by Gwen Moffat
He didn’t answer directly. ‘It’s very involved and unpleasant. You see, Mossop’s wife had an affair with Denis Noble, and he was associating with Lucy; it’s all a matter of criss-crossed lines—and then Wren was the last person to see Peta alive—’ He checked. ‘No, I don’t mean that; the killer was the last person, but Wren saw her after she left Thornbarrow: saw her near the bottom of Storms’ drive, staggering in the lane as if she were drunk.’
‘What time did he see her?’ She forgot that she’d thought of the murder as a police matter.
‘He says some time after ten-thirty; she was just this side of Storms. He was coming home from an evening’s drinking in Carnthorpe and he was alone.’
‘Did the autopsy manage to come anywhere near the time of death?’
‘The pathologist wouldn’t commit himself but he said she was probably dead before three o’clock in the morning.’
‘And Wren saw her alive at ten-thirty.’
‘That’s what he says. But you were asking me about her friends.’
‘Did George Harper know her?’
‘Not to my knowledge. I only saw them together once, and by that I mean in the same room; that was at Lucy’s party in September when Peta concentrated in a rather embarrassing fashion on Noble. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m trying to work through everyone—or at least, the Sandale residents. This girl who’s staying at Burblethwaite: she arrived after Peta’s death?’
‘Yes. Peta was killed on Friday night or Saturday morning. Harper’s guest arrived last Tuesday, the day of the inquest.’
She put her head on one side and blinked. Rumney thought she looked a trifle stupid and wondered if his friend Roberts had been misled concerning her abilities.
‘Everyone seems to know about the affair between Noble and Peta,’ she remarked. ‘Did they know at the time?’
‘Oh, bound to have done; you can’t hide those things in a community of this size. Peta used to catch the afternoon bus to Carnthorpe and come back in the small hours. Mossop joked about it with his cronies in the bar but he didn’t name Noble. Jackson Wren drinks at Storms, and he told Arabella what Mossop was saying. Peta must have met Noble in Carnthorpe and he would have brought her home in his car. You can’t hope to hide a thing like that.’
‘What was Mrs Noble’s reaction?’
‘I don’t know.’ She regarded him thoughtfully. She didn’t look stupid now. ‘One doesn’t see much of Sarah,’ he elaborated, ‘I doubt if I’ve seen her for weeks and, frankly, I can’t imagine Sarah confiding in any of us. She rambles, she talks wildly at times, but she isn’t the kind of alcoholic who sobs on your shoulder—oh no, Sarah can be very close.’
‘And the Brights?’
‘Quentin was her doctor. He’s a conscientious chap; he was very upset at the inquest: a face on him like a stone. Yes, Quentin was well-disposed towards her; more, he’d feel guilty.’
‘Why?’
‘Why would he feel guilty? Because she was killed.’
‘He’d think he failed her?’
‘Just failed. Failed somewhere. He blames himself for too much that goes wrong with his patients. He’s a good friend of mine.’ There could have been a warning in his voice.
‘Tell me where he thought he failed in this case.’
He sighed and shook his head as if to clear cobwebs. He filled their glasses from the decanter.
‘There’s something telepathic here,’ he told her, ‘because I can’t give any explanation. I know he feels guilty.’ He glanced at her quickly. ‘You do realise I’m not referring to any form of direct guilt?’
‘Of course.’
‘A sin of omission,’ he went on, reassured. ‘Apparently Peta was hysterical when she went to Thornbarrow that Friday night, and Wren says she was weaving across the road. It’s assumed she was drunk; there was quite a high level of alcohol in the blood—’
‘Any barbiturates or anything like that?’
‘No, why?’
‘Just a point. Of elimination.’
‘Quentin felt he should have kept a closer eye on her. Funny thing your asking about barbiturates; he was prescribing sleeping tablets but she wouldn’t tell him the trouble. He didn’t know she had a problem but he felt that she had. Of course, anyone who can’t sleep has a problem: insomnia’s only a symptom. He thinks he should have probed deeper, that’s how I see it.’
‘You’re suggesting that there was a connection between the problem which was the cause of her insomnia and her death.’
‘Am I? I wasn’t suggesting that consciously but it could be how Quentin’s mind is working.’
