Smile and be a Villain

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘No. My knees won’t do it.’ I turned to Philip, who was looking more and more upset. He was middle-aged, but a small man who looked fit and active. ‘I know you don’t know who we are, and have no reason to trust us. But my name is Dorothy Martin and this is my husband, Alan Nesbitt, and we had a conversation with Alice a day or two ago that disturbed us a good deal. I do urge you, as her friend and neighbour, to get into her house and see why she’s shut herself in and isn’t answering her door – or her telephone.’

  The cat yowled again. That must have decided him. He scowled, but he climbed up the trellis nimbly enough, pushed the window open and disappeared inside.

  It was only a minute or two before his head and shoulders reappeared at the window. ‘She isn’t here. And the cat’s bowls are empty. She would never have left without providing for him. Something’s wrong. I’m coming down.’

  TWELVE

  ‘Philip,’ I asked as he stood outside once more, ‘if Alice somehow ran into trouble, wouldn’t she have called you?’

  ‘She doesn’t have a mobile. She couldn’t phone anyone. We need to do something!’

  Alan wasted no time, but pulled out his phone and called 999. ‘Constable Partridge? Ah, good. Alan Nesbitt here. We have a possible emergency. I’m at—’ he turned to Philip – ‘where am I?’

  ‘Seventeen Braye Road.’

  Alan repeated it. ‘The resident appears to have left the house in rather peculiar circumstances. Can you come, or send someone? Good.’ He clicked the phone off. ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘No unnecessary questions, and he’ll save the necessary ones till he gets here. I could have used a few like him back in Belleshire.’

  I watched the light dawn in Philip’s eyes. ‘You’re the ones – did you find Mr Abercrombie?’

  ‘We did,’ I replied, ‘and, in a way, that’s why we’re so worried about Ms Small.’

  ‘Mrs. She prefers Mrs, even though she’s a widow. And I hope you don’t think she had anything to do with that man’s death.’

  ‘No, we don’t. As far as anyone knows, Mr Abercrombie’s death was accidental. He fell down a steep hill, hit his head on a rock and died of severe brain injuries. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh. Well.’ Philip shifted from one foot to the other and looked anywhere but at us. ‘No reason, really. I mean – you said …’ He came to a stop and looked unhappy.

  Neither Alan nor I said anything. We just looked at him and waited.

  He couldn’t stand a silence any more than most people. ‘Oh, it’s just that – well, she didn’t care much for Mr Abercrombie, and she’s been acting odd since he died, and I wondered if – that is, whether – but she’s a truly fine person, she would never …’

  I took pity on him. ‘Mr Cooper, nobody thinks Alice had anything to do with Abercrombie’s death. We knew about her feelings toward him, and we also knew she was very unhappy. That’s one reason we wanted to see her.’

  ‘One reason. What was the other?’ He was beginning to sound belligerent.

  I was trying to decide whether to tell him the truth, and try to find out if he knew anything about Robin’s attitudes, when a police car rolled up and Constable Partridge got out.

  He went straight to the person who had the best right to be here. ‘Phil, what’s wrong here?’

  ‘It’s Alice. She’s gone. And the house was locked up tight as a drum, with poor Sammy not able to get out, and not a bite of food nor a drop of water left for him. Her car’s here, but she isn’t. Something’s happened!’

  He turned to us. ‘And how is it that you are involved?’

  It could have been an accusation, but it sounded like a simple question, and Alan answered it that way. ‘We wanted to talk to Alice, perhaps invite her to tea, and she wasn’t answering her phone. Mr Cooper offered to show us the way to her house, and when we got here we couldn’t get a response to our knock. We became somewhat alarmed, so I’m afraid we broke into her house and found the situation he described.’

  ‘I was the one who went in,’ said Phil. ‘No one else could climb the trellis. I didn’t really want to, but they insisted – and I’m glad they did. What are we going to do, Derek?’

  The man was near tears. I can be slow on the uptake, but I saw in his eyes what I should have seen before. This man was, if not in love with Alice Small, at least very, very fond of her.

