by Nicola Slade
She looked at them sadly. ‘It all seems such a long time ago to us, ancient history.’ She turned to Harriet and Sam who were listening intently, Sam looking sympathetic but Harriet wore an unreadable expression. ‘You two can only have been small babies then,’ she said reflectively then she continued. ‘The village where mother lived was right out at the back of beyond, on a little peninsula, nowhere important; just a skinny granite neck sticking out into the Atlantic on the wild west coast of Brittany. By the time the outside world found out what had happened it was all too late.’
She flicked her fingers in exasperation. ‘The trouble is I’ve absolutely no idea what it was that actually happened. Anyway, whatever it was, all of her family were killed: the men, that is. I think her mother was already dead but she had four brothers aged between twelve and about twenty-five; Mother was the only girl and she came somewhere in the middle of the boys but she was always cagey about her age. Said it was a woman’s prerogative to lie about such things.’
Alice’s smile, through sudden tears, touched Harriet’s heart. ‘I did try to love Mother, you know,’ she said simply. ‘But she was so difficult. I – I feel awful saying that I just didn’t like her at all. If I could only have believed she loved me, even just a little, in her own peculiar way, but it was only Daddy who … and after he died Mother and I had nothing in common.’ She paused, running her tongue over dry lips. ‘I’ve tried and tried to work out why she was like she was and all I can think is that – if the worst has happened to you – as it did to her, nothing else can touch you very much. I’ve an idea she might have been raped at that time too, from something she once said, about my arrival being a shock, something she’d thought could never happen.’
Her voice died away and she took another sip from her glass in the silence, smiling faintly when Neil reached out for her hand and tucked it between his own warm ones. ‘I know that doesn’t excuse the way she was, but she did like to have power over people. I think it all went back to the war when you used whatever weapons came to hand.’
Harriet’s eyes narrowed and she gave a thoughtful nod; Alice shot her a quick look of enquiry. ‘Why did you want to know, Harriet?’ she asked, with a sharply intelligent gaze. ‘Do you think there could be something – irregular, perhaps, about Mother’s death?’
Sam interrupted abruptly. ‘Time for another drink, everyone? My round this time.’ His breezy smile earned him a troubled frown from Alice but a surreptitious nod of thanks from his cousin.
In the ensuing activity Alice’s question was allowed to drop but Harriet was uneasily conscious of that level, measuring look and that Alice was, now and then, preoccupied with some sort of internal appraisal.
‘Oh, by the way, Harriet.’ It was Neil, looking up from his pint of Ringwood bitter. ‘I rang Mike, you know, the horn player?’
Harriet was all attention. ‘Did you indeed. And…?’
Neil wore a puzzled frown. ‘Yes, how did you know, Harriet? That there might be some black thread tied on to the euphonium?’
Harriet gave a little sigh and Sam paused, his beer glass in mid journey to his lips, his eyes eager and acute, waiting for Harriet’s reply.
She disappointed him by shrugging her shoulders and making a non-committal sound.
‘You were quite right,’ continued Neil. ‘Mike said he assumed it was left over from where they were all decorating the horns with tinsel. Did you notice? I even had a little bit on my clarinet though of course it doesn’t lend itself to fancy trimming, not like the bigger horns.’
‘Think carefully, Neil,’ Harriet was leaning forward now, very earnest. ‘Did your friend say whether he himself had used thread to tie the tinsel on to the euphonium?’
‘No,’ Neil was quite definite. ‘He just twisted it round but when he spotted the thread it was actually tied, but as it was when he was cleaning up.…’ Their eyes all swivelled towards Alice but she seemed lost in thought and hadn’t picked up the reference. Neil went on, ‘Anyway, he just assumed one of the others had decided to make it more secure. However, when he put the horn away the black thread was gone and now he’s not even sure it was there in the first place.’
