by Granger, Ann
There was a movement and a small shape appeared, half hidden by Muriel’s yellow legs.
Gervase peered past her. ‘What on earth is that?’
Muriel’s face, already red, turned an alarming shade of purple. ‘You know perfectly well he’s a dog. That’s my dog, Hamlet!’
The dog in question confirmed this with a sharp bark.
‘He’s warning you,’ said Muriel triumphantly. ‘He’s sussed you out. Knows you’re a wrong ’un.’ She turned to Sarah. ‘Watch out for him, young Crown, I mean.’ She pointed at Gervase. ‘Rotten apple.’
‘Muriel has never liked me,’ Gervase told Sarah in a stage whisper, ‘as you’ll have realised by now. But, bless her cotton socks, she’s never pretended otherwise. I, myself, am rather fond of her.’
Muriel gurgled alarmingly. Hamlet yelped.
‘I think I’d better go,’ said Sarah hurriedly. ‘Nice to have met you both.’ She crunched across the cinder-strewn ground, pausing only say, ‘Hello, Hamlet.’
Muriel’s expression softened. ‘All my dogs have been named after characters in Shakespeare’s plays.’
She and Gervase waited until the sound of Sarah’s car had faded away.
‘I hope,’ said Muriel, ‘that you are not now going to mess up that young woman’s life, as you’ve messed up another’s.’
‘It seems by not selling Key House I may have helped to mess up Sarah’s life already,’ Gervase said quietly. ‘You really are a dreadful old bat, Muriel. But there is something strangely reassuring about your not having mellowed with time.’
‘I see you’ve learned nothing and forgotten nothing, like the Bourbons,’ retorted Muriel.
‘That’s right, Muriel. I have forgotten nothing.’ Gervase walked towards her. She stood her ground and, as he passed by, he stooped and whispered in her ear, ‘I know where the body’s buried, Muriel!’
Hamlet began a furious barking,
‘Wretch!’ spat Muriel at Gervase and struck out at him with the hand holding the coiled dog’s lead.
He grinned down at her. Then he told Hamlet warningly, ‘You keep your distance, pooch!’
He walked away, leaving Muriel in possession of the field and Hamlet bouncing up and down on the cinders in rage, raising clouds of ash dust. His hysterical yelps split the air.
Carter went alone to pick up Millie that evening. He fancied Millie looked a little disappointed at seeing him arrive without company. Monica made no reference to Jessica and although he found himself on the receiving end of several meaningful looks from his daughter, he suspected Monica had instructed her not to ask questions, either. That, of course, would make Millie all the more avid for information. As soon as he could, he got Monica on one side.
‘You haven’t seen anything of Gervase Crown, here in Weston St Ambrose, I suppose?’ he asked. ‘He’s staying at The Royal Oak here.’
If he’d hoped to surprise Monica with the news, he failed. ‘I heard he was back,’ Monica said blandly.
Carter was the one who was startled. ‘Who told you? You’ve seen him?’
‘No. Stephen Layton told me, Dr Layton. I saw him last night, about nine in the evening. I went out for a stroll round the village before turning in. I met Stephen in the street about three or four yards down the road from The Royal Oak. It’s not the first time I’ve run into him on my evening strolls. I think he likes to have a whisky in the bar there before he turns in. But yesterday evening he was avoiding the place. He said he had run into Gervase, right outside, on the evening following the fire. Gervase had just got here from Portugal and taken a room there. That gave me a bit of a shock. I understand it had given Stephen Layton a shock, too. Stephen was Sebastian Crown’s doctor, you know, and golf crony too, I fancy, but he didn’t know Gervase very well. In fact, at first Stephen hadn’t recognised him. Gervase had been standing in the street outside The Royal Oak, smoking a cigarette. Stephen thought he was just an out-of-season tourist, until Gervase called out to him and reminded him who he was. He told Stephen he’d just arrived back and meant to stay there at The Oak. Stephen took that as fair warning and has stayed away since.’
‘Indeed?’ murmured Carter.
