Village Affairs

by Cassandra Chan

  The twins were perched on a windowsill, looking out, while the constable stood in a corner, talking on the phone. She raised a brow at them, while the twins turned to see who had come.

  “Oh,” said Julie, “I thought you were more police.”

  “No, it’s only us,” said Astley-Cooper.

  “Clarence and Phillip have come along to help,” said Mrs. Potts.

  James scowled. “I don’t know what anybody can do,” he said gloomily.

  “She’s just disappeared,” said Julie. “Her car’s here and so are all of ours, and none of the horses are out, yet she’s nowhere to be found. Something must have happened to her, although I can’t think what.”

  Bethancourt privately thought it more likely that Miss Bonnar had fled, though he was surprised. He had really not thought her guilty.

  “When did you last see her?” he asked.

  “Last night after supper,” said Julie. “At about nine o’clock or so.”

  “Mrs. Potts said she had been drinking?”

  “Oh, yes,” said James. “She took the bottle up with her—we all saw her—and most of it’s gone this morning.”

  “Then,” said Astley-Cooper, “she might have disappeared at any time during the night.”

  “Did she take a coat or anything?” asked Bethancourt. “It was chilly last night.”

  “Yes, her coat’s gone,” replied Julie. “And a pair of flat shoes. I’m not sure what else she was wearing—she always brought a lot of clothes.”

  “Well,” said Bethancourt, “if she was a bit tipsy and went for a walk at night, she may easily have fallen and broken a leg or something.” He had no faith at all in this theory, but he could hardly tell them he thought their mother was a murderer. And however bad it looked, it was entirely possible that an accident had occurred.

  “We thought of that,” said Julie impatiently. “James walked down to Charlie’s cottage earlier—it seemed the most likely place for her to have gone on foot.”

  “I kept a sharp lookout,” said James, “but there was no sign of her.”

  Constable Stikes had rung off, and now walked over to join them.

  “Cheltenham are sending a search team,” she said. “I’m going to go down to the road to be sure they don’t miss the turn. I’ve been explaining the lay of the land to the sergeant in charge, and he’s already organizing his men as they come. We’ll find her, never worry.”

  “Thanks so much,” said Julie. “We appreciate all you’re doing. Look here, do you think the police could leave a man at the road to prevent the press coming up? They’ll be swarming all over, otherwise.”

  Stikes nodded. “I’d already mentioned it to the sergeant,” she answered. “Let me go down and meet them now.”

  They were all silent once she had left them.

  “Well,” said Astley-Cooper in a moment, “you know, she mightn’t have gone anywhere in particular.”

  Everyone looked at him, confused.

  “I mean,” he said, “she could have just taken a walk. You know, when you can’t sleep at night and think a breath of fresh air might help.”

  “Yes,” said Julie thoughtfully, “I suppose that’s possible.” She looked at her brother. “I would have thought, if that were the case, she’d just take a turn around the garden, and we’ve checked there. But she might have gone along the path instead.”

  “The path?” asked Bethancourt.

  “It leads out to the lake—it’s a favorite walk of all of ours,” explained James.

  “It’s also how one walks to the cottages,” said Mrs. Potts, frowning, “and James has already been along there.”

  “But I didn’t look around the lake itself,” said James. “It didn’t occur to me. I had my eyes on the path, thinking if she had fallen, she would be somewhere along it.”

  “It’s a chance,” said Julie, standing up. “I’ll go look myself. I’ll take one of the horses—I shall go quicker that way. Do you want to come, James?”

  Her brother shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll wait here with Marty for the police.”

  “You’ll want someone along,” said Bethancourt. “In case you find her, I mean. I could go with you, if you like.”

  Julie shot him a suspicious look. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Can you ride? Really ride, I mean. My horses are tender-mouthed and I intend they should stay that way.”

  “I can ride, actually,” said Bethancourt.

  “Phillip plays polo,” said Astley-Cooper helpfully.

  This seemed to mollify her, and she led Bethancourt out to the back door, where she paused to don a jacket and a pair of Wellingtons, glancing at his trousers as she did so.

  “You’re going to ruin those flannels,” she remarked.

  “That’s all right,” he replied, smiling at her. “All in a good cause.”

  Like many women before her, she melted beneath that smile and looked away. “Well, it’s very good of you,” she said. “Let’s get on then.”

  The stable lay beyond the kitchen garden, a desolate place at this time of year. Julie walked briskly through it, and entered the stable through a door into the tack room. She paused here, biting her lip anxiously for a moment, and then said, “I suppose you can ride Storm. That’s his gear there.”

  Bethancourt gathered up the saddle and bridle from their hooks and followed her into the stable proper.

  “Storm’s the gray there,” she said, pointing with her chin. “He’s the steadiest of the lot.”

  “Right,” said Bethancourt, hanging the saddle over the half-door and reaching out to make friends with the horse. He was aware, as he tacked up, of Julie’s critical eye on him, but she made no objections and appeared to be somewhat reassured by his practiced movements. Still, she watched him carefully as he mounted and gathered up his reins. Apparently he passed inspection on this score, for she turned her own mount and pointed.

