by H. V. Coombs
Farson, I thought, it had to be him who had killed Montfort. Killed him to shut him up and to implicate me. Two birds, one stone.
He’d have known Montfort would be having a fling with Naomi, Montfort would have bragged about it. He was that kind of man. Farson must have followed his car – his distinctive red Audi – from her house. If he killed Montfort he would be free of a weak link in the chain. Montfort could never talk to the police now. Montfort alive had outlived his usefulness; dead, I would take the blame. I could imagine the scene, Montfort telling him of my threats, Farson: ‘I’ll come with you, I’ll deal with it.’ And he had, but not in the way that Montfort had envisaged.
So much for my peaceful country dream.
Et in Arcadia ego. And where was I now? A murder suspect, a jealous lover, and involved with a group of violent criminals.
Things had gone terribly wrong.
I looked at the Earl. It was hard to know if he was an ally or a slightly sadistic tormentor. Perhaps he was both. He was looking at me without compassion, a blend of contempt and interest, like I was a dim-witted but amusing insect, an ant, maybe.
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ I asked.
‘I don’t really like people all that much, I’m afraid, I’m too old to care,’ said the Earl, in an offhand way. ‘However, I do like nature and I like animals. I look after rescue dogs, I fund rescue centres. I make money, I amuse myself and I support organisations that take my fancy. I admired Harding. He had similar views. I paid for his funeral.’
‘Et in Arcadia Ego? You had that put on the stone.’
The Earl gave a wintry smile. ‘I did indeed. My idea of a joke. Musgrave was not amused. He threatened me with legal action, for bringing the name of his company into disrepute,’ he frowned, ‘I had to go round to his crappy pub the other night and read him the riot act.’
So that’s what he was doing there, I thought. Not part of the conspiracy at all.
‘Wasn’t that a bit risky, after what had happened to Harding?’
The Earl smiled, a rather alarming smile.
‘If I have a problem with wasps on my property, I have them dealt with, professionally. The same principle applies to people who try to do me harm, in business or otherwise. They know that. If they had been so stupid as to try anything with me … more fool them.’
‘Why don’t you tell Slattery all of this?’ I asked.
The Earl looked at me. ‘Because I can’t be bothered, and I don’t want to get involved. It’s up to you now. I don’t care that much what happens. Personally, I didn’t like Montfort, Scott or Whitfield. Harding, I had a soft spot for. That’s why I’m helping you. Justice for Harding. The end of Arcadia as well, it’s what he would have wanted. Don’t kid yourself it’s because I like you.’
Thanks a lot, I thought, he must have sensed what I was thinking for he added, ‘I don’t dislike you, however, not like that repellent trio at the pub. You can bring down Farson and whoever else is involved. I’m caring for his dog, Cobbett—’ the Schnauzer, I thought ‘—he’s a nice little chap. But the rest is up to you.’
‘But surely, all you have to do is tell the police what you know?’ I asked. Pleaded, might be more accurate. I desperately wanted Slattery off my back.
‘Where’s the proof?’ The Earl did have a point. It was all speculation.
‘And you think I can get it?’ I asked.
‘You’re doing quite well,’ he said. ‘You seem quite effective plus you’ve physically injured two of them and survived their revenge attack. Farson and Musgrave must be panic-stricken. They don’t know if Montfort told you anything before they silenced him. They’ve got rid of two potential blabber-mouths, that’s all they can do. Somewhere out there is Farson’s car, essentially a murder weapon. You could find that. Or you could beat one of them up to get some information. Slattery can’t do that, much as he’d like to. Show some spirit, man! Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Off you go.’
Go where? I wondered.
‘And I suppose you have some idea of what I should do next?’ My tone was sarcastic.
He raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Care to enlighten me?’ I asked.
‘I believe Anna Bruce read your Tarot?’
Everyone knows everything in a village, I thought to myself. Even the Earl. I nodded.
‘She will have kept three cards back that she didn’t show you.’