‘Was there anything between them—an affair for example?’
‘Oh no. No. She was promiscuous certainly; no one was safe from her. She even propositioned me at one time!’ He looked sheepish. ‘She would have tried to seduce Quentin; one accepted that she’d make a play for any fellow who crossed her path, but Quentin’s life was far too full for anything like that. Besides, Amy Bright would stop it before it got off the ground—and Quentin’s no Denis Noble. There, d’you see, you have a weak silly fellow who was flattered. Quentin has no vanity.’
‘Was Amy Bright a friend of Peta?’
‘She was affable in public, but Amy is always the same to everyone: courteous and correct—’
Beyond the closed door a telephone was ringing. It stopped and they heard the modulations of Arabella’s voice. They drank sherry and after a moment the door opened and the girl looked in. She was wearing black crepe with frills at the throat and she looked like an astonished marmoset.
‘Lucy Fell!’ she breathed. ‘She wants us to go over when we’ve had supper. Guess who’s coming! George Harper and his lady friend!’
‘He didn’t say anything.’ Rumney was puzzled. ‘He was across for the milk and he ran back home like a scalded cat as if he couldn’t leave his visitor alone for longer than two minutes.’
‘Lucy must have been watching; she’ll have rung Burblethwaite when the lady was on her own and she accepted for both of them. Now George has got to present her to us. And Lucy says we have to come too because the girl’s going to be a bore. Can’t think what she means.’
‘Well, that’s no reason—’ Rumney started to protest, then saw a way out. ‘I’ve got Penelope—’
‘You’ve changed, Uncle Zeke; you’re not delivering a cow in your Sunday suit.’
‘I’m changing back after supper. You can go; come back and tell us all about it.’
‘I shall go too,’ Miss Pink said pleasantly.
‘I did ask.’ Arabella was eager. ‘She said you were very welcome. I’ve prepared the ground.’ She was conspiratorial.
‘What did you say?’ Rumney was sharp.
She sparkled at them. ‘I warned her that she might find Miss Pink a bit dull too. Is that what I should have said?’
‘That’s fine,’ Miss Pink said with approval. ‘That should do very well indeed.’
Chapter Seven
Supper was gammon baked with prunes, and a blue Cheshire and an excellent port. Miss Pink, regarding the Rumney family with additional respect, caught Arabella’s eye and saw that the respect was mutual.
‘Lucy fancies herself as a cook,’ the girl said as they walked down to Thornbarrow. ‘I’m warning you because I see you’re a gourmet, and gourmets aren’t dull. I guess it would be better if you were a mutton and boiled potatoes buff.’
‘That would be extreme; fish pie perhaps, and parsley sauce.’
‘Yuk,’ said Arabella in the dark, leading the way under a gable-end and through a gateway. It was a mild night, and distant sounds, like water and a curlew’s wail, were muffled, as if the cloud were down.
The girl lifted a latch and walked into the house, calling their hostess’s name. Miss Pink followed, shutting the door, peering at the stone slabs in the passage, at the firelight reflected from oak and pewter in the dim main room. A woman appeared in the opposite doorway and turned on more lights.<
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Lucy Fell wore grey flannel: a safari jacket and a skirt flared to the ankles, and under it a white polo-necked sweater. The only colour—and it was startling—came from the rings on her large brown hands. Miss Pink was taken aback. Arabella had not prepared her for a beautiful woman, but as they made conversation and moved towards the fire, she saw that the fascination of Lucy Fell came less from good bones or fine clothes, or jewels that were fabulous for Sandale, but from a repressed excitement not only in the woman’s eyes but in her voice, even in her movements. She seemed tense and fierce.
Miss Pink asked the date of the bread cupboard and watched the other’s hands. They rested tranquil in her lap. She lied smoothly concerning her own presence in the dale and Lucy said that she couldn’t think of any cottages for sale right at the moment. Miss Pink asked how long she had lived here and learned that Edward Fell had been in the Army and that the Fells came here four years ago when they retired after his last spell of duty in Cyprus. He had survived retirement for only one year. Lucy agreed that it had been a tragedy.
Arabella turned the pages of Vogue, Miss Pink beamed at the fire and Lucy said suddenly: ‘I assume they’ll come.’
