Scold's Bridle

by Walters, Minette

  "You'd have no qualms about briefing a barrister with that codswallop either, would you?" murmured Jack.

  "No qualms at all, particularly if it's Sarah's neck that ends up on the line." Keith turned the cassette in his fingers, then reached out to put it beside the recorder. "You do know she's worried sick about losing her patients and being arrested for murder, I suppose, while you're here mooning over a drug-addicted nymphomaniac? Where's your loyalty, man?"

  Was this Sarah talking? Jack wondered. He hoped not. "Mooning" was not a word he recognized as part of her vocabulary. She had too much self-respect. He gave a prodigious yawn. "Does Sarah want me back. Is that why you're here? I don't mind admitting I'm pretty fed up with freezing my balls off in this miserable dump."

  Keith breathed deeply through his nose. "I don't know what she wants," he said, bunching his fists in his lap. "I came because I had an absurd idea that you and I could discuss this mess in an adult way without either of us needling the other. I should have known it was impossible."

  Jack squinted at the bunched fists, while doubting that Keith could ever be provoked into using them. "Did she tell you why she wanted a divorce?"

  "Not precisely."

  He linked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "She took against me when she had to arrange an abortion for my lover. It's been downhill ever since."

  Keith was genuinely shocked. That explained Sarah's bitterness all right. With a shake of his head, he pushed himself out of his chair and stood by the door, gazing out across the garden. "If I wasn't so sure I'd lose, I'd invite you out there for a thrashing. You're a shit, Jack. JE-SUS!" he said, as the full import of what the man had said slowly dawned. "You had the bloody nerve to make Sarah murder your baby. That is so damn sick I can hardly believe it. She's your wife, for God's sake, not some sleazy back-street abortionist slaughtering wholesale for money. No wonder she wants a divorce. Don't you have any sensibilities at all?"

  "Clearly not," said Jack impassively.

  "I warned her not to marry you." He turned back bludgeoning the air with his finger because he hadn't the courage to bludgeon Jack with a fist. "I knew it wouldn't last, told her exactly what to expect, what sort of a man you were, how many women you'd used and discarded. But not this. Never this. How could you do such a thing?" He was almost in tears. "Dammit, I wouldn't even turn my back on the baby, but to make your own wife responsible for its murder. You're sick! Do you know that? You're a sick man."

  "Put like that, I rather agree with you."

  "If I have my way you won't get a penny out of this divorce," he said ferociously. "You do realize I'm going to report this back to her, and make sure she uses it in court?"

  "I'm relying on you."

  Keith's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means, Smollett, that I expect you to repeat every word of this conversation verbatim." His expression was unreadable. "Now do me a favour and take yourself off before I do something I might regret. Sarah's friendships are entirely her concern, of course, but I admit I've never understood why she always attracts domineering little men who think she's vulnerable." He flipped the tape, pushed it back into the recorder and pressed the "play" button. This time it was Richard Rodney Bennett's "I never went away" that drifted in melancholy splendour upon the air.

  No matter where I travelled to,

  I never went away from you...

  I never went away...

  Jack closed his eyes. "Now bugger off," he murmured, "before I rip your arms off. And don't forget to mention the sleeping-bag, there's a good chap."

  Duncan and Violet Orloff are the most absurd couple. They spent the entire afternoon on the lawn with Duncan fast asleep and Violet twittering non-stop drivel at him. She's like a manic little bird, constantly twitching her head from side to side for fear of predators. As a result she never once looked at Duncan and was quite oblivious to the fact that he wasn't listening to a word she said. I can't say I blame him. She was empty-headed as a child and age has not improved her. I still can't decide whether it was a good or a bad idea to offer them Wing Cottage when Violet wrote and said they'd set their hearts on spending their retirement in Fontwell. "We do so want to come home," was her appallingly sentimental way of putting it. The money was very useful, of course-Joanna's flat was a shocking expense, as is Ruth's education-but, on balance, neighbours should be eschewed. It's a relationship that can all too easily descend into forced intimacy. Violet forgot herself and called me "love" last week, then went into paroxysms of hysteria when I pointed it out, beating her chest with her hands and ululating like some peasant woman. A most revolting display, frankly. I'm inclined to think she's going senile.

