The Fethering Mysteries 06; The Witness at the Wedding tfm-6

by Simon Brett

  Carole just had time to register that she was talking to someone who knew about dogs. If Gulliver was left wandering around outside, his barking would soon raise the alarm. Inside High Tor, he’d just settle down to snuffle in front of the Aga, reconciled to yetanother of his mistress’s unexplained absences. But then, of course, someone who’d been a gamekeeper would know about dogs.

  As she led Gulliver and Michael Brewer through into her kitchen, Carole wondered what she could do to escape her predicament. Rush to the phone? Rush out into the street screaming “Help!” Such behaviour wasn’t her usual style, but she was hardly in a situation to care about style.

  As if anticipating her thoughts, Michael Brewer said, “I do have a gun in my pocket. I don’t want to use it, but if that becomes necessary, I won’t hesitate.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “You have to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  He didn’t even bother to answer. “We’ll go in your car. You’ll drive.”

  “Well, can I just put out some food for the dog?” Michael Brewer allowed her to put out the dog food, then ushered her through into the hall.

  “And don’t try calling anyone on your mobile phone.”

  “I don’t have a mobile phone,” said Carole icily, as he escorted her out through the front door.

  She had hoped there might be someone on the road, someone to whom she could call out to for help, someone who would rescue her. But no, the good folk of Fethering kept sedate hours. Every curtain along the road was discreetly closed.

  And of course there were no lights in Woodside Cottage. When Carole needed her most, Jude was in another country.

  Like an automaton, following the man’s instrucfions, she opened the garage door. Any thoughts of leaping into the Renault and driving off without him had been anticipated. At gunpoint he saw her into the driver’s seat; keeping the gun trained on her, he moved round the car and jumped in beside her.

  Touching her with the gun to remind her that it was still there, Michael Brewer told her to keep within the speed limit and drive on the Fedborough road out of Fethering.

  Doing as she was told, Carole thought back to the modus operandi of the other murders. In the form of the Renault was she conveniently providing her own inflammable coffin…

  ∨ The Witness at the Wedding ∧

  Thirty-Five

  There was little traffic on the roads. Each sweep of headlights coming towards Carole was a potential rescuer, but she could not think of any way to communicate her plight. In cars people become anonymous; nothing shows the passions, conflicts or dangers of the drivers or passengers. Carole was helpless, all she could do was follow the instructions of the silent man with the gun beside her.

  They by-passed Fedborough and joined the main A27 towards Worthing for a short distance. Here there were more cars flashing past, but Carole still had no way of making contact with them. Then Michael Brewer directed her to take a left turn up a small road into the Downs. This snaked its way past a few straggling houses, then deeper into uninhabited countryside. Eventually he ordered her to stop in front of a railed metal gate that gave on to an open field.

  He got out of the car, but, while he unlocked the gate, his gun was still pointing at her. Anyway, Carole, almost immobilized by terror, was not contemplating escape. They were in the middle of nowhere. However fast she ran, he would quickly catch her, and her situation was already grim enough; she didn’t want to antagonize her captor further.

  Michael Brewer ushered her through the gate, and closed it behind the Renault. Once again there was a potential opportunity. Carole could have put her foot down on the accelerator and shot off into the unknown. But she had no idea what lay ahead, and Michael Brewer did. He wouldn’t have taken the risk, if he thought there was any way she could get away from him.

  Getting back into the car, he told her to switch off the lights and drive along the track ahead. At first Carole demurred, saying she wouldn’t be able to see where she was going, but he would not tolerate argument. And, sure enough, her eyes did soon accommodate to the darkness. There was enough watery moonlight to pick up the chalk whiteness of the compacted farm track, dry and hard after the recent hot weather.

  After maybe a mile – it was difficult in her distracted state for Carole to judge distance – she was instructed to turn off down a less defined and more overgrown track which led towards a small coppice. At the edge of this she was told to stop. Ahead stood a tangled mass of brambles, briars and other dense undergrowth.

