Gone Away

by Hazel Holt

  There was, a voice inside my head whispered, the little matter of that plane ticket to London in January. I had pushed that particular piece of information to the back of my mind, preferring not to think the unthinkable, but now I took it out and examined it. If – if Charles was really interested in Lee only for the money she could make for him, then all he had to do was finance the property deal. Everything would be in his name and Lee would expect to get her share when they were married and Bradford had been jettisoned. But suppose Charles had been using Lee and had never intended to marry her? It would have been easy, once he knew that everything was signed and sealed, to fly over and arrange by telephone to meet her in a remote spot (easy to think of some excuse for that). Then he could have hired a car and driven to a lay-by on the coast road and walked down to the house. Charles was a local and knew his way around the moors so that would be no problem. She would have been expecting him and would have let him into the house. Perhaps Charles was the mysterious ‘client’ she was meeting there. Then, after he had killed her, he could have been in London in time to catch the late afternoon flight and be back in New York that evening, such are the marvels of modern travel! And there he would be, far away from the scene of the crime, waiting to be told that Lee was dead so that he could be a grieving fiancé.

  But the body hadn’t been discovered for quite a while, and he had got restless and, furthermore, he knew that he must appear to make enquiries about her – why she hadn’t written or telephoned. So what would be more natural than to get in touch with his old friend Sheila, who was always so splendid, and get her to set the wheels in motion. By now the marmalade had reached the required slow, rolling boil and I stirred it agitatedly. It would all fit. I checked my thoughts. I had been speculating, moving theories around like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, seeing if they could be put together in some way to form a picture. It was, I told myself, like playing a game. Of course Charles wasn’t like that. I had known him all my life – he simply wasn’t capable of doing such a thing.

  But how well do you know him? that tiresome inner voice persisted. People we’ve known all our lives suddenly do the most amazing and unexpected things, especially if the motives are strong enough. And Charles’s life had always been dominated by financial gain, we had all known that – Jack and Ronnie had rather admired him for it. Charles had been prepared to spend years of his life going round the world, leading a fairly nomadic existence and breaking up his marriage in the process, for the considerable financial rewards it had brought him. Would he have been prepared to go this far, to make ‘a pretty good killing’?

  The marmalade was setting and I took the pre-serving pan off the stove and put the jars to warm. I would wait and see what Roger had to say about Bradford, I told myself. That was a perfectly reason-able theory and much more comfortable. If Lee had threatened him ... He would have lost a great deal of business as well as prestige if he was turned off the Council, and he was the sort of self-important man, a large fish in a small pond, who would hate to lose face, even to his wretched, long-suffering wife. Yes, a more plausible suspect altogether.

  I opened the back door to let out the powerful smell of marmalade, and Foss came rushing in and leapt up on to the work surface, leaving a pattern of muddy paw-marks. As I automatically wiped the surface clean I resolved to concentrate on my own life for a bit and clear my mind of upsetting suspicions.

  Roger telephoned the next afternoon.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sheila. After all your hard work ... Dean has been to see Bradford and I’m afraid he has a perfectly good alibi for the time of the murder.’

  ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘Well ... It seems that he was in a council meeting at nine thirty that morning.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Yes, I know what you’re going to say. But even if he had actually gone to Plover’s Barrow with Lee in her car – and they hadn’t left by eight, remember – he still had to kill her and then walk back to the cottage, pick up his own car and drive back to Taviscombe by nine twenty, which is when he arrived. It’s simply not on. As it is, he would have had to be pretty nippy to get back to Taviscombe by then.’

  ‘Oh dear, yes. I see. What about Lee being at the cottage?’

  ‘He doesn’t deny that. He was pretty embarrassed, of course, and hopes it won’t have to come out at the inquest...’

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘Actually, we’re asking for an adjournment. There’ll be the absolute minimum of formalities, I expect. You’ll have to be there, but I shouldn’t think you’ll be called.’

  ‘So it wasn’t Bradford.’

  ‘Apparently not. Sorry about your clever detection. Not quite all in vain, though. It does help us to build up a fuller picture of Lee Montgomery.’

  The name Montgomery struck a chord.

