by Granger, Ann
‘I wondered if you could suggest why Mr Crown didn’t sell Key House, before now. He seems unclear himself about it.’
‘Blowed if I know,’ said Serena. ‘It was his decision to make, I suppose. He’s the one you should ask and you say you have. I only know he refused to sell, even to us when we asked him.’
‘You thought of buying it?’ Carter sipped cautiously at the dark brown brew in his mug.
‘I did, although Reggie wasn’t keen on the idea. I thought it seemed a shame to let a good house already in the family just slip away into the ownership of strangers. So I put the suggestion to Gerry. But Gerry was so adamant he wouldn’t sell, we let the matter drop.’
‘Gerry? That’s what people call Gervase Crown?’
‘It’s what I’ve always called him. His mother didn’t like to hear it. Both his parents always called him Gervase. Most other people do as well, I fancy. I don’t know why I’ve stuck to calling him Gerry. I suppose, in the beginning, I did it to annoy his mother.’
‘And your cousin didn’t give you any reason for his refusal to sell the house to you?’
She shook her head. ‘Nope. He dug in his heels, laid back his ears and refused the fence. As I was telling you, we weren’t close, never went in for confidential chats. If he didn’t want to tell us, or me, his reasons, then he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.’
‘But you are otherwise on good terms? I know your husband does his legal work. I would have thought he might stay with you, in your home, while in England, to give you a chance to catch up,’ Carter remarked with his most disingenuous smile.
‘We offered!’ Serena said sharply. ‘I wouldn’t have minded having him here, especially now he has a horse.’
Did she imagine Gervase had brought the horse with him?
‘Something to talk about other than Key House,’ explained his hostess, seeing his puzzlement. ‘It surprised me to learn that Gerry had bought a horse. In fact, I was flabbergasted. It was always cars with him. But you’ll know all about that. Gerry asked Reggie to book him a room at The Royal Oak. Not a bad place, I understand. He’ll probably be warmer there than here. Our central heating is on the blink again.’
‘You say Mr Foscott wasn’t keen on buying Key House, even before your cousin refused to sell. Did he have any particular objection to the idea?’
The question threw her for a moment, but only a moment. ‘Cost of keeping the place up, largely. Five bedrooms, you know. Or it did have, before someone burned it down. Not to mention three downstairs’ reception, huge kitchen and a butler’s pantry. Reggie said, “Look here, it’s buy Key House or keep Charlie’s pony. We can’t afford both, not with livery costs being what they are. Make your choice.” Well, naturally, we’d have kept the pony. But we hadn’t to make the choice as things turned out, because, as I said, Gerry didn’t want to sell.’
‘Have you any idea who might have wanted it destroyed? Set fire to it?’
‘None. I can only suggest that it did attract a rather rough bunch of wanderers who broke in and slept in it from time to time. One of them? I believe they did light fires in there. I can easily imagine one got out of control. It’s probably a wonder it didn’t go up in flames long before now. Reggie did worry about it, what with Gerry being abroad. But I told him, “Let Gerry worry, if he wants to, and if he doesn’t want to, there’s no need for you to do it in his stead.” There’s a fellow called …’ Serena’s brow furrowed in thought. ‘Trenton, Roger Trenton. He was always bugging poor Reggie about it, as if Reggie could do anything. That’s the guy you want to talk to, Roger Trenton.’
‘I think an officer has already spoken to Mr Trenton.’
‘No joy there, then?’ Serena commiserated. ‘Bad luck. He’d have been your best bet.’
‘So you think really it was a tramp who lit a fire and it then got out of control?’
‘Pretty well something like that.’ Serena beamed at him. ‘These things do happen. There was a case a few years ago when some hippies broke into a holiday cottage not far from here. They caused no end of damage before they were persuaded to move on. Amongst other things, they’d burned a large hole in the sitting-room carpet. A log must have rolled out of the hearth. Well, why not something similar at Key House?’
‘What about the dead man?’ Carter asked mildly.
‘Oh, I don’t know about him,’ returned Serena. ‘Perhaps he lit the fire?’
