by Gwen Moffat
Lucy brought him a whisky on the rocks. He thanked her and for a second their eyes locked. Arabella turned to Caroline. Miss Pink asked Wren if he climbed.
‘I get out as often as I can,’ he told her. ‘At the moment we’re all praying for the snow: to get some ice climbing in.’
They turned to the fire and he nodded to Arabella then stared at Caroline. Her father introduced her.
‘Are you really a mountain climber?’ she asked breathlessly and Arabella winced.
Wren was not in the least put out. He started to explain that he was a rock climber and there ensued one of those embarrassing conversations familiar to the initiated. Miss Pink’s face was composed, Arabella looked bored, George Harper a little anxious, but that seemed to be his habitual expression. Only Wren blossomed in the warmth of adulation—which was not surprising since it was directed at him.
Lucy came looking for someone to open a bottle of wine and took Harper away. Miss Pink, regretting her recent supper, remarked to Arabella that it looked as if they were expected to eat.
‘I can always eat.’ Arabella stood up. ‘Lucy’s canapés are divine. I’ll give her a hand.’
Harper remained in the kitchen and Miss Pink caught a glimpse of him fiddling with some gadget on the table. She looked placidly at Wren and Caroline, admired the andirons and took a reflective sip of her cognac.
‘. . . nothing to it,’ Wren was saying. ‘You reach up—not at full stretch, mind—’ he showed her, ‘—and all the holds are there, waiting for you: right where you need them. It’s just the same for the feet: like climbing a ladder, and the rope makes it dead safe. The leader’s got you tight all the time, see; it’s impossible to fall!’ He stopped and studied her. ‘You’d make a nice little climber,’ he said casually, ‘not in that gear though.’
‘I’ve got some jeans.’
‘You mean you’d like to try?’
‘Well, sometime.’
‘Huh! Chicken!’
‘Oh no, honestly! I’d love it; it’s just that I—’ She bit her lip and glanced towards the kitchen, her eyes those of a naughty child, greatly daring. She leaned towards him and whispered.
Miss Pink reached for the tongs, peering at them as if through bi-focals. She had good hearing and although the whisper was beyond her, she caught his low reply.
‘You’d have to wear boots.’
‘I could buy those in Carnthorpe.’
‘Perhaps.’ He started to tell her about the Alps and avalanches and getting up before the dawn. She was enthralled.
Meanwhile Arabella was bringing plates of food to Lucy’s dining table. Occasionally she glanced at the hearth but it was the look of a preoccupied housewife wondering about fuel and falling logs, without emotion. Someone shut the kitchen door and behind it a coffee-mill went into action. Miss Pink craned her neck to see what there was to eat. Wren was demonstrating a layback on the side of the settle and Caroline was spellbound.
‘You’d have to wear a helmet,’ he said, returning to her.
‘No! Like them on telly: real climbers?’
‘You’ll look gorgeous in a helmet; I’ll take some pictures. I’ve got a Leica.’
Miss Pink started to turn the pages of Vogue as Arabella had done earlier but she wasn’t bored. On the other side of the hearth the chatter went on; like two children planning an escapade, she thought.
At length the others came in and Lucy’s eyes went straight to Wren. Miss Pink saw the lids drop fractionally, then lift, but the fire had gone. Now they were basilisk eyes, flat as green slate, and they passed over Miss Pink as if she were a chair.
*
The Rumney kitchen was bright and warm; scrubbed clean and abandoned for the night. On a rug under the table the oldest collie thumped the floor with his tail, and the feline Bosch had separated into its units and was draped in a frieze round the Aga: true tortoiseshell, black, white, pied and marmalade.
‘Come on,’ Arabella said impatiently as Miss Pink admired the new design. ‘We’ll talk in the house.’ ‘House’ being Cumbrian for the living room.
They were alone. Grannie had gone to bed and they’d peeped in the lighted cow-house to find Rumney half asleep on a milking stool, still waiting for Penelope.
The range was banked for the night and they drew their chairs close to its stored heat. It was Miss Pink who started the ball rolling with congratulations on Arabella’s studied indiscretions at Thornbarrow.
