Design for Murder

by Nancy Buckingham

  I gaped at him in surprise. “But how can you hope to find the rest of that magazine?”

  “Luckily the council here doesn’t incinerate its rubbish,” Neil explained. “Instead, everything is dumped in an old quarry. And as the magazine in question was only in yesterday’s collection, it won’t be buried too deep. Chief Superintendent Blackley has sent a gang of our chaps to start sifting through the tip.” He grinned. “Not a very savoury job for a summer’s day, I’m afraid, but necessary. Let’s hope, for their sake, that they find what they’re looking for quickly.”

  It was very silent in the studio as I waited. Unable to settle to work, I wandered through into the flat and gazed down through one of the windows overlooking the courtyard. I wondered what was happening in the stable. I had a feeling that Neil wasn’t often defeated, but I doubted if he’d often met up with anyone as stubbornly unresponsive as Billy Moon could be when he felt so inclined.

  Fifteen minutes later, back in the studio, I heard Neil’s footsteps on the staircase. He looked gloomy as he came in and threw himself down on one of the red leather chairs.

  “No phone call yet, I presume?”

  I shook my head. “How did you get on with Billy?”

  “He’s a right awkward old cuss, isn’t he? He seems to take a positive delight in being as bloody-minded as possible. I threatened him with unnamed horrors, cajoled him, appealed to his sense of civic duty, even appealed to his vanity as being the clever chap who had found the clue that could solve the whole case for us. Useless. He just repeats, “I’ve telled you everything I knows, and I can’t tell you nothing more.””

  “Doesn’t it occur to you that this might be the truth?”

  Neil scuffed the carpet with the toe of his shoe. “Oh yes, Tracy, it occurs to me. Maybe it damned well is the truth.”

  “But that detective’s nose of yours says not?”

  He nodded. “Quite a strong whiff, I’m getting. Still, we’ll have to try other directions. Let’s hope that the magazine provides us with a clue when it’s dug out of the garbage tip.”

  “You’re hoping to find fingerprints, are you?”

  “With any luck. Or there might be something else to help us identify whose copy it was.”

  “What, for instance?”

  Neil shrugged. “A scribbled marginal note, maybe. Something underlined. Or something missing.”

  “Something missing? What would that prove? There will be lots of bits of it missing.”

  “Yes, but it’s a matter of which bits,” he said mysteriously.

  As if on cue, the phone rang. I grabbed it up quickly.

  “Miss Yorke? This is Detective Sergeant Willis. Is Mr. Grant there, please?”

  “Yes, one moment.”

  I handed Neil the phone. The sergeant’s voice crackled, just below the level of audibility.

  “That’s splendid,” said Neil, after a moment. “Exactly what have you got, and what’s missing?”

  He jotted down some figures on an envelope lying on the table, then said, “Okay, Dave. Get things moving, will you? I’ll meet you back at the station in half an hour.”

  “Well?” I demanded, as he hung up.

  “They’ve found the magazine, as you’ll have guessed. It had come apart at the staples, which isn’t surprising after going through garbage disposal. Luckily, though, they’ve managed to unearth all of it except for one sheet. Give me that copy of yours, will you? I want to have a look.”

  I fished out the magazine from a drawer and handed it over.

  “Let’s see now,” said Neil, flipping through. “Pages seventeen and eighteen, and then fifty-seven and fifty-eight.” He found the pages concerned, which together formed a single sheet, glancing at each in turn. Then he passed the magazine back to me. “Thanks, Tracy.”

  “Did you spot anything significant?”

  “Could be,” he said.

  “What is it, then? Or aren’t you going to tell me?”

  “You won’t like it much if I do.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said impatiently.

  “Okay. Take a look at page fifty-eight.”

  I did so, and I didn’t need to ask him any more. It was the page that carried the advertisement for Cotswold Vintage.

