He picked up the phone and hung up three minutes later, hot with embarrassment. He had not been prepared for Tom’s dry tone, the snide implication of his, “Well, I’m sure Gina will be very relieved to hear that. Very thoughtful of you to let me know, David, when you’re so busy.” Scott cursed. He’d been scrupulous, hadn’t he? If Paula had said she still had questions about Ellie, he’d have told her to carry on. He wasn’t in Gina’s pocket. He had felt sorry for Ellie, he had to admit, because she was young and shocked and, he thought, patently innocent. Damn Tom and his insinuations. He’d made it impossible for him to phone Gina now. Well, he would phone but he would simply ask to speak to Ellie, he decided. That way Gina didn’t come into the picture. He had interviewed Ellie, and now he was letting her know that they wouldn’t need to talk to her again. That was all.
And then she answered, in that casual, teasing, familiar tone. ‘Hello, David,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking about you.’
‘Actually, I wanted to speak to Eleanor,’ he said, stiff with embarrassment.
‘Why?’ Her voice was sharp, her hackles up. ‘What’s the matter? She’s told you everything she knows.’
‘No, I don’t mean talk to her in that way. I mean – look, can I just talk to her, please.’
‘Well, no, you can’t. She’s not here.’
‘When will she be back?’
‘I’ve no idea. She’s a grown woman. She’ll be back when she’s back.’
‘Then could you ask her to phone me when she gets in?’
‘I could. Alternatively, I could give her a message. I can be trusted, you know.’
Oh, what the hell. This was juvenile. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Just tell her that I’ve informed Tom Urquhart that we have eliminated her from our inquiries.’
‘You have? Oh David, that’s fantastic. Thank you.’
This was just what he didn’t want, the implication that this was personal, the whiff of special favours. ‘There’s absolutely no need to thank me,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s just routine. We’d do the same for any witness whose job was put in question by their involvement with a case. We’re always concerned to work with members of the community and we don’t want anyone to suffer as a result of –’
‘All right, all right!’ She was laughing at him. ‘I get the picture. When I said “Thank you,” that wasn’t actually code for, “Now I see you’re a bent cop who’s prepared to bend the rules for your friends.” I just meant, “Thank you for letting us know.” OK?’
‘As I say, we would let anyone know in similar –’
‘ALL RIGHT! And I hope anyone would say thank you! I’ll let Ellie know, and I’ll be sure to tell her not to thank you.’
‘Fine.’
He was about to hang up but heard her say, ‘On a related matter, David, I went out to Charter Hall today.’
A surge of fury made him briefly speechless.
‘David?’ she queried.
‘And what the hell did you think you were doing there?’
‘I was just doing an errand for Ellie – returning some of Marina’s books.’
‘Oh, really?’
She went on blithely, ignoring the irony of his tone, ‘Yes, so your chaps let me into the grounds and I saw several really interesting things which I thought you might not know about and some things that puzzled me, that you might have the answer to, and I wondered if you’d like to meet and do a sort of information exchange – to our mutual advantage, so to speak.’
‘Gina.’ He was clenching his teeth so hard he could scarcely get the words out. ‘This case is absolutely nothing to do with you. I’ve told you Ellie is out of the frame. You have no excuse for any further involvement. I have no intention of discussing it with you in any way, sh –’
‘Shape or form? Oh David, do steer clear of clichés. I expect better from you.’
‘I’m hanging up, Gina.’
‘Well, I think that’s no way to treat a concerned citizen. What was all that guff about working with members of the community if you won’t listen to a member of the community who’s trying to help you?’
Scott stood silent, the receiver in his hand.
‘I can see you’re not keen on a meeting,’ she was saying, ‘so let’s just do it now. I’ll be succinct – I’m good at that. I have four points. Number one, there were clear tyre tracks on the grass verge at the side of the drive and I wondered if you’d noticed them and if you had any theories about them.’
‘Well no, Gina,’ he said. ‘We never noticed them because we’re only police officers and we never look at things like tyre tracks.’
‘So you did notice them?’
‘Of course we bloody noticed them, and examined them, and took a cast of them, and identified the car and its owner.’
‘And that is?’
‘No-one you need to know about.’
‘Only I wondered if you had any theory about why he or she was driving on the verge when the drive is as wide as it is. Do you think something might have been blocking the way?’
‘Shall we move on to your next point?’ he asked.
‘OK. I bumped into Glenys Summers while I was there. Or rather she bumped into us. Tried to bump us on the head, actually.’
‘What are you talking about, Gina? And who are us?’
‘Freda and me. She attacked us with a garden spade. Did you know she was there? I’m not sure your chaps did. And that leads on to my third point. I wondered if she’d come up by river. There was a very smart little boat moored round the back, and that made me wonder whether the murderer could have come that way.’