  Michael Brewer again got out of the car, and moved to one side of the thicket. Carole couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but she got the impression he was pulling at something, a rope perhaps.

  The effect was astonishing. Like a transformation scene in a pantomime of Sleeping Beauty, the mass of undergrowth slid to one side, revealing a narrow opening into the wood.

  Michael Brewer didn’t get back in the car, but motioned her with his gun to drive ahead. There wasn’t far to go. Less than ten yards in, she found herself in a small clearing, surrounded by trees. Behind her, she was aware of the masking undergrowth being replaced. Suddenly, the depths of the wood were very dark.

  The driver’s side door was opened, and Michael Brewer gestured at Carole to get out of the car. She stood in the lightless wood, wondering whether this would be the last place she would see in her life. She had expected dankness, but a soft breeze filled the clearing with the smell of the fields. In spite of its closeness, so far as Carole was concerned, that fragrant open space could have been on another planet.

  Michael Brewer reached down behind a tree, and produced a large yellow torch. He switched it on, keeping the beam focused down on the ground. He gave a flick of his head, indicating that Carole should follow him. Since her capture, he had said nothing beyond giving directions.

  She did not have to follow him far – the whole coppice was probably no more than fifty yards across – then the torch beam revealed the ragged outlines of an old building. Once perhaps a shepherd’s hut, its roof had long ago fallen in, the walls had crumbled, and bricks had been displaced by encroaching trees and their disruptive roots. Little of the remaining structure was more than waist-high.

  The beam of light directed Carole to follow Michael Brewer through an old doorway into the space inside. So unworried now was he by the chance of her escaping that he put the gun in his pocket and passed her the torch, as he bent down to shift a couple of rotting but substantial rafters that lay across the floor. Then he kneeled, and seemed to be scrabbling for something in the dirt.

  There was a metallic clang as he pulled upwards, rising to his feet as he did so. He took the torch back from Carole and directed its beam. The light showed a battered metal trapdoor lifted back to reveal a brick-walled opening in the floor, and steps leaning downwards. –

  At last, he said something. “Not the kind of place you’d imagine to have a cellar. I thought there was a good chance it’d still be here after thirty years. Nobody comes this way.”

  And the torch beam flicked across to Carole, showing her the way down. Michael Brewer, staying at ground level, lit the individual steps as she descended, then flashed light across to an old chair. “Sit there.” Carole did as she was told.

  But he didn’t follow her down. The cellar smelt musty and damp, and she got no impression of what else was in the space.

  “I’ll be back soon. Just got to check we’ve covered our tracks.”

  And Michael Brewer slammed the metal trapdoordown. Carole heard above her the scrape and thud of the massive rafters as they were replaced over the opening.

  The darkness in the cellar was total.

  Grand’mère looked frailer when Jude and Gaby arrived at the home the following morning. They got there about ten, but were told they should have come earlier. “I sleep little. I am awake from five.”

  She was not on the balcony, but propped up on her bed by a heap of cushions, and she seemed peevish.
Maybe she was in pain, suffering from one of the many infirmities of age. She greeted Gaby warmly, but kept Jude at a distance.

  The reason soon became clear. “I had a call from my dear Robert last night. He wanted to see that I was well, and that you had arrived safely. And he was a little cross with me, you know.”

  “Why cross, Grand’mère?”

  “Well, cross with you too. He says it is bad for me to talk of the past, that dreadful time when Janine Buckley died. And he is right. What we spoke of yesterday did make me upset. Last night it is a long time before I got to sleep. And then, as I say, I wake so early. I do not sleep well now. I long to have a proper night’s sleep.”

  Gaby tried to shift the old lady’s mood with talk of her wedding plans, but here again she met with a reproof. “It is not good that you marry in an Anglican church. You have a duty to your Catholic faith.”

  “I lost my faith, Grand’mère. A long time ago.”

