A Tangled Thread
Page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Recent Titles by Anthea Fraser From Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Recent Titles by Anthea Fraser from Severn House
The Rona Parish Mysteries (in order of appearance)
BROUGHT TO BOOK
JIGSAW
PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN
A FAMILY CONCERN
ROGUE IN PORCELAIN
NEXT DOOR TO MURDER
UNFINISHED PORTRAIT
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
JUSTICE POSTPONED
Other Titles
BREATH OF BRIMSTONE
PRESENCE OF MIND
THE MACBETH PROPHECY
MOTIVE FOR MURDER
DANGEROUS DECEPTION
PAST SHADOWS
FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
THICKER THAN WATER
SHIFTING SANDS
THE UNBURIED PAST
A TANGLED THREAD
A TANGLED THREAD
Anthea Fraser
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This first world edition published 2015
in Great Britain and the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.
Trade paperback edition first published 2015 in Great
Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.
eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2015 by Anthea Fraser.
The right of Anthea Fraser to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Fraser, Anthea author.
A tangled thread.
1. Hit-and-run drivers–Scottish Borders (England and
Scotland)–Fiction. 2. Detective and mystery stories.
I. Title
823.9’14-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8549-4 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-658-9 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-712-7 (e-book)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,
Stirlingshire, Scotland.
ONE
Foxclere, East Sussex
A heavy thud from above woke her, followed by the faint sound of her daughter’s voice reminding six-year-old Ben that Granny lived beneath them and his jumps and crash-landings endangered her light fittings.
Jill smiled to herself. It was barely a month since they’d moved in but already the house had settled comfortably into its new configuration. After Greg’s death last year and with both offspring married, the family home had seemed too big for her. But she was loath to leave it, and for several months had wavered, deciding to sell then changing her mind. Until, miraculously, Georgia and Tim, who had for some time been wanting a larger garden, suggested that both problems could be solved by Jill choosing whichever floor she preferred to make her home while they took over the rest of the house and responsibility for the garden.
It was the perfect solution. She had opted for ground level, thus retaining her sitting room, music room and family-sized kitchen, while the dining room, seldom used, had been converted into a bedroom. And although at the heart of the family she maintained her independence, to which end a door had been erected in the hall, closing off her domain from the staircase by which the family entered their own quarters.
She slipped out of bed and drew back the curtains, letting sunshine flood into the room. Under her window the grass was still heavy with dew and a blackbird busily dug for worms, but beyond the shadow cast by the house, flowers and bushes were already gilded. It was going to be a perfect day. It would also, she remembered with a tug at her heart, have been her thirty-sixth wedding anniversary.
Sadly, her parents had never approved of Greg; they’d thought him unreliable and self-centred, always wanting his own way and usually, since he was handsome and charming, getting it – as was evidenced by Jill being pregnant on her wedding day.
And they’d had a point, she reflected wistfully. It hadn’t been an easy marriage; for though on the surface Greg had retained all the traits she’d fallen in love with, he could also be moody if things didn’t go his way and was quick to lose his temper. Then there was his gambling – something she’d thankfully managed to keep from her parents but which had given her many sleepless nights, though when she’d tried to broach the subject he’d simply laughed. ‘Why are you worrying?’ he’d ask. ‘I always win!’
Which was undeniably true. He did win, eye-wateringly large amounts that were largely responsible for their affluent lifestyle. His great love was poker, though he would bet on anything – horses, dogs, two flies crawling up a window – and his combined winnings had provided the greater part of their income. A mixed blessing, since he’d never felt the need to stick at any job for long. Throughout their marriage his only unswerving commitment had been to the articles he wrote under a pseudonym he jokingly refused to disclose. And it was his final occupation – freelance photography – that had led to his death in a suicide bombing in Egypt.
She picked up his photograph from the dressing table, studying the dancing blue eyes, the dark hair, the smiling mouth. It had been taken soon after their wedding but he’d not changed much over the years, merely acquiring a few lines and a touch of silver at his temples.
She sighed, shaking off reminiscences both painful and pointless. She had made her bed, lain on it and survived, and, on the positive side, since he’d so often worked away from home she was accustomed to long absences, which had prepared her for the final one. She’d a lot to be thankful for, she reminded herself: a loving son and daughter, two healthy grandchildren and her career as a piano teacher, from which she derived intense pleasure and satisfaction.
