by S. T. Haymon
‘It must have been a harrowing experience.’ Jurnet stood looking at the memorial plaque. ‘I wonder who she’ll get to write his life now.’
‘The time she took to fix on Mr Shelden, Francis doesn’t think it’ll ever get done in her lifetime, even if she lives to be a hundred.’
‘So that if Shelden was killed to stop it being written, the murderer’s pulled it off.’
‘For all he knew, she could have gone out the very next day and brought home a new writer to do the job. How could he ever be sure?’
Jurnet pointed out without drama: ‘Mr Coryton appears to have been, for one.’
‘There you go again!’ Mrs Coryton protested angrily. ‘Laz Appleyard had been dead for nearly two years before we came to Bullen. How can it possibly matter to us whether somebody does or doesn’t write his life story? Francis must be right when he says the reason he hasn’t heard from you yet is, you’re doing it to make him sweat.’
‘We’re all of us sweating, this weather. Not to say touchy. All I’m saying, with respect, is, your husband’s so certain Miss Appleyard’s not going to make up her mind in a hurry, other interested parties could be equally certain. On the other hand, if they’re wrong, and she does come up with a substitute for Shelden, who’s to say the new boy won’t end up in the moat like him?’
Mrs Coryton asserted calmly: ‘You’ll never know till you try it out, will you? What you ought to do is get Elena to hire someone – anyone – and then stake him out on the Hall roof like a goat to catch a tiger.’
The detective laughed.
‘Not a bad idea, except I doubt we’d find a goat willing to cooperate. From what I hear of them, writers are a nervous lot.’
‘More heads off,’ Jane Coryton said, in front of the font. ‘It must be something in the Norfolk air.’
‘What are they – saints?’ Jurnet asked, taking in the mutilated figures with a certain feeling of commiseration for a God who couldn’t even cope with dilapidations on his own premises.
‘They’re supposed to represent the Seven Sacraments – baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, matrimony, extreme unction – that’s five, isn’t it? I can’t think of the other two.’ Mrs Coryton bent over the wide rim of the empty basin and dabbled both hands inside, an invisible swishing of holy water. ‘As if a child – or anybody else brought for the first time into the fellowship of Our Lord, needs any other sacrament than the sacrament of love.’
Jurnet said with careful calculation: ‘I reckon Mr Winter’s one to go along with that.’ The detective was not unprepared for the head uplifted in sudden alarm. The tears momentarily brightening the bright eyes were more of a surprise. ‘Except, when it comes to love, some might say he’s got a funny way of showing it.’
‘You can’t possibly think Charles had anything to do with –’ Mrs Coryton broke off and began afresh, with more attention to her own words. ‘I don’t have to tell you he drinks too much – you saw that for yourself – and he’s a terrible tease. But underneath he’s a gentle, loving person who just happens to find life more than he bargained for.’
‘Don’t we all? At least he’s lucky to have a pal like you to give him a reference.’
‘He’s a genius.’
‘Is that why you make yourself so responsible for him?’
‘It’s part of it.’ The woman looked at the detective in her forthright way; with appraisal, and finally – or so it seemed – a deliberate decision to trust. ‘You’re a bit of a tease yourself, Inspector, if it comes to that. I think you know quite well what I feel about Charles Winter.’
‘Not really,’ Jurnet answered, with truth. ‘After all, the man’s a queer.’
‘Isn’t it lucky for me? No temptation, no danger. Fifty-two, and still feeling the fire in the belly! Isn’t it ridiculous?’ The light half-mockery did not quite cancel out a tremor in the voice. ‘Not that I wouldn’t elope with him tomorrow, if only I had the chance, and anyone eloped any more. Though, having said that, who knows? If the impossible happened, and Charles started chasing me instead of the other way round, I might equally run away, screaming blue murder.’
‘Run, perhaps. Not scream.’
The other nodded gratefully.
