by Clare Curzon
Chapter 8
Aidan’s return had stopped any chance of her getting out to Henley that evening. She must leave it until daylight tomorrow. He should be flitting off again then. She was aware of him rooting about for fresh clothes and furtively sliding a suitcase under the bed.
They’d had a chance to achieve separate sleeping arrangements in this new house. Leila had funked broaching the subject of twin beds, but her mind was made up now. In fact with so much more space there was no need even to share a room. However, for tonight anyway she would let it ride. She undressed in the bathroom and slid in beside him, turning her back and moving to the mattress edge.
Aidan, half-asleep, gave a deep sigh and promptly rolled back to take over the centre. Stiff with anger, Leila lay hunched, feeling herself all bones pressing into each other, imagined herself a skeleton; and when at last she fell fitfully asleep it was to enter a zombie-life of Halloween horrors.
Dawn brought a haze that promised further heat. It hung silvery-blue across distant trees and the sky shimmered with a dusty Saharan colour that must indicate pollution from the city.
Uncle Charles claimed that London air rose on a thermal, spread into a doughnut ring and produced fallout over the Home Counties. Which was his excuse for still living among all that traffic chaos instead of taking a peaceful country estate. Well, even he had tired of cities for the present and gone up to Scotland for a whiff of heather and malt. Hard luck on poor Janey, who said it was a country of cowpats, drizzle and gnats.
‘I’m off then,’ Aidan announced brusquely, clattering his cup into a saucer ringed with spilt coffee. It cut into her breakfast musings, signalling the moment for action.
And she was ready for it. Today, even stiff from her uncomfortable night, she felt strangely competent. As soon as Aidan’s car had pulled away she filled a thermos flask with the rest of the coffee, collected sandwiches from the fridge, and fetched her own car round from the garage. Finally she rang her PARTY FUN assistant manager to ask her to open up.
The scale of the road atlas on the seat beside her, pressed open at page 22, was 3 miles to the inch; probably useless because she knew the route well enough as far as Henley-on-Thames and really needed an Ordnance Survey map from there. She drove by the way she’d been taken only two days before, tasting bile as she passed through Marlow, remembering how at lunch there she’d already been in thrall to the charmer Pascal.
In thrall: that was an archaic description. Weird, how it had come to her mind. Perhaps it was due to the country she had just passed through, historically soaked in occultism and sexual fantasy: the decadent Medmenham revels of the Dashwood coven and the almost Black Forest mysticism of the snaking valley sunk between tiers of densely packed conifers. It must be due to the shaken state of her mind that she felt at the same time menaced yet tempted beyond her normal limits.
Henley had a more wholesome air. The narrow streets with their tiny shops crammed with bright touristic kitsch; sun-drugged visitors spilling from crowded pavements into the roadway; ice cream cornets dripping in toddlers’ hands; the scent of freshly roasted coffee beans wafted from open cafe doorways; and then the horizontal vista opening out to the steady-flowing Thames with white-painted boathouses, and scullers floating past in their fragile shells. It brought back normality, making her waver for a moment and question whether she’d been imagining non-existent dangers.
But the house she sought wasn’t here. She parked at the far end of town where the small cruisers’ moorings were and enquired about the address. No one seemed to have heard of it. Finally a shopkeeper thought it was out Stonor way so she drove back into town and and turned left away from the river.
It was a road she remembered from visits to Grays Court and Stonor as a girl, when the governess, inflicted on her by Uncle Charles as holiday guardian, took her to stay with her mother at Fawley. The two countrywomen were ardent admirers of stately homes, making pilgrimages to both houses two or three times each season. She could still feel the magic of walking under a ceiling of ornamental white cherry blossom at the one, and watching the proud-antlered stags at the other, with a tantalising glimpse of the Judas-deer’s white rump flickering between distant trees to betray where the herd merged into tawny undergrowth.
