The Lamorna Wink

by Martha Grimes

  “It is. It’s my aunt, who, knowing I wanted to get away from Long Piddleton-my village in Northants, that is-and all things Piddletonian, just for a change, a damned change, followed me and has taken up residence at that B-and-B in the village.”

  Daniel laughed. “Not to worry; she won’t last. No one can stand that place for more than a night or two.”

  “Wrong. Wrong on that score. She’s been there for over a week.”

  Melrose might not have recognized Daniel Bletchley with only the snapshots to go by. Sitting now in the wing chair beside them, and with a drink in his hand, he still might have escaped recognition. He was a man who was very alive, an aliveness not captured by a camera’s lens; He was apparently one of those people subdued by them; cameras didn’t “catch” him. Certainly, he was one who wasn’t tempted by them, for he was always looking away, or down, or in shadow. Melrose might have wondered if the two men were the same person.

  They were. From the way Daniel picked up the photograph of the children and looked at it, carefully set it back, and looked in his whisky glass, there could be no mistaking who he was.

  “Dad said you were a lot of help. He said you were at the Hall last night. With that detective.”

  “Commander Macalvie.”

  “Yes. I know him from… does he have any idea what’s going on?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not yet.”

  “Dad sometimes gives the impression of being-uh, demanding and impervious to people’s feelings.”

  “I’ve seen no sign of that, none.”

  Dan smiled, if a little uncertainly. “He’s very tough in business. Sometimes he appears to be steamrolling right over people… I’m trying to explain it to myself. Police seem to think whoever it was was trying to kill him and not Tom. I know Dad can be headstrong, arbitrary, intractable, but-” He shrugged.

  “If those qualities earn you a bullet in the back, I have a relation who’d be riddled.”

  Dan laughed. “Yes. You’re probably right.”

  Melrose thought for a moment. “Could it be some old grudge? Some old damage your father caused?”

  Dan was thoughtful, head down, the whisky glass, empty, swinging from the tips of his fingers. Melrose got up and took the glass from his hands. Dan thanked him absently. He put his elbows on his knees, made a bridge of his now empty fingers, and rested his mouth against them. He stared at the fire.

  Except for the occasional spark and split of wood and the click of glass against bottle, the room was perfectly still. Beyond the window, the quiet day. He could easily check Karen Bletchley’s account of what happened with that of her husband.

  “Daniel,” Melrose said without thinking; he was not usually free with first names on short acquaintance. “If you don’t mind my calling you that?”

  Of course he didn’t mind. The long fingers, the pianist’s fingers, waved this away and took the whisky. “Go on.”

  “I met your wife. I met Karen.” He felt uncomfortable, as if he were telling a secret. Or would have done, had it not been for what he suspected was an artful story of hers.

  Daniel was surprised. “Really? Where did you meet?”

  She hadn’t mentioned it. Why? “She came here, actually. It was only a few days ago.”

  Daniel set his drink on the table and again leaned forward, mouth against entwined fingers. Full attention.

  “She wanted-she said-to see the house again. I imagine tragedy-well, pulls one back. Look, I’m terribly, terribly sorry about your children, what happened to them. It was-” He searched for words. “I have none of my own.” Suddenly, Melrose felt the lack and was ashamed of it, as if he’d been considered for parenthood and been found wanting. Ridiculous, but there it was.

  Dan said nothing, but his eyes, scarcely visible over his fingertips, were wet. It would take very little, thought Melrose, to bring this man’s feelings to the surface. “She told me-” He tried to sort out what Karen had told Macalvie four years ago and had since told him. Then he went on to report what Mrs. Hayter had told him and, before that, Macalvie. And the rest of it. “The thing is this: Commander Macalvie has never let this case, what happened to your children, go. He’s never closed it. Now he wonders if the strange things that have been happening are related to what happened back then. That’s the reason I bring it up.” He felt fuddled. “I’m probably overstepping my bounds; Macalvie will talk to you about all of this. I certainly don’t want to bring up something that you must find painful.”