Oh great, I thought. The Earl’s advice rests upon the supernatural. Did I have a better idea? I thought for a nanosecond, no. The ideas cupboard was bare.
‘Go and see her, she’ll tell you what to do. She’s very good.’ He drank some more tea and then put his cup down with an air of finality. My time with him was over.
I suddenly thought, he’s the man in the reading that I didn’t recognise: the Hierophant, the Keeper of Secrets. It described the Earl perfectly. Rich, powerful, secretive, a master manipulator. It was him, just as she had foretold. I knew then that he was right, I had to see her.
It was a peculiar idea, but we live in peculiar times.
‘Where does she live?’ I envisioned a secluded Hansel and Gretel-style secluded cottage somewhere in the woods.
‘Byfield,’ said the Earl. He tossed me a car key, attached to a heavy fob.
‘Take the BMW 3. It’s new; Slattery won’t recognise it if he sees it, the police won’t be looking for it. Anna’s address is on the SatNav, under Recents.’
I stood up. ‘So you want me to go and be told what to do by a fortune teller?’ I asked, just to clarify the situation.
The Earl laughed. ‘Do you have a better idea?’ The situation was clear.
I didn’t have a better idea.
Five minutes later, I was driving away from Marlow House behind the wheel of the BMW 3, following the measured, judicious tones of the SatNav.
‘Take the second exit and turn right in five hundred yards …’
At least she seemed to know what she was doing.
I certainly didn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I followed the melodious instructions on the SatNav as I drove out of the village and through the South Bucks countryside, along its dreadful road surfaces, wincing every time I hit a pot-hole. I winced a lot. Occasionally I saw the low-flying police helicopter, presumably looking for my old Volvo. Periodically the heavens opened and more heavy rain lashed down. I pressed the button marked ‘Radio’ and listened to some pop music on Beech Tree FM. The news came on:
‘… waters still rising. Marlow High Street remains closed to traffic and the road is closed between Cookham and Cookham Dean. Meanwhile, more news on the Church Woods murder. A spokesman for Thames Valley Police says that they are not releasing the identity of the victim, a man believed to be in his early fifties, until the next of kin have been informed but they would like to speak to a Mr Ben Hunter who they believe has some information that may help them with their inquiries. Now, be careful driving in the rain, don’t drive in the Middle of the Road and here’s their big hit from the Seventies, “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”. Traffic next up …’
I turned the radio off. I had been expecting that, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to help the police with their inquiries at all. I kept driving. The countryside gradually gave way to housing and soon I found myself driving towards the ugly centre of Byfield.
It was a large town, fairly wealthy, with absolutely no character whatsoever. Jess sometimes went clubbing there but told me its nightlife was pretty awful. This despite having a university in the town centre, the University of the Chilterns, which all Byfield people still thought of as Byfield College. Not even a Poly. That’s how low its status was in local opinion.
I drove through endless, anonymous housing, past pubs and schools and the occasional shop, then down the steep hill that led to the town centre. It was prosperous, it had high employment rates, several sought-after schools and on the whole was relatively crime-free, but it wa
s ugly, it was boring and it was soulless.
Driving as instructed, I eventually found myself in the middle of the town, outside an apartment block near the station. The building was predominantly steel, glass and marble. It proclaimed edgy but classic modern design, or young, urban professional. It was the kind of place for wealthy, aspirant singles or childless couples, an odd place to find a fortune teller.
I left my car – the Earl’s car, it was kind of him to have lent it to me (‘Bloody good bloke …’) – in a multi-storey car park and walked back to the block. I found her name on the intercom by the entrance door, A. Bruce, and pressed the button.
Five minutes later I was in her minimalist living room in the penthouse flat at the top of the building. One wall was entirely glass, leading out to a roof terrace.
She didn’t seem remotely surprised to see me. Perhaps the Earl had messaged her. Today she was wearing a severe houndstooth skirt and a dark green blouse with an expensive looking silver and pearl necklace. Her short, white hair looked expensively cut, she was tanned and it looked real rather than spray. I looked around the apartment, there was a signed Warhol Marilyn litho print on the wall.
