by Ann Granger
Frances drank the rest of her gin and tonic slowly. Her green eyes were veiled, inscrutable. She was remembering and the memories were painful. ‘They were miserable,’ she said brusquely. ‘Or at least, Caroline was! Colin Deanes was in seventh heaven because he had the money to do as he wanted at last! It wasn’t his, of course. But he could persuade Caro to sign the cheques, it wasn’t difficult. Caroline began to realise that he saw her as a lady bountiful, not a wife. He didn’t love her, he didn’t much care about her at all. I think he hardly saw her – even when he looked at her, if you know what I mean. She was the lady who funded his projects, that’s all. Caro became very depressed. She had one or two bouts of illness connected with the diabetes as well. Things were bad for her. I came home about then and found out all this. Harriet was distraught. She’d introduced Deanes to her circle, she’d praised him up to Caro and others, she’d vouched for him – and this was the result.
‘Then one day Caroline came to see Harriet. Harry had given up the charity work herself. She really wasn’t cut out for it and she and Deanes had quarrelled over his treatment of Caroline so it was best if they kept out of one another’s way. This particular day Caroline turned up on Harriet’s doorstep unexpectedly and seemed – so Harry told me later – excited. She said she had finally made up her mind. She was going to divorce Deanes. She should have done so earlier, she said, but had been frightened to suggest it to him. He had a temper and he could lose it with her. She was a little scared of him. But now she’d made up her mind and she’d spoken to him about it at breakfast. He’d taken it quite well, better than she’d expected. She’d offered to make a financial settlement which would allow him to carry on his work for a while, until he could find other funding. He’d accepted. She was so happy, Harriet said. It was the last Harriet ever saw of her. The last anyone did. That evening Caroline overdosed. She was alone in the house. Deanes was out with the family of one of his good causes, dispensing advice. He could prove it, could produce the family in question. But if you had seen them, Alan! You wouldn’t have taken their word about anything! The mother was simple, the father a crook and the kid was a pathological liar. They would have said anything Deanes asked them to say! Harriet always believed Deanes was at his own house at the time he claimed to be with his problem family. That he contrived Caroline’s overdose. That he killed her. The difficultly was, Caro hadn’t spoken to anyone else of her decision to divorce Deanes. She hadn’t yet seen her solicitor. Deanes, when he was questioned, denied divorce had ever been mentioned. Harriet accused him to his face of lying. She told him Caro had been to see her and told her about the divorce plans the day she died. But Deanes only said Harry must have got it wrong, that Caro was a depressive and often made wild statements off the top of her head. Caroline had had treatment for depression in the past – there was really no reason for anyone to disbelieve Deanes’ story. Only Harry. And me. I never believed him because I believed Harry – and I never liked Deanes. Harry never got over Caroline’s death and always felt responsible. She sold up her family house which she’d inherited and moved down here to the cottage at Pook’s Common, right away from everything which could remind her of Caro and everyone she knew . . . only she didn’t, it now seems. She didn’t leave behind everyone she knew. Deanes turned up. Talk of bad pennies. The one person guaranteed to bring all the bad memories flooding back. She always believed he got away with it. She always believed, I think, that she owed it to Caro’s memory to see justice done if she could. I wonder . . . I wonder if she did meet him, down here? He couldn’t have been living that far away, out on that common. Good God, it’s a stone’s throw!’ Fran clenched her fists again in frustration.
‘She never wrote any letter to you, suggesting she had met up with Deanes again?’
‘No – I would have remembered. But then,’ Fran hesitated. ‘You see, I told her to try to forget it, put it all out of her mind. She might have thought, if she mentioned it to me, I would just have come down here and delivered another lecture. Although . . .’ Fran paused and her forehead creased in a frown. ‘She did once put a cryptic postscript at the end of a letter. Several months ago. Something about having a piece of surprise news for me but she’d tell me when she saw me. ‘It’s a small world!’ that’s what she wrote, I remember now. A small world. She might – oh, it’s so exasperating!’