The road rose quickly from the river valley, dipping and rising between rolling hills where for centuries the ruling classes had built their mini-palaces either on crests to dominate the panorama or in folded valleys, hoping to stay discreetly safe from the persecutions of their day.
Somewhere out here lived the party-giver who had sent that enigmatic message to young Chloe. Leila guessed he would have opted for a valley.
A network of narrow lanes led her in circles and figures of eight, passing and repassing the same landmarks before she espied a stony track through a shallow ford and, fifty yards farther on, saw a pair of old stone pillars with the name chiselled in. On one was the word Havelock and on the other House. By some irony of fate, ivy trailing from the gryphon-mounted finial obscured parts of the initial word so that at first she read it as Hav …oc …
There was a pair of tall wrought iron gates in quite good repair and painted a rusty black with gilt ornamentation of vine leaves and grape clusters. Through their intricacies she could make out a curving, macadamed drive. There appeared to be some kind of lake and the house wasn’t far beyond because the trellised brickwork of its red Jacobean chimneys showed above mixed woodland planted to guarantee privacy. Leila counted the chimneypots and visualized a house of considerable size on a single building line. Any additional wings could have been removed in a more frugal period to leave something the size of an average private hotel. Or perhaps a discreet country club. Certainly Havelock House hadn’t featured on the list of stately homes open to the public when she was a child.
The recent fine weather had left no marks on the macadam drive, but the stony track that led to it was deeply rutted where cars had swung in at speed. So sometimes the gates were left open. If guests were expected for the Carnaval Masque in two days’ time that could well be the case again.
For the moment, however, there seemed no chance of penetrating further because the metallic box affixed to one pillar suggested electronic surveillance. Leila had no intention of advertising her interest. She put the car into gear and continued on her way to find a point for turning.
After a hundred yards or so the track broadened to become a made-up lane and subsequently met a recognisable road at a T-junction. A signpost pointing right offered High Wycombe; the left indicated Henley. There was no finger for the direction she’d come from. But certainly she was now on the recognised route to Havelock House and she’d arrived at it in reverse. If she came back in darkness it would be much easier to find from here.
And would she? she asked herself. Was it more than a hare-brained fancy to consider taking up the invitation to Chloe and finding out for herself what the girl had become involved in?
Engrossed in this question she rounded a sharp corner to face a large silver car speeding towards her on the crown of the road. She jerked the wheel wildly and braked. The Volvo spun and ended at a crazed angle on the grass verge, its front left wheel in some kind of ditch. Through the rearview mirror she watched the other car, a Mercedes, continue unchecked until braking to turn into the lane she’d come out of.
A few minutes earlier and she could have been caught spying on the house. That was alarming enough, but what really shook her was the glimpse she’d caught of the Mercedes’ driver.
She didn’t think he’d recognized her, being fully taken up with controlling his own speed. But she knew him. Less than three weeks back they had chatted together at the Royal Society lunch. He had seemed a reasonably friendly person, even if his appearance was a little eccentric.
Could he be bound for Havelock House? That track led nowhere else apart from a network of other narrow lanes. What connection could the place have with Sir Arthur Waites, the celebrated mathematician who’d amusingly claime
d that chaos was his obsession?
Could that wizened beanpole with his wispy hair actually live there? If so - it suddenly struck her - then it could be no accident that its name was partly obscured, reading as Havoc. Havoc was a good old mediaeval word, and one of its meanings was chaos. Wouldn’t that just suit the man’s quirky humour?
There was no reason, she told herself driving home, why he shouldn’t at some time have come across Chloe in Aidan’s company. And then a follow-up invitation to his house, although unconventional, wouldn’t necessarily be sinister. And the message promising to provide what she had asked for could have a quite innocent meaning - perhaps some mathematical shortcut that would help with her examination work?
Except that Aidan didn’t take his daughter with him on his social rounds. There were few professional occasions when he thought fit to have even his wife tagging along. Besides - before she dismissed her earlier alarm as paranoia triggered by Pascal’s duplicity - what was a man of Waites’s age doing setting up a rendezvous with a teenager at ten o’clock at night? How on earth would he have supposed she could get herself to it?