‘It’s real,’ she said. The furniture, sparse and again modernist in design, would not be available at Ikea or John Lewis.
We had a spectacular view of an unlovely town. She indicated it with proprietorial pride.
‘It’s great,’ she enthused, ‘I can see the house where I grew up, from here – it was a real dump.’ She pointed out of the window. Byfield is in a valley, a very long, thin valley, and all I could see were endless houses. Houses were built clinging on to the hills on either side of the valley and they snaked away into the distance. ‘I get up in the morning and I think, thank God I’m not there on that crappy Jeremy Kyle-type estate where my parents’ council house was! I love gratitude.’ She smiled at me. ‘Do you want a drink, tea, coffee?’
‘Tea please, Darjeeling if you’ve got it.’
Once again I reflected on what an unlikely medium or psychic she was. Anna was so matter of fact, and obviously intelligent.
She did have Darjeeling. I sat on a Bauhaus-inspired sofa while she sat on a matching one opposite, a glass and chrome coffee table between us.
‘I like Brutalist design,’ she said, ‘people are surprised, they expect clairvoyants to be a bit, well, traditional. More Laura Ashley, maybe.’
I drank my tea. Clairvoyance must pay well, I thought, or maybe she can predict the Lottery.
‘I have rich clients,’ she looked at me and shook her head, ‘you, however, fall under the category of charity.’
I got straight to the point. ‘The Earl thinks you might be able to help me.’ I resisted the temptation to say, ‘But of course you already knew that.’ I’m sure it was a joke she had heard a thousand times before.
‘I need to know …’ I started to say and she cut me short with a gesture.
‘I’m afraid you get what you’re given,’ she said. ‘You’re here for the missing cards. I don’t tell clients why they had to take another three cards, not unless they turn up and ask.’ She smiled rather harshly. ‘But by then, it’s often too late.’
When she had finished telling my fortune that evening at Naomi’s, she had got me to put the picture cards back into the main pack, shuffle and then choose three more cards, face down. These she had looked at and put back into the pack without showing me and without comment. Now, here I was and asking what they were and why she did it like that.
‘Most people I see don’t have serious life or death problems,’ Anna said. ‘It’s usually career or relationships. But those who return are like you, in a bad way, and that’s what those trio of cards are for.’ She gestured with her hands. ‘They’re like the last chance saloon cards, they’re for the lost and the desperate.’
‘That pretty much describes me,’ I said. I drank some more tea.
She looked at me. ‘I know, or you wouldn’t be here.’
Anna stood up and clicked across the tiled floor in her heels, opened a concealed cupboard in the wall and took a rosewood box out, then came back and placed it on the table.
‘Can you touch it?’
I did so. It was icy cold. She looked at me questioningly.
‘Do you keep it in the fridge?’ I asked. She shook her head.
‘The cards we looked at when we were at Naomi’s were the major Arcana, they’re the traditional Tarot cards that everyone thinks of, the ones with the strange pictures. But there are fifty-six other cards, the minor Arcana, rather like playing cards.’ She took three cards out from the pack, from different places, without looking. She turned them over. ‘Here are your three: Typhon, or the Devil, the Twilight or the Moon, and one from the minor Arcana, the Queen of Clubs.’
I looked at the cards, at the archetypal illustrations, the Devil with his horns, seated on his throne, lording it over the man and woman, helplessly shackled to an iron cube. I looked at the dog and the wolf baying at the moon while a crab-like creature (I thought of doomed Craig Scott and his last meal) crawled from the water and the beautiful, tranquil face of the dark Queen.
Anna tapped the cards with a shapely, clear lacquered fingernail.
‘We have here then three distinct things. Betrayal; a snare or a trap; an attractive dark-haired woman. So, someone or something that you rely on, that you trust will betray you or otherwise let you down. You will be lured or fall into danger and there is a dark-haired woman in your life who is very powerful and means a lot to you.’
