A Fatal Affair

by Faith Martin

  Trudy quite liked sitting in churches. There was a peace to be had inside them that wasn’t quite matched anywhere else. At school, they’d been taught all the hymns, and she liked singing, although she wasn’t quite sure she had a good voice and was careful to keep her voice down to little more than a whisper.

  Beside her, though, Clement Ryder was displaying a very pleasing baritone, and she noticed one or two ladies – presumably unattached – eyeing him with a speculative gleam in their eyes.

  The women, Trudy noticed without any real surprise, outnumbered men roughly three to one. There was no sign of Keith Finch, for instance, or Ray Dewberry or Mortimer Crowley, although Trudy supposed, cynically, that Mortimer probably rarely set foot inside a church. But Ronnie Dewberry was present, she noticed, sitting next to Janet Baines, a few pews ahead of them on the other side of the church. Her mother sat on her other side and, to Trudy’s eye, seemed to be a little agitated.

  She whispered as much to Clement when, the hymn over, they all sat down again.

  Clement glanced across the aisle and saw that Angela Baines was sitting, stiff-backed, and staring resolutely at the pulpit. Both Trudy and Clement saw when Janet Baines reached out and took Ronnie’s hand in her own.

  Trudy gave a mental nod. So she was right. She’d always half-believed that there might have been something going on between those two, and now it seemed as if they had finally decided to make it public. And there wasn’t a much more public declaration of their stepping out together than holding hands in church of a Sunday. Already several of the more eagle-eyed worshippers had spotted the telltale gesture, and were casting each other speculative glances.

  Beside her daughter, Angela Baines’s lips tightened still further.

  Clement found his mind wandering as the vicar’s words washed over him.

  After Trudy had told her superior about the real nature of Mortimer Crowley’s parties, he knew that the DI would do his best to track down and interview those who had indulged their appetites for the bohemian lifestyle with the dead girl.

  Superintendent Finch, not surprisingly, had been enthusiastic and had called the coroner to thank him. Learning that the dead girl had provided rather exotic favours for any number of unknown men had opened up a whole new field for him – and given him fresh hope of clearing his son’s name.

  But would it? As he shifted a little on the uncomfortable, hard wooden pew, Clement felt again a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Unless something broke soon, he was beginning to feel as if they’d have to admit defeat on this one.

  The prospect was a depressing one.

  In his house, Mortimer Crowley was also feeling vaguely depressed. He was in his bedroom, hurriedly packing two large suitcases and trying to reassure himself that he was merely beating a tactical retreat, not fleeing like a scared little kid.

  As he packed, moving rapidly from wardrobe to case and back again, he tried to lighten his gloom. After all, the next few months or so were bound to be much more fun spent in the south of France than in this little rural backwater. He might even move on to Tuscany later, depending on how long he needed to lay low.

  Trust that drunken idiot Rhys not to keep his mouth shut. When he’d finally managed to get him on the phone, he’d been appalled to hear the stupid bastard admit that he’d been shooting his mouth off. He’d seemed to think it funny.

  But a dead girl was no laughing matter – not when the police were going to be looking at you very closely, anyway. He took a deep breath, hoping that he might be being overly pessimistic. Was it possible that things might not be about to come tumbling down around his ears after all – not if they couldn’t actually prove anything?

  On the other hand, he’d always got by on listening to his instincts, and right now his instincts were positively screaming at him to get out whilst the going was good.

  He grabbed his passport and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket, put on his most expensive watch and reached for his travelling gentlemen’s vanity case, checking that all the brushes, combs and shaving lotions were in place.

  Satisfied, he slammed the case shut, then closed and locked both his suitcases.

  With a grunt, he hauled them off the bed and headed awkwardly for the stairs. In a few hours he’d be flying out over the channel, and Inspector bloody Jennings and his nosy, flat-footed coppers could whistle for another chance to talk to him.