No, it just wasn’t on. In her right mind Chloë would never have encouraged anyone like that, however much she might chuck her adolescent chest at a personable male of her own age.
In her right mind. The words echoed in Leila’s head.
So suppose Chloë sometimes wasn’t in her right mind. Suppose she’d become dependent on that white powder hidden at the back of her mirror.
Dear God, don’t let that old monster be dealing the stuff to her!
There was only one way to be quite certain, and that was to accept the invitation in her place. With a domino mask and in the dress Chloe must have worn before, she might not be instantly recognisable. If the entire party was kept in period, maybe by candles or torchlight, she could perhaps pass as her stepdaughter.
It was a risk she had to take. She’d arrive early, say at nine, park the car at some distance and walk to the house through its surrounding woodland.
And if she was discovered? She would have to appeal to Sir Arthur, always supposing he was present. And if not, then she could claim he’d sent her along by way of a joke: part of the chaos that gave him his highs. Havoc House after all.
Investigation
Chapter 9
Saturday, 3 July
After Littlejohn’s conducting of the post mortem, DI Mott and Rosemary Zyczynski joined their chief in Yeadings’ office for coffee, having declined the less appealing offer of a brew-up at the morgue. The Superintendent was passing out mugs from a desk drawer when Beaumont sauntered in.
‘Gotta name,’ he announced, ‘assuming you’re right, Boss, about her being the one in the novelties shop. One Leila Knightley, married to a prof at Reading University - some kind of scientist. They used to live at Caversham but moved here four weeks back when he got himself a new job at a London college. I’ve just run their names through records but there’s nothing on either of them. Not so much as a parking ticket.
‘In Mardham she was quite well liked, if considered a tad highfalutin’ by the girls she employs. She half-owned the shop and worked there part-time three days a week. Drove a red Volvo but nobody knew its number. I had a word too with the newsagent three doors down. He lives over his shop and holds her spare set of keys against emergencies. He’s an awkward git; won’t hand them over until her partner gives permission. Said partner’s a sleeping one, name not generally known.’
‘Her address?’ Mott demanded.
Beaumont produced a folded page headed PARTY FUN from his inner pocket. ‘Right close here. Knollhurst, Acrefield Way. And guess what: it’s no more than half a mile from Shotters Wood.’
‘Let’s hope we find the husband at home,’ said Yeadings sombrely. ‘If he was partying with her, why hasn’t he been in touch to report her missing?’
‘Think he did it? Could be, though my money’s on a lover,’ Beaumont asserted. ‘A sexy-looking wench, going out dressed to kill; it could be that her target had the same idea, in spades, and she got done instead.’
Mott gave him a stony stare. ‘We’ll be looking for the party-thrower, checking the Knightleys’ acquaintances. There can’t be all that number of flashy entertainments in this neck of the woods. I want you to run a check on hotels and nightclubs within a thirty-mile area. See what gala affairs were billed for last night.’
Yeadings grunted. ‘There’s also a chance she was dumped by car from farther afield; and we don’t know yet how long she was held while tied up. The party or whatever could have been earlier than Friday.’
Mott nodded impatiently. ‘Right. I want photographs of the dress circulated to fashion shops as soon as Forensics have finished with it. It’s striking enough for someone to remember.’
‘Z?’ Yeadings invited, ‘can you suggest any other line of inquiry?’
The woman DS nodded. ‘The victim’s hair was sheared off before death. Either the killer’s a fetishist and it may turn up as evidence when we eventually get to him; or else he’ll have tried to dispose of it. So we should organize a search of refuse bins locally and sniff round bonfires; though burning’s a less likely option because of the giveaway stench.’
‘Yes,’ Yeadings agreed. ‘Hair is difficult to dispose of totally. Even if he mainly succeeded there could be the telltale wisp left behind. So - where would you start your scavenging?’