Harriet jerked her head up and stared at him, not speaking. Neil looked across at her, a frown creasing his brow. ‘What is this, Harriet? I checked with the rest of the band – I thought that would be the next job you set me. Nobody had done anything at all with any black thread.’
‘Ahhh.’ It was a sigh of pure content, then Harriet hastily pulled herself together with an appalled shiver. For a moment she had actually revelled in her own brilliant deduction, forgetting completely the horrific circumstances. This wasn’t an academic puzzle.
Aloud she said, ‘I don’t know. It’s odd that he thought he saw it but then it was gone. I just don’t know.’
To herself she added, if I’m correct, and she shivered in the warmth of the pub – if I’ve got it right we could definitely be talking murder.
Half an hour or so later Harriet poured herself and Sam a snort of Laphroaig and sat back cradling her glass.
‘Do you think they bought it?’ she asked, giving Sam a worried look as she sat on the bed.
‘What, your explanation that you had been afraid the tinsel could have caught in the railing somehow and brought the euphonium tumbling down?’ He wrinkled his nose in thought. ‘I think they did, actually, it’s a daft idea but it seemed to fit well with your sudden impersonation of a frail old lady who needed to go to bed right then. Besides, somebody could be keeping quiet about decorating it, because they feel guilty. And the same person could have nipped in a little later on after the initial fuss and cut off the thread, again because they felt guilty. You have to admit it would be a difficult thing to own up to and as there’s been no mention of any thread, it would be easier to keep your mouth shut.’
She grinned and raised her glass in a toast. ‘Very true. And as for the “poor old Harriet” act, well, I had to get out of there some way or other, and I really did feel tired. It seemed as good an excuse as any.’ She sobered quickly. ‘You’re right, of course. It could be the way you describe or it could have been quite deliberate. But still, I think they bought it.’
‘Yes.’ He sniffed the malt appreciatively. ‘I, on the other hand, am not taken in by the daft old biddy syndrome, so let’s have the truth, Harriet.’
‘It’s hard to know where to start.’ She made no pretence of not understanding him, and then, as he shifted restlessly in the room’s sole armchair, she told him about Mrs Turner and her missing reel of thread.
He listened carefully, nodding once or twice; then, when she stopped speaking, he thought it over. ‘Let me get this right,’ he mused. ‘Your theory is that somebody picked up the reel of black thread during the interval, sneaked upstairs to the minstrels’ gallery and, inspired by the tinsel, tied the thread to the euphonium?’ He gave her an old-fashioned look but she said nothing, merely nodding, so he went on. ‘Then, you believe, the perpetrator snuck back downstairs, carrying the cotton reel concealed about his or her person, still quite undetected and, at the appropriate moment, whatever that might have been, gave the thread a tug and down came the euphonium. And then he, or she, skipped back and disposed of the thread?’
He snorted with scorn. ‘Bollocks!’
‘Really, Canon Hathaway,’ she countered swiftly. ‘Such unbecoming language from a man of the cloth.’ She subsided and shot him a look of resignation, she had expected no less. This was yet another reason why she had insisted on coming back to her room at Firstone Grange, though she had also preferred not to air her theories in Alice’s hearing. Any such discussion would be bound to be upsetting.
Harriet topped up her modest nightcap from the flask Sam had donated earlier. There was only one glass so she sipped her whisky from her coffee mug, knowing that her continued silence would infuriate Sam.
Sure enough, here he was, rising to the bait. ‘Well, honestly, Harriet. You have to admit it’s a bit rich, as theo
ries go. I mean, look at the facts; for a start you’d have to be completely round the twist to take that kind of risk. The thread could be spotted or it could have snapped earlier and rendered the whole exercise pointless, or the damned euphonium could have killed half a dozen people at the same time as Christiane Marchant. It could even have killed other people and missed her completely.’
He looked down his nose with a dismissive shake of his head, then came up with another objection. ‘And what about the actual thread, if that’s really the way it happened? I mean, a long trailing thread leading to the killer, standing there with the reel in his or her hand?’