‘You think George won’t let her come?’ Arabella exclaimed. ‘Now why all the mystery? Why is he so anti-social?’
‘He isn’t; he had a drink with me last Friday.’
‘I thought he never went out. Last Friday! Of course he did; he brought your eggs down. But that was when—’
‘He looked in early, before dinner, and he was quite amiable.’ Lucy smiled at Miss Pink. ‘Has Arabella told you about our visitors?’
‘This is the man from Surrey? Yes, she has told me. He’s not such a recluse then if he visits you.’
‘Of course he’s not a recluse. Arabella exaggerates. George came to my party in September and mixed quite happily.’
‘What I mean is—’ Arabella began, but at this point there was a knock at the outside door. Lucy rose and went out. There was a sound of greetings in the passage and Arabella mimed anticipation at Miss Pink.
They weren’t disappointed. The visitor from Burblethwaite had long legs and a mass of russet hair, much of it falling casually over one eye. She wore coral-coloured lamé: pants, smock and camisole, and gold boots. She was pretty rather than beautiful, with an expression modelled on Marilyn Monroe but with none of Monroe’s blatant sex appeal. The eyes were wide and innocent, the lips not quite closed. She was ornamental rather than functional, like a Playboy photograph, and she acknowledged the introductions in a strong Cockney accent that was good enough to be genuine.
Behind her George Harper appeared proud and anxious at the same time. She was his daughter and her name was Caroline. She was a model. Arabella looked meaningly at Miss Pink. So far there were no great surprises, discounting the lamé.
Lucy served drinks. She was the type of woman which improves in the face of opposition. Arabella, with no claims to conventional beauty and no self-consciousness, was unrecognised as competition, but Caroline Harper was a rival: young and slim and strikingly dressed. Even the accent competed.
In the face of this Lucy glowed with confidence, drawing the girl out, stylishly amused, and Caroline chattered in a breathless accent while Harper listened, Miss Pink watched benignly, and Arabella appeared to withdraw, her dark little face sinking into the black frills at her throat.
Caroline said that she was leaving the next day. Lucy was shocked. ‘But you’ve only just arrived!’
‘I’ve got a very full week from Monday on,’ Caroline explained. ‘If I drive home tomorrow I can sleep all day Sunday. But I’ll be down again soon if Dad’ll have me.’
‘Of course I will,’ he assured her. ‘You’re always welcome; you know that.’
It was touching, even intimate; Miss Pink had the feeling that she was eavesdropping.
‘Who do you model for?’ Arabella asked.
Caroline hesitated. ‘I’m only just starting,’ she confessed, ‘but I got next week off and this guy’s going to do some special pictures of me for free. I’m an air hostess really but I done some modelling for mail order firms. What I really want to do is get with a Paris house, Givenchy or Bohan or one of those. I done a bit for Warners—that’s just underwear and stuff, but I’d love to be with a couturier.’
‘I don’t think you should have any trouble,’ Arabella said sincerely, her eyes on the coral suit.
‘You shouldn’t have hidden away while you’ve been here,’ Lucy chided. ‘We’ve seen nothing of you, and you’re highly decorative, for Sandale.’ She glanced at Arabella and grimaced. ‘Although we could hardly have raised people to have a young party, could we?’
‘Why young?’ Arabella asked with hostility. ‘I like people mixed. Zeke and Quentin are great fun, and Grannie comes out with the most astonishing things. . . . Sandale can make up a very good party just as it stands.’ She paused, and added, ‘With one or two exceptions.’
When no one else commented Caroline asked brightly: ‘Who are they?’
‘The drunks and the wife-beaters,’ Arabella said and stopped, turning horrified eyes on Miss Pink who smiled and shook her head in disbelief.
‘That’s one thing you don’t have in the Lake District,’ she said smugly. ‘The crime rate drops like a stone as soon as you leave the urban conurbations.’
‘Drunks aren’t criminals,’ Arabella pointed out.