Naomi, I thought bitterly, Naomi betraying me with Montfort. But who is being trapped, me or him?
Then another thought, Jess? Please God, let it not be her. But she was undeniably an attractive dark-haired woman, and she did mean a lot to me.
‘The cards are what you make them,’ said Anna, ‘they don’t necessarily predict, they can warn, they can advise—’ she made a kind of helpless gesture with her hands ‘—even if you don’t believe, they can suggest different ways of looking or thinking. Different courses of action. But there is one thing that I will tell you.’ She gathered up the beautiful, strange cards and put them back in the box and closed the lid. ‘Come here.’
We crossed her living room and she opened the cupboard. It was small and had a wooden base.
‘Put your hands inside and feel.’ I did so. It was quite warm.
‘The cards were cold when you touched them,’ she said. ‘The Moon card also means Death, whatever you decide to do, be careful. Death is present.’
CHAPTER FORTY
The cards can suggest courses of action, she had said. The mysterious Dark Queen. Was it Naomi? I had to know more about her. Her name, her image seemed to be inextricably bound up with things and events.
Naomi.
What was her relationship with Montfort? Had he pressured her into it? Was that the betrayal that Anna had alluded to? Did she suspect him of killing Whitfield and was that why she had hired me, to either clear or convict her lover? He was a cunning, resourceful man after all and utterly unscrupulous. I knew he accepted bribes, I knew, from Jess, that he was a sex pervert. More than capable of coercing a woman into bed. Did she know anything about Arcadia?
There was, of course, the other possibility that I had to confront. The elephant in the room. Was it Naomi who had betrayed me? I had to know. I needed to know more about Naomi and so inexorably I found myself heading to Caramel Rosa’s.
From Byfield it’s only a twenty-minute drive to Slough, famous for the Betjeman line, ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, it isn’t fit for people now’ and as the place where the comedy The Office was set. There’s a lot more to Slough than that – there’s the headquarters of Burger King, ‘Home of the Whopper,’ as it says on the outside of the office block, for one, but it accurately sets the tone. It’s probably safe to say Slough won’t be a UNESCO World Heritage Site, despite the innovative linked light traffic system, the country’s first, to be more specific. It also boasted Europe
’s largest privately owned trading estate, the Mars factory and the stuffed dog in a display case at the railway station.
I drove through the endless road that led through Slough, the heavy, slow traffic giving me ample time to savour its delights, and, as I headed out towards West London and Heathrow on the A4, I found Caramel Rosa’s Bar and Grill, Naomi’s former place of employment.
I knew that it had been five years since she’d worked here but it was all I had to go on. Five years is a long time in the restaurant/bar game. It would be a miracle if anyone still remembered her, but I needed a miracle and I was prepared to look for one. Besides, what else could I do?
I pulled in to the car park. It was the end of lunch, about two thirty, and the place looked dead. It was hardly surprising, a joint like this wouldn’t come alive until the evening.
I walked across the car park. Rain was falling. Jets thundered overhead, Heathrow airport was within spitting distance. The building was one of those enormous roadhouse pubs that had been built in the 1930s besides the major new arterial roads that were constructed when motoring was beginning to take off. You can still see a few around: ugly; red brick; mostly turned into drive through fast food outlets. They tend to be located in unappealing places, the romance of the road never really materialised.
Rosa’s was no exception. It was a desolate place, four lanes of traffic outside, surrounded by warehouses and gigantic sheds selling building materials. An American façade with stars and stripes and a diner-style attempt at a makeover. I guessed when it was lit up at night it would look better but by day the cracks were showing.
I walked around to the back, past the bins, following my nose to the kitchen area.
There I found two young chefs, sitting on upturned plastic beer bottle crates and smoking post-lunch service cigarettes, shivering in their chefs’ whites, sheltered from the drizzle by a gazebo. They looked up at me, curious as to what I was doing here since I wasn’t staff or a delivery man.
‘Hi, is the head chef in?’ I asked.