by Diane Janes
‘My guess is that she and her sister didn’t get on,’ said Fran. ‘Her sister made the arrangements for the funeral, but only because there isn’t anyone else. I’d say there’s no love lost between them. She wasn’t even upset.’
‘So the picture we’re getting is of a woman who lived alone and had very few friends. Maybe she did throw herself under a train.’
‘Excuse me, I live alone. That isn’t a motive for suicide.’
‘But you’ve got at least one friend,’ Tom said, mischievously emphasizing the ‘one’. ‘You told me about her on the telephone.’
Fran gave him a sidelong look, but he was concentrating on the road, so she continued, ‘I’m not convinced that Linda was lonely. You know how some lonely people are obviously needy. They latch on – especially to other people in clubs and societies. Linda wasn’t like that. She was comfortable with herself. Sort of … self-sufficient.’
Tom digested this for a moment in silence. ‘We have to remember that to a great many people, suicide is still a sin. If they all believe that Linda took her own life, there might be a degree of embarrassment there. Guilt, too, thinking that she had been so unhappy and nobody even knew.’
‘I’m more and more convinced that someone killed her,’ Fran said. ‘Either they pushed her in front of a train, or else she was already dead when she was dumped on the line.’
‘Someone who was trying to make it look like suicide,’ Tom mused. ‘A train must make an awful mess of somebody. It mightn’t be possible to tell if they’d been hit on the head first or exactly how long they’d been dead.’
‘If someone did kill Linda, it might not be your million-to-one Barnaby revelation theory. There could be other motives.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Tom. ‘What else have we got?’
‘Money, for starters. That house must be worth quite a bit if it belonged to her. Linda always dressed well and she ran a nice motorcar. I’ve heard her talking about taking holidays on the Continent. And another thing: where did her money come from? Her sister looked …’ she hesitated, not wishing to appear snobbish, ‘… she looked quite … ordinary. No holidays on the Continent for her, I’ll bet. Her shoes looked quite worn.’
‘Gosh, you are observant,’ said Tom, and Fran tried not to feel childishly pleased. ‘Maybe Linda married into money?’ he continued. ‘Or … oh, I don’t know – maybe she was a blackmailer. You know, keeping quiet about the affair between the High Priest and the Head Acolyte.’
‘Hugh Allonby and Sarah Ingoldsby?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you know?’
‘No. But I should have realized. He’s forever pawing her. And she’s always looking doe-eyed at him. Yeuch.’ Fran shuddered before asking, ‘How did you find out? Or am I the only person in the society who hadn’t guessed?’
‘Oh, I think they manage to keep it pretty much a secret, but I’d overheard a couple of things which made me wonder, and then I happened to see him going into her room at last year’s conference, which pretty much confirmed it. In fact …’ he hesitated, then decided to plough on, ‘… I had a bit of a laugh with John James over it this year. You know, it’s his first year sorting out the accommodation at the Furnival Towers and he told me that old Allonby called him up especially to tell him that he and Mrs Ingoldsby always had adjacent rooms at the conference for “organizational purposes”. I’ve heard it called a few things, but never that before.’
Fran laughed before she could stop herself. It was hard to imagine either of that creepy pair having an affair with anyone, but maybe that was what made them so well suited to one another. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘Who would have imagined such goings-on at the Robert Barnaby Society? I believe there is both a Mrs Allonby and a Mr Ingoldsby. I suppose needing to be at society meetings is an ideal cover for their affair. No wonder Little Miss Fuss Face got so upset when she thought that she would have to stand down from the committee this year and managed to wangle a co-option on account of her connection with the Vester House Museum. I wonder how many extra-curricular committee meetings take place at various secluded little venues which the rest of us know nothing about. I don’t suppose either of them would be best pleased to have their spouses let in on the secret, but then again, I don’t think Hugh Allonby’s book sales would run to paying off a blackmailer either.’
‘It certainly wouldn’t run to the price of a Talbot 105,’ said Tom. ‘But Linda’s money came from somewhere and the origin of it might be relevant, because if someone is being fleeced in some way, they’d want to put a stop to it.’
‘So.’ Fran counted the theories off on her fingers. ‘There’s possible blackmail, there’s someone hoping to inherit, there’s the dark secret she may have been on the point of revealing about Robert Barnaby, there’s the sinister man in the background …’
‘What sinister man?’
‘She was an attractive woman. You can’t ever rule out the possibility of there being a sinister man. Don’t you read detective stories?’
‘Very well then. We won’t rule out the sinister man – whoever he might be. And finally, there’s suicide.’
‘She didn’t kill herself,’ said Fran. ‘I just know she didn’t.’
‘Nothing at all was said about her husband,’ Tom mused.
‘People don’t always want to talk about their husbands.’
‘Of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘Please don’t think …’ He trailed into awkward silence, adding, when she gave him no help, ‘I know that it can be incredibly difficult. People lost in the war and so on.’