‘Well,’ went on Monica complacently, ‘I’m as curious as the next woman. I also thought you might like me to pick up any gossip, am I right?’
‘You’re right,’ Carter said.
‘And Stephen wanted to chat. Or that was the impression I got. He was intending to try the pub at the other end of the village and invited me along. We all know that’s not much of a place. So I asked him if he wanted to come back here for a nightcap. I’m old enough to be able to ask a gentleman that without it sounding like a proposition!’
‘And did he come?’
‘Yes, he did. He stayed nearly an hour. We had a small whisky apiece – actually, I had one and he had two. I told him my ex-nephew-by-marriage – you – was investigating the case with Inspector Campbell asking all the questions. I thought I should tell him, in case he later told me anything he might not have told me, if he had known of my relationship to you. Do you follow me?’
‘I follow. Very prudent of you, if quite the reverse of the police caution.’
‘So then he told me he’d certified death at the scene of the crime and had met and chatted with young Jessica. We agreed it was a pity the old house had gone for good. Stephen said Gervase now looks like an actor in a film about pirates. He’d commiserated with him about the loss of Key House, but Gervase had been very ungracious about it all. Stephen said he’d no wish to hang around talking to him, so he left him there in the street outside the hotel. So, for all my effort to glean a vital nugget of information for you, I didn’t, I’m afraid.’
‘All the same,’ Carter said thoughtfully. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘Where is Jess?’ asked Millie as they were driving home. Her tone was suspiciously nonchalant.
‘She had things to do,’ he told her. He glanced up at the mirror, which reflected Millie sitting in the rear clutching MacTavish. Their eyes met and he looked away quickly, telling himself to concentrate on the road ahead. Not, of course, to avoid the accusing gleam in hers.
He reflected that perhaps it had not been such a good idea to take Jess along with him to Monica’s last time. It had seemed fine when the idea sprang into his head. Moreover, Jess and Millie had appeared to hit it off. But that presented its own problem. If they hadn’t got along, the question of inviting Jess to another meeting with his daughter wouldn’t arise. Now Millie obviously expected to see Jess again and yet for Carter to invite her again made it look as if … well it was tricky.
‘What things?’ asked Millie, a touch of steel entering the nonchalance.
‘How, what things?’ asked Carter, playing for time.
‘You said Jess had things to do. What things?’
‘I don’t know, Millie. She didn’t tell me. Private matters to deal with.’
‘Oh, private,’ said Millie scornfully. ‘That’s what grown-ups always say when they want to shut you up.’
‘I’m not trying to shut you up, love!’ he protested. ‘I honestly don’t know what Jess is doing this evening.’
‘Well, you should have asked her!’ said Millie.
‘That would be very rude of me,’ said Carter virtuously.
Millie hissed in exasperation. After a moment she said with a carelessness that would have fooled no one, ‘MacTavish liked her.’
‘Good …’ said her father unhappily.
Jess would not have described her evening as full of things to do. Not that the sight of her flat, when she let herself in that evening, did not suggest a list of useful chores. It was undeniably in need of a thorough dusting. There was a small stack of newspapers and magazines, some dating back a couple of months, that required putting out for the recycling collection or being taken to the nearest recycling centre, but somehow got overlooked every time. She was short of groceries, as she discovered on opening the fridge door. There wa
s half a packet of sausages but they were already past their sell-by date. In the door of the fridge, however, was a bottle of Pinot Grigio with a glassful left in it. She retrieved it, poured out the wine and retreated to the sofa with the wine and Simon’s latest letter.
She had already read her brother’s letter at least twice but reading it again put him there in the tiny sitting room with her. He was in Africa working, as he had done for many years in various parts of the world, with a medical charity. His letters were rare and often written over a period of weeks. Thus he would begin to describe something and then there had obviously been an interruption so the writing broke off and the tale taken up at a much later date by which time something else had happened and the original account never really got finished. She kept all her twin’s letters carefully in a folder because one day, when Simon got back home for good, he might want to write up his experiences. Or he might never come home, the correspondence cease, and all she and the family would have were these scribbled incomplete accounts scrawled by poor light late at night in a tent somewhere. It was not just the bugs and germs and unfriendly wildlife that threatened. The men with guns carried the danger. They did not like foreign medical workers any more than they welcomed foreign journalists observing the havoc and misery they wrought.