  “That is no good, to say that. You speak of your faith as if it were just a handkerchief or something, that you can lose and it does not matter. If you are brought up a Catholic, you can never properly lose your faith. It is always a part of you.”

  “Well, it doesn’t feel like a part of me.”

  “I do not like you to say that, Pascale. You should have a proper Catholic wedding ceremony. But even if you don’t do so, you must give me your word that, if you have children, they will be brought up as good Catholics.”

  “I don’t think I can give you my word about that, Grand’mère. Steve and I have talked about these issues in great depth, and it would be hypocritical for us to – ”

  Seeing the rising fury in the old lady’s face, Jude decided that a tactical change of subject might be in order. “Did Robert say whether the police have recaptured Michael Brewer yet?”

  “No. My son does not talk to me of such things. He knows they upset me, and cause me to lose sleep.”

  To Jude it seemed that Robert served the same function for his mother as he did for his sister, insulating them both from the unpleasant realities of life.

  But Gaby decided that some realities had to be faced. “Grand’mère,” she said, “I know that Howard Martin was not my real father.”

  The old lady’s reaction was so instinctive that itcould not have been anything but real. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he was your father.”

  “But – ”

  “Oh, I know it is common for young girls, when they are in their adolescence, to have fantasies that they were born to something greater than the lives they lead, but, really, Pascale, you are no longer a child. You should no longer be having these silly thoughts.”

  “Grand’mère, it is important that…”

  But, cued by a small shake of Jude’s head, Gaby did not pursue her argument.

  “Howard was your father. There is no question about that.” This was spoken with the unbreakable conviction of someone who totally believed it, or who, a long time ago, had made herself believe it.

  If she was going to find out more, Jude knew she had to risk the old lady’s displeasure. Her son did not want her to be upset by talk of the early nineteen-seventies, but there were still details Jude needed to find out. And her window of opportunity with Madame Coleman was closing fast.

  “I know that Robert does not want you to talk about unhappinesses of the past, but there is one question that I do have to ask you.”

  “You may ask. I, however, retain the right not to reply unless I wish to do so.”

  “Very well. Knowing what you do of Michael Brewer, do you think he was capable of killing Howard?”

  Her reaction was as immediate as the response to Gaby’s doubt about her real parenthood. “I have no doubt in my mind at all. Michael Brewer is the nearest I have ever encountered in a human being to pure evil.”

  ∨ The Witness at the Wedding ∧

  Thirty-Six

  There was now a light on in the cellar, and Carole could take in its contents. Michael Brewer kept things tidy, there was a monasticism about the place, or maybe it was an echo of another kind of cell. From hooks on the walls hung old threadbare waterproofs, cartridge belts and rabbit snares, dating from the occupancy of thirty years before. But since his release from prison Michael Brewer had stocked the room with boxes of tinned food, packs of bottled water and Camping Gaz cylinders. He could live out a long siege here. He also had a mobile phone and a modern laptop with a large supply of battery packs. There were also plastic crates filled with cardboard files. Stuck on the wall in front of a makeshift desk were press cuttings covering the murders of Howard Martin and Barry Painter.

  He had not left her on her own long. In less than an hour Carole had heard the shifting of the rafters on metal overhead, then the trapdoor had opened and he came in and lit a gas light.

  Immediately she had asked him, “Why have you brought me here?”

  “I want to get at Gaby,” he replied. “You are my way of getting at Gaby.”

  “Gaby is in France, visiting her grandmother.”

  “Oh.” He scratched his beard, assessing the information for a moment. “How long is she away for?”

  “Just two nights. Back the day after tomorrow.”

  “Maybe she will have to come sooner.” He looked at his watch. “Maybe you will ring her in the morning.” He thought about this, too. “No, better perhaps to wait till she comes back. We don’t want to set any alarm bells ringing.”

  “So you are proposing that I should stay here for the next two days?”