  ‘Roger, what about his wife? Montgomery’s, I mean. She had a motive, in a way.’

  ‘Actually, we did check her. She died last year. I’m afraid you’re clutching at straws a bit, aren’t you.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘So now we’ll have to go on looking at the only suspects left to us.’

  ‘Jamie and Andrew?’

  Roger hesitated.

  ‘Yes. Though there is someone else we might consider.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Charles Richardson.’

  Now it was my turn to be silent for a moment.

  ‘Charles.’ I said at last, and tried to make it sound as if the possibility had never occurred to me. ‘But he was in America!’

  ‘There are such things as planes. Concorde, even. You could be there and back in one day at a pinch. Certainly two.’

  ‘But Charles was going to marry Lee.’

  ‘Possibly – possibly not. We’ve found some very interesting documents among her papers at the flat. She’d bought up property in his name which, if this development thing goes through, will be worth well over a million pounds. Perhaps he didn’t want to share it with her. It’s a lot of money, if money is what you care about.’

  ‘But if everything was in his name he wouldn’t have to kill her.’

  ‘In a way, but she could have made things awkward for him. As it is, as far as he knew she had no next of kin, no one to make a fuss about the money anyway. I think you told me that he thought she was divorced.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying to sort things out, ‘he didn’t know that she was still married to Jamie. I suppose he’s her next of kin.’

  ‘Precisely. He’ll get anything she might have to leave. That will certainly come in handy. They seem to live very much from hand to mouth.’

  ‘But Jamie thought she hadn’t any money.’ I said quickly. ‘He told me...’

  ‘That’s what he told you, yes.’

  I felt thoroughly miserable. Everything I thought of seemed to implicate Jamie or Charles. A million pound!! Charles could have his pick of attractive females with a million pounds. Lee was quite bright, but, in trusting Charles, had she been bright enough?

  Roger said sympathetically, ‘I’m sorry, Sheila, I know how distressing this must be for you. It’s very hard to think of anybody one has known for ages as a possible murderer. But these things do happen, you know – have happened – and we just have to get at the truth the best way we can.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Roger, I do see that. It’s just that ... well, you know. Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the inquest, the day after tomorrow, isn’t it? And then, after that, try and put it out of your mind. Why don’t you go and spend a few days in Oxford – see your son, do a bit of reading in the Bodleian...’

  ‘What a good idea, perhaps I will.’

  But I knew that while this wretched thing was unsolved it wouldn’t matter where I was, it would still worry and niggle at me and I’d find it difficult to concentrate on anything else. I felt very depressed about it all. I had rather meanly hoped that Bradford would be the villain of the piece because I had disliked him, but lif
e, as we all know, is not like that. On the principle that if you’re really fed up then the best thing is to do a job you actively hate, I decided to clear out Michael’s room to get it ready for Marjorie’s Mr Owen to start decorating as soon as possible.

  As I heaved furniture about and ruthlessly thrust ancient, yellowing copies of Motorcycle Weekly into black plastic dustbin bags, I felt that there was some-thing at the back of my mind that might explain everything if only I could think what it was. But, as when you try to remember the name of a small-part actor in an old film, thinking about it simply drives it away, and the only thing to do is to wait and see if it’ll come to the surface of its own accord. So I turned Foss out of a cardboard box, which he had appropriated, and began neatly packing away Michael’s old school exercise books.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mr Owen was a large, middle-aged Welshman, a redundant miner who had turned to building and decorating. I wondered why he had come to Taviscombe.

  ‘Always liked this part of the country.’ he said. ‘Me and the wife used to come on the steamer for day-trips. Besides,’ he winked, ‘does no harm to have the Bristol Channel between me and the wife’s mother.’ He was a good worker and marvellous at clearing up – as I suppose I might have expected of someone recommended by Marjorie Fraser – and it was a relief not to have Radio One constantly blaring away. He did ask me if I minded if he played his tapes on his cassette recorder. Of course, I said that would be fine, and waited with interest for full-throated Welsh male-voice choirs, but it turned out to be Glen Miller and Perry Como, and, after the first morning, I found myself going about my household tasks humming ‘String of Pearls’ and ‘Catch a Falling Star’, which was cheering, somehow.

