Faithful unto Death

by Caroline Graham

  For a while Elfrida’s mind wandered, recalling the towering pagodas of flowers—red roses and lilies and Malmaison carnations that had filled her dressing room to the ceiling and lined the long stone corridors outside. She thought of dinner at Sardis and how everyone in the restaurant would get to their feet and raise their glasses when she came in. Of dancing in her white satin Worth gown at DeLanceys on Madison Avenue. And of the rope of rose gold Okinawa pearls that Jed Harris, the meanest man on Broadway, had looped round the neck of a pretty little marmoset and had delivered to her suite at the Astor Hotel.

  Elfrida sighed but briefly for, unlike many people with a brilliantly successful past, she was extremely happy in what some might regard as a rather mundane present. Struggling to sit up, she looked around for Cubby. Not seeing him immediately, Elfrida closed her eyes and concentrated hard, for she believed her secret thoughts to have great carrying power.

  And sure enough, a moment later, he came trotting round the corner of the house bearing a bunch of forget-me-nots and stephanotis.

  “For your bedroom, dear,” he called across the herbaceous border. “Which vase would you prefer?”

  “I need my writing things, Cubby. If you would be so kind.”

  “Of course.”

  Cubby retrieved the cigar box, writing paper, envelopes and the gold and tortoiseshell lorgnettes from the trolley in the sitting room. One of the loveliest things about Elfrida, he thought as he made his way back into the garden, was her manners. And, though exquisite, they were in no way artificial. She just always considered other people’s feelings.

  “We simply must do something about those poor souls next door,” said Elfrida, proving his point. She opened her cigar box and took out a fountain pen. “If it is only to express our sympathy and offer what help we can.”

  “I doubt if it would be wanted.”

  “This is no time to worry about being rebuffed, my love.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just can’t imagine what on earth we could do.”

  “Sometimes just knowing that concern—and I’m not talking about prurient nosiness or the wish to meddle but genuine concern—exists can perhaps yield a grain of comfort.”

  Cubby still looked doubtful. His whole nature shrank from entering the force field of another’s agony. All he wanted was to be left alone to cultivate his garden.

  Elfrida, understanding this, said, “You don’t have to be involved, sweeting.”

  Then of course Cubby wanted to be involved, fearing that the Brockleys might think he didn’t care.

  “I shall write a little note which will naturally be from both of us and slip it through their letter box.” Elfrida selected a sheet of thick ivory paper with taffeta watermarks and a long narrow envelope. She uncapped her pen.

  Coincidentally Reg Brockley, accompanied by Shona, was at the same time entering St. Chad’s Lane at the point where the very last house in the village abutted on to the barley fields.

  Reg had neither seen nor spoken to anyone, except PC Perrot and the vicar, since the public announcement of his daughter’s death. He dreaded the time when a confrontation would be forced upon him and had chosen to take his walk at twelve thirty for this very reason. For most of Fawcett Green’s inhabitants would surely, at that hour, be either preparing or actually eating their lunch.

  Shona had been allowed out again into the back garden and had, out of timid desperation, once more fouled that pristine velvet showpiece. She had crept back into the house with the deepest apprehension, peering round the kitchen door and cringing when Reg approached.

  It was this as much as anything that had driven him to go out. He no longer gave a damn about the garden but this was his daughter’s dog. Plainly anxious, bewildered and lonely, Shona had received no exercise since the evening Brenda disappeared, let alone any word of comfort or affection. Somehow Reg had made himself take the lead off the hook in the hall, as Brenda had done every night of her life. Then, after checking that Iris was still deeply asleep and the lane was deserted, he and Shona had set off.

  They made a square round the nearest field, the poodle moping and sighing at Reg’s heels. She never leapt and pranced now. He tried to make conversation but simply felt foolish and could think of nothing to say. Brenda would have chattered away to the dog about everything and nothing, using sweet pet names and baby talk. Unbelievably, he and Iris had sometimes been irritated by this.