‘Not scream. Not even if they cremated him and the ashes blew all over my face. D’ you know what I’d do if that happened? I’d put out my tongue and lick them off. Eat him the way I partake of Christ’s body at the Communion table. Does that disgust you? It oughtn’t to – I saw your face when you spoke to me about your girl in Greece. You know what love is.’
Jurnet said: ‘I got the impression you and Mr Coryton had a good marriage.’
‘Oh, we do! We have what I believe people today call a caring relationship. But love’s a many-sided thing, Inspector Jurnet. Loving Charles doesn’t imply unfaithfulness to Francis. In a way, it isn’t even sexual.’ Jane Coryton put her hand out to the font; touched with a delicate sympathy one of the maimed sculptures at the point where the neck had been broken off. ‘Charles is not only the lover I’ve never had. He’s the child I’ve never borne, and never will.’
‘A cruel, vicious child.’
‘What do you mean?’ The woman’s eyes flashed an angry denial. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. Charles wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘He’s certainly hurt young Botley.’
‘Charles! You’re joking!’
‘I can see you haven’t paid a visit to the Coachyard these past few days.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because, if you had, you’d have seen young Botley with two black eyes, a split lip, his head in bandages – and that’s only reporting on what’s visible to the naked eye. If Botley had been prepared to make a complaint I’d have had your gentle genius down at the station before he knew what hit him. And it wasn’t the first time, either.’
Jane Coryton countered fiercely: ‘Now I know you’re joking!’
‘He admitted as much to me himself. Not to put too fine a point on it, Mr Winter’s a ruddy sadist.’
‘If you only knew how ridiculous you sound! Next, I suppose, you’ll be telling me he killed Chad Shelden.’
‘No. Only that he could have. If you feel the need to check up on what I’ve said, I’m going back to the Hall. I could give you a lift.’
‘No, thank you!’
For a moment, face flushed, breasts heaving, the woman confronted the detective. She didn’t look fifty-two, thought Jurnet, who wouldn’t have minded seeing Miriam get as angry on his behalf. As he watched, she took a deep breath, regained control of herself.
‘I’m sorry. I know you’re only doing your job. It’s not your fault you have to come out with such nonsense.’
‘Do you want that lift?’
‘I don’t think so, thank you.’
‘Ah. Take the back way, do you?’
‘No.’ Surprised. ‘It’s terribly overgrown. Nobody uses it any more except the woodcutters, and riders going to the forge, or cutting through to the bridle path.’ With a sudden tilt of the head she challenged: ‘Was that another of your trap questions?’
‘There aren’t any such things. Questions don’t trap. Only lying answers.’ When she made no further observation he said: ‘I’ll be getting along, then.’
She moved away, without speaking; down the centre aisle and into one of the pews. Jurnet was almost at the door when she called to him; and turned to find her regarding him almost with affection across the intervening space.
‘Would you like me to tell you what I was thinking just now, down on my knees, when you came in?’
‘If it’s relevant.’
‘Oh, it’s that!’ She clasped her hands together as if each took comfort from the other. ‘I was thinking that at the very moment of death – even a violent death like Mr Shelden’s, full of fear and terror – there must be a sudden piercing of joy, a sense of being on the point of regaining something one has been looking for ever since the moment one came unconsulted into the world.’<
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Jurnet commented, but not as if he would have bet any money on it: ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’
With what sounded like pity in her voice, the woman said: ‘I don’t think you’re a religious man, Inspector.’
‘That’s right,’ he answered, feeling vaguely affronted.
Chapter Twenty
Sergeant Ellers sat on a bench in front of the house, examining the big toe of his right foot with a tender concentration. When he saw the police car turn into the driveway he drew on his sock, levered the foot painfully into its shoe, and hobbled across to greet his superior officer.
‘What happened to you?’ Jurnet asked unfeelingly. The detective released his seat belt, slid out of the car and locked the door. ‘Somebody tread on your toe?’
The little Welshman looked hurt.
‘Next time you send me out unarmed into darkest Norfolk, remind me to make my will first, will you? What with being dive-bombed by mosquitoes, mugged by stinging nettles, and bogged down in cowpats the size of manhole covers, I’m lucky to be here to tell the tale.’
