t you mean gods?’ Peter scrubbed his hands at a sink.
‘No, I don’t,’ smiled the surgeon, ‘I mean dogs. Strange creatures. They arrive fit as fiddles with just a small job to be done and they pass on without so much as a by-your-leave. Then some like your chap here,’ he nodded towards the operating table, ‘come in at death’s door and leave at about ninety miles an hour with the owner hanging on like billy-o to the lead. If it’s his time, he’ll stay asleep; if he chooses to torment us for a while longer, he will wake up starving in a matter of hours.’ He took his place at the sink. ‘Lap of the dogs,’ he repeated as he picked up a nailbrush.
Peter stood by the anaesthetized animal, towel in one hand, cap in the other. His eyes strayed to the latter item and the reality of what he had just done hit him like a bolt from the heavens. ‘Mr Baines?’ His voice was just slightly above whisper level.
‘Call me Don.’
Peter swallowed. ‘What would I need?’
‘Pardon?’
‘To be a vet – what does it take?’
Donald Baines awarded his companion a huge grin. ‘Guts, determination, love of animals, years of study and sheer bloody-mindedness. And languages. You would need to speak dog, cat and, on occasion, rabbit.’
‘Where do I go?’ He still could not leave Mother, could not abandon Meredith, would not be separated from Marie. ‘Does Manchester do it?’
‘Yes, but you can’t just walk in. Good results at school?’
Peter nodded. This was utterly ridiculous. A vet? Just because he had managed to stand through an operation without gagging? The dog lay with its tongue hanging from the side of its mouth, the rhythmic movement of its chest advertising that life was still present. He had helped to save the life of a … what was it? Part Alsatian, that was certain, possibly part retriever, probably a Heinz fifty-seven varieties in every shop. ‘Is he a stray?’
‘Underfed,’ replied the vet. ‘Probably not wanted.’
‘I shall call him Hero if he pulls through.’
‘Talk to him,’ Don Baines suggested. ‘Let him know he’s needed – that may help him when decision time comes. When you’ve had a word with him, come through to the house. Later, I shall put him in a recovery cage, but I would rather leave him here for now.’ He pulled up some cot sides on the edge of the operating table, then left Peter and the dog together.
Peter stroked Hero’s bony head, told him about the fields of Chandlers Green, about rabbits and hares, about Marie, Mother and Anna. ‘You can sit with my grandfather – he will spoil you and you will become enormously fat. My mother will like you and Aggie will feed you. It isn’t time, Hero. Not yet.’
Outside the door, Don Baines listened. Despite the need to steel himself, a vet also required the ability to appreciate and value animals. Although the decision had been lightning fast, the lad seemed a sensible type, one who would not panic when a cat needed to be destroyed, when a dog was beyond saving. Yes, he was talking to the unconscious hound, was probably going to keep him, might well go on to study veterinary medicine.
Peter joined his new acquaintance in a living room be
hind the surgery. ‘Follow me,’ Don said. They walked through the kitchen and into a single-storey lean-to. ‘These are my dogs,’ the vet announced proudly. Peter found himself on the receiving end of a St Bernard’s tongue, while two small terriers circled him like racers on a track.
‘Wonderful,’ he laughed when he finally managed to talk. ‘You saved them?’
‘Yes. The two small ones are the only survivors from a bag in the Manchester Ship Canal and the Bernard outgrew his owners’ pockets. They still visit and take him for walks. It’s difficult to stay detached and, occasionally, emotion overcomes sense. These are my three failures or successes – that depends on their behaviour, of course. My son and my daughter are both vets. Susan does farm work, Alan looks after the pampered pets of Kensington. He is rich, she is poor, but they both serve.’
‘And you are proud of them.’
‘I am. Faced with a sick human, a physician usually gets some information, but a ten-foot python comes just as he is and, even if I could ask questions, I would prefer to stick him in a cold place to calm him down before I treat him. Parrots can be buggers, too. Are you prepared to be bitten?’
‘I suppose so.’