‘He wasn’t a tramp. We believe we know who he was, although we’re awaiting confirmation. He lived in Cheltenham and has been missing from home.’
‘Really? What was he doing out there?’ Serena gazed at him with such innocence that it riled Carter. He did not like being treated like a fool.
‘We don’t know for sure, do we?’ He was provoked into retorting. More formally he added, ‘We are following a line of enquiry. He may have been interested in purchasing the house.’
‘Ah …’ said Serena, leaning back on the chesterfield. ‘Could he have been the chap who went to see Reggie, oh, several weeks ago? If he was, Reggie told him the house wasn’t on the market. We – Reggie – thought that was the end of that.’
You know he must have been the fellow who went to see your husband, the inner Carter snarled.
‘He seems not to have taken it as final,’ he said aloud, adding with a touch of sarcasm, ‘nor can we think of any reason why he might have lit a fire. Or any reason why someone hit him over the head.’
‘Bit of a mystery, then. But that’s your line of business, I suppose, mysteries. Well, my bright ideas are exhausted,’ said Serena cheerfully. ‘You’ve heard ’em all. Sorry I can’t help you.’
There was a sound of a car drawing up outside. ‘Oh, here’s Reggie,’ said Serena with no attempt at faking surprise.
What are the odds, wondered Carter, that all the banging around in the kitchen was to cover the sound of her phoning her husband to let him know I was here? Well-matched pair, the Foscotts. At any rate, the visit was over.
‘I mustn’t detain you any longer,’ he said, rising from the chair. It gave a triumphant farewell twang. ‘Thank you for the tea.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Serena. ‘I’ve met an Inspector Campbell once or twice, one of your lot. It was another case of murder. She struck me as a very bright sort.’
‘She is, indeed.’
‘Ah, Superintendent Carter!’ Foscott appeared in the room, smiling benevolently. ‘How are things going?’
‘As well as can be expected at this stage,’ Carter told him.
‘Excellent,’ murmured Foscott.
They both beamed at him.
Chapter 10
It was about three o’clock that afternoon when Kit Stapleton walked into the lounge of The Royal Oak, and stopped to peer into the recesses of the narrow L-shaped room. The low ceiling, with its blackened beams, and small windows set in thick stone walls encouraged the gloom and made it a place of secret corners. As usual in such public lounges, sofas and armchairs were grouped in defensive clusters like wagons drawn up in a circle on the prairie, giving an illusion of privacy to guests. It was too early for the management to entertain the expense of switching on the wall lights and any additional light came from the real fire of spluttering logs in the hearth. It made shadows jump about, playing across walls and furniture in disorienting fashion.
Gervase, settled in a far corner, saw her before she located him, and called out, ‘Over here, Kit!’ He followed his words with a raised arm and beckoning hand.
Kit drew in a deep breath, mentally girding herself for an encounter that was likely to prove a battle, and walked towards him. At her approach, he rose from his armchair to greet her. The shadow thrown on the wall behind him was of a giant distorted figure in the dancing firelight, both cartoonish and sinister. He himself was leaner and tougher looking than she remembered him. With his long hair he really did appear a spectre from the inn’s historic past. A highwayman perhaps? Or one of Prince Rupert of the Rhine’s cavalrymen, part loyalist
, part marauder? Certainly capable of anything, for good or evil. She thought, Oh, damn you, Gervase Crown! Why couldn’t you stay in your Portuguese hideaway?
Aloud she said, ‘Hello, Gervase.’
‘Hi!’ He gestured at the comfortable leather chair opposite his. ‘Take a pew. I’ve been expecting you.’
‘The barman said you were in here.’ Kit sat down awkwardly. The light glinted on the tumbler on the low table between them. ‘You’ve started early, I see.’ She didn’t try to disguise the sarcasm in her voice.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Gervase said mildly, ‘I don’t drink much these days except for bottled beer: Sagres, the Portuguese sort. I no longer indulge in the hard stuff. I did allow myself a small whisky while waiting for you.’
‘You were so sure I’d turn up here looking for you?’ She tried to keep her voice steady.