  Duncan, of course, is a very different kettle of fish. The wit is still there, if somewhat slower through lack of practice. Hardly surprising when it has been blunted for forty years on Violet's plank of a brain. I wonder sometimes how much they remember of the past. I worry that Violet will twitter away to Joanna or Ruth one day and let cats out of bags that are better confined. We all share too many secrets.

  I read back through my early diaries recently and discovered, somewhat to my chagrin, that I told Violet the week before her wedding that her marriage would never last. If the poor creature had a sense of humour, she could reasonably claim the last laugh ...

  *9*

  Joanna showed little surprise at finding Sarah on her doorstep at noon the next day. She gave the faintest of smiles and stepped back into the hall, inviting the other woman inside. "I was reading the newspaper," she said, as if Sarah had asked her a specific question. She led the way into the drawing-room. "Do sit down. If you've come to see Jack, he's outside."

  This was a very different reception from the one Keith described having the previous evening, and Sarah wondered about Joanna's motives. She doubted that it had anything to do with the drug addiction Keith had harped on about, and thought it more likely that curiosity had got the better of her. It made sense. She was Mathilda's daughter and Mathilda had been insatiably curious.

  She shook her head. "No, it's you I've come to see."

  Joanna resumed her own seat but made no comment.

  "I always liked this room," said Sarah slowly. "I thought how comfortable it was. Your mother used to sit over there," she pointed to a high-backed chair in front of the french windows, "and when the sun shone it turned her hair into a silver halo. You're very like her to look at but I expect you know that."

  Joanna fixed her with her curiously inexpressive eyes.

  "Would it help, do you think, if you and I talked about her?"

  Again Joanna didn't answer and to Sarah, who had rehearsed everything on the assumption that the other woman would be a willing party to their conversation, the silence was as effective as a brick wall. "I hoped," she said, "that we could try to establish some sort of common ground." She paused briefly but there was no response. "Because, frankly, I'm not happy about leaving everything in the hands of solicitors. If we do, we might just as well burn the money now and be done with it." She gave a tentative smile. "They'll pick the bones clean and leave us with a worthless carcase. Is that what you want?"

  Joanna turned her face to the window and contemplated the garden. "Doesn't it make you angry that your husband's here with me, Dr. Blakeney?"

  Relieved that the ice was broken, though not in a way she would have chosen herself, Sarah followed her gaze. "Whether it does or doesn't isn't terribly relevant. If we bring Jack into it, we'll get nowhere. He has a maddening habit of hi-jacking almost every conversation I'm involved in, and I really would prefer, if possible, to keep him out of this one."

  "Do you think he slept with my mother?"

  Sarah sighed inwardly. "Does it matter to you?"

  "Yes."

  "Then, no, I don't think he did. For all his sins, he never takes advantage of people."

  "She might have asked him to."

  "I doubt it. Mathilda had far too much dignity."
/>   Joanna turned back to her with a frown. "I suppose you know she posed in the nude for him. I found one of his sketches in her desk. It left nothing to the imagination, I can assure you. Do you call that dignified? She was old enough to be his mother."

  "It depends on your point of view. If you regard the female nude as intrinsically demeaning or deliberately provocative, then, yes, I suppose you could say it was undignified of Mathilda." She shrugged. "But that's a dangerous philosophy which belongs to the dark ages and the more intolerant religions. If, on the other hand, you see the nude figure, be it male or female, as one of nature's creations, and therefore as beautiful and as extraordinary as anything else on this planet, then I see no shame involved in allowing a painter to paint it."

  "She did it because she knew it would excite him." She spoke the words with conviction and Sarah wondered about the wisdom of continuing-Joanna's prejudice against her mother was too ingrained for reasoned argument. But the offensiveness of the statement irritated her enough to defend Jack, if only because she had encountered the same sort of blinkered stupidity herself.

  "Jack's seen far too many naked women to find nakedness itself a turn-on," she said dismissively. "Nudity is only erotic if you want it to be. You might just as well say that I get a thrill every time a male patient undresses for me."