The vet stood back and watched as Peter played with two insane terriers and a dog the size of a small house. Yes, the lad had ‘it’. ‘It’ was not definable. Like the ‘it’ that belongs to great actors and painters, the factor was something extra and there were no words for this particular quality. ‘I shall lend you some books,’ he decided aloud. ‘Some are quite contemporary, because study never ends. Yes.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You should try for a place.’
‘May I phone my brother?’ Poor Jeremy, stuck at home with Richard the Terrible, was probably as concerned about Hero as was his twin. Permission granted, Peter made the call, then returned to sit with Hero. This was his first patient and, if Peter worked hard, there would be many more to come.
He seethed. From his window, he had a clear view of the gate-house, the place to which Anna Chandler had retired as a mark of defiance when her brother had been put away to dry out. God, if they wanted to see a real alcoholic, they should put Henry back to the bottle.
This was a fine pickle. He turned his head to the right and stared at a field that spread all the way down to Claughton Cottage. He could not see Alfred Martindale’s place of residence, but he had passed it earlier, new roof, new paint job, new curtains, a horse tethered outside. Some people were getting above themselves, it seemed.
The door opened and he swivelled, lost his balance, righted himself and found Meredith standing with a tray in her hands. She placed it on the table and walked to his side. ‘I’m an alcoholic,’ she stated baldly. ‘And I have got hold of it now. I just want you to know that it can be done. Grandfather was forced into it and I stopped living for a week so that I could rid myself of the sherry. I thought I should tell you that. So, would you like me to remove the whisky? I promise to sit with you if you need me.’
Richard dropped into an armchair. He blinked as he processed the information presented to him by his daughter. She had Chandlers’ Curse. She was his daughter and he should care, but there was something missing inside him, an element which had arrived stillborn. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said. ‘No need for a babysitter.’
Meredith sat opposite him. ‘I know how it feels,’ she told him. ‘I know what it is to live from one drink to the next. It’s horrible and I am very lucky, but it will always be a problem. Even after just a few weeks of drinking, it hurts. Aunt Anna got me through. Father, look at me.’
He obeyed.
‘You killed someone. You almost killed your wife, my mother. The inquest on Nanny Foster agreed with the lie Mother told – the coroner was prepared to believe that the huge knob on the hall stand was the culprit. You are lucky, because, if she had fallen downstairs, the umbrella part of the stand could have given her a blow harsh enough to split her spleen.’
No longer able to look at Meredith, he rose and positioned himself by the window once more. Why was she bothering? She hated him; they all hated him. His own fury simmered and was directed elsewhere. Had he been capable of bringing animation to his projected thoughts, Claughton Cottage might have been razed to the ground within seconds.
‘Father?’
Oh, yes, she was still here. ‘What?’
‘Will you not try, at least? You have been dry for weeks now.’ Already, the stench of whisky hung in the air – he had probably taken a drink as soon as the opportunity had presented itself. ‘It is possible,’ she said. ‘Grandfather did it – you made him stop. Then I had to do it.’
If it took him the rest of his days, he would get Alf Martindale. What was the girl talking about? ‘I shall eat now,’ he announced. ‘You’d better go.’
His mind was affected, Meredith decided. In spite of that possibility and in spite of the fact that she had some insight into alcoholism, she felt her hackles rising. He didn’t want to try. Was this the creature she might have become had she not been stopped by Anna, by Jeremy, by Peter?
Her head shook slightly. No, she had done it herself. There had been days when her instinct to run had been strong, yet that small piece of self had made her stay. No matter what anyone had said or done, the sherry might have won had she not wanted to gain ground.
‘You are still here,’ he said.
‘But you are not.’ Resignation dampened her tone. With her own fight to continue, she had nothing to offer a man who did not want to listen, a murderer whose total self-absorption carried him beyond the reach of his fellows. ‘I walked out of this house many weeks ago, Father. I left because of you and your bullish behaviour towards my mother, my brothers and myself. But it was not really connected with alcohol, was it?’
