Death Speaks Softly

by Anthea Fraser

  'Yes, of course.' But what on earth could it mean? Bernard, of all people. And what chance had they had, to know each other well enough to meet in an obscure cafe and hold hands? Daphne must be mistaken.

  But her comforting conclusion was weighed against Bernard's agitation the previous evening, his immobility in the garden in the small hours. Something had thrown him seriously off-balance. Could it be Mme Picard? Yet if the Warwicks and the Picards had met previously, Beryl would have said, surely. Unless Beryl didn't know? With a sinking heart, Claire admitted the possibility that there might be several things Beryl didn't know.

  She felt a flash of anger. Daphne had no right to discover Bernard's secret and then, by confiding in her, hand over the responsibility for it.

  Daphne, watching her silent deliberations with some anxiety, offered a less than tactful olive branch.

  'I say, would you like a doughnut?'

  'No,' Claire snapped, 'I most definitely would not.'

  CHAPTER 7

  Barnsley was at the same time triumphant and chastened. 'Well, I knew some lass was there. It came to me the minute I heard "Broadshire" on the telly. But I'm sorry it weren't the one you want.'

  'Never mind,' Webb told him, 'we're glad to have this one back safe.' They knew by now that the shivering, bruised sixteen-year-old was Debbie Lester, who had run away after a row with her mother. Her abductor attended the same school. He'd offered to help, and she'd trustingly gone with him. 'You haven't any other vibes, have you?' he added hopefully. The vindication of the man had shaken him, even if he'd got the identity wrong.

  'Can't say I have. I'm right sorry, Chief Inspector.' The man looked crestfallen.

  Webb shrugged and gave him a rueful grin. 'I thought it was too good to be true.'

  So that was that. Furthermore, Chris had had to withdraw his lunch invitation. 'Sorry, Dave, another time; Happy and I'll be tied up all day now. But this is our pigeon. There's nothing to keep you, surely, now that you've made your report? Why not take the afternoon off and come back fresh tomorrow?'

  'I might, at that,' Webb conceded. 'I did put my sketching gear in the car, in case chance offered.'

  'Excellent. Happy sketching, then!'

  Webb went to the Barley Mow for a late lunch. The boat was crowded with Sunday drinkers, leaning over the deck rail and thronging the dark interior.

  Shouldering his way to the bar, he ordered the pasty he'd enjoyed on his last visit.

  'Sorry, mate,' the barman told him, 'only cold on Sundays.'

  'Fair enough. Pork pie and salad, then.' Looking about him, he saw one or two faces he recognized, but no one seemed anxious to meet his eye. Perhaps talking with a copper spoiled the taste of the beer. Well, it was no skin off his nose.

  The pie was good; crisp pastry, and succulent jellied meat within. What was Hannah doing now? The thought came before he could stop it. Perhaps roasting beef for her fancy man. The bitter phrase didn't ease his pain. She'd said she'd never marry; would she change her mind if Charles Bloody Frobisher popped the question? Who the hell was he, anyway? Webb stabbed viciously at the tomato on his plate.

  Still, he didn't want to marry her himself. Once bitten, very definitely twice shy on that score, specially after Susan's brief comeback. So what was he moaning about? It was just that their relationship had been so perfect, each content with the limitations mutually set. Until he'd blotted his copybook over Susan. Come to think of it, what was she doing now? He hadn't seen her since the morning after she'd spent the night at his flat, when, as they came downstairs together, Hannah had opened her door to take in the milk. (He'd not seen Hannah since, either, till last Friday, and that was much less understandable.) But he'd heard soon after that Susan had left Shillingham. Did he drive her away? 'You don't own the bloody town!' she'd flung at him. Perhaps she'd decided that he did, after all.

  He sighed, pushing the remainder of his salad to one side and finishing his beer. To hell with the lot of them. He'd have a perfect afternoon all to himself in' the glorious countryside, and he was willing to bet he'd feel much the better for it.

