by Fay Sampson
‘By whom?’
‘I wish I knew. Look, Suzie, this doesn’t concern you. I should never have asked you to meet me here. Stay out of this. I just hope nobody saw you with me. Go home now and forget all about it.’
‘You’ll tell the police, won’t you?’
‘I said, leave it with me. Go.’
She felt unhappy leaving him in the car park, with whoever had slashed his tyres possibly still around, watching. But it was evident that her presence was adding to his strain.
‘Keep me posted,’ she said, ‘if there’s anything new.’
‘Forget about it. Please.’
She left him alone, staring at his vandalized car.
Suzie sat on the bus as it made its way into town. John’s words were still sounding in her ears. ‘At least it was my tyres and not my throat.’ Was it really possible that the mild-mannered solicitor could be in real danger?
Was she in danger?
She recalled again that sharp crack of a dead branch in Saddlers Wood, her conviction that she was being watched. And all the Fewings had been doing then was innocently pursuing family history at the ruined cottage in the clearing.
She had a sudden vivid image of her great-great-grandparents, Richard and Charlotte Day, living in that cottage with their children. What pressure of poverty had driven them to make the momentous step and leave the limited rural area around Moortown, where their forebears had worked for so many centuries, and cross the county to find new work on the edge of the dockyard city? For generations, she had been able to trace Richard’s line back, moving from parish to parish, or even from house to house, with annual hirings, but only ever within a few miles. And suddenly there was this one adventurous leap from country to city. The 1861 census had found Richard still as an agricultural labourer, but by 1871 he was labouring in the dockyard. It could only be the lure of better pay that drew him there.
And all that time, the stream from Puck’s Acre must have been running with the sparkle of gold. The Days had never found it.
Would it have been better if they had? John was right. Gold did strange things to men’s minds. For all Suzie knew, the find of a metal like tungsten might be more valuable. Who knew what things were worth in the modern industrial market? But gold had always been something special, something men – and women? – were prepared to kill for.
They were nearing the centre of town, where she would have to change to another bus. But she felt an urgent need to tell Nick what had happened. She got out her mobile. Still no response.
In town, she crossed the High Street and waited at the opposite bus stop. It had been a green choice to have only one family car. Nick was usually happy for her to take it on the few occasions when she needed one. On the rare occasions when that wasn’t possible, she might hire a car from their friendly local garage. The bus service was adequate for most of her needs. But today she fretted at the wait. She wanted to get home and share this with somebody.
The bus drew up. She stepped aboard automatically and showed her ticket. She was wondering if she should tell Millie and Tom, or if there was some way to keep them out of this.
John Nosworthy had told her to forget about it. Before that, Frances had warned her off. The police had consistently said the same. She had an insistent vision of Clive Stroud subtly giving her the same warning as his hand pressed hers. At the time, it had seemed inexplicable, but she did not know then just how deeply he was involved. If the will and its codicil had cleared probate, the MP for Moortown would be the legal owner of Puck’s Acre, and of the gold Bernard Summers had been so sure lay beneath its surface.
Bernard Summers was dead. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
The geologist had threatened Nick not to tell anyone. Now it seemed he must surely have been threatened himself.
She got off at her own stop and walked the short distance down the avenue. The shadows of the plane trees were lengthening. Ordinarily, by this time Nick would have been home before her, but he had said that he was working late. She felt a sharp disappointment. Now, more than ever, she needed the comfort of his presence, his sceptical common sense. Instead, she must either say nothing to the children, and leave the events of this afternoon churning in her mind, or face their wilder flights of speculation. She decided to play it down, in case it sent Tom haring off on some other ill-advised investigation.
The house was quiet. The gentlest beat of rhythm from Millie’s room meant that she was probably listening to music on her headphones. There was no sign of Tom.
She wandered through the empty ground floor and stood at the edge of the garden. Nick’s roses were in full glorious bloom. The flower beds glowed with carefully calculated gradations of colour: strong reds and yellows nearest the house, fading to misty blues, mauves and pinks in the middle distance.
She slumped down in a garden chair, realizing suddenly how exhausted she was. She felt as though she had run all the way from the Fenwick Barton.
Millie was suddenly at the conservatory door. ‘Well? What’s happening?’
‘Nothing,’ Suzie lied. ‘At least … Well, I know now where Clive Stroud fits into all this. Eileen Caseley left him something in her will.’
‘Money? Or a keepsake? You mean there really was something going on between them? He was her mystery lover? How romantic!’
Suzie refrained from saying that this keepsake was a gold mine.
‘It could cause something of a scandal when it gets out that he was having an affair with a woman who was shot.’
‘Over what? A locket, or something?’
Millie came eagerly across the patio and pulled out a chair beside Suzie’s. Then she stopped and looked down in concern.
‘Are you OK? You look white.’
‘It’s just the heat.’
‘Can I get you something? A glass of lemonade with ice?’
‘Make that a whisky and lemon.’
‘That bad?’
Millie stood looking down at her, then went indoors. She came back with Suzie’s drink and cranberry juice for herself. She sat down and looked at her mother reprovingly.