  Poor guy! I was very much afraid something awful had happened to the woman, and even if it hadn’t, she was so sunk in her grief, and her hatred of Abercrombie, that I doubted she had emotional space for other feelings.

  The constable was responding to Phil’s question. ‘First, we make a thorough search of the house. There may be some indication of where she’s gone, and why. I’ll ask Mr Nesbitt to join me in that search. He was a very senior police officer in England, and he won’t have lost his skill. Mrs Martin, perhaps you could talk to Phil, see if he can call up any ideas that might help.’

  And keep him out of our way, was the silent message. I nodded my understanding.

  When they had gone inside, Phil and I looked at each other. ‘I’d rather go in and help them look. She’s my friend. I might spot something out of the ordinary. I think I should help look.’

  ‘Phil, they’re trained policemen. They know what to look for. I’m sure they’ll ask you about anything that seems odd. Meanwhile, perhaps we could find someplace to sit? I hate to admit it, but I’m feeling a little rocky.’

  It was the truth. Every now and then I feel my age, and this was one of the times. I was also feeling more than a little guilty. Alan and I had known that Alice was in great distress, and had done nothing about it. True, she had lots of friends on the island who could have stepped in. But they didn’t know her story. She said she had told no one but us. We should have followed up, and we hadn’t.

  Phil broke into my thoughts. ‘We could go to my house. It’s just over there.’ He pointed. ‘We could have some tea, or something stronger if you prefer.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll just tell Alan.’

  I called into the house, told the men where we’d be and left with Phil.

  His house was small, but brightly painted and spotless. ‘Do you mind sitting in the kitchen?’ he asked.

  ‘I live in my kitchen at home. I don’t mind at all.’

  We both decided tea was just what we needed, and while he went about making it, he asked, ‘Why did you really want to talk to Alice? Was it true, what your husband told Derek?’

  ‘Yes, in part. We had a very curious conversation with Alice a few days ago, as Alan said. She said she hated Abercrombie, and was glad he was dead, but she didn’t act happy. We got to worrying about that and decided to talk to her. But that wasn’t the only reason. Oh, thank you,’ I said as he began to pour my cup of tea. ‘Yes, milk and sugar, please.’

  I took a sip of tea. It was too hot to drink. ‘I said there was another reason,’ I continued. ‘Alan and I have taken an interest in Mr Abercrombie, since we were the ones to find him, and we’ve found something rather odd. So many people, at the church especially, seem to have loved him. But there are a few besides Alice whose opinions are quite different. We thought Alice might have some insights into that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we thought perhaps other people who felt as she did might have talked to her about—’

  ‘No. Why do you care? You never knew him. You only found him dead. That’s a shock, I can see. But why do you care what kind of person he was?’

  I paused for thought. ‘I’ve heard that in some Asian cultures,’ I said after a moment, ‘if someone saves a person’s life, he or she becomes responsible for that person forever. There’s a connection that can’t be severed. Alan and I are discovering that to be true in this case as well. We didn’t save his life, we found his body, but in some way we can’t quite explain, we have a connection with William Abercrombie. He may not have had much in the way of family – at least the police haven’t been able to trace anyone yet – but we have b
ecome something like family to him. It’s important to us to get to know him. And if that sounds peculiar, well it feels peculiar to us, too.’

  None of what I had said was untrue. I had more or less been making it up as I went along, because I didn’t want to say we were looking into a possible murder. But as I said it aloud, I realized it was true. Some kind of bond had been forged between us and the late Mr Abercrombie, and we had some sort of responsibility to him.

  Phil’s reaction was a snort, or what would have been a snort if he hadn’t been a courteous man. ‘Yes, it does sound peculiar, and I have to say I don’t envy you a connection with that man. If you’re looking for someone to tell you why some people didn’t like him, you’ve come to the right place.’