  On the way back and just a few yards from his house, a woman whose name Reg did not know but who lived in the village appeared. She was on a bicycle and travelling towards him. It seemed inevitable that they must pass each other.

  Reg’s stomach bucked and churned. In the throat-searing heat his upper lip and forehead became drenched in cool sweat. Convinced that she would know just who he was, he stared hard at the moving polished toecaps of his shoes.

  But then, as they drew nearer to each other, an extraordinary thing happened. His gaze would not stay lowered. He felt his eyes being tugged upwards and sideways, again and again. A confused need for human contact overwhelmed him. And by the time she was barely a few feet away he was staring, hard and determined, directly into her face.

  The woman started frowning; looking at her watch. She shook her wrist, checked the watch again, tutted and sighed with an irritation that was plainly artificial. By the time all this had been accomplished she was well past him and pedalling quickly away.

  Reg stood quite still, gazing after the departing cyclist, amazed at the distress he felt at the rebuff. It was as if he had suddenly become invisible. And, worse, untouchable.

  Slowly he covered the remaining distance to The Larches. As he approached the gate, a figure draped in floating organza was just coming out. No problem with recognition on this occasion.

  Forewarned by now, Reg braced himself. He stood aside for her to pass; Shona humbly came to heel.

  “Mr. Brockley.”

  “Good . . . er . . .” Reg licked his dry lips and tried again. “Good morning, Mrs. Molfrey.”

  “I just wanted to say how very sorry both Cubby and myself were to hear the terrible news about Brenda. We’re close by, as you know, and if there is anything, anything at all we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.” Whilst speaking the last few words, she laid her hand gently on his arm.

  It was this, or so Reg thought, long afterwards, that broke him. He had not shed a tear since his daughter’s death. Now the frozen shell round his heart splintered, cracked, fell away. He stood there weeping in the street and pain ran through his veins like fire.

  Sergeant Troy did not drive back to Causton straightaway. So far his purse was empty of all save bad news and he wanted to be able to offer at least a coin or two which had a positive ring.

  Troy thought about Gray Patterson. He had had as much to do with Sarah as anyone in the village. And even if his attempts to know her better had, as he had put it, “got nowhere,” he must have found out quite a bit about her background, family, friends and so forth during their conversations. He might also know where she’d hopped off to.

  It took Troy all of three minutes to walk round the corner to Patterson’s. That was about all you could say in favour of country life, in the sergeant’s opinion. At least everything was near everything else. Pub, shop, post office. Trouble was they were all surrounded by miles and miles and miles of nothing.

  The first thing he noticed was that the agent’s For Let board had been taken down. It was lying on its side just behind the belt of blue piceas. Bess came rushing up, doing her stuff. Troy liked to think the welcome meant she remembered him.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Patterson.”

  “Hullo.” Patterson’s greeting was much more cautious. He had plainly not forgotten their last meeting. As if sensing a certain reserve in the situation, Bess’s tail began to wag less confidently. “What is it this time?”

  “Let the house, have you, sir?”

  “That’s right. Move out at the end of the month and, yes, I w
ill inform you of my new address.”

  “Planning to go far?”

  “I’m going to look at a flat in Uxbridge this afternoon.” He had been cleaning up the drive when Troy arrived. Now he started again wielding the rake with smooth, sweeping movements, lightly dragging the pea shingle back and forth. Tugging up weeds.

  “Thirsty work,” suggested Sergeant Troy through dry lips.

  “What do you want?”

  “A word about Miss Lawson, actually.”

  “I’m not discussing Sarah behind her back.”

  “Mr. Patterson, refusing to help the police with their inquiries—”

  “Don’t give me that crap.”

  Sergeant Troy reacted immediately to this insult. Colour flared beneath his near transparent skin. His cheeks became hollow with tension as he clamped his lips together. He concealed his annoyance by bending down to pat the collie, murmuring, “Good dog.”

