by Joyce Cato
‘And you’re sure the man who followed him the first time was Sir Hugh?’ Jason prompted.
‘Sure. You can’t mistake that head of white hair of his. Or the way he walks – like he was changing the guard at Buckingham Palace personally.’
Flora’s lips twitched.
‘Right. And, this is important, Carole Anne,’ Jason said, leaning forward. ‘You’re sure that the second time that you saw Dr Trenning go behind the tent, the flower show judging had already started?’
Carole Anne rolled her eyes. ‘Yes! Didn’t I hear his nibs’ voice over the loud speaker ordering his troops into battle?’
Jason’s eyes sharpened. ‘You never mentioned that before!’
‘Well, excuse me!’ Carole Anne huffed. ‘I only just remembered it. The only reason I remembered it at all was because his nibs was sounding so cheesed off. I think he’d called for the judges at least twice before.’
Monica nodded. ‘He did. I remember. Both Wendy and Her Ladyship were rather late getting in. I went to fetch them.’
Jason nodded, glanced at Flora, then back across at Carole Anne. ‘Well, thank you for coming forward, Carole Anne. You’ve been most helpful,’ he said, aware as he spoke, of sounding almost pompous.
Carole Anne smiled widely. ‘Anything for you, Jason,’ she responded huskily.
Monica blushed.
Jason paled.
Flora almost laughed. But it wasn’t the little vamp blatantly coming on to her boss that had her worried. It was the way her boss was being so careful not to look at the little vamp’s mother.
‘Carole Anne, if you’d just wait outside for a moment,’ Monica began, her tone distinctly holding the threat of deferred retribution to come, ‘there’s just another little matter that I want to discuss with the chief inspector, then I’ll join you.’
Carole Anne got up, tossed her head, and stalked off.
‘She hasn’t changed much,’ Jason commented drolly the moment she was out of earshot.
Monica sighed. ‘I’m afraid not. Her latest wheeze is to get into nude modelling. Over my dead body,’ she added grimly.
Jason laughed. ‘Your husband’s already been very helpful,’ he said, his voice strangely loud. He coughed, and tried again. ‘And whilst I appreciate your help, I want to make it quite clear that I will tolerate no interference with my investigation this time.’
Monica stared at him, feeling ridiculously hurt. ‘Of course not,’ she said, her pain rather more evident than she’d have liked. ‘I just thought that you ought to know what someone told me a short while ago,’ she added crisply.
Quickly she told him about Pete Drummond, and how he’d been sure that he’d spotted Malvin Cook in the tent during Sir Hugh’s pep talk. A place that, as a non-judge, he had no business being in.
Jason listened in grim silence. ‘I see. Flora, have we talked to this Mr Drummond yet?’
‘No sir,’ Flora said, without even glancing at her notes.
Jason nodded, then turned to Monica again. ‘Well, thank you for this information, Mrs Noble. And of course, if you hear anything more, be sure to tell us. But please, don’t go around soliciting information. Leave that to us.’
Monica was definitely feeling miffed now. She’d fondly imagined, after that business at her own vicarage last year when she’d proved so helpful, that Jason Dury might at least think of her as a friend, if not an ally or even an asset. But right now he was treating her like a total stranger. Moreover, like a stranger who was poking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
Well, never let it be said that she couldn’t take a hint! Her colour angrily high, she nodded stiffly and got to her feet. As she did so, she spotted the woman sergeant smiling cattily. Flushing even more furiously, she walked to the door, Jason not far behind her.
Outside, Graham Noble turned and smiled at her. ‘Finished?’ he asked mildly, noting her high colour and the angry flash in her lovely blue eyes.
Monica nodded, stalking forward quickly to stand close beside him. Urgently, she sought his hand and felt his warm fingers close comfortingly around hers.
Instantly, she felt better. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, then glanced over her shoulder at Jason and said pointedly, ‘all finished now.’ She turned her back and began to move off, unaware of the pain and regret that flickered across the policeman’s face.
Graham Noble, however, didn’t miss it at all. And his hand tightened instinctively around the fingers of his wife as they walked away together.