But Deanes didn’t know whether she’d written to Frances or not, thought Markby, trying to control his own excitement. And the thought of Fran’s private correspondence lying unattended in her hotel room here while she dined downstairs might have been a tempting invitation to take a look and see if there was any reference to him!
‘You mentioned to me once someone you knew getting away with murder . . .’ Markby said eagerly. ‘Did you mean Deanes?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘And if I’d known he was around here I’d have told you a lot sooner. He had something to do with Harry’s death! The more I think about it now, the more I’m sure of it!’
‘I certainly think I shall have to have a word with Mr Deanes very soon!’ Markby scowled. ‘Excuse me a minute, Fran.’
He went quickly out into the lobby and tried Deanes’ number on the public telephone. No answer. Deanes was still out – or had he skipped?
He went back into the lounge to rejoin Fran. ‘He’s not at home. Or at least he’s not answering the phone. I’m going to drive out there. There’s a track leading to his house across the common. It starts at a pub called The Black Dog.’
‘What about Meredith?’ Fran asked, getting to her feet. ‘She ought to be told about Deanes.’
‘Yes . . .’ Markby looked worried. ‘She did meet him once out on the common. I’ll call by Rose Cottage first and tell her briefly what you’ve told me. Then I’ll drive to Deanes’ house. It means going right round the perimeter of the heathland – there’s no access by road from the Pook’s Common side.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Fran said determinedly. ‘You can leave me with Meredith while you go out to Deanes’ place.’
They hurried out of The Crossed Keys into the winter sunlight.
Thirteen
‘Your wife,’ Meredith said slowly. ‘I see.’ In reality she did not see fully, but the mist was beginning to clear. Little bits of knowledge began to fall jigsaw-like into their rightful place.
‘She,’ Deanes said fervently, ‘that woman, Harriet Needham, she told wicked, cruel lies about me and about Caroline. She was a wicked, spiteful woman!’
‘What did she say?’ Meredith asked as calmly as she could. She glanced again at the window and strained her hearing for the noise of a car engine but Pook’s Common was as silent as the grave. Unwelcome simile. It was certainly cold enough for a cemetery in Ivy Cottage. The heating had been switched off since Harriet’s death. It was clammy and icy and she felt her nose and fingers turning red with cold. She rubbed her hands together surreptitiously, almost afraid to move at all in case he interpreted her action as one of aggression.
‘She said I killed Caroline,’ Deanes said sullenly. ‘She said I lied about where I was that evening when Caroline died from an overdose. I didn’t kill my wife!’ His voice began to rise on an aggrieved note. ‘I didn’t kill Caro!’
‘All right,’ Meredith soothed him. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘She took a massive overdose of barbiturates,’ Deanes blinked rapidly. ‘She suffered from depression. She had always done so. She was a diabetic and had always been sickly. And that Needham woman made things worse, working away on Caroline, telling her lies about me, suggesting things . . .’
‘Things, Mr Deanes?’
‘Yes! Saying I only married Caroline in order to have the money for my work. I was meant to have that money, Miss Mitchell! Fate led me to Caro. What else would she have used that money for?’ He spread out his hands. ‘Nothing! It would have been wasted. No, I was meant to have that money. Caroline understood. I explained it to her. She understood – but that woman kept interfering!’
/> Deanes got to his feet and began to pace up and down the drawing room restlessly. Every time he passed by the box containing the photographs he glared down at the topmost one. Meredith wished she could reach out and remove it from his sight. She did try once to lean forward and put out a hand but he said sharply, ‘Leave it there!’
‘Would you like me to make us a cup of tea, Mr Deanes?’
‘No! Stay where you are, where I can see you! I want to tell you what happened here. How I suffered! You have no idea . . .’ He came towards her, head lowered and face contorted. ‘You have no idea how she made me suffer!’ He sat down again much to her relief, the pacing made her feel dizzy, and clasped his hands nervously together.