‘All part of the same mores.’ Miss Pink’s eyes gleamed as she got into her stride. She and Arabella were in shadow on a sofa and now the girl felt a slight pressure on her thigh. The pernickety voice continued: ‘All statistics can be read whichever way one wants to read them and I agree that crime rates may appear to be high merely because there are more convictions or, if you like, fewer people get away with it. The statistics may, in fact, only be proving that criminals are more clever in the countryside but this can’t be so because there is little evidence of rural crime. There may be more after-hours drinking—’ she shook her head reprovingly, ‘—but that is where it stops.’ Arabella was eyeing her coldly. Miss Pink drew breath. ‘Rats in close confinement have been known—’
‘We had a murder last week,’ Arabella said loudly, ‘and they questioned the husband for forty-eight hours, and then they questioned her lov——’ She gasped and stared at Lucy who closed her eyes in mock despair.
‘Arabella! No party could be a bore with you present!’ She glanced calmly at Miss Pink. ‘She’s right; a girl was murdered last weekend and they’ve not yet found the person who did it.’
‘Dad said she was here, in this house.’ Caroline was awed.
‘Yes.’ Lucy addressed George Harper. ‘You were here when she rang that evening; I haven’t seen you since. She came along after dinner and she was quite distraught. Denis and I were the last people to speak to her, with the exception of the man who killed her, of course.’
‘How do they know it was a man?’ Caroline asked.
‘She wasn’t killed where she was found; she had to be carried there, or transported somehow. Women can’t heave other women around, you know.’
‘That’s right.’ The girl nodded eagerly. ‘You try getting girls into bed when they’re stoned. It’s a hell of a job. Yeah, you’re quite right; it must have been a man. The husband’s always the first suspect,’ she assured Miss Pink earnestly.
‘That may be so,’ Harper put in with unexpected aggressiveness. ‘That doesn’t mean he’s always the murderer. There are plenty of vicious wives about. The police can’t look farther than their noses sometimes.’
‘Come off it, Dad; we was only joking.’
Miss Pink looked confused. ‘Joking?’
‘Not really.’ Arabella sighed. ‘Our murder wasn’t a joke. I don’t expect Lucy thought it was a joke. Didn’t she give any indication, Lucy?’
‘Of what, for heaven’s sake? It wasn’t suicide. People hardly give indications that they’re going to be murdered.’ Lucy’s temper seemed to be not far below the
surface.
‘Why, of course they don’t.’ Caroline stared at the other girl in reproof.
Arabella opened her mouth. Miss Pink asked: ‘Why was she so late?’
There was a small silence then Lucy asked: ‘Late for what?’
‘Dinner,’ Miss Pink said, appearing a little flustered. ‘Didn’t you say she came in after dinner? Or didn’t you invite her?’
‘That’s right.’ Lucy sounded strained. ‘She wasn’t invited.’
‘Then why did she come?’ Arabella asked.
Lucy said, as if she had repeated it many times: ‘She was drunk and hysterical; she said she was getting telephone calls and Denis suggested she should see her doctor the following day. That’s all.’
‘But she was killed before she could see the doctor,’ Caroline pointed out, as if it were a game.
‘She was killed that night,’ Lucy agreed and Miss Pink’s spectacles focused on her.
‘So someone wanted to stop her going to the doctor.’ Caroline looked round the circle in triumph. ‘I like detective stories,’ she explained.
George Harper nodded morosely. ‘It could have been that. It was a queer business altogether; I’ve found it a bit upsetting.’
‘I think you should come back to town with me, Dad,’ Caroline said, concerned.
Lucy rose to fill people’s glasses and Miss Pink followed to admire the bread cupboard at close quarters. The butterfly hinges were brought to her attention and, sadly, the place where the central shelf had deteriorated because it was sap wood, not heart wood. Miss Pink evinced sympathy. As Lucy talked, now without much animation, her eyes travelled beyond her guest and suddenly her face was suffused with that questing excitement which had been so obvious when they’d arrived. Miss Pink turned and saw a stranger in the doorway.
‘You must meet my neighbour, Jackson Wren,’ Lucy said.
The newcomer approached: a big man in breeches and a trendy jersey with a horizontal stripe across the chest. He was faintly embarrassed but when he smiled he seemed open, boyish, genuinely pleased to meet a visitor. As Miss Pink made conversation she noticed, without appearing to do so, that Arabella was watching them with consternation. At the same time George Harper observed Arabella while his daughter stared with parted lips at Wren.