‘You’re not being straight with me. Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
Suzie sighed. She took a sip from her glass. The whisky shocked her senses back into play, loosening her tongue.
‘She left him Puck’s Acre.’
Millie stared at her, baffled.
‘It’s that bit of rough ground just beyond Saddlers Wood. Where we found that survey nail.’
‘But why would she …?’ The realization dawned. She leaned forward, spluttering. Fruit juice sloshed from her glass. ‘You mean that bit of land where the mad geologist said he’d found gold?’
‘Shush!’ Suzie looked around, fearful that neighbours might hear her. ‘Look, I probably shouldn’t have told you this. And don’t pass it on to Tom. He’ll only get some mad idea. But I needed to tell someone.’
‘Well, that should set the cat among the pigeons when it gets out.’ Millie narrowed her eyes. ‘But it won’t look good for him, will it? I mean, she was only … what? … in her forties? She could have lived for donkey’s years. But now she’s dead and he’s got his hands on it.’
Suzie brushed her hair from her eyes. The whisky was making her feel more relaxed at last. ‘Shall we just leave it to the police? It’s not our business. There’s nothing else we can do.’
She swirled the last of her drink round the bottom of her glass and thought of John Nosworthy as she had left him in the pub car park, pale and scared. He had told her urgently to forget all about it. He had been scared for her as well.
A door slammed in the hall. Suzie was halfway out of her seat in alarm before she stopped to think. Nick must be home only a little later than normal. She hadn’t even started to prepare the evening meal. She looked a little shamefacedly at the whisky glass. It would be an admission that she had been upset. Was there time to rinse it out in the kitchen before Nick got there? Probably not.
Even as she turned towards the conservatory door, Tom came breezing through. Suzie was startled by her own reaction. Normally she would have been thrilled to see her handsome student son, savouring the precious days she had him home on vacation. Today she felt her spirits sag. It was not Nick, after all.
Recollecting their conversation, she made a face to Millie which said, ‘Don’t tell him’.
She was not entirely sure why this was important, but she knew Tom well enough to fear that he might dash off and do something unpredictable.
Millie nodded, with the small, secretive smile of a younger sister who believed herself wiser than her nineteen-year-old brother. This would be between the two of them. And Nick, when he came home.
‘Dad not here?’ Tom threw a cheerful look around.
‘He’s working late.’
That mischievous grin. ‘Better watch yourself, Mum. That’s what they always say when they’re dating their secretaries, isn’t it? Sorry. Only joking.’ He dropped a light kiss on her forehead. ‘Tea not ready? Do you mind if I grab myself something? I’m out tonight.’
‘You’ve only just got in.’
‘Yeah, that’s the way it goes. Busy social calendar.’
‘Who is she?’ asked Millie.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your date. The reason why you’re in such a hurry.’
‘I didn’t say it was a girl,’ he retorted, colouring.
‘You have now.’
‘There’s cold chicken and salad in the fridge,’ Suzie intervened. ‘I was just going to start getting it ready.’
‘Stay where you are. I’ll make a sandwich.’
‘Will you be late in?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Depends how it goes.’
Suzie felt the wrench. What Tom did with his evenings, even who he spent the night with, was no longer under her control. Tom would not be so blunt as to tell her it was none of her business. He just acted as though it was not.
She heard the sounds from the kitchen as he got himself a hasty meal.
‘Cold chicken and salad sounds perfect for a heatwave,’ Millie said. ‘Shall I bring ours out here?’
‘Thanks,’ Suzie smiled. ‘Would you?’
Alone on the patio, she got out her phone again. No new messages. She read Nick’s over again.
‘Working late. Don’t wait supper. X’
She sat looking at it dully. There was just that single kiss at the end. The rest was businesslike, abrupt. She remembered, shockingly, all those messages sent on 9/11, when couples pledged their undying love in a final call. If this was the last message she ever received from Nick, what would there be for her to cherish?
What an idiotic thought. It was a simple factual statement of why he wouldn’t be back at the usual time. He hadn’t even needed to include that kiss.
Nick hardly ever had to work late. He had said nothing to her when he left her this morning to indicate that he was meeting a client after office hours. Something must have cropped up.
‘It’s all right. You can eat it,’ Millie announced.
Suzie had not noticed the two plates of food that Millie had set down on the table. She had even brought a jar of mango chutney and a bottle of white wine.
Suzie gave her an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry. Miles away. This looks nice.’
She reached for the wine, then changed her mind. ‘I think I’ll stick to water.’
She went into the cool of the kitchen and held her glass under the tap. She ought to be relaxing by now. She had learned a lot more today about the possible reasons for Eileen Caseley’s death, but it was none of her business. All the people who had tried to tell her that were right. It was John Nosworthy’s tyres that had been slashed, not hers. There was not even anything she could tell the police that they wouldn’t already know.
She heard the front door shut again, more quietly. Tom would be out for the evening.