She maintained her irritating silence and his kindly, patronizing air began to dissipate.
‘For God’s sake, Harriet, say something. Don’t just sit there with that smug Sphinx smile on your face, you’ve obviously thought about this. What makes you so sure?’
‘I don’t know that I am sure.’ She ducked her head in apology and waved her flask at him with a grin. At his nod she topped up his drink with a very small dollop of Scotch, then rummaged in her bedside table and brought out some stem ginger cookies. ‘Here, nibble on his and see if it brings any inspiration.’
She took a sip of her own whisky and thought about it for a moment. ‘Your most valid objection to my theory is that it put other people at risk. Well, I agree, but perhaps you didn’t realize that during the interval Matron insisted that Christiane Marchant had to be parked away over to one side. The excuse given was that the tyres on the wheelchair were damaging the parquet floor but I think myself that was just quick thinking on Matron’s part. She must have noticed how uneasy Mrs Marchant was making some of the others. But it means the wretched woman was there all alone, tucked in a corner beside the table, and it seemed to me then – and I don’t believe this is purely hindsight, that they had all rejected her somehow, pushed her away from them with Matron’s help. They had sent her to Coventry in a way.’
She looked backwards at the events of the previous evening, trying to summon up an accurate image. ‘I’m right, you know, Sam. She was really out in the cold. They were all there, the people she had dancing and twitching as she pulled their strings: Ellen Ransom and Doreen Buchan. Tim Armstrong and old Fred Buchan with Alice Marchant and young Gemma in the doorway. Even Pauline Winslow was close enough to tug at an invisible thread, bearing in mind just how dark it was then, with the candle bulbs dimmed.’
‘Haven’t you shot yourself in the foot, rather, if you suspect Alice?’ he enquired, making no comment on the theory so far.
‘You mean by talking about the threads of cotton? Just now in the pub?’ She shrugged. ‘Could be, I suppose, but equally one could argue that I’d merely fired a warning shot across her bows. To let her know that she couldn’t get away with it.’
He nodded and waited patiently.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Sam. I think she was getting a bit worried until I babbled on about the tinsel on the musical instruments but I’m pretty certain my explanation satisfied her. I don’t really think she had anything to do with it but the trouble is, I don’t want it to be Alice and once you start having favourites you might as well give up.’
She put her glass down, glad of the opportunity to turn away from Sam’s scrutiny. She knew she was looking her age, and more, tonight and that Sam was remembering that she was, after all, recovering from a fairly major operation.
‘Look, Harriet,’ he ventured, making no comment on her weariness. ‘I’m not so sure I was right to dismiss the whole idea straight away, but I do see that as a plan for a murder it’s about as foolproof as a leaky sieve. I’ll take your word for it about Mrs Marchant being set apart – I was talking and didn’t take much notice of her; and I’ll concede that it could have happened that way. But to my mind the black thread is the weak link, literally.’
‘But it was button thread,’ she interrupted him eagerly. ‘I certainly wasn’t the only person Mrs Turner mentioned it to – that it was the extra strong thread, I mean, rather than the usual weight and thickness. You’re right, ordinary cotton would have been useless.’ She clenched her fists for a moment and turned to him. ‘I think Christiane Marchant said something more than usually dreadful to somebody just before the concert began and that this was a spur of the moment, opportunistic effort, using whatever came to hand.’
‘Mmm.’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘Could be, I suppose, but that’s a two-edged argument. I mean, yes, if you like, it would probably ensure that the thread was strong enough to take the weight of that huge instrument for a short time, but equally, unless it was arranged somehow over a fulcrum – a fixed point like the keys, perhaps, or even twisted round one of them – you couldn’t be sure it would break after the event, which would leave a long trailing pointer to the cotton reel in your guilty hand.’
‘Unless you had a pair of nail scissors in your handbag or a pen knife in your pocket, all ready for a quick snip at the incriminating thread, under cover of the inevitable hysteria and confusion that such an accident would bring about.’