  Chapter Eleven

  I forced myself to get down to work after Neil’s departure, but for all I achieved I might just as well not have bothered. I made a thorough botch of preparing some rough visuals for the simplest of jobs, a playroom/bedroom for twin girls aged seven. Pushing this aside in despair, I tried to do the costings for another enquiry we’d had—the remodelling of a former tobacconist’s shop that was reopening as a boutique—but the figures refused to make any sense.

  I heard a car entering the courtyard through the archway, and stirred myself, wondering who it might be. The sound of Tim’s voice calling up the stairs jolted me. I’d forgotten all about our arrangement to go riding, and I wasn’t ready to face him yet. If I ever would be again.

  “Tracy? Are you up there?”

  I went to the head of the stairs. “Hallo, Tim.”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, looking puzzled. “The stables are all shut up, and you’re not even changed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I...”

  He came on upstairs, frowning. “Did old Billy Moon turn curmudgeonly or something and refuse to let us have the horses?”

  I shook my head, too confused to know what to say.

  Tim grinned at me lopsidedly. “I do believe that you clean forgot about our going for a ride this evening.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I did. It went completely out of my mind.”

  “Not very flattering to me.”

  “Sorry,” I said again, helplessly.

  Tim stepped closer and put a hand under my chin, giving me a hard, penetrating look. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? Aren’t you feeling well, Tracy?”

  “I’m okay. It’s just that all this business is getting to me. Oliver and Ursula and ... and everything.”

  “Everything?” Tim’s mouth went taut. “Are you still bothered about that anonymous letter?”

  I looked away from him, unable to find an answer.

  “I reckon you need to get out in the fresh air,” he said, “Like I’ve been all afternoon. It’s a marvellous tonic after a gloomy funeral. If we can’t have a ride, let’s go walking on the hills. How about driving over to Painswick, and climbing the Beacon there?”

  I hesitated. Part of me frantically wished Tim gone, yet I knew that I still wanted to spend the evening with him. Should I allow Neil Grant to sow seeds of suspicion in my mind, when I knew that Tim had nothing to do with that anonymous letter? The best thing was not to think about it at all, not to allow the insidious seeds any space to sprout.

  “All right then,” I agreed. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”

  When I returned, having slipped on my black velvet jacket, I said yet again, “Sorry about messing up our ride, Tim. It was stupid of me.”

  “Don’t give it another thought.” There was a pause, then he said, “Seen anything of Neil Grant lately?”

  I felt like telling him no, but I could so easily be caught out in such a silly lie.

  “Well, yes ... as a matter of fact he was here this afternoon.”

  “Isn’t the bloody man ever going to leave us alone?”

  “Us? Has he been to see you again, too?”

  Tim nodded. “Yesterday afternoon.”

  In Tim’s estate car, we headed out of the grounds by way of the Home Farm gates. A few moments later, I realised that we were at the crossroads where Grace had seen Sebastian driving a Volvo. I gave a little shudder, wondering whether it really was Sebastian who had killed Oliver. The idea didn’t bear thinking about, but it was infinitely preferable to the thought that Tim was involved.

  Tim flicked me a glance, and saw my downcast face. “Cheer up, Tracy. Shall we stop off for a drink somewhere?”

  “If you like.�
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  He chose a little dormer-windowed pub where the beer was drawn from the wood. The two or three other customers gathered in the bar made it the hub of this lost little Cotswold hamlet almost totally buried in a wooded dell. Tim and I carried our drinks outside and sat together on a rustic bench in the full flood of evening sunshine.

  “On a fine summer evening in the heart of rural England, what better than a tankard of good honest beer?” he said.

  I felt myself slowly relaxing. The alcohol was smoothing off the edges of my anxiety and the sun was drenching me with warmth. Tim’s shoulder touched mine, and I could have stayed there for a long time, dreamily content.

  It was several minutes before Tim broke the silence, and his words shattered my mood.

  “What was it that Neil Grant wanted to see you about this afternoon?”

  “Just routine questions,” I said, shrugging.

  For a moment or two he fiddled with his glass tankard.

  “I think you’re holding out on me, Tracy. Have the police formed any new theories yet?”