Which reminded her of Edward French, a prospective new pupil. Though the majority of those she taught were children, she’d also accepted some half-dozen adults who had either dropped music on leaving school or never learned to play. Edward French came into the latter category.
‘I took early retirement a few months ago,’ he’d told her on the phone, ‘and when I mentioned to Giles Austin that I was thinking of taking piano lessons he gave me your name.’ Austin was the headmaster of the local grammar school where Jill taught one day a week. ‘I haven’t an instrument myself,’ he’d added apologetically, ‘but he tells me you give lessons in your own home?’
‘I do, yes.’ In fact, th
e majority of her pupils came to the house, which was why she’d been so anxious to keep the music room; but they all had access to a piano on which to practise between lessons. She could only hope that Mr French had the same facility. It had been arranged that he would sign up for a month of weekly lessons beginning the following Friday, at the end of which he could decide whether or not to continue.
The ringing of the house phone broke into her thoughts.
‘Sorry about the thump, Mum,’ Georgia apologized. ‘Did it wake you?’
‘Don’t worry, I was just surfacing anyway.’
‘We were wondering if you’d like to spend the day with us? Say if you’d rather not, but with it being the first anniversary without Dad, I thought perhaps you could do with some company.’
Though she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she and Greg had spent it together, Jill said gratefully, ‘That’s sweet of you, darling. I’d love to.’
‘Good. Then come up for coffee when you’re ready and we can plan what to do.’
Abandoning her reflections, both past and more recent, she went to take her shower.
‘Isn’t today your parents’ anniversary?’ Victoria Lawrence asked over breakfast.
Richard checked the date on his newspaper. ‘Yes, so it is. Or was.’
‘Don’t you think we should do something?’
‘What, exactly? It’s not as if there’s a grave to visit. Anyway, Georgia will have done the necessary.’
‘She’s your mother too! At least give her a call to say we’re thinking of her.’
He returned to his paper without comment and she resignedly poured herself more coffee, acknowledging not for the first time what a complex man she’d married. Though outwardly controlled as befitted the deputy head of a private school, the occasional flash over the years had revealed hidden depths; for instance, she’d been surprised, early in her marriage, to discover that he was deeply jealous of his sister, an emotion she’d always assumed that in adults had sexual origins but which in this case seemed to have its roots in his relationship with his father.
Who had been another complex character. Victoria had met her father-in-law only a handful of times in the five years of her marriage and at his death felt she knew him no better than on first acquaintance. Yet his complexity was the reverse of his son’s; on the surface he’d been outgoing, interested in people and their concerns and able to reduce any company to laughter at his witticisms. But he’d lived what Richard had described as a compartmentalized life: work, family, leisure interests and so on, each in its own airtight container. ‘Heaven help anyone who attempts to write his biography!’ he’d commented once.
Victoria pushed back her chair. ‘I’d better get going; it’s my turn to open up.’
She was part-owner of a small art shop that dealt in modern paintings, hand-thrown pottery and locally made crafts. Its opening hours were ten till four on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and though Richard resented her Saturday shift, it was invariably their busiest day and her presence was mandatory.
‘I think I’ll go to the golf club,’ he commented. ‘Have we anything on this evening?’
‘Dinner at Simon and Tamsin’s at eight thirty. See you later, then.’
He watched her over his paper as she hurried from the room, every inch the professional woman in her linen suit, her hair caught up in a chignon. It was a long time since they’d lit any fires in each other, he reflected. He enjoyed her company and she was an undoubted asset in his career, but these days sex was a business-like affair, the satisfying of a need with little emotion in evidence. Not, admittedly, that he was a passionate man; he’d learned early on to keep his feelings in check, and he did wonder occasionally if he’d done right in marrying Victoria so soon after she’d broken off a long-term relationship.
He was aware that his friends envied him, not only his clever and attractive wife but his successful career and comfortable lifestyle. Only he knew that these achievements resulted from a compulsive desire to prove himself to his father.
His eyes dropped to the date at the top of the newspaper: his parents’ wedding anniversary, as Vic had reminded him, and ten months now since Greg’s death. He might have known, he thought bitterly, that his father was never going to die peacefully in his bed: he had to go out literally with a bang, blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber. No one had suspected, as Richard held the family together in the aftermath, that in private he’d wept as bitterly as any of them, though for more complicated reasons.
Suddenly impatient, he scrunched the newspaper between his hands and stood up. A game of golf would dispel his introspections, though as he retrieved his clubs from the hall cupboard his thoughts momentarily returned to his mother.