  “No. I don’t mind. I don’t want not to talk about it. It makes me ill not to be able to talk about it. So, please, go on.”

  “Well.” Now Melrose sat forward too, hands circling his glass. “Your wife went over that terrible night. She told me that earlier the children had come upon some people in the woods, more than once, a man and a woman. At first your wife thought nothing of it when they talked about it, but after a while she got to thinking it was peculiar. She didn’t know who the man was or who the woman was. That is, she didn’t actually see them. But… what do you make of all this?”

  “I didn’t know what to make of it. Mr. Macalvie asked the same questions.”

  “Did you think she was-they were real?”

  “You mean did the kids make them up?”

  “Not exactly. I wondered if-” What in hell was he doing? He knew nothing about Bletchley’s present relationship with his wife. Why should he be putting himself in a policeman’s place, in Macalvie’s place, raising issues like this? “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing for you to be sorry about. Through no fault of your own you’ve got involved with my family. I’ve no idea what Karen told you. Since Noah and Esmé died, we haven’t talked much.” He turned his face toward the high window that faced the cliff and the bay. “I’m not sure we did before.” He rested his head against the tall back of the chair and closed his eyes in the manner of a man who is tired to death. Life, however, would never let Daniel Bletchley go, merely at his bidding. “Sometimes I catch my own thoughts and wonder, How can I think of anything at all except what happened to those little children? Have you ever had something happen in your life, some event that washes over everything else and flattens it?”

  Melrose couldn’t answer. It was as if something were stuck in his throat.

  There was a silence. Into it, Daniel said suddenly, “Chris Wells has disappeared.”

  Melrose was surprised by the seeming irrelevance of the remark. “You knew her.”

  “Yes. I knew her well.” He took a long drink of his whisky.

  “There was a woman murdered in Lamorna Cove. Your father told you about this?” When Daniel nodded, Melrose went on. “She once worked at the Woodbine.”

  “I think I remember her slightly.” He leaned forward, rolling the glass between his hands. “But I didn’t know this woman and Chris had had a falling out.”

  “I think it was over Johnny.”

  “Johnny? But, dear God, if it was four years ago, the boy couldn’t have been more than-what?-thirteen?”

  “He’s probably always seemed older than he is. And he’s a very handsome lad, very appealing to women, I’d think.”

  Daniel shook his head. “And now because this woman was murdered and Chris has disappeared, it’s post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is that it? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.” He shook his head again, unable to come up with a word that would convey his disdain for such an idea. “Chris could never, never do that.”

  Dan Bletchley had known her well, clearly. “Not even to protect Johnny?”

  Dan looked at him with a surprised quickness. “Protect Johnny? From what?”

  “Sorry. I’m just playing devil’s advocate. I had no reason for saying that. I don’t know her, of course; I’ve never met her. But I’ve certainly got the impression she loves him a lot, and for his part-well, his feelings for her seem to stop just one step short of worship.”

  “Yes. She certainly does love him. Still.” He ran his hand through his straight light-bro
wn hair, which had a way of standing up in ridges when he did this. And this gesture too made him look young, like the boy he must have been. That was one more thing about him, a boyishness that would have appealed to women. His sexuality would simply bowl women over. He had a force and a heat about him a woman would feel like the siroccos that blow across the dunes.

  “Let’s have another,” said Melrose, heading for the drinks table again. When he was back in his seat, he turned the talk to something less volatile, telling Daniel how the house had affected him the first time he’d seen it.

  Dan laughed. “The Uninvited. I thought I was the only one who remembered that film. It must have been a rerun on the telly. I have to confess one thing: I loved that background music.”

  Melrose waved his glass and hummed the tune. Was he drunk?

  Dan drained his glass, stood up, and said, “Come on. And bring the decanter.”

  “Where?”

  Dan was already out of the room. “Upstairs,” he called back over his shoulder. “The piano’s still there, isn’t it?”