He quite wanted to know about the attack with the spade but he was resolved not to ask questions. The only way was to freeze her out. ‘Surprisingly,’ he said, ‘we had noticed that there’s river access to Charter Hall. And your next point?’
‘The hoax call from the phone box. It’s in a very public place and I thought surely on the telly villains always have mobiles, don’t they? And then they throw them away.’
‘And your point is?’
‘Seems as though your murderer is an amateur, and maybe an amateur sleuth stands a better chance of tracking him down.’
She hung up. Damn her. What malignant fortune had involved her in this case? And how did she have such pure bloody nerve? And why couldn’t he slap her down? How did she manage always to wrong-foot him? He couldn’t blame it all on the fact that she’d been his teacher twenty-odd years ago. There was just something about her that turned him into a clumsy, tongue-tied idiot.
He paced about the room. He needed a drink but he didn’t keep anything but beer in the house. Drink was the downfall of too many good policemen: it offered the instant unwind you needed after a heavy day and it got a hold all too soon. He could go to a pub, but he hated drinking alone in pubs – it was lonelier than drinking alone at home. He didn’t have friends here in Marlbury; he barely knew his neighbours; all he had was colleagues and he realised he had no idea of the patterns of their lives, couldn’t imagine what they might be doing on a Sunday evening. Well, he couldn’t stay here, pacing about, kicking the furniture. He found a number on his mobile and rang it.
‘Paula?’ he said. ‘It’s David. You don’t fancy a drink, do you?’
13
MONDAY 27th SEPTEMBER
The rudeness that hath appeared in me have
I learnt from my entertainment
Have I mentioned that I’m doing the costumes for Ellie’s production of Twelfth Night? No? Well, it turns out I am, and now that Ellie is reprieved and normal life continues, I’d better get on with them. Ellie was mortified to find that none of her colleagues was willing to take this on, but I had to tell her that teachers in general hate school plays. They hate the kids’ overexcitement and general air of distraction; they hate the homework not done and the football practices missed; they hate the sense of threatening chaos in the last frantic week; they hate the fact that the most cussed kids are usually the stars; and most of all the
y hate the fact that the director gets to be hailed as a hero by kids, parents and governors alike. Why would they spend night after night working the lights or give up free periods to construct scenery or trail round gathering up props when they aren’t going to be the ones to be called on stage to have a bunch of flowers thrust into their arms amidst a frenzy of whooping and clapping?
Anyway, Ellie has got some help. This keen young chap, Ben Biaggi, is doing the music for her and Eve has her GCSE class painting a wonderful backdrop of a neglected formal garden – all tangled ivy and lush, overblown roses. Eve has also offered to make the women’s costumes. Ellie has decided to dress it 1920’s, so Eve will do the flapper dresses and it’s my job to get hold of striped blazers and boaters for the boys. When I get into my office I ring the Aphra Behn Theatre.
I should possibly explain a bit about the name of our local theatre. Aphra Behn isn’t exactly a name to conjure with, I must admit, but she was the first English woman playwright (17th century). She was also an English spy in The Netherlands, which is rather distinguished, and she was almost certainly born near Marlbury. On their own, these facts would not have got her a theatre named after her – have you noticed how few theatres are named after women? – but the construction of a theatre in Marlbury, in the shell of an old cinema in the 1970’s, happened to coincide with a period when a cabal of feminists formed a controlling faction on the town council. These half dozen or so (ever after known in Marlbury folk lore as The Bra Burners) beat down all opposition to build a women’s refuge, establish a crèche in the town hall, organise a women’s night bus and name the theatre after Aphra Behn. Before my time, of course, but they must have been heady days. The 80’s swept away the crèche and the night bus but the refuge and the theatre remain.
The phone rings for a long time before a man’s voice eventually says, ‘Aphra Behn Theatre.’
‘Good morning,’ I say brightly. ‘I’m after your costume hire department.’
‘We don’t have a costume hire department.’
‘Really? Then I wonder why you advertise “Theatrical Costume Hire” on your website.’
‘We hire out costumes but we don’t have a costume hire department.’
His voice is light, nasal and extremely unfriendly. I resist the urge to tell him to piss off. ‘I see. Well, perhaps you could tell me to whom I should talk to about hiring some costumes.’
‘You may as well talk to me.’
‘Good. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out. Well, I’m dressing a production of Twelfth Night in early December. We’re dressing it 1920’s and I’m looking to hire twelve men’s costumes – mainly striped blazers and flannels but one or two other suits as well – and a fat suit for Sir Toby, if possible.’
There is a pause, and then he says, ‘This is an amateur group, is it?’
‘It’s a school.’
He laughs; I wait; he says nothing.
‘So perhaps you could tell me,’ I say, tight-lipped, ‘whether it’s worth my coming to see what you’ve got or whether I’d be wasting my time.’