  “The lake’s that way,” she said.

  “May I suggest,” said Bethancourt, bringing Storm up beside her, “that we ride several yards to one side of the path?”

  “Why?”

  “If we don’t find her, the police may want to look for footprints.”

  “Oh,” she said, biting her lip again. “I hadn’t thought of that. Very well.”

  On horseback, the lake was only a few minutes away. After the first few yards, Julie ceased to watch Bethancourt’s every move, having evidently made up her mind that Storm was safe in his hands. Bethancourt was very glad he had not been bluffing when he said he could ride; he could hardly imagine her reaction had his abilities been found wanting.

  They rode at a brisk trot, topping the little hill that lay between the house and the lake. The well-worn track of the path led down the hill and straight to the water’s edge. At the shore, it forked, leading along the bank in either direction and at last into the trees, which crowded along the lake’s farther shore.

  There was no sign of a figure huddled on the ground on the open expanse, but the grass between the path and the water had not been mown and grew thick and tall, and Bethancourt supposed someone could lay quite hidden in it.

  Julie was moving on down the slope.

  “There’s no point in looking here,” she said. “James has already been over this part.” She pointed off to the left. “That’s the path to the cottages,” she said. “We want to go to the right. Do you see that rock over there?”

  Bethancourt squinted through his glasses. Not quite halfway around the lake was a large boulder sticking up from the grass.

  “I see it,” he said.

  “Well, that’s the end of the usual walk. The rock’s more comfortable to sit on than you’d think, and we moor the rowboat there, too.”

  “Boat?” asked Bethancourt.

  “Oh, Mother wouldn’t have taken that,” said Julie, laughing. “It’s only a creaky old rowboat and she hated it. You can’t see it from here because the rock’s in the way.”

  They reached the lakes
hore and slowed the horses to a walk, keeping their eyes on the ground as they followed the water’s curve. When they came to the rock, Julie drew up.

  “Nothing,” she said, clearly disappointed.

  Bethancourt was examining the boulder. It was larger than it had looked from a distance and would be easy enough to clamber onto. In the side facing the lake there was a sort of shelf, where he presumed one would sit, and from there the rock sloped down toward the water. A ring had been driven into the rock a couple of feet below the shelf and it was to this that the boat was tied up. There was less than a foot of soggy earth between the base of the boulder and the water, and from his vantage on horseback, he could see footprints marked there, though whose they were and when they had been made was beyond his ability to determine.

  Queasily, he began to entertain another scenario that had nothing to do with criminals fleeing.

  “Is the water very deep here?” he asked Julie.

  She shrugged, still despondent. “It’s deep enough for the boat,” she answered. “Close to the shore here, it’s about up to my waist, but farther out it’s deeper.” She frowned. “But it’s ridiculous to suppose Mother went for a midnight swim in mid October.”

  “Of course not,” said Bethancourt. “I was only curious.”

  Julie was looking off into the trees.

  “I suppose,” she said dubiously, “she might have gone on from here. The path goes on into the wood.”

  Bethancourt thought this highly unlikely, though he did not like to say so. Woods are not encouraging places at night, and he could not see a woman with a few drinks inside her and in an unhappy frame of mind seeking them out. But he said, “We might as well check while we’re here. It won’t do any harm.”

  Julie nodded and clucked to her horse.

  Beyond the boulder, the path was less well-defined, straying gradually away from the shore, and climbing up a rise into the trees.

  “There’s really two paths here,” Julie said as they entered the trees. “One’s very steep and runs back to the lake, but we can’t get the horses up there, and I can’t think Mother would have gone that way in any case. It’s not a very good path.”

  “What’s the other one?”

  “It goes up the hill to a little glade. We sometimes have picnics there in the summer.”

  The ride beneath the trees was a pleasant one, and Bethancourt did not bother too much about looking for someone in distress in the underbrush. In another five or ten minutes they reached the glade, which was indeed an agreeable spot for a picnic. However, it was not large and there was quite obviously no one lying about in it. Julie, who had stood up in her stirrups as they approached, slumped back down.

  “Oh damn,” she said. “I did so hope … well, never mind.”

  “The police will have dogs, I expect,” said Bethancourt. “They’ll have a better chance of finding her.”

  She gave him a wary look. “I suppose,” she said, “you think the same as the police—that she murdered Charlie and ran off during the night. That’s why I wanted to come myself, because I knew they wouldn’t really look.”

  “Not at all,” said Bethancourt stoutly if untruthfully. Then another thought occurred to him as they turned the horses for home. “Tell me, Julie,” he said, “what would have happened if you had got up this morning and found a note saying she’d gone back to London? If she had packed a bag and taken her car?”

  Julie threw him a withering glance. “I’d have thought she’d gone back to London.”

  “But you wouldn’t have rung her up or anything?”