‘Go away,’ he snapped.
‘A good man could be destroyed by drink, but he would still be decent inside. You are not decent and you never were.’
Richard shrugged his shoulders. Her opinion did not matter; nothing mattered beyond … His head turned once more and he was thinking again about the man who now lived beyond that field, Martindale, his enemy, his target. How? What might be done?
Meredith walked out of the room and slammed the door. She had done her best and he would continue to do his worst. No matter. There were enough people about to make sure that the grange was safe.
Anna looked up from her newspaper when her great-niece entered the drawing room. ‘No joy?’
‘None.’
‘Then consider yourself and only yourself. We must talk. It is time for you to pull together some sort of business plan – your mother and I shall be with you. We cannot sit here and wait to see what happens next. Your father’s behaviour will continue to be erratic, but we have to move on. Polly will look after Henry – she is eminently capable of dealing with Richard—’
‘Sorry.’ Aggie threw in the word before entering the room in its wake. ‘Does anybody here understand yeast? Only I think I’ve used too much and it’s spreading everywhere.’
Meredith looked at Anna. ‘Everywhere?’
Aggie raised her shoulders helplessly. ‘When I say everywhere, I don’t think it’s hit Birmingham yet, but the kitchen table’s a bit of a mess – looks as if it’s eaten my wooden spoons. I must have read the recipe wrong.’
‘Another Aggie disaster.’ Anna laughed. ‘Shall we need to call the army out?’
‘Only if they’re hungry.’ Aggie led the other two women back into the kitchen and they surveyed the damage. She had brought life and fun back into a sad house; she was above and beyond value. She had enthusiasm enough for several and a tendency to exaggerate each one of her many disasters. Rising dough spilled out of two blue-rimmed enamel bowls.
‘Only one thing for it.’ Anna’s face was grim. ‘Meredith, fetch a gun. We must deal with the beast before it makes a break for it. If this reaches the village, the whole balance of nature could be affected.’
‘And it could have babies,’ said Aggie. ‘If it breeds, the whole c
ountry could be in danger.’
Three women sat round a kitchen table, their laughter uncertain and edged by an element that might have bordered on hysteria. Like a hasty dressing, hilarity was a salve applied to a wound that simply would not close.
Polly and Jean arrived and the disease spread like wildfire. Handkerchiefs were employed, the three seated females rendered helpless by the knowledge that neither Polly nor Jean had the slightest idea why they were laughing.
On the stairs, a man stood and listened. They were amused by him, by the fact that he was now supposedly contained in the very rooms that had once confined his own father. He sat down. Something had to be done. But to get his hands on the estate, he would need to kill all of them – father, wife, aunt, children. Then there was the letter left by – what was her name? Foster – yes – she had damned her master on the very eve of her own death. God. There was also Martindale, bloody Martindale right on the doorstep …
Bank book. Where had he left that? It now represented all that remained within his own control, just a few measly thousand – and he could not stay here. Christmas alone upstairs? A tray, a cracker, a paper hat? He should march in there now and tell those cackling crones that he intended to return to table for his meals, that this was his house, not theirs. But there were too many of them. Pol, the whore who had served him to keep the roof over her head, was in the kitchen with them; her laughter, the most raucous, raised itself above the noise of others. Christ, he should break her neck—
The front doorbell sounded and he shrank back, watched as Polly Fishwick answered the door. Ah, the set was now complete.
‘Hello, Mrs Martindale – come in – no – I’m not crying. I’ve laughed fit to burst me grandma’s corsets.’
‘I’ve brought you a couple of Christmas puds,’ announced the visitor before entering the house. And it simply happened. The wife of Alf Martindale stepped into the hallway of Chandlers Grange. Richard’s chest tightened and a red-hot knife shot through his upper body, tendrils of pain attacking his left arm. He had been warned about his heart – and about various other bodily organs – and he slipped a small pill under his tongue. No, this would not be made easy for them. Richard Chandler had no intention of dropping dead just yet. Calm, calm, he urged his inner self.
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