He let out a tuneless whistle and stared at her, obviously intrigued against his better judgement. ‘They were all underfoot as soon as it happened, even Tim Armstrong,’ he admitted slowly as he thought back to the horror, the noise and the mess of the aftermath. ‘Both the Buchans, Fred and Doreen, and Vic too, were there as far as I recall. They were on the spot at once and Mrs Ransom was hovering around there too, I remember thinking what a ghoul she was and scolding myself for lack of charity.’
She nodded encouragement. Just so had she regarded a particularly bright pupil in her teaching days, when a knotty problem was being untangled by use of logic and applied intelligence.
‘Did they all go up to the gallery?’ He answered his own question with a nod. ‘I remember Ellen Ransom’s face,’ he went on, speaking slowly, thoughtfully. ‘It really did look like a case of “if looks could kill”.’ He looked at her. ‘I remember something else. Tim Armstrong, did you hear what he said? He said: “That woman deserves to die.” I remember his very words.’
Harriet gave him a startled look. ‘But that’s exactly what Doreen Buchan said, her very words too, I’m quite sure of it.’
They stared at each other, not knowing what to think.
‘I don’t think Alice moved.’ He was squinting back in time again and she nodded.
‘No, you’re right, she didn’t,’ Harriet admitted. ‘I was about to go to her but Neil was there. She certainly didn’t move towards her mother’s body but it’s possible, remotely I agree, that she could have done it and left it to chance about the thread.’
He gave her another of his old-fashioned looks and she conceded defeat. ‘Oh all right, it’s far-fetched in the extreme and highly unlikely. That’s why, besides partiality, that I don’t really believe Alice killed her own mother, though I must admit that property development business this morning gave me a bit of a jolt.’
She frowned then remembered the snatched five minutes earlier on when he had managed to fill her in on his unexpected trip to Winchester on Matron’s errand. ‘What was all that business with Fred Buchan, do you think, Sam? I mean, why the Cathedral? I could understand if he’d gone there to pray but from what you say, all he did was stand and look at the statue in the crypt.’
‘Oh no,’ Sam corrected her gently but firmly. ‘I’m pretty certain that Fred was praying while he stood there. In his own way. For some reason he’d decided that the Cathedral was the place he had to be, though I soon realized he didn’t know what to do when he got there. He had no coherent plan, I think it was just some blind instinct that took him there, but the crypt attracted him and when he saw the statue he was transfixed. He’d picked me for the job because I’m a priest – though he didn’t seem confused about that, as I’d initially suspected. He seemed to know the difference between Roman Catholic and Anglican priests, all right. However, even after asking for my help, he wouldn’t open up to me however gently I probed, so God only knows what he was
looking for – or what he found. But it was certainly some kind of prayer, Harriet.’
Saying nothing, she shot him a smile that mingled deep affection with considerable respect, then she looked at her watch and stood up, brushing biscuit crumbs off her plaid woollen skirt and tut-tutting as a drop of whisky spilt on her lambswool sweater as she drained her mug.
‘Lick it off, Old Hat,’ suggested Sam absently then raised his head in surprise at her sudden giggle. ‘What? What did I say? What are you laughing at?’
‘You,’ she grinned as they emerged from her room and set off downstairs. ‘Is that what you do, you old soak, reduced to sucking drips off your jumper? Thank God I’m not so dependent on alcohol, you old villain.’
He gave her one of his rueful schoolboy grins, looking a little abashed. ‘Can’t keep anything a secret from you, can I? Still, the price of whisky nowadays, you have to take it where you can get it.’
She saw him to the door, their problem unresolved, but as he said goodnight he frowned suddenly. ‘Be careful, love,’ he urged, with an anxious look round the entrance hall. ‘I don’t know that I like the idea of you trapped here with a you-know-what on the loose. If you’re right, that is.’