‘Glad to hear you had a pleasant stroll. How far, d’you reckon? Mile? Mile and a half?’
‘Somewhere between the two. Felt more like twenty. Tell you one thing, though. Nobody’s going round by that way for choice, long as there’s a road.’
‘Unless he wants to make sure nobody sees him.’
‘Never get up it in a car, that’s for sure. Even a tractor’d think twice. About two-thirds of the way along, on the left, there’s a track that goes off through the woods. That’s the one bit that looks navigable. The main highway – if you can call it that, which you can’t – ends in a paved yard and a lot of outbuildings, and there’s that foreign fellow – the one with the eyebrows – shoeing a horse.
If he hadn’t bared his ruddy great teeth at me – the horse, I mean, not the eyebrows – I’d have asked him to do the same for me.’
‘Hm.’ With his eyes on the house, Jurnet digested what he had just heard – or rather, allowed it to seep without conscious thought into that makeshift reservoir where random droplets of information accumulated like water draining off a roof into a cistern. One day, with luck, there’d be enough of the stuff to be useful.
In the brilliant light of late afternoon it seemed to the detective that he could count every single brick of the great south front of Bullen Hall, had he a mind to. The stone mullions round the windows shone white, the glass reflected patterns of cloud polished to as high a shine as the goblets set out on the sideboards within. Thistledown drifted down the air, and motes of dust that might, or might not, be all that was left of Appleyard of Hungary. Beyond the stone bridge that crossed the moat the shadowy courtyard hinted at mysteries.
A plaything, an outsize toy. Come time for bed, every one of those bricks must be put back in their box ready for another day’s play. How Nanny would carry on if she found some of them still strewing the nursery floor after lights out!
Jurnet came out of his reverie and started across the gravel. Behind him, Sergeant Ellers was still limping. Contrite, Jurnet waited.
‘First Aid box in the car, Sergeant.’
The little Welshman grinned.
‘Only doing it to make you feel bad.’
In perfect amity the two moved towards the west wing of Bullen Hall.
Jack Ellers asked: ‘What’s next on the list?’
‘We’re going to ask Rapunzel to let down her hair.’
The elderly maid with the crustacean corset was not pleased to see them, and took no trouble to disguise it.
‘Madam is engaged.’
‘We’ll wait,’ Jurnet returned. ‘Please let Madam know we’re here.’
‘Can’t do that. And I’m sure I can’t say how long she’ll be.’
‘Then we’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t we?’
She showed them into a small room off the hall, and went away with an ill-tempered flounce of sateen, and a long, meaningful look round, as if making a mental note of the whereabouts of anything which might be worth pinching. Since the room was as bare of ornament as the rest of Elena Appleyard’s apartment, it was a symbolic gesture merely.
Jurnet sauntered over to the window, pushed the casement open, and stood looking down at the moat immediately below. In shadow, the water looked impenetrable, black with a glaze of grey-green, like mould on old jam.
The detective made a face.
‘You’d never get me living in a house with a moat.’
‘Not to worry,’ Ellers returned reassuringly. ‘Who ever heard of a moated semi?’ He joined the other at the window. ‘I suppose, in the old days, they needed them for protection.’
‘Pongs a bit.’ Jurnet wrinkled his nose and shut the window. ‘Now they’ve got us instead, eh? Police force, the modern moat. Not much cop at stopping you getting yourself pushed off the roof, but smells a whole lot sweeter.’ He padded about the room a little, then demanded of nobody in particular: ‘Who’s she got in there, for Christ’s sake, she can’t be disturbed?’
They were soon to know. At the end of the corridor a door burst open. A man’s voice shouted: ‘Might have known I’d be wasting my time!’ Angry steps stumped along the oak floor. Then the same voice again, nearer. ‘All I’ll say is, you’ve had your chance. From now on I’ll deal with this my own way, and to hell with the lot of you!’
