by Hazel Holt
“You mean buying a partnership with Fay?” I asked. “I know Joan would want to help you with that—she said something about wishing she could do it, ages ago, before your father died.”
“Yes, she’s got some sort of trust—there’s quite a bit of money in it, I believe—though Father would never let her have anything to do with it while he was alive.”
“It would be marvelous if you could buy a partnership here,” I said. “I’m sure it’s a very flourishing business and it’s so much the sort of thing you should be doing—you’re a splendid teacher!”
Mary flushed with pleasure. “It’s what I’ve always, always wanted,” she said vehemently. “It is a good business, even as it is, but Fay wants to expand and do special courses, dressage, eventing and things like that.”
“It all sounds very exciting,” I said, “and how marvelous that you’re able to come up with the money just now! I gather Fay’s had an offer from some other girl ...”
Mary flushed again, this time with anger. “That Sally Ross! Coming here all the time, trying to butter Fay up! She’s got masses of money—her father’s rolling! But she doesn’t know anything about horses or running a place like this—it would be just a hobby with her, just an excuse to hang round Fay!”
“Fay did say that she’d given you first refusal,” I said soothingly.
“Yes, well, she knows that I’d work like a slave to make this place successful.”
“I’m sure she does.” I took a sip of my coffee, which was very strong and rather bitter, and wondered why other people’s coffee was never quite like one’s own. “She’d be an idiot not to realize what a tremendous asset you’d be, and I’m sure Fay’s not an idiot!”
“She really is terrific,” Mary said earnestly, “she’s built all this up from nothing in just a couple of years. She’s a brilliant rider—she could have been up to Olympic standard but she didn’t have the money behind her—and marvelous at organization, too. It really is wonderful working with her. I’m moving in here soon. I’m not sure when, it depends on Mother and how soon we have to get out of the deanery—I’ll have to be there to help her with that.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do there, please let me know,” I said. “You said something about her buying a cottage near here. Is that settled?”
“Well, it depends on probate and things like that. I suppose Father will have left Mother well provided for—he knew all about money!”
“I imagine all that will take some time. Where will Joan and Adrian live until then?”
“Mother did say something about staying with Evelyn Burgess for a bit. And I suppose Adrian might move in with his girlfriend.”
“His what?”
“Oh, Adrian’s got a girlfriend, though he’s had to keep it a deadly secret because of Father.”
“But why?”
Mary shrugged. “I don’t know. Because she was what Father would call ‘unsuitable,’ I suppose.”
“Do you know who she is?” I asked.
“Haven’t the faintest.” Mary sloshed some more water from the kettle into her mug. “Adrian never confides in me. But there’s been the odd phone call when he was out—you know, a female voice, wouldn’t leave a message. Anyway, Myra Lewis, who lives in Stoke Courcy, has seen them together several times in a pub there.”
“Good Heavens!” I said. “But then”—I thought of something—“you’d think he’d be—well, not pleased exactly, but relieved that he can meet this girl quite openly now that your father’s dead.”
“Instead of which,” Mary said slowly, “he’s gone to pieces. Odd. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Do you think your mother knows about it?” I asked.
“She hasn’t said anything. I shouldn’t think so. Adrian wouldn’t have told her about it in case she let it out to Father. She isn’t very good at keeping secrets.”
“She kept one, though,” I said.
Mary looked at me inquiringly.
“She never let Francis know that she’d found out about his affairs.”
Mary gave a short, bitter laugh. “Oh, that!” she said. “I’m pretty sure he did know and despised her even more for not confronting him with them.”
“She was so frightened of losing him,” I said sadly. “So you knew about it too. She told me there had been several—someone in Culminster, even. Do you know who it was?”
“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact, though I never told Mother. There was a letter. Father must have dropped it in the passage outside his study. I picked it up and looked to see what it was. I got quite a surprise! It was from a woman called Judy, begging him to go and see her—a really emotional letter—apparently he’d ended their affair and she was desperate to see him. I could hardly believe it. Father, of all people! All that hypocrisy on top of everything else—it made me hate him even more.”
“And she lived in Culminster?” I inquired tentatively.
“The address at the top of the letter was Rose Cottage, Shircombe.”
“Shircombe? Oh, I know, it’s that rather pretty village on the Taunton Road. What did you do with the letter? I don’t imagine you mentioned it to your father?”
“What do you think! No, I put it on his desk among some other papers. I don’t suppose he even knew he’d dropped it.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Oh, a while back. A couple of years ago—three, maybe. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I just wondered if perhaps it might have been the motive—you know ...”
“You mean a woman spurned and all that?”
“Yes, well, that, or a jealous husband, if she was married... But not if it happened that long ago.”
“No, I suppose not.”
We sat in silence for a while and then I asked, “Have you heard anything else from the police?”
“No, not really. Oh, yes, Mother was going to ring you up—they’ve released the body. The funeral’s next week. The bishop’s officiating, the full works in the cathedral, and Mother hopes that you and Uncle David will come. I expect she’ll ring you about it.”
“Yes, of course. It will be easier for everyone when that’s over.”