The hours passed. There was nothing she wanted to watch on television. Millie had gone up to her room. Suzie switched on her computer and got out her family history files. But for once the idea of trawling through the newspaper archives looking for more colourful stories didn’t appeal to her. She tried a search for a few names and drew a blank. What then? There was that line of lords of the manor back in the middle ages. Should she take one of the women who had married into that family and search the internet to see if she could push the woman’s own lineage back a few more generations? There might be documents on the National Archives website or information from someone else’s family tree.
She selected Beatrice Lamont.
But again she got no further than the information that Beatrice was the daughter and co-heir of John Lamont of Combe Dennis, and that she had married Amyas Doble. Suzie had already read the history of the county’s landed gentry which told her that.
It seemed that everything she tried brought her to a dead end.
Frustrated, she closed her laptop down and went to stand in the garden. The evening sun had dropped below the houses. A blackbird was singing its heart out. Nick’s flower borders released the scent of lavender and roses as she brushed past. If he never came home, this garden would be his memorial.
What a strange thought to have.
She pulled herself up, shocked. What was she thinking? Nick was seeing a client. No doubt a pleasantly profitable contract hung on the result of this meeting. He might be wining and dining the client somewhere.
But it was strange that he hadn’t said so when he’d dropped her off in town this morning.
Perhaps he wanted it to be a surprise. He might be planning an unexpected holiday abroad on the proceeds. They would get away from the unsatisfactory mystery which had dogged them these last few weeks.
All the same, he might have told her more than he had. He could have spoken to her, instead of texting. He should have given her some idea when he would be home.
She peered at her watch in the twilight. Ten o’clock. She had not realized she had been standing in the garden for so long.
Millie’s voice came from the conservatory door. ‘He’s not back yet?’
TWENTY-SIX
Suzie was startled out of the paralysis that seemed to have gripped her. She moved swiftly back to the half-darkened house. She couldn’t remember where she had left her bag and her mobile phone.
Millie followed her frantic searching. ‘Here, use mine.’ She clicked on her father’s name and handed the phone to Suzie.
The phone rang. Suzie’s heart surged with joy. ‘He’s switched on!’
The ringtone went on and on. Finally it died into silence.
‘He didn’t pick it up,’ she said helplessly.
‘You have to tell the police.’
Suzie sighed. ‘We seem to have been back to them so many times.’ Yet she still held the phone in her hand, longing to do what Millie said.
‘If you don’t, I will.’
Suzie moved to the phone book in the hall. Her mind was so tired she couldn’t remember the police enquiry number for everything but a 999 call. There was a notepad on the small table. A name caught her eye, written in Nick’s hand. DS Dudbridge. It was a mobile number.
Alarm fluttered across her skin, tinged with indignation. DS Dudbridge hadn’t given them his personal number when he came to the house. Nick must have been in touch with him since, but he hadn’t said anything.
She put down Millie’s phone and dialled on the land line. The detective sergeant’s answer came reassuringly swiftly.
‘Look, this is Suzie Fewings. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but my husband went out this morning and he hasn’t come back. He texted me to say he was working late, but it’s after ten. He’s not answering his mobile.’
‘When did he text you?’
‘This afternoon. I picked it up about … I don’t know … three o’clock? It wasn’t there at lunchtime.’
‘Does his work often keep him out all evening? I’m sorry, I don’t remember what he does.’
‘He’s an architect. No, never. It’s not often he’s late home at all. And certainly not like this.’
‘Have you tried his office number?’
‘Yes. Just the usual out-of-hours voice message.’
‘Did he have his car with him?’
‘Yes. A Mazda Six. White.’ She gave him the number.
‘I’ll put a call out to see if anyone’s seen it. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?’
‘No. I assumed at first he must have been meeting a client, and perhaps they went on to have a meal together. But I can’t think why he wouldn’t have phoned me to let me know. He must know I’d be scared, after everything that’s happened. He talked to Bernard Summers on Saturday and now Bernard Summers is dead.’
‘Steady on, Mrs Fewings. Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. We don’t know yet that Mr Summers’ death is suspicious. It could easily have been an accident.’
‘You know it wasn’t. Not after what he found at Saddlers Wood. I’ve talked to John Nosworthy, the solicitor. I know that Eileen Caseley left that bit of ground, Puck’s Acre, to Clive Stroud. Don’t tell me this hasn’t got something to do with that. Very few people know about the gold, but Nick does.’
There was a cautious pause. ‘Look, Mrs Fewings, I can understand why you’re upset, but there’s no reason to think that your husband has come to any harm. What would be gained by silencing him? The will is bound to be public knowledge soon. And since you know about the gold, I imagine other people do too.’
‘We only know because Bernard Summers told Nick. And he regretted it immediately afterwards. He threatened Nick not to tell anyone.’
‘Bernard Summers can’t harm him now.’
‘No, but whoever Bernard Summers was afraid of can.’
‘I’ll get someone checking speed cameras, to see if we can pick up where Mr Fewings went. Meanwhile, try not to worry. There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation. I’ll be in touch if we hear anything.’
The line went dead. It was several seconds before Suzie could bring herself to put it down.
At last she looked up at Millie. ‘He’s trying to be reassuring.’