Jurnet opened the door of their anteroom, just in time to find himself face to face with a square, tweed-suited man with an ancient tweed hat rammed down over grizzled hair, a nicotine-stained moustache, and a complexion whose probably natural floridness appeared enhanced well beyond danger point.
The man raised the heavy blackthorn stick he was carrying, and pointed it menacingly at the detective.
‘And who the hell are you?’ he demanded.
Without waiting for a reply or slackening his pace, he pushed past to the front door: wrenched it open, and would doubtless have banged it shut after him, had not the maid, corset creaking, materialised from somewhere and gained command of the big brass knob without apparent effort.
She said, in the neutral voice of the well-trained domestic: ‘Good afternoon, sir.’
Whence, then, did Jurnet get the strong impression that the woman’s voice was full of a triumphant, derisive mirth?
‘And to hell with you too!’ cried the visitor, disappearing from view as the door shut behind him.
The woman came back into the room, so dour, so poker-faced, that it was unthinkable she could ever have been anything else.
‘Miss Appleyard will see you now.’
‘Well, Inspector –’
There was no heightening of Miss Appleyard’s colour. The explosive departure of her recent caller appeared not to have disturbed one whit of that sequestered calm which was itself the most disturbing thing about her. As always – or so it seemed to Jurnet – an invisible sheet of glass interposed itself between her and the rest of the world.
The detective introduced Sergeant Ellers, who bent over her proffered hand in a way that would have had the boys back at Headquarters falling about, except that they would have done exactly the same themselves, given the chance.
‘Ah,’ she remarked, when, her two visitors accommodated in the strange deckchair-like seats which were so seductively comfortable, she saw the little Welshman take out his notebook, ‘my words are to be taken down and may be used in evidence, is that it?’
‘Nothing like that,’ Jurnet assured her. ‘It’s purely a matter of getting one or two things straight so that we can go on from there.’
‘I can’t say I’m conscious of having anything useful to add to what I’ve already told you; but naturally, if there is anything –’ She broke off and regarded the detective with a cool, yet somehow secret, amusement. ‘Aren’t you both bursting with curiosity to know the meaning of Mr Chalgrove’s extraordinary behaviour just now?’
‘That wasn’t Miss Jessica’s father?’
‘It was. Richard –
though, judging from what you’ve just witnessed, you may find it hard to believe – is an old and dear friend of the family. When he and my brother were boys together, they were quite inseparable.’
Jurnet suggested: ‘An English version of Mr Szanto.’
‘Ferenc has been talking to you about Kasnovar.’ Miss Appleyard considered this intelligence before appearing to decide there was no harm in it. ‘I suppose he was – taking into account, of course, the difference in social background. Even in those childhood days my brother was a natural leader. Wherever he happened to be – Bullen or Hungary – there were always children to follow him about like the pied piper – into mischief, more often than not, I’m bound to say.’ She touched her hair in a gesture that, in any other woman, Jurnet would have called coquettish. ‘Poor Richard. He’s so behind the times. He’s furious with me because I’ve given Jessica a job. He thinks it – demeaning. He can’t forget his ancestors came over with the Conqueror.’
‘Poor Jessica, I should have thought.’
‘Would you really?’ The woman’s wide-spaced eyes examined the detective’s face unhurriedly. To his chagrin he reddened under the inspection. ‘Jessica loves and is loved by a young man who is good-natured, handsome, moderately intelligent, and will, one day, be comparatively well-to-do. I can’t honestly feel her to be in need of pity.’
‘I meant, as regards her father’s attitude to her working. The anger – threats, you might say – it all sounded a bit excessive in the context.’
‘It must have – to an outsider who doesn’t know what the context is. Whenever Richard sees me – which is seldom enough these days – he never seems able to restrain his anger for long. The fact is – it’s too foolish, almost, to speak about – he’s an old suitor who has never forgiven me for turning him down. Jessica is merely one more excuse for punishing me for the blow to his self-esteem. Quite absurd! After all, until comparatively recently, he hardly ever saw the child. Her mother, as you may not know, died giving birth to her, and Richard handed her over to his sister in Gloucestershire, an appalling woman.’