‘We didn’t learn anything,’ the girl pointed out.
‘I did,’ Miss Pink said stoutly. ‘For instance, Lucy is on good terms with George Harper and, something salutory: it hadn’t occurred to me that a woman wouldn’t have been able to move Peta’s body. That must have been a man. And it’s interesting that Peta meant to see her doctor on Saturday morning.’
‘Do you think she could have been killed to stop her seeing Quentin?’ Miss Pink said nothing. ‘Because only Denis and Lucy knew she was going to see him,’ Arabella went on.
‘Not necessarily; she could have told Mossop on her return, she could have rung the doctor late that night for an appointment or merely to talk to him; he could have told his wife. . . .’
‘But she didn’t go back to Storms!’
‘How do you know?’
‘Mossop would have said! And anyone would have said if she’d told them she was going to see the doctor.’
‘Would they? Do you think the killer is telling the truth?’
‘Well, of course he isn’t. . . . Oh, my God!’ Miss Pink regarded her placidly. ‘You mean: if he’s one of us he’s not telling the truth!’ She was appalled. ‘It can’t be Quentin?’
‘No?’ Miss Pink asked pleasantly. ‘But he could have information: of the kind that people aren’t aware that they possess. What did you think of Caroline?’
Arabella pulled herself together with an effort. ‘Dumb,’ she said flatly, then with more animation: ‘But not completely. That suit came from Dior; I know because my mother buys things there. She didn’t earn that kind of money as an air hostess.’
‘She said she did some part-time modelling.’
‘Mail order stuff and bras! That outfit cost a heap of dollars, and she didn’t pay for it.’ After a long pause she went on carefully, ‘Lucy seems to have taken up with Jackson. I’ve a feeling that’s going to make complications in the dale.’
‘This is comparatively recent?’ Miss Pink’s tone was light.
‘Quite. As Zeke may have told you, I had a relationship, of a sort, with Jackson until last Friday. How odd: that it should have ended the day Peta was killed. I can’t think of any possible connection though. That was how Jackson came to be returning from Carnthorpe alone on Friday evening. We would have been together but we had this confrontation—or rather, that day was the climax. He didn’t like me breaking it off. So now Lucy’s taken him in. Well, he has a superficial charm.’ The tone was worldly and highly artificial.
‘The charm worked on Caroline; I don’t think Lucy was too pleased about that.’
‘How could she be? She’s old enough to be Caroline’s mother, and almost old enough for Jackson’s, but she’s very elegant, isn’t she? Didn’t you think so?’
‘Very, but I thought that Jackson might be more interested in her money than in herself. As soon as a strange young girl appeared on the scene he was quick enough to transfer his attentions.’
Arabella poked the fire, heedless of its being so carefully banked. ‘Jackson is only interested in Jackson. If he can get a woman to provide money, and labour, that’s his ideal partner. Once he’s got them, the charm wears off; in fact, he’s spread so thin now, I wonder there’s enough of him left to go round.’
‘You’ve retained your sense of humour.’
‘I’ll survive. Grannie did warn me. You won’t tell them, will you? I’d be so ashamed.’
‘Of course I won’t, but there’s no shame attached; chalk it up to experience. You’re wiser now.’
‘And how! He’s marrie
d to a girl in Northampton and she’s got a small baby. He’s supporting them.’ Arabella stared at a blue flame. ‘I guess some of my money went to them but so what? Poor thing; she needed it more than me, with the baby as well.’
‘How did you find this out?’