  As he loaded up his car – a rather fine Bentley – he cast a quick glance around. The village of Middle Fenton quietly looked back at him, unimpressed.

  As he drove down his drive and out into the lane, he felt an enormous sense of relief wash over him to be leaving the place.

  He passed the village green and the permanent maypole, keeping his eyes carefully averted.

  Duncan Gillingham sat at the back of the church, wondering if he was wasting his time. Not that he minded following Trudy Loveday around, but he’d never liked churches. They made him feel uncomfortable, as if he was being watched and judged.

  Half-hidden behind a stone pillar, he yawned widely and wondered exactly what had brought the lovely Trudy and the old vulture here of all places. One thing was for sure – as soon as the service was ended, he’d have to be quick about it and nip out and hide behind a yew tree or something before Trudy could spot him.

  He hoped she’d lead him to something good soon. His editor was beginning to drop very broad hints that the Carmody story was running out of steam and Duncan shouldn’t be wasting any more of his time on it. But if his hunch was right, he’d soon be able to give both the editor and his prospective daddy-in-law one in the eye when he came back with a scoop.

  A bee, having bumbled its way through the open church door, droned around a flower arrangement near the entrance. Duncan fought back another yawn. He’d always hated Sundays – they were so boring and dead. Nothing ever seemed to happen on a Sunday …

  As the vicar finally finished his sermon and wished them all a fine day, Angela Baines rose with the rest of the dismissed congregation. She kept a stiff, polite smile firmly on her face as she made her way in the procession to the church door, and shook hands with the vicar.

  Behind her, she heard Janet murmur something about how uplifting the sermon had been, and then Ronnie Dewberry’s polite acknowledgement of ‘Vicar’. She pretended not to notice that the two were still holding hands as they walked down the stone path towards the black wrought-iron gates. Already she could see Thelma Collier and that awful Claire Innes woman looking at the couple and whispering gleefully.

  By tomorrow, she thought furiously, the news would be all over the village.

  Angela felt utterly humiliated. It was not that there was anything wrong with Ronnie Dewberry, she supposed. His father did own one of the largest farms around, and he would one day inherit. But Janet could do so much better! And why had they been keeping things a secret from her? That’s what made Angela want to scream and rant with rage and frustration – the fact that her daughter had been sneaking about behind her back, and she hadn’t known about it!

  It made her wonder what else might have escaped her notice. Just how long had her daughter been sweet on the wretched boy? And why was Janet making such a public show of it now?

  She just knew that something, somewhere, was very wrong. She had the feeling that her life was slipping out of control; not just her own life, but that of her daughter, too, maybe even that of the whole village. It was as if they were all beginning to cartwheel helplessly down some massive, downward slope, where it could all only end in disaster.

  She turned, trying to catch Janet’s eye, but her daughter refused to meet her gaze. Instead she smiled vaguely at some point over her mother’s shoulder and said coolly, ‘Mummy, Ronnie and I are going to have a picnic lunch together. I’ll see you at tea-time.’

  And before Angela could object, Janet was all but tugging Ronnie away. He, to give him some credit, managed to give her a polite smile and a nod, but Angela felt only a cold sense of rage an
d dread.

  The moment she got home, she went straight to her daughter’s bedroom, and began frantically to search it.

  Ronnie let himself be led back to the farmhouse, where Janet set about raiding the kitchen larder to make sandwiches and check for fruit, cheese and cake. All the way, she talked happily, lightly, about their future together, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  Ronnie had no idea how she did it. He felt as if the world had turned upside down and back-to-front, all around him.

  At least his dad wasn’t around to witness the spectacle, Ronnie mused gratefully. He, no doubt, was out and about in the fields, somewhere, getting on with the usual routine. But sooner or later Ronnie would have to confess that he and Janet were now … what?

  Engaged?

  He wasn’t quite sure.

  He wasn’t quite sure what Janet wanted, exactly.