“When he’s safely underground,” Mary said vindictively, “but even then he’ll still be making his influence felt, making life miserable for everyone, just like he did in his lifetime!”
Chapter 16
Goodness, that girl is bitter!” I said to David and Michael that evening. ‘‘She really hated her father.”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly good parent material,” Michael said. “Not what you’d call loving and caring. So do you think she hated him enough to do him in?”
“She had a very strong motive,” I replied, “apart from the hating. It seems that it was her last chance to go in with Fay in the stables. She was obviously very jealous of this other woman—Sally something—who’d made an offer. A bit of rivalry there, and not just on the business side, I gather.”
“Green-eyed monster?” Michael inquired.
“It looks like it, yes. Anyway, it was something that she really wanted, something that I think she’d be quite ruthless about. There really is quite a lot of Francis in Mary, more than one realized!”
“Well, she was around in that part of the cathedral when I was with Francis,” David said, “so I suppose she could have popped in before we arrived and put the fatal potion in his medicine glass. Very nasty, though, to think of such unbridled family passions—like the worst excesses of Jacobean drama, it’ll be poisoned gloves next!”
“Well, someone killed Francis,” I said, “and I believe almost all poisonings are done by a member of the victim’s family.”
“Anyway,” Michael said, “she could probably have put the stuff into the medicine glass at home.”
“Before Joan took the tray over, you mean? Yes, I’m sure Mary always had lunch at the deanery, so she’d have been on the spot, as it were. Also,” I continued, “there’s another thing she told me. She�
�d found out about Francis’s affair with this woman in Culminster—well, not exactly Culminster, Shircombe, actually. Someone called Judy. Mary was pretty upset about that, too—it all adds up.”
“Are you going to tell your inspector friend?” Michael asked. “After all, if it’s going to divert his beady eye from David here, then I certainly think you should.”
“It seems a bit mean ...” David said reluctantly.
“This is no time for chivalry,” I said firmly. “Actually, I’d like to see if I can find out a bit more about this Judy person. I know Mary said the affair was over several years ago, but you never know—these things send out ripples.”
“I can’t imagine how you intend to go about it,” David said. “I mean, you can hardly go knocking on people’s doors on the off chance!”
“Ah, but I’ve got an address,” I said smugly. “Rose Cottage. All I need now is a pretext.”
“And I’m sure that will present no problems to you, dear,” David said sweetly. “I begin to pity the poor woman. Just think—an affair with Francis (how the spirit sinks at the thought) and then pursued by the Eumenides in the shape of Sheila Malory, girl detective! What a busy day you’ve had!”
“That’s not all,” I said. “Mary told me that she’s pretty sure Adrian has a girlfriend.”
They both turned and looked at me in amazement.
“And one, moreover,” I continued, “that he apparently found it necessary to keep secret from his family.”
“Why?” Michael asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine, but Mary seemed to think it was because she was unsuitable in some way.
“Francis was a dreadful snob,” David said, “so that widens the field of his disapproval considerably.”
“They meet in secret in a pub in Stoke Courcy, so Mary’s been told. Of course!” I exclaimed. “We could all go there for a drink one evening and see if we can spot them.”
“No, Ma,” Michael said. “Count me out! I am not going to hang around some dismal alehouse in Stoke Courcy (which is one of the dreariest villages in the whole of West Somerset) on the off chance of surprising Adrian and his lady friend. It would be boring if he didn’t turn up and embarrassing if he did! Take David, if you like. Being a thespian, he could probably disguise himself as a pot man or something and carry the whole thing off with aplomb, whatever that may be.”
David groaned. “The whole concept sounds pretty fraught to me.”
“Spoilsports!” I said. “Oh well, it was just an idea. I’ll keep it in reserve if the Judy female is a dead end.”
I was standing, staring in the window of our one and only dress shop at a jacket and skirt in a particularly trying shade of mustard and wondering who on earth would be prepared to pay £275 for the doubtful privilege of wearing it, when a voice behind me said, “Goodness, Estelle’s prices get more and more astronomical! It’s just as well that she never has anything now that one would be seen dead in!” It was my friend Rosemary.
“I know,” I said, “just look at this monstrosity and that dress there in a really horrendous shade of green—it would make you look like one of the undead!”
Rosemary laughed. “Have you got time for a coffee? I’ve only just got away from Mother’s—she’s having one of her maddeningly slow days when everything she wants me to do takes twice as long to explain. I really need a little breather before I go and wrestle with the bank—she’s convinced that they’ve forgotten all her standing orders and I’ve got to go and remonstrate with them. Of course, it’ll turn out that she never instructed them in the first place and I’ll feel an absolute fool ...”
Over coffee and Danish pastries (“Honestly, the amount of comfort eating I have to do after every session with Mother...”) I gave Rosemary an account of my meeting with Mary.
“I began by feeling sorry for her,” I said, “but now it’s Joan I’m unhappy about. I don’t think she knows what she wants yet, she’s still in a state of shock. I suppose the young don’t see that as you get older it takes longer and longer to adjust to things.”
“I think she’d be better off with Evelyn Burgess permanently,” Rosemary said, “if it could be arranged. Evelyn’s a gentle soul, even if she is a bit eccentric, and they’ve always got on well together.”