‘At the dead woman’s home; then discreetly at her acquaintances’. As Angus says, our priority is to find the party-thrower, who could be a neighbour or colleague.’
‘So, first interview the husband,’ Mott said decisively, ‘and any other family. Saturday’s a good time to catch people at home. I’ll cover breaking the news myself, with Z along in case there are womenfolk.’
He turned to the other sergeant. ‘Beaumont, in addition to the hotels angle I want a report on the clothing asap. Get on Forensics’ tail. No excuses about weekend leave.’
Beaumont grunted. Twice already Z had pulled the plums on this inquiry. Political over-correctness dealt the mere male a bum card. Some principle, sexual equality!
His shoe nudged the plastic carrier bag he’d dumped on the floor. ‘Any bids for a quantity of processed rain forest? I lugged all this to the morgue for Littlejohn and he’d scarpered. It’s no use to a higgorant tabloid-skimmer like me.’
‘Don’t look my way,’ growled Yeadings. ‘I already have Saturday’s armful of newsprint and it lasts me all week. That’s if I get to tackle it at all. Read it to broaden your outlook. And don’t let me see it on your expense sheet.’
‘Bloody hell,’ the DS complained as the team trooped along the corridor; ‘what’s soured the Boss? Anyone’d think the body was family.’
They found that Acrefield Way was a straggling lane with Tudor cottages huddling matily between Georgian elegance and prim Victorian villas. Knollhurst, at the far end before woodland and hedged fields took over, was one of two elegant Edwardian houses standing back from the road within their own grounds. The panelled front door was newly painted a glossy black and the rest of the woodwork white. On this hot June afternoon all the windows appeared to be shut.
‘They’re away,’ Z guessed. The brass knocker produced only a hollow echo, so after waiting a short while Mott took off for the rear of the building. He found side windows similarly closed, also the glass-panelled back door where cream-coloured holland blinds obscured any view of the interior. Farther on, a large domed conservatory with double doors giving on to the terrace offered a view of plumply cushioned rattan chairs and sofas punctuated by two potted palms and an oversized fatsedera. Glaringly out of place among their stylish arrangement stood a large trestle table covered with trays of domestic junk, and beneath it half a dozen removals cartons spilling polystyrene packaging. Mott recalled then that the family had only recently moved here. So maybe everyone had gone back to the earlier home for a final clear-out.
Doors to the double garage at the back of the house wer
e locked, but by hauling himself up to the rear windows Mott discovered it was empty. It appeared likely, then, that the woman had driven herself to wherever she met her death, and any recent sighting of the car might lead them there. As the other space was also vacant Mott assumed the husband was separately absent with his own car.
‘Get hold of her licence number,’ he ordered Z as he returned to the front garden. ‘The computer might still have her old address on it. Then get what you can from the nextdoor neighbours.’
Jeffrey and Madeleine Piggott were an irascibly separated couple who occasionally threatened each other with divorce, but so far neither had had sufficient persistence to set it in motion. Their two boys, living with the exasperated mother, were tetchily claimed on occasional weekends by the father, a turf accountant whose shop was considered by many local residents to be a blot on the village’s good name.
In summer, when the weather permitted, he would invariably discharge his paternal duty by driving his sons on Saturdays to the coast where, loaded with coins, they conveniently disappeared into amusement arcades. On the Sunday the brothers, one eleven, one nine, and constantly at loggerheads, would spend most of their time locked in a near-lethal grapple on the hearthrug in his decidedly poky flat in Aylesbury. The only remedy for which, Piggott père had discovered, was to pay them to sit in a cinema until he was disposed to transfer them to the nearest McDonalds and feed them to the point of semi-stupor before delivery home.
The older, Dunkie (for Duncan), was a good-natured dreamer, slow but not stupid. Patrick - bright and a tease, with a short temper and an even shorter concentration span - was the more vicious thumper, irritated by competition unless assured he’d come out on top. Jeffrey took some pride in recognising him as a chip off his own worthy block.