  He didn’t even know what he thought or felt about it all. He’d always thought Janet was one of the loveliest girls he knew, even at school. But he’d never seriously thought she’d look at him twice. And now, suddenly, everything had changed.

  Last night she’d called at the farm, totally out of the blue, and asked him to go for a walk with her. Luckily Dad had been upstairs in the bath at the time, so he’d been spared any knowing or speculative looks.

  And so they’d walked, and Janet had been lively and bright and lovely and, somehow … somehow, she’d let him know that he had caught her eye, and before he knew it, they’d become an item and shared their first kiss.

  And, despite the confusion he’d felt about what was happening, he was sort of excited and pleased about it too, because Janet was such a catch. Everyone knew her mother had money, and she was pretty and clever and a proper lady – not like that tart Iris!

  How Ronnie hated Iris.

  And, although he couldn’t say why or how, during their giddy few hours together last night, he had formed the impression that Janet hated her too. But that couldn’t be right, could it? Everyone knew that they’d been friends.

  ‘Is fruit cake all you have?’ Janet asked, breaking into his reverie, and he looked at the mundane, shop-bought offering and shrugged apologetically. ‘It’s Dad’s favourite,’ he muttered by way of apology.

  But, at the back of his mind, Ronnie felt deeply uneasy. What had brought all this on? Why did he feel as if Janet had turned into a sleek cat, and he had suddenly grown a set of mouse-whiskers and a long thin mouse-tail?

  ‘Oh well, it’ll go well with an apple and some cheese,’ Janet said blithely, and smiled. But the fact was, she was feeling distinctly nervous. It was important to her plans that the whole village knew that she was with Ronnie now, which was why she’d made their pairing so public and obvious. Because it was just possible that, before the day was out, she would need the protection that gave her. Ronnie must be made to see that he couldn’t possibly hurt her without bringing disaster down on himself.

  Hopefully, it would be all the advantage she needed.

  Angela Baines sat on her daughter’s bed, a picture of misery, with her head in her hands. Around her lay the scattered proof of the frenzied nature of her search, and she wearily set about tidying everything up before her daughter got home. But all the effort had been wasted. She’d found nothing that might explain Janet’s behaviour, and felt exhausted and frightened, and still clueless.

  As she glanced up bleakly to look out through the window, her eyes rested on the big wooden jewellery box resting on her daughter’s vanity table. Tunbridge ware, it was a beautiful thing, made of many different kinds of wood, worked into an intricate design. Janet had brought it home one day a few years ago, as a birthday present to herself.

  She had already opened and rifled through it, of course, but it had contained nothing but her daughter’s modest collection of tasteful jewellery.

  With a sigh, she set about restoring the vanity table top to pristine order, as Janet always kept it, but something about seeing the box resting there suddenly struck a dim and distant memory of her own childhood. Hadn’t her mother owned something similar … Yes, she was sure she had. And something in her memory tickled at her, making her smile almost with realising it. Something about her mother’s box had been exciting and pleasing to the small girl she’d once been. What was it? Something …

  With a sudden cry of remembrance, Angela Baines’s hand shot out and pounced on it, for she remembered now. For her mother had called her own case a ‘puzzle box’. And she had shown her fascinated and delighted daughter the ‘secret’. How, by pressing and sliding certain sections of the different-coloured wood, you could find a hidden drawer, and had explained to her what it had probably once been used for.

  As a child, she hadn’t understood what love-letters were, or why ladies in the Victorian era would want to hide them, but, for a short while, the puzzle box had been her favourite thing, until something else had caught her attention, and she’d slowly forgotten about it.

  Now Angela sat back on the bed, studying the box carefully. She removed the trays of jewellery and eyed the side of the box, trying to calculate if the trays were as deep as the carcass of the outer shell – and she realised that they weren’t!

  Her heart leapt. Quickly she turned the box this way and that, probing, pushing, pulling and finally finding the first piece of wood that moved. After that she spent a frustrating ten minutes twisting, pulling, tweaking and swearing viciously. Had the ladies at the church been able to hear her, they’d have blanched in shock, for who’d have thought the genteel, cool and ladylike Angela Baines would even know such words, let alone use them?