  My tea had cooled. Too much. I drank some of it anyway and settled back. ‘I’d be interested in anything you want to tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know why Alice hated him. She wouldn’t tell me. But I was there the first time he walked in the church door. She was clearing away after Morning Prayer, and I was waiting to take her for coffee. He was wearing his collar, and he came up and smiled at her and said something, I forget what. She smiled back. Then he said his name and put out his hand, and I never saw such a look on anyone’s face. I thought for a minute she was going to be sick. She didn’t say a word, just looked at him and turned around and left the church. I went after her, but she had her car there, and got in, and drove away. I tried to phone her, but she wouldn’t answer.

  ‘The next time I saw her I tried to talk to talk to her about it, but she refused to say a word, and she’d changed. We’d been good friends, but it seemed she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. She was like that with everybody, I noticed. Cold and distant. And she’d always done volunteer work at the church, but she wouldn’t stay in the building if he was there.’

  ‘How did he react to that?’

  ‘And that’s the oddest thing of all. You’d think a clergyman, of all people, would try to talk to her, find out what was wrong, mend fences. He did nothing. He acted as if she weren’t there.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘He was always at the church, it seemed. Helping with this, doing that, suggesting the other. A finger in every pie. Most of the ladies thought he was wonderful.’

  ‘Was he good-looking?’

  ‘I thought you’d seen him.’

  I shuddered. ‘He’d just fallen down a hill and hit his head on rocks. He was … not a pleasant sight.’

  ‘No. Well, he wasn’t handsome, but he was pleasant-looking. Saintly, I heard one of the women say. The men in the church weren’t quite so impressed. I don’t know what they all thought, but there was one man who obviously despised him. I think you’ve met him. Robin Whicker?’

  ‘Yes, Alan and I like him very much. We had noticed that he seemed not to think highly of Abercrombie, though he didn’t talk about him to us. Do you know why?’

  ‘He doesn’t discuss his feelings readily. I think he had some idea that the man was hiding something, that he wasn’t as much of a paragon as he tried to appear. I know no more than that.’

  I sighed. ‘I see. It seems people either loved him or hated him. That’s odd, if you think about it. Was no one neutral?’

  He shrugged. ‘Most people, I suppose, even in the church. There are the volunteers who do everything, the ones who come to services every Sunday and sing in the choir and run the jumble sale and all the rest.’

  I nodded. I suspect all churches are the same, all over the world.

  ‘And then there’s the rest of the congregation,’ he went on, ‘the ones who come to services on occasion, and go home and feel they’ve done their Christian duty for another week or month. I doubt they cared about Abercrombie one way or another.’

  ‘What about the townspeople, the ones who don’t go to church, or go to the Methodist or the Catholic church?’

  ‘The shopkeepers loved him. He spent bags of money. Most of the island knew who he was, of course.’

  Of course. Everyone knew who we were, and we’d been there less than a week.

  ‘To most of them, I suppose he was just another American tourist.’

  ‘Tourist? I had heard he planned to stay here, perhaps buy a house and live here.’

  ‘Perhaps. He said a lot of things.’ Phil picked up his teacup, sipped, set it down again with a grimace. ‘You’ve asked me your questions,’ he said. ‘Now I have one for you? Why are you so interested in who loved him and who hated him?’

  ‘I told you, we wanted somehow to get to know the man—’

  ‘I know what you said. Now I’ll tell you what I think. I think you believe the man was pushed down that hill, and you’re trying to work out who might have done it. And I’ll tell you one more thing. I didn’t push him, and Alice didn’t, and if someone else did, I hope he’s never caught.’

  THIRTEEN

  It was a good thing Alan and the constable showed up just then, because I had no idea what to say to Phil.

  He lost interest in me, of course, the minute he saw the men. He stood up so abruptly he knocked over his chair. ‘Did you find anything? Do you have any idea where she is?’

  Constable Partridge put a hand on Phil’s shoulder. ‘We found nothing. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. There was no evidence of a struggle, nothing to indicate that she was taken away forcibly.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have left Sammy with no food!’