‘Anything we’ve got was made for adults. We don’t do kids’ stuff.’
‘I’ve got measurements. These are quite big lads.’
‘Well, if it’s just for a school, we’ve probably got something that’ll do.’
‘Like your costumes for The Boy Friend, for example?’ I ask, sweetly. ‘When can I come in?’
‘I’ve got a lot on this week. We go up with Blithe Spirit on Thursday.’
‘Then it’s best if I come in before you get really busy. How about this afternoon?’
‘As I say, I am very –’
‘About four fifteen?’ I ask.
He sighs. ‘Come in if you like. I shall probably be around.’
‘And you are?’
‘Alex Driver. Stage Manager.’
He doesn’t ask my name but I tell him anyway. ‘Gina Gray. On behalf of William Roper School. I’ll come to the stage door, shall I?’
I thump down the receiver and steam out into the corridor. On a reflex, I’m heading outside for a cigarette, only I forgot I don’t smoke any more. As I stand there, toying with the idea of running over to the machine in the student union, my colleague Malcolm, he of the alcoholic tendency, comes out of his office.
‘If you were a cat,’ he says, ‘your fur would be standing on end.’
‘Supercilious sod,’ I growl. ‘They advertise themselves as hiring out costumes and then behave as though you’re wasting their time when you actually want to hire something.’
I look at him and realise he doesn’t look too good. He wants a drink as much as I want a cigarette. Well, there’s still one drug we’re allowed. ‘Come on, Malcolm,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the SCR and I’ll buy you a double espresso.’
It’s a trying sort of morning: students slow on the uptake; colleagues faffing over trivialities; the rain streaming relentlessly down the windows; my boots letting in water. At lunch time, it gets a whole lot worse because I ring my ex-husband. Let me tell you how it goes.
I have concocted a plan. I want to go to Cumnor, you see. Cumnor is where Amy Robsart died. All right, I know. David is perfectly capable of finding out who killed Marina Carson and I’ve got no reason to get involved any further. In fact, I’ve got very good reasons not to, given that my efforts so far have already ruined a friendship and nearly got Freda killed – not to mention being shouted at by David. So I’m really not sleuthing any more. Really. I’ve just got interested in Amy Robsart. I tried googling Cumnor but all I got was tourist fodder, so I’ve been over to the library, where I found The Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles, which contains quite a scholarly little account:
“Cumnor: Oxon village WSW of Oxford. The site of the mediaeval Cumnor Place where in 1560 Amy Dudley (née Robsart) was found dead ‘at the foot of a paire of staires’ is W of the church. The first written account of rumours of her murder, The Secret Memoirs of Robert Dudley, published on the continent, accused Dudley of poisoning not only her but his second wife’s husband too.”
Poisoned her? Where did that come from? Or rather, since this was the first account, where did the fall down the stairs come from? My own picture of her death comes from Walter Scott’s account in Kenilworth. There, I remember, the two killers construct a trap – a sort of walkway across the stairwell with a trap door in it – and the most vivid bit is where they go back, like hunters, to see if their prey is in the trap. “Is the bird caught?” one of them asks, and you get the image of the young woman – hardly more than a girl – lying like a dead sparrow at the bottom of the stairwell. But let us continue with The Literary Guide:
“Ashmole told the story in Antiquities of Berkshire, where Scott saw it. Scott also read Kickle’s ballad, Cumnor Hall (1784), the title he preferred for his novel but changed to Kenilworth (1821) at his publisher’s wish.
The church has a small collection relating to Amy Dudley, and the ornate tomb of Anthony Foster, her host, who was suspected as her husband’s agent in her murder. A few heavy stones in the churchyard wall are all that remain of the house.”
OK, so I can’t see the scene of the crime, but the collection in the church sounds interesting and I’d like to know more about Anthony Foster. I hadn’t realised that Cumnor Place wasn’t the Dudleys’ own house. It’s with all this in mind that, in my lunch hour, I phone Andrew, my erstwhile spouse.
‘Andrew,’ I say, skipping the conventional enquiries as to health etc., ‘this trip we’re doing up to Oxford to deliver Annie on Sunday, how do you fancy coming home by a scenic route?’
Silence. Oh they do silences, don’t they, these men, while their slow brains process unexpected information? And I’ve learnt not to rush in to fill them, though it goes against the grain and I have to chew my tongue to ribbons to keep quiet.
Finally, he says, ‘I didn’t realise you were thinking of coming.’
‘Well, Andrew, of course I’m – why would you think I wasn’t coming?’
‘Because Annie doesn’t want you to.’
‘What do you mean, she doesn’t want me to?’
‘Have you talked to her about it?’
‘Yes. Well, no. Yes, in a general way – what she needs to take, which cases she’s using – that sort of thing. I just assumed –’
All the Daughters Page 12