  “I told you before, Neil wouldn’t tell me if they had,” I said, forgiving myself the lie.

  “What does he have to say about Ursula Kemp’s accident?”

  I felt cornered and it must have showed in the spikiness of my voice. “Why should you suppose Neil has anything to say about it?”

  “No reason. Come to think of it, he probably wouldn’t deal with traffic accidents. When’s the inquest?”

  “How should I know? You seem to be very interested.”

  He tilted his head. “I just wondered.”

  Why did Tim have to thrust to the forefront of my mind what I’d been trying to dismiss as irrelevant ... that on the night of Ursula’s death, when he was supposed to be at home working on his tax return, he hadn’t answered when I phoned him, though I’d held on for ages. I hadn’t dared to reveal this fact to Neil.

  Should I challenge Tim now? I decided on a sideways approach.

  “Did you get your VAT return finished on Monday evening?”

  “Eventually. I’m not the world’s greatest bookkeeper, even with the aid of a calculator.”

  I kept my voice carefully casual. “It must seem unfair, having paperwork to do after a hard day’s slog in the vineyard. I expect you felt like chucking the whole lot into the waste-bin and saying to hell with it.”

  Tim laughed. “I was tempted, I don’t mind telling you. Especially when it got to midnight and the wretched columns still wouldn’t tally.”

  I felt my skin prickle. “You mean to say that you worked through the entire evening, without a break?”

  “It’s not my style, Tracy, I agree. But I’d hate to have the Customs and Excise people descend on me. I’d be a marked man for ever more.” He drank down the last of his beer. “Shall we go?”

  But then Tim couldn’t find his keys, and he fished around in each of his pockets. I finally retrieved the bunch from a tuft of grass beneath the rustic bench.

  “You’ll lose them completely one of these days, the way you’re always leaving them around.” My eye was caught by a little chased-silver medallion attached to the ring, shaped a bit like a spade. “What’s this meant to be?”

  Tim laughed. “I’ve no idea, but I was assured it was a potent good-luck charm. I bought it at a street market in a small village in the Loire valley, when I was grape-picking in France. The silversmith made it for me on the spot—it’s a unique piece.”

  I had a feeling that I’d seen one very like it before, and not long ago. Still, if Tim thought it was unique, there was no need to disillusion him.

  We drove on to the foot of Painswick Beacon, and then started to walk. On this lofty vantage point with its magnificent views across the Severn valley, the farthest reaches lost now in the lilac haze of the balmy July evening, I should have felt happy. I should have felt happy just to be walking anywhere with Tim because I knew how important he was to me. But too many shadows were lurking in my mind.

  “What shall we do about food?” Tim asked, as we stood on a small knoll looking westwards towards the sunset.

  “I’m not really hungry,” I said.

  “Well, I am! And you ought to eat, whether you feel like it or not. So how about volunteering to cook us a meal at home?”

  “I haven’t anything in.”

  “Not even bacon and eggs?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Great. There’s nothing I’d enjoy more.”

  It was dusk when we reached Honeysuckle Cottage. After we had eaten we sat over coffee with the lovely, languid fragrance of jessamine and night-scented stock drifting in through the open windows. Tim put an arm around my shoulders and gently caressed the nape of my neck. Presently he drew me into a close embrace and I let him kiss me. I longed for the magic to work again as it had the other night. I longed for all my suspicions to be washed away in a wave of emotion.

  But this evening the magic was lacking. After a while Tim drew back.

  “What’s wrong, Tracy?”

  “Nothing. Oh, I don’t know ...”

  “There is something,” he insisted, an edge to his voice. “But you refuse to say what it is. Right?”

  I shook my head silently, noncommittally. Tim looked at me long and hard, and I dreaded that he was going to nail me down into telling him. If I were forced to admit that—my mind at war with my heart—I thought he might possibly be the writer of a poisonous letter about me, that he might be responsible for something infinitely more dreadful ... what then?

  I shuddered, and made myself speak in a calm, reasonable tone.