  He drove north out of town, leaving the main road just short of the Gloucestershire border and winding his way through undulating countryside in search of a good place to stop. After a while he parked the car, collected his equipment, and set off over the flower-filled meadows, climbing steadily as he went. Another month, and the poppies would be out. Every year he did a couple of watercolours of them. They were his favourite wild flower. He smiled, remembering Mrs Marshbanks's interest in his paintings, but he wouldn't show them to her. He regarded them as a means of self-expression, and therefore private to himself.

  He paused and surveyed his surroundings. This would do. There wasn't a building in sight, even from this altitude. He must be a good ten miles from Steeple Bayliss.

  But having set up his easel, he decided to take a nap first. He'd not slept well the last couple of nights, worries about the case and thoughts of Hannah keeping his brain overactive. Now, his lunch-time beer combined with the warm sunshine to make him pleasantly drowsy.

  He took off his sweater, rolled it into a pillow and lay down on the warm, prickly grass. In the distance a sheep bleated plaintively, answered by one nearer at hand. His nostrils were filled with the sweet, hay-like scent of dry grass and his closed eyelids presented a changing palette of vibrant colours.

  If only the girl they'd found that morning had been Arlette. He'd immersed himself so deeply in her over the last four days that he felt he knew her better than many of her acquaintances: knew her as a vibrant, attractive girl, fun-loving, flirtatious perhaps, but, in Simon's opinion at least, not promiscuous. Where in heaven's name was she? He was becoming steadily more fearful for her. He frowned at the thought, settled his head more comfortably on the sweater, and slept.

  It was late afternoon when Claire arrived home from Melbray. Tom was out playing golf. A pity; she wanted to tell him Daphne's story. She made herself a cup of tea and drank it walking restlessly about the kitchen, her thoughts revolving round the tensions of the dinner party.

  Surely things weren't seriously wrong between the War-wicks? Beryl gave the impression they were devoted to each other, and Bernard was so calm, so unchanging, so predictable, that it was impossible to imagine him showing any kind of emotion. Yet it was precisely because he was always in control that his evident loss of it had been so disturbing.

  What had caused that dissociation? Mme Picard? The whole idea was preposterous. She went over again what Daphne had told her, unable to latch on to any facet that she could accept. Would a distraught mother, newly arrived in the country, even temporarily desert her husband to sit in some out-of-the-way cafe holding hands with a man she'd just met? Illogically, what Claire found hardest to believe was that Bernard—Bernard—would hold hands with anyone, anywhere.

  Had anyone else recounted the story, Claire might have suspected sheer, mendacious troublemaking. But Daphne was so guileless, so transparently upset by what she'd seen, that against all her instincts, Claire had no option but to believe her. Or at least, to believe that was what she thought she'd seen.

  Claire set her cup down with a positive little thump. She'd go round and see Beryl. That would put her mind at rest. She'd probably find the pair of them in the back garden, and then she could laugh at her imaginings.

  But her optimism faded when the front door opened. Beryl's face was red-eyed and grim. She stood silently to one side and Claire stepped past her into the panelled hall.

  'Come into the kitchen,' Beryl said. 'I'm doing the sandwiches for tea.'

  'Where's Bernard?' Claire asked brightly, following her. 'Out in the garden?'

  Beryl didn't reply, and when she turned her mouth was trembling. 'I don't know,' she said eventually, 'and that's the least of the things I don't know about Bernard.' Mechanically she picked up the knife and went on buttering the bread.

  Claire said gently, 'What's wrong, Beryl?'

  'What's wrong,' Beryl r
epeated deliberately, laying pieces of ham on the bread with exaggerated care, 'is that I've suddenly realized not only that Bernard doesn't love me, but that he never has.'

  'Oh Beryl, no! That can't be right! You've been so happy together. Surely this is just—'

  'I doubt if Bernard's been happy. I have, because I've been fooling myself. I've spent the last ten years trying to please him, and all the time he scarcely knew I was there.'

  'But what makes you think that? If it's just that you've had a row—'

  'A row!' Beryl gave a choking laugh. 'That's one word for it. I thought he was going to kill me!' 'Beryl!'