Should he phone her? What could he say? For as long as he could remember he’d loved her with a fierce and protective love, attempting, as he grew up, to compensate as far as he was able for his father’s frequent and prolonged absences. Yet now she was virtually living with Georgia, an arrangement that struck him as a kind of betrayal. The family home was as much his as his sister’s, but there’d been little consultation before the agreed amalgamation, and any protest he might have made at the outset had been stifled by Victoria’s immediate cry of, ‘What a brilliant idea!’ She didn’t see it as he did: Georgia closing the ranks, leaving the two of them on the fringe.
Bloody Georgia! he thought, slamming the cupboard door, and, heaving his golf bag on to his shoulder, he let himself out of the house.
‘That bloke’s back again,’ Nigel Soames commented, coming into the shop as Victoria pulled up the blinds and turned the Closed notice on the door.
She frowned. ‘Where?’
He jerked his head towards the café across the road. ‘At his usual table – see? It’s the third time this week.’
She peered outside. ‘You’re sure it’s the same man?’
‘Positive.’
‘Perhaps he’s hooked on their coffee.’
Nigel refused to be diverted. ‘I don’t like it, Vic; he could be planning a heist.’
She smiled, stooping to lift the post from the floor. ‘You’ve been reading about those art thefts from country houses! Rest assured, we’re hardly in that league! Though we’ve some pretty good paintings, none is worth stealing; added to which, we’ve an alarm system and he doesn’t look the type to descend from the ceiling on a rope.’
‘You may mock,’ Nigel said darkly, ‘but don’t say I didn’t warn you!’
Despite herself, she glanced outside again. The object of their interest, totally unaware of it, was seated at a window table absorbed in his newspaper. She estimated that he was in his fifties; his hair was receding and he wore glasses. Admittedly, from this distance, he appeared to be the man whom they’d first noticed earlier in the week when he’d spent some time studying their window display before retreating to the café. He’d reappeared on Thursday, this time walking up and down outside The Gallery for about ten minutes. She’d assumed – hoped – he was a potential customer, though on neither occasion had he ventured into the shop. But he looked an unlikely burglar, and, dismissing Nigel’s concerns, she turned with a smile to greet their first customer of the day. When she next had a chance to glance outside, the man had gone.
The arrangement at lunchtime was for them to take their break separately, leaving the other in charge, and as Victoria crossed the road she noted that the table where their observer – if that’s what he was – had sat was vacant. She seated herself in his place, and, having given her order, gazed with interest at The Gallery’s frontage in an attempt to assess how much of its interior could be seen from this vantage point. The answer was very little, since the play of light on the glass acted as a mirror, reflecting passers-by.
On her return, she reported her findings. ‘I don’t think he’s after any future heirlooms,’ she ended. ‘He was probably just waiting for someone.’
‘Who never arrived?’
She s
hrugged. ‘We don’t know that, but in any case I doubt he’s loitering with intent. Unless, of course, he fancies you!’
Nigel, tall, fair and good looking, was gay, though his manner and appearance gave little indication of it, and it afforded Victoria considerable amusement to watch their female customers trying to flirt with him. They had met through his sister, who’d been at art college with her and who had happened to mention that her brother, a talented portrait painter, was looking for a part-time job. Victoria, who was then considering opening an art shop, had been glad to join forces with him, and their combined finances brought The Gallery within their budget.
That had been three years ago, and within its limits the business was doing well. They made a good partnership, and she felt more relaxed with Nigel than with many of her women friends, occasionally even treating him as a confidant in the certain knowledge that he’d never repeat what she told him.
On her free days she taught at an art class, travelled round the county looking for new stock and artists to promote, and spent one day a week helping out in a charity shop. When Richard was free during the school holidays they visited museums and galleries, went to the theatre and enjoyed long weekends in country hotels. It was a good life, and if her marriage was a trifle humdrum, at least it continued on an even keel and she had no regrets.
They had gone to the coast, and Jill and Georgia were relaxing in deck chairs while Tim and the children explored pools left by the receding tide.
‘Has Richard been in touch?’ Georgia asked idly. ‘Not recently, no.’
‘He could at least have sent a card.’
‘Be fair, darling; saying what? Hardly “Happy Anniversary”.’
‘“Thinking of you”, perhaps?’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Jill said quietly.
‘He hated Dad, you know.’
Jill swung her head towards her daughter. ‘Georgia!’