“And then Adrian could go and live with his girlfriend—that is, if he ever succeeds in pulling himself together.”
“My goodness, yes, that was a surprise! I’d no idea. Still, he’s back at work. Jack had to ring his firm about something the other day and he got Adrian. He said he sounded even more feeble than usual. But, then, you know Jack, he never did suffer fools gladly. Oh yes, and talking of fools, do you know what Sybil’s done now? The idiotic woman only told me yesterday that she’s off to Finland (such an extraordinary place to go for a holiday!) tomorrow so she won’t be around for the St. John’s flag day. So now I’m a collector short.”
Rosemary mopped up the remaining crumbs of icing on her plate with her finger and looked at me speculatively. “I don’t suppose ...” she inquired. “No, forget it—you’ve got enough to do with all those Beaumonts and David staying for goodness knows how long.”
“Oh, he’s no trouble,” I said, “and very entertaining company. I shall miss him when he goes back.”
“Which will be when?”
“When it’s all over, I suppose, and the police don’t feel they need him under their eye. Oh, did I tell you, the police asked for an adjournment of the inquest, so he’ll have to stay for that at least.” I finished the last of my coffee. “Oh, go on, then, I’ll fill in for Sybil on Saturday. Where’s her usual pitch?”
“Outside Woolworth’s—it’s quite good, there are usually lots of people in and out. Bless you, that is a weight off my mind. Would you mind coming round to the committee rooms now and getting the collecting tin and the flags? Oh, and this year we’re hoping that people will do a bit of door-to-door collecting before Saturday as well. I know it’s a bore to do, but we did it last year and the takings went up quite a bit. People seem to give more generously on their own doorsteps—shame and embarrassment, I suppose. Would you mind?”
An idea came to me. “No,” I said, “I don’t mind. Actually, I think it’s a splendid plan.”
Shircombe has become little more than a dormitory village to Culminster. You can tell that by the way almost all the houses have been gentrified within an inch of their lives, crouching under fancy chocolate-box-style thatch and festooned with hanging baskets. Although it was a weekday, there were still several Range Rovers parked on newly graveled driveways, presumably for the wives-at-home to do the supermarket shopping and the school run.
It was one of those rare, boiling hot summer days when the car turns into a greenhouse and I was conscious of being sticky, crumpled and uncomfortable when I parked by the village green (a rustic seat, ducks on a meticulously kept pond) and got out and looked around the center of the village. There were Myrtle and Woodbine and Pear Tree cottages, but no Rose. Fortunately there was a village shop. Inside I was not really surprised to see tins of lobster bisque, jars of cherries in kirsch and a display of Bath Olivers. The man behind the counter, palpably a brisk, newly retired ex-naval type escaping from the rat race, greeted me pleasantly. I bought a jar of Kalamata olives and asked if he could tell me where Rose Cottage was.
“Mrs. Fletcher’s? Oh, that’s a little way out of the village. You go up past the church and there’s a lane to the right. Rose Cottage is the first house on the left.”
“Thank you so much.” I looked around and said appreciatively, “I must say you do have a splendid stock of unusual things.”
He smiled ruefully. “People in the village get most of their stuff from the supermarkets in Culminster, so we have to cater for more specialist demands if we’re going to survive.”
“What do the old villagers think of”—I picked up a tin and examined the label—“Balti Stir-Fry Sauce?”
“There aren’t many old villagers left and th
e ones there are only come in for the post office, to get their pensions. There’s still one bus a week into Culminster and they all go and stock up at Tesco.”
“Village life in the ’nineties,” I said.
“Well, to be honest, it isn’t really what my wife and I expected. But you’ve got to adapt, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I said sadly, “I suppose you have.”
I turned the car and drove up the lane. Rose Cottage stood alone. Unlike the cottages in the village, it was not picturesque, being a worker’s dwelling put up as economically as possible to house some nineteenth-century agricultural laborer. It was built of gray stone with a slate roof and, although some attempt had been made to soften its ungracious outline with climbing roses and a honeysuckle, it still remained uncompromisingly utilitarian. There was a small garden, predominantly yellow and orange, planted with marigolds and nasturtiums, presumably grown from seed.
There was a little lay-by just beyond the cottage and I parked there. I pinned my collector’s badge to my frock, got out the collecting tin and tray of flags and walked up the short path to the house.
There was no answer to my ring and I wondered if I had had a wasted journey. It was very quiet and only the buzzing of industrious bees plunging in and out of the honeysuckle broke the stillness. I rang again and this time I heard some movement inside the house. The door was opened by a woman in her late thirties, tall and slim, with dark curly hair and a pleasant expression. In her arms she carried a small child.
“Hello,” she said, “can I help you?”
I stood transfixed, unable to speak. The child bore an extraordinary resemblance to Francis.
Chapter 17
For a moment the image of the woman and child swam before my eyes and I put up my hand as if to brush it away. I heard the woman ask, “Are you all right?” Her voice was kind and concerned.
I made an effort to pull myself together and said, “I’m so sorry. It’s rather a hot day ...”