Fran took a deep breath. ‘I have to go to the unveiling of a war memorial on Sunday. My mother wants me to go along because both my brothers’ names will be on it. My husband did serve in the war but he was a non-combatant. There was something wrong with his hearing, so he got a desk job, I believe. I didn’t know him then. We were married in 1922, but a few years later he met someone else that he liked better than me and took himself off to live with her instead.’
‘You still wear his ring.’
‘I am still, technically, his wife.’
‘Beastly business, these war memorials,’ he said quietly. ‘The war has been over for ten years and some districts are still squabbling about how to remember, as if any of us is ever going to forget. I’m sorry about your brothers. I lost an older brother too. His name was William but we always called him Will.’
They travelled the next mile or two in silence. It was a comfortable silence, Fran thought, into which the difficult topics of lost lives and a failed marriage could fade without any need of further explanation. At least now he knew how things stood.
In spite of the darkening skies, her heart felt light. The front seat of his Hudson brought them into such close physical proximity that when he changed gear the sleeve of his overcoat brushed lightly against the dark fabric of her jacket. She did not want the journey to end, but they had almost reached the turning for her cottage.
‘It’s the next left,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for driving me. I hope you will come in and have some tea.’
‘I wish I could, but I’m running late as it is after getting stuck behind that slow lorry, and I promised to be home by six without fail. My parents have organized some blasted dinner at their place this evening and I really have to be there.’ He sounded genuinely disappointed. ‘In the meantime, what’s our plan of action?’
‘This is it.’ She managed to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she indicated the cottage and he obediently slowed the car to a standstill at her gate. ‘One of us obviously has to contact the sister and tactfully ask about Linda’s research papers and who is going to get them. I should probably do it as I live nearest.’
‘Better if you do it,’ Tom agreed. ‘As you don’t live very far, you might be able to wangle an invitation to call on her and explain about the material on Robert Barnaby. Then you could get her talking, see if you can find out a bit more about Linda herself.’
‘And in the m
eantime, what angle will you be following, Special Agent Dod?’
‘I thought I might book myself a night at the Furnival Towers. I could let on that I was working in the area. I want to test out how easy it would be to kidnap someone from the hotel.’
‘Do you think that’s wise? I mean, aren’t there laws about that sort of thing?’
Tom laughed. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Checking how you would get in and out of the building at night without being spotted and all that kind of thing.’
The wild idea ran through Fran’s mind that he might be waiting for her to suggest that she should spend the night there too. There was an expectant pause while they watched the wind tearing at the bushes outside. The weather had worsened considerably in the past half hour and it buffeted the car in unsteadying gusts. An old cigarette packet catapulted unexpectedly from beneath the hedge and skidded across the road at high speed.
‘I’ll need both hands on the wheel at this rate,’ he said. ‘It’s a pig of a road in weather like this.’
‘Thank you so much for driving me up there,’ she said again. The moment had passed. It was somehow too late now to say anything about staying the night at the Furnival Towers.
As he got out and came around to open the car door for her, she wondered whether a friendly parting peck on the cheek would be appropriate. She was still considering the point as he opened the door, at which point the wind tried to snatch his folded map from the dashboard, leading to an undignified scramble as they both tried to grab it. ‘Hurry up.’ He laughed. ‘Everything’s blowing away.’
There was nothing for it but to exit the car as fast as she could and shut the door. She knew that she must look like a scarecrow with one hand restraining her hat and her hair blowing all over her face. She staggered across to the gate and then had to wrestle her hat and handbag under control while she attempted to unlatch it. Once that had been accomplished, she turned back just in time to see him raise his arm in a lazy salute of departure. She waved in return, standing in the gateway and watching as his car rounded the bend.
To her considerable surprise, no sooner had Tom’s car gone out of sight than a dark blue Austin 7 appeared from the other direction and glided to a halt. She was even more astonished when the driver’s door opened and Stephen-with-a-ph-Latchford got out and walked towards her.
‘What jolly good luck,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d missed you. I was passing by, so I decided to call in and show you this fascinating piece I’ve just come across about dear old Barnaby.’
Fran gathered her wits, dragging down her windblown skirt with as much dignity as she could muster and forcing her mouth into a thin smile. ‘I’ve just got back from a funeral.’ It was of course a socially acceptable time to make a call, but she hoped that he would take the hint and realize that it wasn’t a convenient moment.
Instead, he stood his ground and adopted a solicitous smile, saying, ‘Oh dear. Is it anyone I’m liable to know?’
‘It was Linda Dexter’s. I attended on behalf of the society.’
‘Oh dear. I hope it wasn’t too sad for you. I’m very curious about Mrs Dexter; you must tell me all about it.’
To Fran’s irritation, he had by now sidestepped her at the gate and was standing on the path, holding it open, on the clear expectation of being admitted to the house. It would be impossible to get rid of him without being downright rude. She had some difficulty locating the front door key within her handbag, the wind was shrieking through the nearby trees, making them moan like old men in torment, and here was Stephen Latchford, following her up to the front door, with the memory of his strange persistence about the lift on the last day of the conference surfacing to add to her general sense of discomfiture.