  He used these few moments to ask himself some sensible questions. Such as, could he handle this supercilious bastard as the chief might in similar circumstances? Could he, just this once, not let himself be pushed all over the shop by his emotions? He decided to give it a whirl.

  “Thing is,” Troy drew a deep breath and straightened up, “we’re rather concerned about her. Were you aware that she has been missing for the past two days?”

  “I’m not sure I’d use such an emotive word as missing.”

  “Could I ask when you last saw her, Mr. Patterson?” God, this phoney civility stuck in his throat. Troy could not believe that the words This Man Is A Creeping Toad were not branded on his forehead in letters of fire.

  “Well, it was four days ago actually.” Gray had no intention of saying how often he had called at the house. Or how, for no logical reason, anxiety as to Sarah’s wellbeing had been gradually building up in him until, last night, he had been unable to sleep.

  “And how did she seem to you then?”

  Gray hesitated. He could just imagine what the police would make of the news that Sarah had been distressed beyond measure by Alan Hollingsworth’s death. Yet he felt to prevaricate might look odd.

  “A little bit down, I think.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Look, a woman has disappeared here and two people have died in mysterious circumstances. Even if they weren’t well known or liked, something like that seeps into the bricks and mortar of a small community. I think everyone has been affected to some degree or other.”

  “And she’d be specially sensitive. Being artistic.”

  “Up to a point, Lord Copper,” said Gray drily. Sarah had not been all that understanding when it came to his own feelings.

  Troy did not reply and it was not until Gray glanced up again that he became aware that the other man appeared flushed and angry. It occurred to him that perhaps Troy had never heard the phrase before and thought he was being sarcastic. He said, “It’s a quote, Sergeant.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir. Thanks very much.” Always more comfortable with a lie, Troy felt his flush subside. “So, Miss Lawson didn’t tell you she was going away?”

  “There’s no reason why she should.”

  “Sounds a bit sudden.” Troy remembered the plates in the sink, the feeling he’d had that someone had simply walked straight out, leaving the house exactly as it was. Just like Mrs. Hollingsworth.

  “Isn’t tomorrow her teaching day?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could you give me the name of the place where she works, please?” Troy produced his notebook and jotted it down, murmuring casually as he did so, “We did actually talk to Miss Lawson on Saturday morning.”

  “Really?” His voice was wary.

  “Mmm. She hadn’t quite realised that Mr. Hollingsworth’s death was being treated as suspicious. I must say when we explained this, her reaction was, well rather extreme.”

  “In what way?”

  “She passed out.”

  “Christ!”

  “Which naturally gave one pause for thought, as you might say.”

  “You surely don’t think she had anything to do with it?”

  “Who’s to say?”

  “I’m to say. I know Sarah. You’re barking up totally the wrong tree.”

  “Have you discussed the matter with her then, Mr. Patterson?”

  Gray paused then, realising that “no” would not be believed. “Briefly. And came to no conclusion, before you ask.”

  “Did she ever mention any close friends or relatives to you? I’m thinking of where she might be staying.”

  “Where you might be able to hunt her down, you mean.”

  “I think hunt is rather an emotive word, don’t you, sir?” Pleased with this natty bit of table turning, Troy put away his notebook. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Patterson. Oh, by the way . . .”

  “Now what?” Gray had already returned to his raking.

  “Your alibi for the sixth of June checks out. The cashier at the cinema remembers you buying a ticket.” All that meant, of course, was that Patterson had gone into the Odeon at the time he said he had. Nothing to say what time he had come out. Might have been sitting in there five minutes before climbing out of the toilet window. Still no point in saying so at this moment in time. Get them off their guard and keep them there.

  Troy was quite chuffed with his performance. He went into the phone box and gave the Coalport and National a bell. He asked for Miss Willing, left his name and explained that one or two things had come up regarding the Brockley case that he thought she might be able to help him with. He didn’t like to disturb her at work but perhaps later?