  “Tim ... I’m just rather tired. I suppose all this business over Oliver, and ... and Ursula being killed, too ... it’s just upset me more than I imagined.”

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Yes, of course. What else could it be? Perhaps you’d better go now.”

  Tim needed a lot of persuading. He argued that it was better for me to have his company than to work myself into an even moodier state on my own. But he left in the end, saying that he’d ring me in the morning, first thing, to see how I was feeling by then.

  I went to bed at once, deeply depressed. How was it possible to love a man if you could ten per-cent—even a half of one per-cent—believe him capable of committing the most unspeakable crime?

  I had no answer to that. I only knew, as I lay wide-eyed and sleepless in the big Victorian brass-knobbed bed which had been my aunt’s, that I wished I hadn’t sent Tim home.

  * * * *

  In the end I slept heavily. The phone woke me from an unpleasant dream of shapeless fears. Squinting at the pendulum clock on the landing as I ran past it down to the hall, I saw that it was not yet seven-thirty. The sound of Tim’s voice immediately banished sleepiness.

  “Sorry if I woke you, Tracy. You see, it struck me in the middle of the night that I’d left you stranded without your car. It’s still at the studio.”

  “Oh yes. I hadn’t given that a thought.”

  “I’ll come and pick you up. Just tell me what time.”

  “There’s no need,” I protested. “I can easily walk.”

  “No, I’ll come. Nine o’clock? A quarter to, or a quarter past? Just say.”

  “Well, nine o’clock, then. Thanks for thinking of it.”

  It was absurd, this confusion about Tim. I felt resentful towards Neil, as if the possibility of Tim’s guilt had come about through his suspicions, and not the other way round.

  When Tim arrived I was ready and waiting at the front door, to allow him no excuse for coming in. On the way to the studio he asked me how I was feeling, and I gave him an evasive answer. There was tension between us and I was thankful that it was only a short drive.

  “Do I see you this evening, Tracy?” he asked, as I went to get out.

  I improvised hastily, “I’ll be hellishly busy, I’ve got so far behind. I was thinking of putting in some extra time here.”

 
“But you can’t go on working all evening,” Tim protested.

  “You did the other night,” I pointed out. “Until after midnight, you said.”

  He gave me an odd look. “That was different, my VAT return had to be done at once.”

  “So must my work. If I’m going to make any sort of name for myself, I can’t afford to let my clients feel neglected.”

  His look changed to one of anger. “Why not come straight out and just say you don’t want to see me?”

  “Is that what you’d prefer me to say?” I retorted.

  It was almost frightening, the way we could so quickly plunge towards a quarrel. But whatever Tim might have answered, he was prevented by the sound of approaching footsteps. We both swung round and saw Sir Robert Medway coming through the archway. Using his arrival as an excuse to break it up with Tim, I jumped out of the car.

  “Good morning, Sir Robert.”

  “Ah, Miss Yorke, good morning. I’m glad to have caught you, I wanted a word. If you are free, that is ...”

  Tim, half out of the car too, put in hastily, “It’s all right, Sir Robert, I was just leaving.” To me, he said, “See you, Tracy.”

  I unlocked the door and led the way upstairs, Sir Robert pausing halfway to regain his breath. In the studio he accepted the chair I pulled forward for him and sank down into it gratefully. For a while he sat getting a grip on himself, his two hands resting on the bone handle of the cane he held between his knees. He looked no better than at Oliver’s funeral yesterday, his bloodless skin stretched tight, his eyes tormented.

  “Do you see much of that young man, Miss Yorke?” he asked in a thin, cracked sort of voice.

  “I’ve seen a fair bit of him lately,” I admitted.

  “I didn’t realise that there was anything between you two.”

  “There isn’t really,” I said quickly, then added in a less defensive tone, “Tim and I have known each other since we were quite young. He kindly called for me this morning because he happened to know that I’d left my car here last night.”

  “I see,” said Sir Robert, nodding his head. “An acquaintance of long standing. I expect there are a number of people in and around Steeple Haslop with whom you are on such terms?”