  ‘I agree. Incidentally, there was plenty of food for him in the larder. Mr Nesbitt gave him food and water, and he’s now blissfully sleeping it off. But it does seem as if Alice left voluntarily. We found her handbag, with her car keys inside, and no sign that anything had been removed. I called the library. She didn’t come to work this morning.’

  ‘Then she’s been hurt! An accident—’

  ‘We would have known immediately about a road accident. Now, Phil, I know you’re upset, but what I want you to do is think carefully about where she might have gone. We know she was upset in her mind. Was there a place she liked to go to think, to be peaceful?’

  He righted his chair and collapsed into it. ‘The church, usually. But not of course recently. That bastard had ruined it for her. She liked to walk the cliffs.’

  ‘We saw her in the – what do they call it? The Wildlife Bunker. Could she have gone there?’ I suggested.

  ‘Why wouldn’t she have come back?’ said Phil.

  The constable cleared his throat. ‘Phil, did she ever talk about exploring the tunnels?’

  ‘Tunnels?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, God, not the tunnels!’ Phil turned as nearly white as I’ve seen a human being look.

  I glanced from my husband to Phil to the constable, trying to understand.

  ‘Part of the German fortifications,’ said the constable. ‘Some are safe to enter. Some … are not.’

  I felt the blood drain from my own face. One of my deepest horrors is of caves and tunnels. My claustrophobia isn’t nearly as bad as some people’s, but the very idea of an enclosed underground space is enough to make me weak in the knees. Even reading about it in a book … and now we might be faced with the possibility of someone lost in one of those places.

  ‘Are they … deep?’ I forced myself to ask.

  ‘Not so very,’ replied Partridge. ‘The danger is that they are unstable. The timbers holding them up rotted long ago, and there have been collapses …’

  I swallowed hard. ‘Then we’d better start looking for her, hadn’t we?’

  Constable Partridge phoned the police station to organize a search. Phil started frantically phoning his friends. Alan and I stood by, wondering what we could do to help.

  ‘One thing you will not do, Dorothy,’ he said in a low, but firm, voice. ‘You will not go into those tunnels.’

  ‘But I feel so helpless! There’s poor Alice, maybe trapped—’

  ‘I do not often issue orders, my dear. You know that. But this is an order. You can’t help by going inside. You can serve coff
ee for the searchers, you can provide snacks, you can aid in any way you like, except in the actual search.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘If for no other reason, look at it this way. If you were to freeze with panic in a tunnel, you would have to be rescued. That would take searchers away from the reason they’re there. You don’t want that.’

  ‘In short, I’d be more of a nuisance than a help.’ I suppose I sounded bitter. I was.

  ‘In short, yes. And you know that without my telling you.’

  ‘Right. And just how am I supposed to make this feast? You’re forgetting I have no kitchen just now.’

  ‘You don’t have to cook anything. The moment the word goes out, I’ll wager every household on the island will move into action. This won’t be the first time something of the sort has happened. Just stay available to help in any way you can.’

  I fought against the common sense in what he was proposing. Finally I sighed. ‘Oh, you’re right, as usual. I do get so tired of you always being right.’

  He ignored that as the cry of a petulant child, which is exactly what it was. I hate feeling that I’m not in control. ‘I wish we’d never found the dratted man! I wish we’d never come to this dratted island!’

  And that, too, was sheer petulance, and it wasn’t helping. I pulled myself together. ‘Sorry, love,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll behave. Where do you want me to go?’

  ‘With me, as soon as Derek has the search organized. Then we’ll see.’

  It didn’t take them long to get things rolling. As Alan had predicted, a search was a well-rehearsed part of island life. Everyone knew his or her role in the effort, and stepped into it without much fuss.

  Both Alan and I were kept well away from the tunnels.

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ said Derek, ‘you don’t know this island as we do. There are all sorts of hazards once one leaves the established walking routes. I would like you, and your wife if she wishes, to go to the Wildlife Bunker. Alice went there once; she might go again. I’ll have someone drive you as far as the road goes; that will save some time.’