  I had had a note from Mr Hawkins, the vet, to say that Tris’s annual booster injection was due, and, groaning inwardly, I nerved myself to take him there. Tris, normally a happy, obedient little dog, became a whining, trembling, obstinate fiend whenever we came within fifty yards of the vet’s door. I hauled him into the waiting room, where he immediately went to ground under my chair and sat cowering and uttering pathetic little yelps. I tried to ignore him as I looked at the other, perfectly well-behaved animals around us – a placid labrador, lying peacefully on its owner’s feet, a white poodle with a neatly bandaged paw sitting smugly on a chair next to his mistress, and a black and white cat, wrapped in a woollen shawl, on its owner’s lap, who gazed at us scornfully and opened and shut its mouth in a silent miaouw of contempt. As so often happens in such places, the animals ignored each other while their owners exchanged symptoms.

  ‘...cut his paw on this broken bottle. People really shouldn’t be allowed...’

  ‘...I think it’s his teeth, he’s quite an elderly gentleman now...’

  ‘...no, only a routine injection, thank goodness...’

  The door opened and my heart sank when Marjorie Fraser came in with her spaniel and sat down next to me. I greeted her and stroked the dog.

  ‘Marjorie, how nice to see you – hallo Tessa; good girl! – I’ve been meaning to ring and tell you how delighted I am with Mr Owen. He really is a treasure.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘his work is quite satisfactory.’

  We chatted for a while about decorating and she told me about the extension she was planning to build and how she needed extra stabling for her horses. ‘Of course, they weren’t actually built as stables,’ she said. ‘So they will need to be extensively rebuilt. I had been thinking about finding somewhere bigger.’

  ‘Somewhere like Plover’s Barrow would have suited you,’ I said, ‘although it’s a bit isolated. And now, of course—’

  ‘As a matter of fact I had considered it. I saw the particulars in the window of that Montgomery woman’s agency and wondered if it might do.’

  ‘It wanted a lot doing to it, though.’ I said. ‘The kitchen would have needed completely modernising, for a start. That awful old sink!’

  ‘Yes, and those stone flags would have had to come up...’

  ‘And that costs the earth, I know,’ I replied rue-fully, ‘because we had them in our present house when we first moved in and the damp underneath you wouldn’t believe – we had to have a whole new damp course...’

  ‘Anyway, the house would have been far too big – it’s just that it’s difficult to find that amount of stabling with a smaller house. I rather want to go in for a little horse-breeding. Jamie Hertford’ – she looked slightly self-conscious as she mentioned his name – ‘is advising me. He has been very helpful.’

  Oh well done, Marjorie, I thought. That’s one sure way of engaging his interest! I was about to see if I could find out if she had seen him recently when the receptionist called me in. Needless to say, I had a dreadful time hauling Tris out from under my chair, and when I did, he refused to move a step, his nails making clattering noises on the linoleum as I tried to drag him along, while the others looked at me as if I was some kind of inhuman monster. Finally, avoiding Marjorie’s eye, I had to pick him up bodily and make my escape into the surgery.

  ‘Well then, how’s my old friend?’ Mr Hawkins boomed cheerfully as I put Tris on the examination table and he, the little hypocrite, barked excitedly and licked Mr Hawkins lovingly on the nose. Animals!

  I thought quite a bit about Marjorie and the Hertfords. She must have rather a lot of money, and if she were to go into some sort of partnership with Jamie for breeding horses ... Jamie would benefit – and Andrew, who was so good with horses – and Marjorie would have a constant excuse to be with him, without the need for any overtly emotional sort of relationship, which would suit them both very well. It would be a splendid arrangement all round. I positively beamed with approval. Then I remembered that Jamie was the number one suspect in a murder investigation and my heart sank.

  The inquest came and went. Jamie wasn’t there. As Roger had said, it was a mere formality. I saw him briefly, looking official, and he gave me a slight wave and a friendly but absent smile. I longed to ask him if he had made any progress with the case, but it seemed neither the time nor the place. Jack and Rosemary had very sweetly come with me, and after it was over we went to have a drink and a sandwich at the George. We were nice and early so it was empty and we were able to get a table in the window looking out over the sea.