‘Quite simple. He wants to start pony trekking and we saw a mare that really is a little beauty, and he knows where there’s a good stallion; thinking long-term, you see. So he had to have my money because he hasn’t got any, but I wanted to get married; I’m a bit Puritan that way. So I said more or less: no marriage, no money, and that’s when he had to tell me about his wife in Northampton—but he said he’d get a divorce and marry me. He did point out that he’d have to pay her alimony. I took a little time to consider the problem—’ she regarded Miss Pink earnestly, ‘but I figured that if he’d deceived me for three months, he could do it again. It was the start of the rot, you know. It’s like virginity—I mean, once trust has gone, you can never go back. And there was Grannie reminding me how rich I’d be eventually and how Jackson always was a greedy boy. . . . I reckon his going straight to Lucy proves the point. He hardly knew her a week ago but now they seem to know each other quite well, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Oh, definitely.’ But Miss Pink’s mind had snagged on something else, like wool on a bramble. ‘Where was Denis Noble tonight? Doesn’t he usually dine with Lucy on a Friday?’
‘Why, so he does. But he couldn’t be there when Lucy was so obviously smitten with Jackson. When you think about it, isn’t it curious that she should have a party at all? She’d have much preferred to be alone with Jackson.’
‘Probably he looked in uninvited; and we weren’t there for long: less than three hours. She has him to herself now, and I wouldn’t like to be in his boots.’
‘Because of Caroline?’
‘Naturally.’ Miss Pink was prim. ‘He was asking for trouble. Lucy looked quite ugly when she came in from the kitchen.’
‘I didn’t see her face. I saw his and he looked sly; he’s probably thinking he can run two women at once.’
‘Only for one day. If she climbs tomorrow—and they were making arrangements to do that—she’ll have to leave on Sunday.’
‘That’s just as well; we’ve had enough entanglements in the dale already; Caroline landing in the middle of it is like a cat loose in a dove-cot.’
‘Cote,’ Miss Pink corrected. ‘I would hardly term the Sandale residents doves.’
‘Agreed, unless doves have nasty private lives like chickens. Lucy is very beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘Most of the time. I’m surprised you didn’t warn me.’
‘I hadn’t realised it until tonight. She’s old, of course, but she has the sense to wear things that hide it. I can’t help feeling sorry for her; she does like the good things of life: like clothes and jewels and going up to London often. If she gets involved with Jackson he’ll cheat her terribly and Zeke says she’s not well off really. I do think men are horrible. Someone,’ she added darkly, ‘ought to tell her.’
‘In her present state of mind, and knowing you and Jackson had been so close, she would merely think you were jealous. It’s obvious that she finds the situation passionately exciting—and she’s middle-aged. The combination could be very unpleasant if she thought of herself as being obstructed.’
‘You could say something very delicately.’
‘People have to get hurt; you can’t protect them.’
‘I don’t like seeing old people hurt, particularly when I know what it’s all about.’ She caught Miss Pink’s doubtful eye. ‘I mean, I know Jackson; you don’t. Neither does Lucy. It makes me miserable.’
‘Wait and see. It may all be over in a few days; these things can fizzle out as quickly as they start. Jackson may even follow Caroline to London. By this time tomorrow things could be entirely different.’
Chapter Eight
Overnight the weather broke and in the morning the cloud was down to a thousand feet but as yet there was no rain. After breakfast Miss Pink left on foot for the doctor’s house. At Rumney’s instigation Quentin Bright had agreed to see her, though reluctantly.
She took the old packhorse track which crossed the green under Coneygarth, then rose gently to contour the oak woods above the big houses of the lower dale. She glanced at Coneygarth as she passed: an old longhouse with the barn adjoining. The bedroom windows were tightly closed and she assumed either that Wren had left already to climb with Caroline or that he was still asleep.
She opened a gate in a stone wall and the path started to mount over block scree. The rocks were covered with cushions of moss and the old oaks were twisted, their crumbling bark scurfy with lichen. Above her the slope steepened and there were glimpses of rock walls. She was traversing under the crag known as Shivery Knott and soon she crossed the beck coming out of its main gully.
At this point the trees thinned and she looked down on the chimneys of a large house. This would be the Storms Hotel. Another few hundred yards and a rash of rhododendrons proclaimed more grounds and a second house. She smelled wood-smoke. At nine-thirty she came to the third and a steep trodden way zig-zagging down to the doctor’s backyard.