  Following him up the stairs, Melrose said, “I was trying to play it.”

  Dan stood looking around the nearly empty room as if long absence might have altered things irrevocably. “How I missed this room. I could stand where you are now for what seemed like the entire day watching the water, getting the rhythm of it, thinking music. God, what a cliché.” He set his glass on the corner of the piano and sat down on the bench.

  Melrose recalled how Daniel’s gaze had traveled the length of the rosewood banister the moment he’d set foot in the house. He was speaking the truth when Dan had said he’d come to console his father, but Melrose wondered if this house and this room hadn’t been part of what pulled him back. As there must be for Daniel Bletchley many rooms and countless pianos, Melrose wondered about his attachment to this one. Or, rather, if the attachment were so strong, could anything have driven him away?

  The music happened so suddenly and with such force that Melrose had to take a step backward. Waterfalls of music, cascading notes, a whole rich canvas of that song Melrose had tried to pick out with a finger. He stood looking out the window as if the music might be rushing against the rocks, shaking the waves in some violent rapprochement with the elements.

  And the thing about it was, the original composition, though vastly appealing, was not great music, not complex, not textured, but a sentimental song with rather predictable crescendos and diminuendos. Yet this was such felt music. The sheer volume made it seem as if all of the air had been drained from the room and gone to swell the music. Were he truthful, he thought, there were only two responses to such a sound: to faint or to weep. He was not truthful and did neither.

  “ ‘Stella by Starlight,’ ” said Daniel. “Do you know what I did? I was eleven or twelve when I heard it. I wrote to the composer and told him how much I liked it. He sent me his original score. I never got over that.” He shook his head as he fingered the opening bars again.

  “But that’s wonderful. You must have been very persuasive as a lad. Not to say very talented. Play something of yours.”

  “Of mine? I just did.”

  “I thought you said-”

  Daniel smiled. “Sorry. I’m being enigmatic.” He sighed, thought for a moment, and began to play an étude.

  Melrose thought it was technically very fine, yet it didn’t have the weight of the Stella he’d just played. Although “Stella by Starlight” was, no matter how beguiling the melody, sentimental stuff, whatever it lacked in complexity was more than made up for by the complex emotions of the man who played it.

  Lost in these reflections and the water below, Melrose jumped when he heard the door knocker.

  Dan stopped playing. “Your aunt?”

  Melrose looked at his watch and answered, ruefully, “My aunt.”

  Talk about the Uninvited.

  41

  Before she was even over the doorsill, Agatha was running on about the shooting at the Hall. “It’s not hard to see it, I’ve done a little-how d’you do?” she said, acknowledging Daniel Bletchley’s presence, before herding herself into the living room on the right, talking a mile a minute as she went through, unaware that Melrose wasn’t with her. Talk talk talk.

  “Listen, thanks for the drinks,” said Daniel.

  “Thanks, dear heavens, for the music!”

  “My pleasure.” Daniel went out the door and turned. “You’ll come to the funeral?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Ah. Good. You’re really a part of all this. You knew him. Anyway, please come.” With that, he trudged across the gravel to his car.

  Agatha was at the window, watching Daniel Bletchley drive away. “Who is that man?”

  “Daniel Bletchley. You just met him, remember?”

  “That’s the name of the person who runs that depressing home.”

  “He’s Morris Bletchley’s son.”

  Agatha hugged herself and made a shuddery sound. “It’s freezing in here. You could at least have laid a fire. You knew I was coming for tea.”

  “True. We’re not having it in here. Come along.”

  Complaining all the way across the foyer and down the short hall-about the temperature, the size of the place, the velvet hangings in the dining room she passed, the drafts, the prospect she glimpsed through a round window facing the bay, the bay itself, the coast of England, all of England, and the world-she finally came to rest on the small sofa by the fire. The air through which she’d passed hummed and vibrated with the tinny sound of a plucked banjo string.