  'I wanted to help him, you see. But he turned on me in a blind white fury, ranting and raving about the "wasted years". I didn't understand half what he was saying, but what did come through was that he could scarcely bear me near him.' She was crying openly now, sobbing little hiccups punctuating her words, her plain face totally defenceless and ugly with her grief. Claire put a tentative hand on her arm, and was shaken off.

  'I don't want your sympathy! God, you're so smug, Claire! What do you know about it, mouthing platitudes like of course it will be all right? It won't be, and it never has been, all right, though I didn't realize till now. It's over, totally and completely finished. If I can accept it, surely you can.'

  'But—but why?' Claire stammered, trying to modify her role as comforter. 'Why now, all of a sudden?'

  'Because quite suddenly he can't take any more. And neither can I!' And as Claire watched, dumbfounded, Beryl caught up the breadknife and started plunging it again and again into the loaf on the table, finally collapsing over it in a paroxysm of weeping.

  The sound of a car horn woke Webb and he blinked, looking at his watch. Five o'clock. He must have slept for a couple of hours. So much for an afternoon's sketching. He'd get some stick from Chris tomorrow. It wasn't too late, though the light wasn't as good as it had been. He sat up, rubbing a hand across his face, and remembered what woke him. He must be nearer a road than he'd thought.

  He got to his feet, brushing the blades of grass off shirt and trousers and shaking out the rolled-up sweater. The sun had left the area and it was noticeably cooler. He put his sweater on, grateful for its crumpled warmth.

  Should he make a start on some work, or go home for a cup of tea? Without the sun, the stretch of rolling countryside had a desolate look, and despite the sweater he shivered. The tea won, hands down. He'd come and sketch another day. Again, over the brow of the hill behind him, came the impatient blast of a horn. Curious, he walked up the slope and found himself on a ridge which dropped away in front of him to the valley floor some hundred feet below. Along that floor stretched what looked like a busy highway. At a guess it would be the Nailsworth to Shillingham road. He stood for a moment watching the cars rushing towards and past each other. There was a strong breeze here on the exposed hilltop, and Webb sneezed suddenly, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. But the wind caught it, tugged it out of his hand, and floated it over the edge.

  Swearing, he bent cautiously forward, and his sudden coldness had nothing to do with the wind. The heap of camel and blue huddled on the ledge some fifty feet below was identification enough, without the poignant confirmation of the scrap of fuchsia silk fluttering bravely on a gorse bush. He had found Arlette.

  With no hope inside him, he made his way backwards down the uneven hillside, fingers scrabbling for a hold as his feet dislodged miniature landslides of pebbles and tufts of grass. There was no way she could be alive, not with her head at that angle. Twelve feet above the ledge he stopped, the stench reaching his nostrils making him gag. Five days in the warm weather had turned a pretty, laughing girl into something foul. He forced himself to look down. She was lying like a discarded doll, her pretty hair tangled in the gorse bush which had arrested her fall. The heel of one sandal had broken and was hanging by a thread to the shoe.

  His first reaction was a helpless anger. All that life and vitality, drained away into the rocky hillside. What a waste —what a diabolical waste. Then he thought of the polite, frantic couple who were her parents. With a deep sigh, he started to make his way back up the hill.

  She was feeling calmer now, and not a little ashamed of her outburst in front of Claire. She'd go round tomorrow and apologize. In fact, what she was most conscious of was a feeling of anticlimax. Because an hour after Claire left, Bernard had come home and, apart from that glazed look in his eyes, had behaved no differently from usual. Which is to say he went out to water the plants and trim the edges of the lawn as if nothing had happened.

  They had their usual Sunday tea—the ham sandwiches which had witnessed so much drama in their making, and a cake she'd baked the previous day, before the storm broke. She thought back to that different self who had made it, happy to be trying out a new recipe, looking forward to the dinner party that evening, awaiting Bernard's return for lunch. The self who had foolishly imagined herself loved, or at any rate the object of some affection.