For all their penchant for mock-Gothic, the Victorians had a good eye for position. The Brights’ house, Throstle Shaw, stood on a site some fifty feet above the water-meadows and looked up a long dale to the heart of the Central Fells. This dale was drained by a stream which joined the Sandale beck on the far side of the fields and from the confluence the river ran deep and wide and, marked by alders, to the dramatic exit from these flat bottom-lands: the rock gorge called the Throat. This was invisible from here, hidden by the lie of the land and the ubiquitous oaks. Regretting that she was not free to go to look for kingfishers, Miss Pink completed the descent to Throstle Shaw and tramped round the house to its front entrance.
*
‘No,’ Quentin Bright said brusquely, ‘Peta didn’t ring me that Friday night, and I know nothing about anonymous letters except that Zeke told me he’d had one. He persuaded me to see you,’ he went on, ‘but I don’t like it.’
‘I don’t like delving into people’s medical history either, Miss Pink confessed. ‘But she can’t be hurt now, and isn’t it likely that her death is connected with her past life? And then Rumney wonders if there can be a link with his sheep—’
‘I can’t believe that! A link between his sheep being stolen and Peta’s death? It’s preposterous!’
‘More preposterous than her murder? There are other links: anonymous letters, for instance, and Mossop.’
‘We don’t know that she was getting letters.’
‘True, but someone wrote to Rumney; that person wants his—or her—letter investigated. They wouldn’t have written otherwise.’
Bright looked out of the window of the drawing room. ‘That letter could have been the work of a disturbed person.’
‘Have you seen it?’ He shook his head. She handed it to him and he read the short message.
‘It appears to have been written by a stable person—so far as one can tell.’ He sighed. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Was there a basis for threats?’
‘Given her state of mind, and Mossop’s nature, yes.’
‘You mean someone might have threatened to tell Mossop something which his wife didn’t want him to know?’
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘That’s about it.’
‘But you’d prefer not to give the details.’
He responded at a tangent. ‘Have you met Mossop? No. They had a strange relationship: unhealthy. They fought like cat and dog. He neglected her shamelessly: went off for days at a time leaving a manager to run the hotel even in the height of the season. He spoke to her in public—and of her—in a despicable way, and yet all the time he seemed proud of her—I mean, proud that she was promiscuous. Very unpleasant. But in spite of all that there was a strong mutual dependence. That breakdown of Peta’s three years ago: she took an over
dose, but she rang me at the penultimate moment, and with Mossop’s help I managed to get the stomach washed out. He was distraught; I had the devil’s own job with him. In his own way he loved her.’ He considered for a moment, and added, ‘Although it makes me wince to remember the way he spoke of her on other occasions.’
‘Why did she take an overdose?’
‘I suspect she’d had an unhappy affair; perhaps the fellow got tired of her. That was her trouble: rejection, or rather, imagining herself rejected. What made it worse that time was that she was pregnant.’ He pondered this. ‘Rumney says you’re to be trusted,’ he commented ingenuously. ‘Well, once she recovered from the overdose what did she do but take herself off to a back street abortionist, and he bungled the job. She managed to get to hospital but she was lucky to survive; as it was, she could never have another child. Mossop had gone to Newcastle for a few days but she was terrified he might find out. Mossop, you see, wanted children and when they had none, he blamed it on her. Her pregnancy disproved that, but unfortunately it wasn’t Mossop’s child, nor could have been, she told me. So she told him she’d been in hospital to have a cyst removed and I backed her up.’
Miss Pink asked: ‘Why was she so afraid of him knowing she was pregnant if he didn’t mind her being promiscuous?’
‘God knows! Perhaps it was that she could have had children had they persisted but now she felt she’d spoiled her chances. Whatever it was, she was terrified that he would throw her out, and Peta’s driving need was for security. You must remember that we’re not talking about an integrated person. Peta’s fears were irrational.’
‘Not all of them,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘If she had anonymous letters, one can assume that the threats they conveyed had a basis in fact. How had she seemed recently?’
‘I hadn’t seen her for some weeks. The last time she consulted me she was certainly jumpy and couldn’t sleep but she wouldn’t tell me what the trouble was. I prescribed tranquillisers and Mogodon.’