  Then he rang Sarah’s college and was told that a supply teacher was taking the Stained Glass Design Course this week. Sarah Lawson had rung in saying she had had an accident which had left her incapacitated. She would not be returning until next term at the earliest.

  Barnaby had withdrawn from the incident room to his office three floors away and was already thinking of going back. The atmosphere, merely soupy downstairs, was positively gluey up here.

  The DCI’s blue and white striped shirt had great dark patches of sweat under the arms. He had opened the front and loosened his tie the better to ease the collar away from the back of his burning neck. Even the desk fan, heaving its propellor blades slowly round, appeared to be on the point of grinding to a halt.

  The idea was that, being quieter up here, it would be easier to think. He was struggling to put this notion into practice but his brains had become addled by the heat. He heaved himself to his feet and wandered over to the wall by the window on which was spread a map of the Thames Valley area.

  He studied it with a certain amount of gloom. Somewhere in that great expanse of land and water existed—or, more likely, had by now ceased to exist—Mrs. Alan Hollingsworth. And all the newspaper publicity and posters and flyers and handouts had failed to discover where.

  Barnaby, though deeply disappointed, was not really surprised. If it was easy enough to disappear under one’s own volition—and Missing Persons files were heartbreakingly clear on this point—how much more easy to vanish from public view under duress.

  And vanish was the word. Like the pretty assistant of a master magician, she had entered the magic box—in this case the ladies’ loo in a department store—and apparently never come out again.

  The key word, of course, being apparently. The store was very busy on market day, which was probably why none of the assistants or shoppers had noticed Simone leave. Certainly she must have walked through Bobby’s to get to the street. The ladies’ room was on the second floor so she could hardly have climbed through the window.

  Barnaby closed his eyes and pictured the thronging streets, busy stalls with their bright striped awnings and bawling, shouting occupants, hot dog and fresh fish mobile vans, and the open-sided lorries selling clothes and china. Simone, or whoever was pulling her strings, had certainly chosen the right day for it.

  A knock at the glass-p
anelled door and Sergeant Troy put his head round.

  “About time.” Barnaby lifted his crumpled linen jacket from the old-fashioned hat stand. “Are we fit then?”

  “No, chief.” He came properly into the room. “Sorry. She’s scarpered.”

  “What!”

  “Left the house soon after our visit. Hasn’t been seen since. Phoned the college to say she won’t be in again this term.”

  “Oh hell.” The Chief Inspector stumbled back to the old leather swivel chair behind his desk, slumped into it and groaned again. “Bloody sodding buggering hell.”

  “Yeah, it’s a pisser all right.” Troy closed the door and leaned against it. “I tried Patterson on the off chance. Him doing a bit of courting, like. Or trying to. But he doesn’t have a clue where she’s gone either. Or so he says.”

  “Of all the stupid, stupid . . .” Barnaby’s voice shook with self-directed anger. It had been plain, talking to the woman, that she was emotionally entangled in some way with what had been going on. He had known of her friendship with Gray Patterson, the main man in the frame. He had seen her trembling with nervous distress throughout their whole interview and passing out with shock on discovering Hollingsworth had not taken his own life. On coming round she had wept.

  And still he had not taken her in. Just how serious an error his decision was to leave matters for a day or two now became plain. A breathing space was how he remembered regarding it. Time to “settle into the reassuring belief that she had seen the last of them.” What a grave miscalculation. What swaggering hubris.

  And now she had turned the tables on her tormentors with a vengeance, presenting them with the alarming proposition that it was they who might well have seen the last of her.

  Barnaby returned to his desk in the incident room to wade through the latest backlog of information and kill time till the five o’clock briefing. He found clarification from Scenes of Crime who, having received a facsimile of Brenda Brockley’s fingerprints from Heathrow, were now able to inform him that they had not been present anywhere in Nightingales. No more than he had expected.