‘You see, I had no idea she was living here. She left the district where Caroline and I had lived together after she couldn’t get her way and persuade people I killed Caroline. People wouldn’t believe her lies, you see!’ He nodded triumphantly. ‘They knew what good work I’d done and they believed me! She was nothing, just a rich spoiled woman but I could point to my work! My work spoke up for me!’
‘Yes, Mr Deanes, I’m sure it did.’
He looked mollified. ‘I knew you’d understand. I came down here because I was offered the old farm-house out on the common. It was quiet and I could write there. I really didn’t know about her. If I’d known she lived here, so close, I would never have come. I didn’t know for a while – and she didn’t know about me. But then I had that piece of truly bad luck I told you about. It happened out of the blue while I was sitting in my own kitchen drinking coffee and talking with someone.’
‘Dr Krasny!’ Meredith was unable to prevent herself blurting.
Deanes pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and stared at her. ‘That’s very perceptive of you, Miss Mitchell!’ Suspicion entered his voice. ‘How do you know?’
‘I guessed. You told me once about Dr Krasny looking for wild flowers on the common and dropping by to have coffee with you. And – and Harriet told me about the other people who used the cottages in Pook’s Common. Krasny used to call on her, too.’
‘Yes, a very pleasant man. He had no idea what he’d done. I don’t blame him,’ Deanes told her earnestly. ‘We were sitting in my kitchen and he was talking about Pook’s Common and he mentioned her. I thought there must be some mistake. I walked over the common to the cottages on several evenings and hid near this place – ’ he indicated Ivy Cottage about them – ‘trying to catch a glimpse of her. She had men visiting late. All kinds of men. She was a whore!’
Meredith remembered that Lucy Haynes had spoken of hearing someone pass her cottage late at night. She must have heard Deanes, on his way back to his lonely house after scouting around Ivy Cottage.
‘I saw her! There she was! It wasn’t a mistake, it was the same Harriet Needham who had persecuted me before! It was like a nightmare come true! But worse, Dr Krasny told her about me and my house out on the common so she knew about me and one day, she came.’
Deanes fell silent for a moment, his last words hanging in the chill air. Their simplicity and the way he uttered them brought to life the real horror Harriet’s arrival on his lonely doorstep had represented to him. A figure from his past who had materialised out of the moor to haunt him.
‘I was working,’ he said quietly. ‘I heard hoofbeats and then someone knocked on my door. I went to answer and there she was.’ As he spoke Deanes’ calm visibly disintegrated and he began to grow agitated, rubbing his hands, jumping up and sitting down again, face twitching. ‘She was abusive! She said she’d make a scandal when I tried to launch the new book! I tried to reason with her – she wouldn’t listen. She kept coming to the house after that. Not right up to the house, just out there, on the common . . . I’d be working and I’d hear the hoofbeats. I’d go to the window and look out and there she would be, sitting about thirty yards away on that red-gold horse of hers, with her red hair hanging down her back and both of them shining at me in the sun. She was like a Fury set on my track. She persecuted me, destroyed me, day by day, little by little, eating away at my peace of mind, leaving me unable to eat, to sleep, to write! And all of it without a spoken word. She just sat there and waited, watching, day after day, sometimes for as long as twenty minutes at a time. And then she’d ride on. But she’d come back, she always came back. It was a wonder I was able to finish the book . . . I’d be listening for her all the time, imagining the hoofbeats when there were none. Sometimes hearing them and rushing to the window only to see that fellow Fearon ride past. He was in it with her, you know. When she didn’t come past the house, he did. I knew I had to do something about it. Between them they were slowly driving me out of my mind! But I’m not a violent man, Miss Mitchell. I’d tried reason but that hadn’t worked, so I tried distraction. I thought, if she had something else to worry about, she’d forget about me.’
Deanes’ face twisted in genuine misery, ‘I thought of a plan involving Simon Pardy. You must believe me, I really would not have harmed him for the world! I wanted to help him! But I thought, he could help me, too! He was looking for a cause as so many of these sad young people are. I suggested to him that a campaign against local fox-hunting might be something he could devote his time and talents to. I knew that woman hunted. She was hunting me! And like the fox I had to be wily if I was to get away! I suggested he try to get up a petition to ban the hunting on council-owned land – that would have barred the hunt from the common for a start! I suggested he wrote a few letters anonymously just to distract her, you understand. But it didn’t work.’