CHAPTER 15
A few minutes later, Monica found herself watching her husband talk to a rather distrait old lady, and smiled tenderly. The poor old thing had been, she suspected, one of James’s stalwarts, and was feeling in need of succour and comfort. For someone so set in their ways, the loss of their vicar was bound to take some getting over.
So naturally, when the old lady had spotted Graham, his dog collar had worked like a homing beacon, and now he was leading her to a deckchair and was leaning over her, holding onto her hand, and talking to her earnestly. Any minute now, Monica thought with a soft little tug of indulgence, he’d set off and get her a cup of tea.
Knowing he’d be some time, Monica looked around and spotted Sir Hugh. He was standing alone beside the pavilion, looking bleak. And suddenly Monica found herself remembering that strange little scene in the tent just before all the mayhem had started. Sir Hugh had been talking to them and then James had come over, and for some reason, the squire had gone all tongue-tied and uneasy.
Totally forgetting Jason’s strictures to cut out the modern day Miss Marple act, Monica set off. She noticed that the old soldier, on spotting her, straightened up courteously as she approached.
‘Mrs Noble,’ he greeted her pleasantly.
‘Sir Hugh.’ Monica eyed him surreptitiously, wondering what might be the best and most successful way to tackle him. In the end, she relied on the most tried and true of all tactics; she simply cut the ground out from under his feet, with no messing about. ‘I hope you don’t have any old skeletons in the family cupboard, Sir Hugh,’ she said lightly. ‘The last time I had to deal with the police – the murder over at our place, you know – you’d have been amazed at the facts that they dug up. Old family secrets; things that you might have thought buried and forgotten about; irrelevant but embarrassing misdemeanours. You name it, they found out about it.’
Sir Hugh, as expected, looked at first startled, and then downright alarmed. ‘Eh?’
‘Oh yes,’ Monica went on blithely. ‘Every one of us had our friends questioned and our backgrounds checked. You’d be absolutely stunned at the things they were capable of finding out about – things that had nothing whatsoever to do with the crime, of course. But to be fair to them, I don’t suppose they could possibly know that, until they’d eliminated all the possibilities. Still, it was very embarrassing, I can tell you.’
She was telling the truth, of course, but she was also shamelessly fishing. And from the puce colour that Sir Hugh was slowly going, she knew that she’d managed to hook a very big fish indeed.
‘Take the situation between you and James, for instance,’ she carried on conversationally. ‘I noticed that when you were talking to him earlier on, you seemed a bit awkward around him. And it started me thinking.’
‘Now look here, Mrs Noble—’ Sir Hugh blustered.
Monica quickly cut him off by waving a hand airily around. ‘Oh, I know it’s probably nothing,’ she smiled understandingly. ‘But you see, the point is if I noticed it, you can bet your life that someone else did too. And human nature being what it is, and Jason Dury being such a good officer and all, well, he’s bound to hear about it in the end. And being a policeman with a case to solve, he’ll start digging around. He’ll start asking what kind of a quarrel or difference you must have had with the vicar, and sooner or later the rumours will start circulating that you and James were deadly enemies!’ She laughed, but with a touch of bite. ‘Believe me, I’m not exaggerating. I know from b
itter experience how these things can escalate. There’ll be so much paranoia about, that’s the trouble. Everyone starts looking at everyone else with suspicion or fear. After that affair last year, some of our oldest friends started putting a distance between us. It was the same with others in the village, too. And all the time, the police kept coming up with something new about us all. Some secret that seemed ominous. Some family crisis that would have been better kept buried.’
She paused for breath, and risked a full look at him. He was watching her with a mixture of wry respect and near anger.
‘Are you trying to make a point, Mrs Noble?’ he asked flatly.