  "That's different. You're a doctor."

  Sarah shook her head. "It's not, but I'm not going to argue the toss with you. It would be a waste of both our times." She ran her fingers through her hair. "In any case your mother was too incapacitated by her arthritis, and in too much pain from it, to want to have intercourse with a virile man thirty years her junior. It's important to keep a sense of proportion, Mrs. Lascelles. It might have been different if she had been sexually active all her life or even liked men very much, but neither was true of your mother. She once told me that the reason there were so many divorces these days was because relationships based on sex were doomed to fail. The pleasures of orgasm were too fleeting to make the remaining hours of boredom and disappointment worthwhile."

  Joanna resumed her study of the garden. "Then why did she take her clothes off?" It was, it seemed, very important to her. Because she was jealous, Sarah wondered, or because she needed to go on despising Mathilda?

  "I imagine it was no big deal, one way or the other, and she was interested enough in art for art's sake to help Jack explore the unconventional side of her nature. I can't see her doing it for any other reason."

  There was a brief silence while Joanna considered this. "Do you still like her now that she's dead?"

  Sarah clasped her hands between her knees and stared at the carpet. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm so angry about the will that I can't view her objectively at the moment."

  "Then say you don't want the bequest. Let me and Ruth have it."

  "I wish it was that easy, believe me, but if I turn it down then you'll have to fight the donkeys' charity for it, and I honestly can't see how that will improve your chances unless, presumably, you can show that Mathilda never intended that will to be her last." She looked up to find Joanna's pale eyes studying her intently.

  "You're a very peculiar woman, Dr. Blakeney," she said slowly. "You must realize that the easiest way for me to do that is to prove that my mother was murdered and that you were the one who did it. It fits so neatly, after all. You knew the will was just a threat to make me and Ruth toe the line, so you killed Mother quickly before she could change it. Once you're convicted, no court on earth will rule in favour of the donkeys."

  Sarah nodded. "And if you can cajole my husband into testifying that I knew about the will in advance, then you're home and dry." She raised an eyebrow in enquiry. "But, as I suspect you're beginning to discover, Jack is neither so amenable nor so dishonest. And it wouldn't make any difference, you know, if you did manage to persuade him into bed with you. I've known him for six years and the one thing I can say about him is that he cannot be bought. He values himself far too highly to tell lies for anyone, no matter how much of an obligation they may put him under."

  Joanna gave a small laugh. "You're very confident that I haven't slept with him."

  Sarah felt compassion for her. "My solicitor phoned last night to say that Jack's camped out in your summer-house, but I was sure anyway. You're very vulnerable at the moment, and I do know my husband well enough to know he wouldn't exploit that."

  "You sound as though you admire him."

  "I could never admire him as much as he admires himself," she said dryly. "I hope he's extremely cold out there. I've suffered for his art for years."

  "I gave him a paraffin heater," said Joanna with a frown. The memory obviously annoyed her.

  Sarah's eyes brimmed with sudden laughter. "Was he grateful?"

  "No. He told me to leave it outside the door." She gazed through the window. "He's an uncomfortable person."

  "I'm afraid he is," Sarah agreed. "It never occurs to him that other people have fragile egos which need stroking from time to time. It means you have to take his love on faith if you want a relationship with him." She gave a throaty chuckle. "And faith has a nasty habit of deserting you just when you most need it."

  There was a long silence. "Did you talk to my mother like this?" Joanna asked at last.

  "Like what?"

  Joanna sought for the right words. "So-easily."

  "Do you mean did I find her easy to talk to?"

  "No." There was a haunted look in the grey eyes. "I meant, weren't you afraid of her?"

  Sarah stared at her hands. "I didn't need to be, Mrs. Lascelles. She couldn't hurt me, you see, because she wasn't my mother. There were no emotional strings to be arbitrarily plucked when she felt like it; no shared family secrets that would lay me open to her vituperative tongue; no weaknesses from my childhood that she could exploit into adulthood whenever she felt like belittling me. If she'd tried, of course, I'd have walked away, because I've had all that from my own mother for years and there is no way I would put up with it from a stranger."