Deanes sighed. ‘She was implacable, she was fixed on my trail like a bloodhound. Nothing could shake her off! What could I do? When I got the advance copies of my book I made a last attempt at reason. I sent her one through the post, that one you’re holding there. I begged her to read it. I wanted her to understand what I was trying to do. I hoped she’d see what damage she was doing. All I got in return was a vile letter from her. I tried phoning her and begging her to read it but she shouted at me on the telephone and hung up. I was desperate, Miss Mitchell! On the morning of Boxing Day I rang her up and asked her, begged her, as it was the Christmas season, at least to see me and talk about it. She was in a good mood. She said to come over and have some breakfast. I really thought, I really thought she was prepared to listen.
‘I walked across here. She was cooking the breakfast when I arrived, a substantial one because she was going to be out all day. I began to reason with her and she appeared to listen to what I had to say. She suggested we go into breakfast.
‘But it was all a cruel trick. She hadn’t changed. When I finished explaining, she said she’d asked me over because she was curious – curious, that was her word! – to hear what I’d say. She said I was a fool to think she would be taken in by such a farrago of lies. She said I was off my head! She said my work had turned my brain! Filthy bitch! But I was ready for her. I never really trusted her so I had come prepared. I’d brought the pills with me. They had been Caroline’s. I knew in my heart that Harriet would never leave me alone and wherever I went, she’d turn up just as she turned up here. I thought if she didn’t listen to me and agree she was wrong to persecute me, then I might have a chance to feed her the pills during breakfast. It wasn’t difficult because she was getting ready to go out hunting and even though she was shouting her foul accusations and abuse at me, still half her mind was on that. She kept going in and out and upstairs and down, fetching things. She put the kedgeree on the table on the two plates and then went out to the back porch to fetch in her boots which she’d washed off after going down to Fearon’s stables earlier. I had plenty of time and it was so easy. The pills were tiny things. I forked them into her plate of food and even I couldn’t spot them. She came back, bolted the food down and her coffee, insulted me a bit more and then told me to get out, she hadn’t any more time for me. Don’t you think it rather fitting that I should have fed her Caro’s pills?’ Deanes looked ridiculously pleased with himse
lf.
‘It’s dreadful . . .’ Meredith whispered, appalled.
‘I knew she’d have a drink of alcohol before going out, she always did, and she’d become groggy. They took effect faster than I’d anticipated, however. And I hadn’t realised Simon Pardy would behave as he did. I thought she’d fall off somewhere out in the country and everyone would think it was a hunting accident. I hoped she’d break her neck!’ Deanes added viciously. ‘A fractured skull was just as good. It shut her up. Shut her up at last!’
Deanes turned his glinting spectacle lenses towards Meredith. ‘But I wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t driven me to it, Miss Mitchell! It was entirely her own fault, her doing, not mine! I thought it would be over when she died, but it wasn’t. People started asking questions. Everyone was meddling. Pardy was going to be questioned at the inquest and he might have told them about me and my idea that he should campaign against the hunting and write the letters. Young people like him are so unreliable! They get excited and may say anything! And the other woman had turned up meanwhile, Frances, her cousin. Just as bad. I didn’t know how much Frances knew. I went into Bamford and waited until she was at dinner and forced my way into her room to see if there were any letters about me . . . But she came back too soon!’ Again Deanes looked aggrieved as if Fran this time had made the wrong move in a game, breaking the rules. ‘She came in while I was there but luckily I was able to knock her down and get away. But I was scared! I kept thinking about Pardy and the inquest next day. What would he say? I had to stop Pardy giving evidence. I’m really sorry about that!’ Deanes sounded mournful. ‘That boy was innocent. His blood is on my hands! But she was the cause! She started it all!’