Once she had the front door open, he followed her into the cramped little hall, exclaiming at the sight of the living room. ‘What a super room.’ He walked in uninvited and held up one of the tapestry sofa cushions. ‘Did you sew this yourself? No? It’s very well chosen. Shall I light the fire for you?’
She wanted to tell him not to touch anything, but that seemed ridiculous. The fire was ready-laid and putting a match to it the obvious thing to do, while at the same time his offer represented an inappropriate degree of familiarity in the house of someone he hardly knew. To her astonishment, after lighting the sitting-room fire, he then followed her into the kitchen while she made a pot of tea. She didn’t want to offer him a cup but she was gasping for one herself, and anyway, it would appear churlish not to offer him something.
When they were back in the sitting room, he asked her again about Linda’s funeral and she told him that it had been a simple service. ‘She didn’t have a big family, so there weren’t exactly regiments of people there.’
‘Very sad for her family,’ he said. ‘Inconsiderate of her, though. Topping herself at the conference like that.’
‘Is that what you think? That she killed herself?’
‘Well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? That’s what everyone thinks. The police are certainly taking that line. They as good as said so when they came to see me last week.’
‘Why did the police want to see you?’
‘I was in the room directly across the corridor from her the night she decided to pop out and throw herself under a train, so naturally they wanted to know if I’d seen or heard anything that night, but of course I hadn’t. I went to sleep at about midnight and didn’t stir again until half past seven. I understand they called on the person who’d been in the room next door to her too, but apparently no one saw or heard anything. Well, it’s not as if members of the society spend their nights creeping around the hotel corridors, is it? Not unless they’re Mr Allonby and Mrs Ingoldsby.’ He gave her a knowing smirk, which made her squirm inwardly.
Was she the only person who hadn’t known? Aloud, she prompted, ‘You said you had something to show me.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He produced a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket, opening it out before he handed it across. It was an article neatly cut from what appeared to be a local history magazine, which mentioned that Robert Barnaby’s signature had been found in a guestbook which belonged to a well-known local family who had a house a few miles away, near Millom.
‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘A Barnaby connection, right on your doorstep. I shall have to do a bit more digging into this one.’
Fran attempted to be interested, but what on earth was there to say? Robert Barnaby had once spent a weekend in the Lake District. Well, who hadn’t?
When he eventually said that he would have to be going, she made no attempt to discourage him. Even so, he made a prolonged farewell, thanking her for the tea again and saying what a nice place she had. ‘Off the beaten track, but not too difficult for me to find.’
She shut the door behind him with a sigh of relief, not bothering to wait on the step until his car had pulled away.
ELEVEN
Fran caught the early bus on Sunday morning, in order to be in plenty of time for the grand unveiling of the Cleppington War Memorial, which was scheduled to take place at eleven. The original idea had been to coincide the ceremony with the tenth anniversary of Armistice Day, but then the thing had not been ready on time, and having waited almost a decade for their memorial, the villagers had not been minded to hold a service of commemoration before the cross was finished and the names of the lost inscribed upon it. Not that Cleppington was by any means the last place to get its war memorial organized. Nearby, the community of Harlingdale were still getting their fund together, while in Kinthwaite Bridge there was an ongoing dispute between those who wanted a statue of a soldier with bowed head and those who favoured a cenotaph-like structure.
The memorial at Cleppington had become something of an obsession for her mother. In the years immediately after the war, she had been among the first to agitate for it, and then one of the first to write a cheque when subscriptions were initially sought. During the intervening years, she had se
emed to Fran to be constantly preoccupied with the efforts of the War Memorial Committee and forever regaling her daughter with tales of disputes regarding the inclusion of various names – ‘the point is that their boy never actually lived here in the parish at all’ – to say nothing of arguments over the form that the memorial should take. ‘A public hall may well be an asset to the village, but as Mr Laker said, “I don’t like the notion of my boy’s name being an excuse for folk to get rowdy playing darts and dominoes, or worse still, cards.”’
Fran, though sorely tempted, had never told her mother that she thought fun and laughter and people playing cards and games were far more evocative of her brothers than a cold stone cross towering above a corner of the churchyard.
Dora, the house parlour maid, answered the door to her – she had never used her latch key since leaving home to be married.
‘Ah.’ Her mother held out both hands and sighed as her daughter entered the drawing room. ‘I did so hope that you might have changed your mind and prevailed upon Michael to come and stand alongside you at the ceremony.’
‘Mummy, I told you that was not going to happen.’ Fran attempted to keep the irritation out of her voice.
‘People will notice.’
Privately, Fran thought that people had probably noticed already that her husband had not accompanied her on any of her visits to her mother for almost a year now, but remembering the sensitivities of the day, she resolved to err on the side of kindness and said, ‘I’m sure no one will think it in the least strange. After all, Michael never knew Geoffrey or Cecil.’
‘That’s true.’ Her mother sighed again. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. So many lives ruined.’
Fran had the strongest suspicion that her mother was not just referring to those lost in the war, and this was confirmed a moment later when her mother added, as if to herself, ‘Perhaps if you had given him children.’