  ‘There you are, girls,’ Jack said, putting down our gin and tonics. ‘I’ll just go and see about the sandwiches.’

  ‘Guess what!’ I said. ‘Marjorie Fraser’s going in for horse-breeding and Jamie Hertford’s advising her!’

  ‘No!’ Rosemary exclaimed. ‘How marvellous for her! And for him, if she’s putting money into it. Though I suppose he’ll get any money that Lee Montgomery left – there must be a bit. That agency must fetch something and I bet she was the sort of person who had all sorts of little deals on the side.’

  I preserved a tactful silence about the extent of Lee’s deals because I wasn’t sure how much Roger wanted known about all that. Instead I asked, ‘Where does Marjorie’s money come from? She seems pretty well off. That house at Bracken must have cost a fair amount – I mean, it’s got quite a bit of land. And she’s talking about having it extended and more stables built.’

  ‘Marjorie Fraser’s money?’ asked Jack, putting down plates of sandwiches. ‘Those are ham and those are roast beef. Oh, I think she got a very good price for her husband’s practice. You know he was a vet, somewhere this side of Bristol, a lot of dairy farming round there, very prosperous. He died a couple of years ago, I believe, and she sold up and came out here. And I think she’s pretty shrewd where investments are concerned – old Boothroyd, he’s her broker too, was saying the other day that she’s got a good head for business.’

  ‘Oh wouldn’t she just!’ said Rosemary disgustedly. ‘That woman is too perfect for anything! No wonder everybody loathes her!’

  ‘I’m beginning to feel sorry for her, in a way. It’s quite pathetic when she talks about Jamie, rather like a school-girl with her first crush!’

&n
bsp; Rosemary snorted.

  ‘Anyway.’ I said, ‘I’m grateful to her for finding Mr Owen for me...’ and the conversation turned exclusively to decorating, imperfectly lagged pipes and the iniquities of plumbers.

  That evening I had just switched off the television after watching a particularly horrible thriller, in which every character was either revoltingly vicious or repellently weak. I feebly stayed with it to the end because I hadn’t got the remote control near at hand and I didn’t want to disturb Foss, who was heavily asleep on my lap. I was, therefore, feeling a little irritable at having mindlessly wasted an hour on something that had neither entertained nor informed me, and, when the telephone rang, I snatched up the receiver and snapped ‘Yes?’ in a very brusque way.

  ‘Sheila?’ It was Charles, obviously taken aback by my uncharacteristic greeting. I was taken aback too. Suddenly to be confronted by Charles, after the theories I had invented about him, and before I had had time to collect my thoughts, was very disconcerting.

  ‘Charles’ I exclaimed. ‘How lovely to hear from you.’

  ‘How are things going? Have the police any news yet?’

  ‘Well – not a lot,’ I said hesitantly. ‘Haven’t they been in touch with you?’

  ‘I don’t know, really. I’m just in from Johannesburg and I haven’t been back to the apartment yet. But have they made an arrest or anything? I’m sorry it’s been so long since I called but we’ve been having a fairly hectic time over here – the Aroldson merger, I expect you’ve heard about it?’

  Since the financial pages of the Daily Telegraph are so much wasteland to me, I naturally hadn’t, but I made interested murmurs.

  ‘Honestly, I seem to have been going round the world nonstop since Christmas.’

  I seized the opportunity to probe a little.

  ‘Yes, your splendid secretary told me you’d been in London early this year – I wish we could have seen you.’

  ‘Oh that – now that was a complete balls-up,’ Charles said, warming to his theme. ‘Fredrikson – our head of European operations – asked me to go with him to help with the negotiations – well, I know a lot of the people involved – and we got to Heathrow on the second – think of travelling the day after New Year’s Day, you can imagine what my head was like! Anyway, there was a message for us at the airport that the whole bloody shooting match had been transferred to Frankfurt! Muller, their vice-president, couldn’t get to London. Would you believe! Absolute nonsense, of course, just a ploy