  He looked straight into her affronted eyes. His were hazel and full of pain. “I have stayed here for much longer than that.”

  “Why? Why do you hide away here?”

  “What would be my chances out in the open? What would be my chances if the police caught me?”

  “All right, I take your point.” There was a silence. “So it’s Gaby you’re really after? I’m just a means to an end.”

  “Yes, I need Gaby.” Then he added, chillingly, “I need her to finish what I’ve started.”

  They said little more that night. Even though he passed her an old sleeping bag, Carole didn’t think there was much prospect of her eyes closing. But he said he was about to turn the light out. “And don’t try anything.”

  “I won’t. Just tell me one thing. Suppose I do manage to lure Gaby to come to you…”

  “Yes?”

  “What would happen if I managed to communicate the danger to her? If she brought the police along with her?”

  “Then I would have to kill you,” said Michael Brewer, as though it were the most reasonable answer in the world.

  They both felt down after they left the retirement home, Gaby because of the disagreements with her grandmother about Catholicism, and Jude because she had the feeling she had screwed up an opportunity and lost a valuable source of information. Neither felt up to another lavish meal, so they settled down outside a small café in Villeneuve-sur-Lot for a croque-monsieur and a glass of wine.

  Their jaunt felt as if it was nearly over, and they were both crestfallen by how little they had achieved. Nor had they heard anything from Inspector Pollard. Both had expected a call to say that Michael Brewer was now safely in custody, but there had been nothing. For Gaby, the prospect loomed of returning to England the following day with her life still under threat.

  So when Jude’s mobile rang and the caller announced himself as Inspector Pollard, she was ecstatic with relief.

  But only briefly. “I was just wondering, Jude,” he said, “if you have any idea where your friend Carole Seddon might be?”

  “So far as I know, she’s at home. In Fethering.”

  “I tried calling her there, but got no response.”

  “Well, she could be out shopping. Or she has a dog. She takes him out for a lot of walks.”

  “She’s not with the dog.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got one of the local coppers in Fethering to check on her house. The d
og was barking, so he gained access. The mess on the kitchen floor suggested that the dog had not been let out at all since yesterday.”

  Panic flickered within Jude. “But Carole would never leave Gulliver that long. Something must have happened to her.”

  “That was rather the direction in which my thoughts were beginning to move.”

  “Do you think Michael Brewer may have got her?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Are you any nearer to finding him?”

  “I can assure you, Jude, that we are making every effort to track him down. We’re pretty sure he’s gone to ground somewhere in West Sussex. I don’t think it’ll be long now before we get him.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Robert Coleman’s helping us out. Apparently he was brought up in the same area as Michael Brewer, knew him pretty well. He’s down in Worthing now advising the local force. We’ll get him,” said the Inspector grimly. “In the meantime, I’ll contact Mrs Seddon’s son. He may have some idea where his mother’s gone. Or do you think she’s likely to have been in touch with her ex-husband?”

  “Very unlikely, I would have said.”

  “Oh well, it might be worth giving him a call. And how’s Gaby bearing up?”

  “She’s fine. With me right now. Do you want to speak to her?”

  “Not necessary. Just give her my good wishes…and tell her I think at the moment France is the safest place she could be.”

  Gaby had caught the alarm in Jude’s responses and looked at her, eyes wide in fear. “What’s happened?”

  Jude brought her quickly up to date. “There’s only one thing I can think of to do. We must pay another call on your grandmother.”

  He refused to talk, just sat there playing patience. Carole thought she would be driven mad by the intermittent slapping of the cards as he turned them. Michael Brewer was used to waiting. Waiting a little longer, at this stage of his life, was small hardship.

  Apart from the silence, he didn’t treat her badly. He offered, even cooked, food, and was discreetly unobservant when she had to leave the cellar to relieve herself. There was no way Carole could feel relaxed in the presence of a double murderer, but – apart from holding her as a prisoner at gunpoint in a remote cellar – he did nothing else to add to her stress.