The street doorbell rang. Jess sighed and hauled herself off the sofa to put her ear to the intercom. ‘Yes?’
‘Tom,’ squeaked a voice in her ear.
Tom? What on earth? In the days before Madison’s arrival on the scene, Tom would do this, turn up unexpectedly from time to time wanting to go out for a drink or a meal. Since Madison had taken up a role in his life, these friendly outings had ceased. So what had brought him? ‘Come up!’ she called and pressed the button to release the door.
Tom had brought a fresh bottle of wine with him. Jess didn’t know whether to interpret this as apology for having interrupted any plans she might have, or just that he meant to stay the evening.
‘Busy?’ asked Tom, collapsing on to the other end of the sofa and gazing at her like, she thought crossly, a puppy ejected into a cold garden.
‘No,’ she told him. ‘But I am tired.’
‘I won’t stay late,’ he promised. ‘But you’re a friend and you know how it is, sometimes you need to talk to a friend. I need your advice.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said Jess firmly. ‘I am a friend. But ask Madison for her advice.’
‘It’s about Madison.’
‘Then you definitely shouldn’t be discussing it with me, whatever it is. It’s your business and hers. I don’t come into it.’
Why is it, she wondered, people want to tell me about their problems? Millie wants to tell me about her mother and Rodney and how lonely her dad is. Ian himself, I suspect, wants propping up in his relationship with his daughter. Now Tom has a relationship problem. What am I? An agony aunt? No, I’m a copper. If only the villains were so keen to tell me all!
‘Something unexpected has turned up,’ Tom protested, rubbing his hand through his mop of thick black hair. ‘Ten minutes, Jess, please. I haven’t got anyone else I can ask about it.’
‘Five minutes only – and I’ll time you,’ she promised.
‘Fine!’ He sat upright. ‘Madison has had an offer of a year working in Australia.’
‘Doing what? I don’t know what her line is. You’ve never said.’
‘Haven’t I? Oh, well, she’s microbiologist.’
‘You two must have a lot to talk about.’
‘It’s not a job exactly; it’s a year’s funding to do research. She specialises in parasitic—’
‘Tom!’ Jess interrupted. ‘I haven’t eaten yet and I shall want to, later. So spare me the details of what Madison sees through her microscope.’
‘She wants to go,’ Tom said mournfully. ‘It’s a great opportunity.’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘Should I try and talk her out of it? I know how selfish that sounds but I’d rather hoped we … Well, that things might progress. We seemed to be getting along so well.’
‘And now some bug on a glass plate has come between you. Tom, if Madison wants to go, and it marks the end of your relationship, at least be graceful about it. You’re a grown man not a schoolboy.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Tom, leaning forward. ‘But does she want me to be graceful about it and just say, fine, off you go? Or does she want me to try and persuade her to stay?’
Jess groaned. ‘How do I know?’
‘If I don’t try and persuade her to stay,’ continued Tom, ‘will she be insulted? Or, if I try and persuade her to hang about here, will she think I’m selfish? I don’t want to be selfish. I wouldn’t want her to think that I was giving her an ultimatum. You know, “It’s me or the thing on the glass plate,” or words to that effect. On the other hand, I’d hate to think I was being manoeuvred. Or am I being vain? I don’t know what to think.’
Jess leaned forward so that their faces were inches apart. ‘Tom, I can’t tell you. Have this conversation or some version of it with Madison, will you? I absolutely refuse to continue. I cannot discuss this with you.’
‘It’s making me feel pretty fed up!’ said Tom with more spirit.
‘I sympathise but can’t help. Your time is up.’
‘I was relying on you,’ he said resentfully.
‘No, you were relying on Madison and you feel she’s let you down.’
This caused Tom to look startled and then thoughtful.
‘It’s not easy finding a girlfriend when you’ve got a job like mine, you know. They ask what I do and I tell them I cut up dead bodies and they lose interest. Madison is interested in what I do,’ he said finally.