  She bit her lip as she recalled the words he'd thrown at her, each of them hooked to dig painfully into her memory and cling on there. How could he have lived with her for ten years, without giving an inkling of his true feelings? If they were his true feelings. Perhaps he was suffering from a mental illness, a kind of brainstorm? Perhaps he hadn't meant those things after all, didn't even realize he'd said them? Because this evening he'd been as calm and polite as usual, with no hint of that white-faced fury which had terrified her.

  Now they were sitting as they always did, she with some embroidery and Bernard with his papers. But he wasn't reading them, she could tell. He spent a lot of time staring out of the window at the darkening garden. Every now and then he'd give a little start, force his eyes back to the papers, and turn one over. But his mind was elsewhere. What was he thinking about?

  Cecile, Cecile.. He could hardly believe she'd come back. All those years of longing, withering away without her, and now she was here. The husband was of no consequence, a weakling, lying in a darkened room ever since their arrival and of no comfort to her. A migraine, for God's sake! It was a woman's complaint, but in her sweetness and loyalty she made excuses for him. Bernard didn't dispute them; he could afford to be generous, because it was himself she loved. He was convinced of it. Not that she'd said so in as many words. She was too distraught about the girl to think clearly, and he appreciated that. But subconsciously, desperate for the support and comfort her husband couldn't give, she had turned to him. Which was as it should be.

  The snip of Beryl's embroidery scissors broke into his reverie. He blinked, looked down again at the papers in his lap. Beryl. There'd been a scene at lunch-time, when he'd returned from his meeting with Cecile. He'd said too much, he knew, though he couldn't remember what. Poor, plain Beryl, with her colourless eyebrows and her spinsterish ways. He recalled his earlier fantasy, of murdering her because she loved him. Now, it was in the bounds of possibility, though he hoped it wouldn't come to that. After all, she'd had ten happy years, Gaston three times as many with Cecile. In all fairness, they should now be prepared to step down.

  But nothing definite could be said until the girl was found. He frowned, trying to visualize her, but she'd made no impression on him; he'd no memory of her unique to himself, only the picture he'd seen in the paper. He felt doubly cheated, by that lack of personal memory and by not having known who she was. But she didn't resemble her mother. If she'd had Cecile's large brown eyes, her smoothly dark hair—

  He clenched his fists, feeling himself tremble. God, how he wanted her! He was fifty years old, but the only fulfilment he had known had been at twenty, with her. It wasn't too late. Now he could live again, with his beloved. His beloved.

  'Shall I put the news on, dear?'

  He jumped and frowned. 'I beg your pardon?'

  'The news. It's time, if you'd like to see it.'

  'Very well.' Why must she interrupt? Cecile—

  Beryl said on a high note, 'Oh, Bernard! God, no!'


  Odd. There on the screen was the picture he'd just conjured up of Arlette. What were they saying? Dead? Oh, my love! My poor, poor sweet—

  The announcer's voice droned on. There were pictures of a steep bank over a busy road, and some activity half way up the slope—men moving around and a plastic tent being erected. Had he missed something? Had she been murdered? If someone had killed Cecile's daughter, he, Bernard, would personally strangle him with his bare hands.

  That fellow Webb's face filled the screen. So the police were treating her death as suspicious. Now perhaps they'd get on with finding her killer, instead of pestering him.

  'Her poor parents,' Beryl said softly, as the news item changed. 'How must they be feeling?'

  He should go to her, he thought in agitation. No doubt Gaston was prostrate on his sickbed. She needed his own strength, the force of his love, to carry her through.

  In a flash of clarity, he saw the purpose in it. It was necessary for her to suffer, and for Gaston's inadequacy to be revealed. Only then would she realize that she'd never stopped loving himself.

  'It's fate, you see,' he said aloud.

  Beryl looked startled. 'What is?'

  'The girl's death.' He shouldn't need to explain. Couldn't she understand anything?

  'Whatever do you mean?' She was staring at him wide-eyed, and to his annoyance there was that look of fear that he'd noticed at lunch-time.

  'It's plain enough, surely,' he said with heavy patience. 'It's the only way to—' He broke off. What was he saying?

  He really must be careful about thinking aloud. Who knew what he might say? Might already have said?

  'The only way to what?' There was a quaver in Beryl's voice.