Monica smiled wryly. ‘I suppose I am,’ she admitted openly. ‘I think, Sir Hugh, that you and James had some kind of a history together. And now he’s dead, I think Jason Dury and his team will eventually find out what it was. And if they have to find out the hard way, there’s every chance that everyone else will get to know about it too. So not only would it look better for you to come clean, it gives you the opportunity to do it discreetly. Simply take him aside and tell him yourself, privately. I can assure you that he’s a reasonable man, and that he’ll consider it calmly and logically. He won’t just jump to conclusions. You can trust him,’ she added firmly.
Sir Hugh sniffed, obviously not totally convinced by her testimonial, but it was obvious that he was also seriously mulling over her advice. He looked at the fortune-teller’s tent and then, strangely, over towards the tea tent. Monica followed his gaze and felt a small jolt of anxiety shoot through her for the first person she saw was Graham, emerging with the old lady’s cup of tea. Then she realized that it wasn’t her husband that Sir Hugh was watching, but the eccentric figure of the Dower Countess of Fulcome, who was still sitting in a deck chair outside.
‘Hmm,’ Sir Hugh said. He glanced back at Monica, a little sparkle in his eye. ‘It’s as you say, Mrs Noble,’ he said gruffly. ‘A family matter, best left buried.’
‘Did it give you a motive to kill James?’ Monica said crisply. ‘That’s what matters, you know. To the police, I mean.’
The question was direct enough, and honest enough, to make Sir Hugh stare at her. She could almost see the wheels going around in his head. Finally, reluctantly, he nodded, as if coming to some internal decision.
‘You’re a wise woman, Mrs Noble,’ he said with some respect. ‘So I’m going to tell you something in confidence. And if you feel it needs to be said to your chief inspector chap,’ Monica felt her breath catch, ‘then you can tell him.’
My chief inspector chap, she thought numbly. Why did people keep assuming that the infuriating Jason Dury was anything to do with her?
‘It goes back years,’ Sir Hugh rushed on, anxious now to get it over with. ‘And I do mean years,’ he added, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘When I was a younger man, I went head-over-heels for an older woman. Of course, nothing would ever come of it. She had a wild reputation, and was considered a great beauty of her day. Trouble was, she was married, and very respectably married at that, and … well … as you can imagine, it burned brightly between us for a while and then fizzled out. I’ve always liked her enormously, and we’re still the best of friends, even to this day.’
‘That all sounds very human,’ Monica said gently, knowing what her husband thought about adultery, and wisely keeping it to herself. ‘Not something that should have happened, of course,’ she felt compelled to add, ‘but perfectly understandable.’
‘Exactly,’ Sir Hugh said gruffly. ‘Nothing should have come of it. And nothing would have, except … well, my wife found out about it. Oh yes, I’d been married for about three years at the time.’
Monica blinked. Definitely a good job Graham wasn’t hearing any of this. ‘I see.’
‘She wasn’t happy to learn of the affair, of course, but I assured her that it was over. As it was. And because the lady’s family was very prominent around these parts, my dear wife agreed to, well, forgive and forget, as they say. Not to make a fuss.’ He seemed to swell with sudden pride. ‘A good sort, my Dora,’ he added, with very real affection in his voice now.
Monica’s mind buzzed. So his mistress’s family had been prominent, had it? Slowly, and with her eyes widening with incredulity, she turned her gaze once more towards the dowager countess.
Of course, she was in her eighties now, but take away forty odd years or so… . Yes, Monica could well see that Daphne Cadge-Hampton would have been considered a great beauty of her day.
‘But I don’t see how James comes into this,’ she said, puzzled.
Sir Hugh coughed grimly. ‘Yes, well. The thing is, you see, Daphne had her son round about then. The present earl.’
Monica gasped.
‘No, no, not that,’ Sir Hugh said hastily. ‘The boy isn’t mine. Daphne swore he wasn’t and she’s not the sort to lie about a thing like that,’ he assured her earnestly.
But Monica wasn’t so sure. A young countess with a wild reputation wouldn’t have been about to rock the boat by admitting to bearing a son not of her husband’s lineage. Still, on the whole Monica tended to agree with Sir Hugh that it was one of those things best left buried. After all, what good would come of digging up old scandals now?