‘Of course. I knew you’d be round here like a shot as soon as you found out I’d been to see Petra. You’ve come to bite my head off.’
‘Of course I have! That was unspeakably bad behaviour on your part, Gervase.’
‘I specialise in bad behaviour,’ he retorted. ‘You know that. I’m not a completely changed character. I may have given up the booze – largely – but there are limits to my capacity for reform.’
A waiter came in to ask if they’d like anything.
‘Two black coffees,’ said Kit firmly.
Gervase chuckled and returned the waiter’s enquiring look with a wry grin and a nod.
Kit took up the subject again. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to see her.’
‘I needed to,’ Gervase replied with a sudden obstinate note in his voice.
She glared at him. ‘You are a real pig, you know. It’s not about what you need. It’s about what my sister needs; and it’s not visits from you!’
He gestured at the room around them. ‘No ditch for you to push me into here!’
‘Don’t joke! There’s nothing amusing about disturbing Petra. Her well-being is fragile. I don’t just mean her physical health. She’s found a sort of balance, made a life for herself, is – or was until you showed up – happy.’
‘She’s stronger than you think she is,’ Gervase told her. ‘She can cope with a visit from me.’
‘What makes you so sure? You hadn’t seen her or been in touch in years. How do you know? You are so damn selfish!’ Kit leaned forward and hissed the last words at him. ‘Leave her alone!’
There was a silence. The coffee arrived to occupy them. When they were alone again, Gervase took a sip from his cup, winced and set it down. ‘Dishwater.’
Without looking at Kit, he went on, ‘It is years, as you say. I’ve paid the odd flying visit to home turf, to chat things over with Reggie Foscott. Usually I’ve stopped by their place to say hello to Serena. My dear cousin never changes, except to get more leathery. I’ve always aimed get the whole thing over and done in a day or two and then get away again. So I ought to feel a stranger. Yet, funnily enough, when I came back here the other day, to Weston St Ambrose, I felt I’d never been away. Of course, the old homestead wasn’t a couple of miles down the road any longer, just a heap of blackened stones and some flapping plastic tape with “police” written on it. And this place …’ Gervase indicated the lounge of The Royal Oak. ‘This has gone up in the world a bit. Done out to impress the tourists, I suspect. It’s got reproduction four-poster beds in the rooms upstairs and the restaurant offers the sort of menu you get in fashionable restaurants. I can remember when it offered nothing but baked spuds or sausage and chips. But it’s a superficial sort of change. Otherwise, the years have just slipped past.’
‘Life goes on,’ Kit told him in a clipped tone. ‘We simply have to get on with it. It’s not what we imagined it would be, that picture is shattered. We try to make something out of the pieces.’
‘It goes on but in some ways it doesn’t change at all, that’s my point,’ Gervase argued. ‘The same people are still around. I even bumped into old Doc Layton the evening I arrived, just outside this place. It had all been a rush, managing to get a seat on a late flight, landing at Heathrow after dark, picking up a car and driving down here … I was all in and don’t mind admitting it. I checked in and slung my bag in the room, and then I nipped out for a smoke before getting my head down. Lo and behold, there was old Layton, rolling up the road wearing, if my memory doesn’t deceive me, the same suit he used to wear when he was my dad’s doctor. I used to keep away from him then. But I hailed him, anyway. I had to remind him who I was. He didn’t look delighted to see me, but he said he was sorry about Key House. He’d attended the scene to certify death. It’s amazing, isn’t it? There was the poor sod, whoever he was, burned to a crisp, and someone medically qualified had to go and pronounce him well and truly dead.
‘I reminded Layton that the last time we’d met had been at my dad’s funeral. They let me out of quod for the day to attend. All the mourners had scowled at me as if Dad’s death had been my fault, and were hardly able to mutter condolences. Layton didn’t like being reminded. He thought my mentioning it was in poor taste, I could see. He harrumphed at me and scurried away. Before he learned I was staying here, he had probably intended to come in for a nightcap in the bar. But he didn’t fancy sitting over a drink in my company.’