  Melrose said, “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize Bletchley. He’s a pianist. He played that white piano in Betty’s or Binkey’s or whatever that tearoom was called.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  It was as good a story as any. “Harrogate, dear aunt. Don’t you recall staying at the Old Swan with your friend Theodore?”

  “You mean Teddy.”

  “Well, she looked like a Theodore.” Sighing with genuine pleasure, Melrose recalled that wonderful twenty minutes of conversation when he had set himself the challenge of not speaking a word, yet all the while giving the impression of a man with brilliant conversation. Wasn’t it amazing how blind people could be to the world outside of their own egos?

  “You mean that man was the afternoon-tea-hour pianist at Betty’s?”

  Betty’s was a Harrogate landmark. Agatha was impressed; she always was by the wrong things.

  “Yes. I was trying to talk him into playing in the Woodbine. Well, excuse me while I put the kettle on.” Melrose turned to go.

  “You mean the tea’s not ready?” Her sigh was pained. “Oh, honestly, men!”

  She seemed to have forgotten that oh-honestly-men had been producing her tea daily at Ardry End without fail or error. He put the kettle on the hob and was back in the library quick as one of young Johnny’s card tricks.

  “I was telling you about my own little investigation. We cannot leave it to doltish police such as that Constable Evans!”

  “There are some distinctly un-doltish police on the job. Mr. Macalvie, mainly.”

  She straightened the ruffle of her fussy flowered blouse. “Of course, they’re all barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Which tree is that?”

  Ignoring the tree, she leaned forward and whispered-who ever she thought might be overhearing, Melrose didn’t know-“What we need to search for is your local homophobic, and I think I’ve got him!”

  The kettle screamed.

  No wonder.

  Melrose was out and back barely in time for the tea to steep. This announcement of his aunt’s might prove to be entertaining. He told her that her homophobia was misplaced, since the killer hadn’t even intended to kill Tom Letts. “It was Morris Bletchley he or she was after.”

  “That’s patently absurd. That’s the trouble with you so-called intellectuals, you can’t see what’s right under your noses. What I heard was”-again she
leaned toward him and said in a whispery hiss-“he has AIDS-full blown AIDS! Can’t have that in a village. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that Pfinn person shot him. If ever there was a homophobic, it’s that man!”

  Melrose had a hard time of it not to pour scalding tea down her neck. He was never a proselytizer of gay rights or anything else; he didn’t care much one way or the other. But for Tom, yes, he would proselytize. “Your bigoted nature-”

  “What?” Sheer amazement sat on her features at the realization that Melrose was overtly criticizing her.

  “-precludes any possibility of your seeing a person’s true worth. All you’re doing is projecting your own fears on another person or situation. That’s what homophobia is, isn’t it? Projecting one’s own fear of partaking of other men’s needs and desires? That’s what phobia in general is, a fear of being the Other. Anyway, you didn’t know Tom Letts. I did, and I liked him very much.”

  Agatha looked all around, as if the dread virus might have infiltrated Seabourne. The look made Melrose laugh; it was so much the look that would be called forth by the doors crashing open upon them. The Uninvited!

  “I don’t see it’s anything to laugh about.”

  Too bad. “As for your chosen homophobic-Mr. Pfinn, is it?-I don’t know how you come to that remarkable conclusion, since Mr. Pfinn engages in conversation only to be contradictory. He stays away from words.”

  “Well, he didn’t with Esther and me. Of course, people do tend to confide in me, you’ve noticed.”

  Melrose felt his eyes open as wide as any cartoon character. As did Mr. Pfinn, Melrose stayed away from words.

  Agatha leaned forward, balancing a biscuit on her knee. “The man absolutely loathes homosexuals!”

  “Mr. Pfinn loathes everyone. Loathing is not a criterion by which to judge Mr. Pfinn.”

  42

  Pfinn was living up to Melrose’s assessment of him (splenetic, peevish, and unaccommodating) that night in the Drowned Man by refusing to allow Brian Macalvie another drink in the saloon bar.