  Finally she felt something inside the box go ‘ping’ and the invisible bottom drawer sprang open.

  With a cry of triumph, Angela pulled it open, revealing the treasure. And treasure it was indeed – no less than her daughter’s diary.

  The little madam, Angela thought furiously. She’s always said she never wanted to keep a diary!

  Feverishly, she opened the first page and then paused, taken aback, for just one glance told her that the neatly written pages were not filled with her daughter’s familiar, rather flowery handwriting.

  Instead …

  Angela Baines’s mouth went bone-dry as she realised just whose diary this was. And what it meant.

  For a moment, she was unable to take it all in. But when her numbed mind finally unlocked, so too did a tidal wave of despair, for she knew that she was literally holding catastrophe in her hands.

  What could she do? How could she fix this?

  But before she could even begin to formulate an answer to that, she heard the sound of a door opening downstairs, and she quickly and guiltily thrust the diary back into its hiding place and set the puzzle box back on the table.

  Why was Janet back so soon?

  She stepped hastily out of her daughter’s room and began to run lightly down the stairs. Once in the hall, she called out, making her way to the kitchen.

  ‘Janet? Darling, where …’

  Angela never got the chance to finish the sentence.

  Chapter 31

  Trudy and Clement left the church, neither one of them in any hurry to head back to their respective homes. Since it was another lovely day, they strolled to one end of the village and then back again, taking their time. In the hedgerows the first of the dog roses were beginning to bloom, and cow parsley was frothing creamy lace umbrella-like flower-heads alongside the road verges.

  From a dense hawthorn thicket, a yellowhammer called out his song of ‘a little bit of bread and no cheese’, claiming the desirable residence as his own.

  ‘It’s going to be really warm today,’ Trudy remarked, as Clement paused to raise his Trilby hat and flick back his thick white hair with a hand that seemed to tremble slightly.

  ‘Yes,’ Clement agreed. His hat secure, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of strong-flavoured mints and popped one into his mouth. Trudy had noticed his fondness for these mint sweets before, and it
always struck her as slightly out of character – although she couldn’t really have said why.

  He casually thrust his trembling hand into one of his trouser pockets, out of sight.

  ‘I suppose we ought to call on Mrs Baines and find out why she’s so out of sorts – although I fear the answer will be obvious. But you never know, it might be significant.’

  ‘Yes,’ Trudy said at once. ‘I for one think it’s curious that Janet and Ronnie have decided to start advertising the fact that they’re a couple, don’t you?’

  Clement didn’t, particularly, but then he wasn’t twenty years old and intrigued with youthful romance. ‘I think now might be a good time to see if we can’t find out,’ he temporised. ‘Let’s go and see if Mrs Baines has any insights.’

  When they got there, the front door to the Baines’ house stood slightly open, and as they noticed it on their approach up the garden path, Trudy and Clement exchanged quick glances. Of course, it was already turning into a very hot day, so it was always possible that Angela had left the doors and windows open to let in some air. Nevertheless, they both felt a sense of unease as they approached the door, though neither one showed it.

  At the entrance, Clement pushed door open a little further, revealing an empty hallway and called out. ‘Hello? Anyone home? Mrs Baines?’

  Somewhere in the back of the house there came a furtive sound of rushed movement. It immediately triggered a knee-jerk reaction in Trudy who, before Clement could stop her, pushed past him and darted into the hall. Through the open door of the first room on her left she could see a small study, and a quick glance confirmed that it was deserted. If the house was being burgled, then at least the thief hadn’t ransacked the whole house yet. She moved quickly down to the open door at the end, aware that Clement was now right behind her.

  Like the front door had been, the back kitchen door was also open – and just moving slowly backwards on its hinges, as if it had been pushed violently open and was now going back on itself.