  "I didn't kill her. Is that what you came to find out?"

  "I came to find out if bridges could be built."

  "For your benefit or mine?"

  "Both, I hoped."

  Joanna's smile was apologetic. "But I've got nothing to gain by being friendly with you, Dr. Blakeney. It would be tantamount to admitting Mother was right and I can't do that, not if I want to contest the will in court."

  "I hoped to persuade you there were other options."

  "Every one of which is dependent on your charity."

  Sarah sighed. "Is that so terrible?"

  "Of course. I served forty years for my inheritance. You served one. Why should I have to beg from you?"

  Why indeed? There was no justice in it that Sarah could see. "Is there any point in my coming here again?"

  "No." Joanna stood up and smoothed the creases from her skirt. "It can only make matters worse."

  Sarah smiled wryly. "Can they be any worse?"

  "Oh, yes," she said with a twisted little smile. "I might start to like you." She waved dismissively towards the door. "You know your way out, I think."

  DS Cooper was gazing thoughtfully at Sarah's car when she emerged from the front door. "Was that wise, Dr. Blakeney?" he asked as she approached.

  "Was what wise?"

  "Bearding the lioness in her den."

  "Do lionesses have beards?" she murmured.

  "It was a figure of speech."

  "I gathered that." She observed him with fond amusement. "Wise or not, Sergeant, it was instructive. I've had my anxieties laid to rest and, as any doctor will tell you, that's the best panacea there is."

  He looked pleased for her. "You've sorted things out with your husband?"

  She shook her head. "Jack's a life sentence not an anxiety." Her dark eyes gleamed with mischief. "Perhaps I should have paid a little more attention when my mother was making her predictions for our future."

  "Marry in haste, re
pent at leisure?" he suggested.

  "More along the lines of 'She who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.' Which I, of course, countered with 'The devil has all the best tunes.' " She made a wry face. "But try forgetting 'Hey, Jude' or 'Twenty-four hours from Tulsa.' Like Jack they have a nasty habit of lingering in the memory."

  He chuckled. "I'm more of a 'White Christmas' man myself, but I know what you mean." He glanced towards the house. "So, if it's not your husband who's set your mind at rest it must be Mrs. Lascelles. Does that mean she's decided to accept the terms of the will?"

  Again Sarah shook her head. "No. She's convinced me she didn't kill her mother."

  "And how did she manage to do that?" He looked very sceptical.

  "Feminine intuition, Sergeant. You'd probably call it naivety."

  "I would." He patted her arm in an avuncular way. "You really must learn not to be so patronizing, Doctor. You'll see things in a different light if you do."

  "Patronizing?" echoed Sarah in surprise.

  "We can always call it something else. Intellectual snobbery or self-righteousness, perhaps. They cloak themselves just as happily under the guise of naivety but, of course, naivety sounds so much less threatening. You're a very decided woman, Dr. Blakeney, and you rush in where angels fear to tread, not out of foolishness but out of an overweening confidence that you know best. I am investigating a murder here." He smiled grimly. "I don't pretend that I would ever have liked Mrs. Gillespie because I'm rather inclined to accept the established view that she was an evil-minded old bitch who got her kicks out of hurting people. However, that did not give anyone the right to strike her down prematurely. But the point I want to stress to you is that whoever killed her was clever. Mrs. Gillespie made enemies right, left and centre, and knew it; she was a bully; she was cruel; and she trod rough-shod over other people's sensibilities. Yet, someone got so close to her that they were able to deck her out in a diabolical headdress and then take her semi-conscious to the bath where they slit her wrists. Whoever this person was is not going to make you a free gift of their involvement. To the contrary, in fact, they will make you a free gift of their non-involvement, and your absurd assumption that you can tell intuitively who is or who is not guilty from a simple conversation is intellectual arrogance of the worst kind. If it was so damned easy-forgive my French-to tell murderers from the rest of society, do you not think by now that we'd have locked them up and confined unlawful killing to the oddities page of the history textbooks?"