‘Your talking about your father’s funeral was in poor taste,’ said Kit. ‘Dr Layton probably thought it showed a lack of respect for your father and a lack of contrition on your part, after all the trouble you’d caused.’
Gervase leaned forward with a grin. ‘I like bad taste. It’s a pity my father died while I was in quod, and I do feel I probably hastened his end by being a jailbird at the time. But I wasn’t going to admit any guilty feelings to an old hypocrite like Layton. Besides, I like putting people’s backs up. They stop pretending when that happens. You get the genuine reaction.’
‘I don’t pretend,’ Kit said crossly.
‘No, my love, you don’t. You are the same Kit with the sharp eye and sharper tongue.’
He leaned back again right into the depths of the chair and propped one ankle on the other knee. ‘So, what about you, Kit? What have you been doing all this time? What kind of life have you made for yourself? Are you in a steady relationship, as they like to call it?’
‘No. Are you?’ Kit drank cautiously of her coffee.
‘Nothing permanent. I think women are wary of me, find me unreliable.’
‘You are unreliable.’
‘Whereas you, Kit, were and remain utterly reliable,’ Gervase retorted. ‘You have never pretended, as you say. I always knew exactly what you were going to do and you haven’t changed. I knew you’d come charging in here to savage me.’
‘Shut up!’ snapped Kit, feeling her face burn and not from the heat of crackling logs.
Gervase had managed to turn the tables. She’d come in here, exactly as he’d suggested, full of righteous anger, determined to pulverise him. Now she was on the defensive.
He pressed home his advantage. ‘So, do you have anyone in your life? Never found Mr Right?’
‘I was married briefly,’ Kit told him with reluctance. ‘For a couple of years, that’s all.’
‘Wow!’ he said in mock admiration. ‘You’ve achieved more than I have in that line, then. What went wrong?’
‘With my marriage? Nothing, really. It was a mistake and, after a couple of years, we were both bored stiff with one another’s company and had to admit it. We decided to split amicably while still friends; rather than wait until we loathed one another and started flinging the crockery at each other’s heads. We’re still on good terms: exchange Christmas cards, that sort of thing … occasional phone call to catch up. But we have no plans, and won’t ever have any, to try again. Quit while you’re ahead, they say. And we had no kids to complicate things.’
‘Yes, children do complicate things, don’t they?’ Gervase said soberly.
He’s done it again! raged Kit inwardly. And this time I set it up
and walked right into it.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ she said stiffly aloud. ‘Your parents split up, of course, and you were a casualty.’
‘A casualty?’ Gervase rolled the word round his mouth as if it had been some sort of strangely flavoured canapé. ‘No, I don’t think I ever thought of myself as that. They didn’t ever get along, my parents. I was well aware of that. It didn’t really surprise me when my mother left. Their break-up wasn’t a civilised affair, like yours. No one exchanged Christmas cards or phoned. My father seethed about it in that rumbling volcano way he had, always threatening to erupt. I kept out of his way.’
‘You must have been very unhappy,’ Kit heard herself say.
‘Of course I was bloody unhappy!’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘But when you’re a child you accept situations as they are. My father couldn’t bring himself to speak about my mother, so neither did I. We cut her out of our lives, as she’d cut us out of hers. Of course, there was no end of gossip in the neighbourhood. No one knew where she’d gone or what was happening. And no one told me. There were the usual stories about a mystery lover she’d run off to join. There was even a theory in some folk’s minds that Dad had murdered her and buried her body in the garden, or in a field back of the house.’
‘I never heard that!’ Kit was shocked.
‘Of course not, you were a kid. I knew about it because I heard my father raging down the telephone to his lawyers, threatening to take people to court. He didn’t, of course, because that would have meant going public and no doubt his legal people pointed that out to him. He could have stopped the malicious gossip at a stroke if he’d spoken to anyone about what was going on. But that wasn’t his style. Never apologise, never explain, was his motto. He was the most private man I’ve ever come across. He let no one into his life; not my mother, not me. There’s no point in whinging about it now.’ Gervase spoke the last words crisply, putting an end to the subject. After a short silence, he continued in a different tone, ‘So, what do you do with yourself now, Kit?’