‘Men lose interest when they find out I’m police officer – except for the ones who’ve got a thing about women in uniform,’ Jess retaliated.
‘I’m beginning to think that it’s what I do that interests Madison and not me. I don’t interest her.’ Tom had that puppy-out-in-the-cold look again.
‘Oh, merry hell, if that’s what you suspect, smile nicely and wish her well for her trip to Australia!’ burst out Jess, goaded beyond discretion. ‘If she wants to go, she’ll go. If she doesn’t really want to, I suppose she’ll stay. But let the poor woman make up her own mind. And make up your own mind.’
Tom gazed into his empty wine glass. ‘Am I allowed an extension of time to sit here and drink another?’
Chapter 12
‘We have nothing on Katherine – otherwise called Kit – Stapleton on the police computer,’ Phil Morton informed Jess early next morning. ‘She has no criminal record, never been a witness to anything, never lodged a complaint. Dave Nugent’s been busy delving into civil records of births, deaths and marriages. There’s nothing much there of interest, either, just the usual stuff. She’s thirty-five and divorced. She was married to a man named Davis, Hugh Davis, and lived in Wales at that time. She now lives in Cheltenham and works as a receptionist at a doctors’ surgery. No children that Dave could trace.’
‘What about Mr Davis?’
‘No, nothing on him. On their marriage certificate his occupation is given as estate agent. A bit ironic that, I suppose, in the circumstances.’
‘Right!’ Jess drew a deep breath. ‘Start again from the beginning, that’s all we can do. I’ll go and talk to Muriel Pickering.’
‘I’ve done that,’ observed Morton. ‘You want to watch out for the dog. It’s not very big but it’s got a nasty look in its eye and a full set of teeth. Old Muriel’s much the same and not the chatty sort. You won’t get much out of her.’
‘I know enough to be wary of both Muriel and her pet. But my feeling is the roots of this business go back a long way. Muriel appears to be a sort of oldest resident. She must have known Crown all his life, with gaps while he was backpacking or in jail, until he eventually settled in Portugal. We need to keep digging around, Phil.’
Jess set out for Mullions. She had driven a short way along the narrow
road in which Key House stood and had almost reached the scorched ruins when she overtook Roger Trenton, marching along in parade-ground fashion, bolt upright, arms swinging. Jess drew into the side of the road and stopped. She got out of the car and waited for him to reach her.
Roger raised a hand in acknowledgement and was soon alongside. ‘Recognised you as you went past,’ he puffed.
‘I thought you might have done.’ Jess smiled at him. His face was wind reddened and shiny; and his halo of hair wilder than ever.
‘You called at my house the other day and I was out,’ Roger went on. ‘Poppy told me. Sorry I missed you.’
‘It was just a casual call, Mr Trenton.’
‘Well, you’ve got me now. I was just walking up to Key House to check on it. I used to do that from time to time when it was still standing. Now the site will attract another set of undesirables, sightseers! It’s all been on the local television news and in the local press. No doubt they will want to help themselves to lumps of charred wood as ghoulish souvenirs. How can I help?’ He waited expectantly.
Already, thought Jess wryly, Roger had moved his sights from the dropouts who’d used the house to hypothetical sightseers to the ruins. Any question she asked would be answered with more of the predictable complaint. But Roger expected to be interviewed and Jess would oblige him, even if she didn’t hope for much from the exercise, other than what she’d heard already.
‘We’ve been wondering about the tramps and hippies you stated used Key House from time to time. You can’t tell us anything more definite about any of them, I suppose?’
‘They all looked pretty much the same,’ said Roger, glowering at the wreck of the house a little further down the road. ‘Although “pretty” is hardly the word for them! The younger men and women all wore grubby clothes and big boots. Nearly all had long hair, both sexes. Occasionally there would be some extraordinary apparition covered in tattoos and studded with metal rings and pins … and it wasn’t always male. That was the other group, the drug-users. Some of the girls wore black make-up. They looked perfect frights.’ Roger shook his head.