  “No, of course not. Why should I?”

  The queasy feeling was returning to Bethancourt’s stomach. If Joan Bonnar had truly decided to flee, it was inexplicable that she should not have written a note, ensuring that she would not be missed until she failed to turn up at the theater tonight. It would have given her all day to get out of the country, rather than having the search instigated directly after breakfast. Even if she had left earlier, after dinner last night, and her family were covering up for her, it still made no sense to let the search start so early.

  That left why she had gone out at all during the night.

  “Julie,” he said, “did your mother have any mail or telephone calls yesterday?”

  She looked at him blankly. “Some people sent notes saying they were sorry about Charlie,” she answered. “And I think she took several calls from various friends in the afternoon. Why?”

  “I only wondered if she could have made an appointment with anyone—however, it has just occurred to me that she could have done that at the funeral.”

  Julie was frowning. “An appointment? For the middle of the night?”

  “She might have slipped out shortly after she had gone upstairs.”

  “I suppose she might,” said Julie doubtfully. “The sitting room door was open, and I think we would have heard her coming down the stairs, but it’s true we weren’t particularly listening. If she was quiet, we might not have heard her. But even if she did go out then, why can’t we find her now?”

  To this Bethancourt had no answer, or at least none he wanted to give, and they rode back to the stables in silence.

  CHAPTER 14

  By the time Carmichael and Gibbons arrived, the police search had begun, in a somewhat desultory fashion. It was clear to Bethancourt that they thought their prime suspect had fled, and that they were wasting their time searching for her here. In addition, the dogs were having difficulty picking up the scent, owing to its having rained the night before, and to the fact that Miss Bonnar had taken a walk after returning from the funeral, so that when the dogs did find a scent in the garden, it led them back to the house.

  Bethancourt had left Astley-Cooper in the house with the family and gone out to smoke in his car and await the detectives’ arrival. He greeted them as the Rover pulled up in the drive, and Gibbons thought his friend looked unwontedly somber.

  “There you are.” Carmichael took stock as he emerged from the car, noting the police vehicles. “I take it the search is under way?”

  “Such as it is,” said Bethancourt. “They think she’s done a bunk.”

  Carmichael gave him a shrewd look.

  “And you don’t?” he asked.

  “I did,” admitted Bethancourt. “But she didn’t take her car or leave a note. If she had, she wouldn’t have been missed ’til this evening, at the theater.”

  “Well, well,” said Carmichael, digesting this. “On the other hand, people do sometimes panic and do very stupid things.”

  “I think you ought to take a look at the lake,” said Bethancourt. “It’s a favorite family walk and there are a good set of footprints down there. I couldn’t tell much about them, but you’ll know. And, of course, the lake itself is wonderfully handy for disposing of dead bodies.”

  “Is that what you think happened?” asked Gibbons.

  “It seems an awfully tempting idea, doesn’t it?”

  “We’ll have a look,” said Carmichael. “Are the family all in the house?”

  “Yes—they’re drinking tea in the sitting room with Clarence.”

  “Then they’ll keep. Where is this lake?”

  Bethancourt led the way, taking them around the side of the house and out into the fields beyond. Carmichael gazed appreciatively at the landscape as they went.

  “It’s pretty here,” he said. He was thinking of moving to the country when he retired—the real country, not just the suburbs. He had saved a little money since the children had left home and, while he wasn’t sure what his pension would stretch to, he thought they ought to be able to afford something, even if it was small. And then his wife could go in for her gardening in earnest and he, well, he could mow the lawn.

  He sighed and returned to the present as they topped the rise and met up with part of the search party, who were eager to report that they had had no luck so far.

  “Keep at it,” Carmichael told them. “I’m just going down to
have a look at the lake.”

  “The lake, sir?” said the sergeant doubtfully. “We haven’t got that far yet.”

  “No matter,” said Carmichael genially. “Carry on.”

  They went on down the hill, Carmichael squinting at the lake as they approached it. The detectives paid close attention to the path as Bethancourt led them around to the boulder.

  “Look there,” said Gibbons, pointing to a damp patch of ground just to the left of the track. “That’s a man’s shoe there—a number nine or so, I think.”

  “Hmm, yes,” said Carmichael, who was bent over a different section of the path. “And here’s a woman’s flat shoe, I think—she seems to have slipped a little.”

  They examined the whole of the path running along the lake to the boulder. The man’s footprint did not recur, but the woman’s could be discerned in several places. There was one particularly clear print by the boulder itself.

  “These were certainly made within the last twenty-four hours,” pronounced Carmichael, turning his attention to the rock itself, but there was nothing obvious to see on its rough surface. “Well,” he said, straightening, “someone walked down here recently, and it might well have been Joan Bonnar.” He turned to gaze out over the lake. “And she might well have gone into the water.”

  “If she’s near the rock,” put in Bethancourt, “Jack could wade in and have a look—Julie Benson says it’s fairly shallow there.”