Sir Hugh launched into whispered speech again. ‘The thing is, when Dora became so ill and came home from hospital that last time, we all knew that she was coming home to … well, to die.’ He cleared his throat gruffly, then plunged on. ‘Well, her last lucid night, she asked for James Davies to come. And I think she told him all about it. She needed to be comforted and told that she’d done the right thing keeping quiet, I suppose,’ Sir Hugh was pale now. ‘And I never begrudged Dora her confession. It put her mind at rest and allowed her to go in peace. But, well, you can see how it left me.’ He shot Monica a pleading look. ‘Even though James never mentioned it, or even made any sign that he knew… .’
Monica nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully, and not without sympathy. ‘I can see why you’ve felt so uneasy around him ever since.’
Sir Hugh sighed. ‘The thing is, Mrs Noble, I’ve always liked James. I did before my Dora died, and I do now. I never once felt that he’d betray Dora’s confidence. I never even seriously considered that he might take advantage of the situation, and of course he never did. But, well, damn it, when a man knows your deepest, darkest secret… .’
‘You just can’t act as if he didn’t,’ she finished for him. ‘Yes, I understand.’
Sir Hugh sighed. ‘But will the police? As far as they’re concerned, it gives me a motive, doesn’t it?’ He was, she realized with some admiration, very pragmatic about his tenuous position. ‘And I did smell that damned rose,’ he further admitted. ‘I was right there. I could have planted that thingamajig.’
Monica nodded. Her eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Does the countess know? About James knowing about your aff— how things had been between you, I mean?’
‘She does now,’ Sir Hugh said gruffly. ‘The moment I left the tent after being interviewed, I realized what a sticky patch I was in, and went and told her all. But I got the impression that she might have already guessed as much, probably from the way James might have acted around her,’ Sir Hugh admitted, thinking he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. ‘She agreed with me that we should just keep our mouths firmly shut.’ Sir Hugh looked at Monica frankly. ‘And I’m still not convinced that we shouldn’t do just that,’ he added grimly.
‘No, neither am I – now,’ Monica admitted frankly, surprising him a little. Now that she knew Sir Hugh’s secret, she wasn’t sure that it would do anybody any good to share it. After all, it had all happened so long ago. And if Sir Hugh had wanted James dead, why wait until now? Besides, this Dr Trenning man was also dead, and according to Carole Anne it would have been impossible for Sir Hugh to have had anything to do with his murder. No, she was sure that Sir Hugh was innocent. She just felt it. Not that her instincts should come into it, of course – she could so easily be wrong. O
n the other hand, did she really have the right to interfere with other people’s lives and future happiness?
Even so… . Her eyes turned thoughtfully to the figure of the countess. Sir Hugh, seeing her interest, misinterpreted it. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to dump the old girl in it now, either, would it?’ he said softly. ‘Not after all these years. Think what would happen if the tabloids got a hold of it. Her son’s life would be made a misery.’
But Monica was thinking of something else entirely. Daphne had been a flower judge. Theoretically, all the judges had to be at the top of Jason’s list of suspects. Perhaps she had already guessed that James Davies had dangerous knowledge about her, as Sir Hugh had said. Would a woman like Daphne kill to keep her son’s suspect parentage a secret? The earl would lose an awful lot if it ever came out that he wasn’t a true Cadge-Hampton. His title, for a start. The estate. And any money the family might still have. Always supposing that the current earl wasn’t her husband’s legitimate offspring, would a mother kill to protect her son from all that scandal?
Monica rather thought that she might. No doubt about it, the countess was obviously one of those strong-minded women and, moreover, she’d been raised to think that she was a cut above the rest of us mere mortals. She might well have decided to act and damn the consequences. But that meant that she must have been in cahoots with the scientist. Could she have killed Gordon Trenning too? Was she strong enough to wield a blunt instrument? She was so old. Besides, if Carole Anne was right, the countess was in the flower show tent along with the rest of them when Gordon was killed. Unless… .
Sir Hugh moved restlessly beside her. Monica, making a snap decision, said quietly, ‘If I were you, Sir Hugh, I’d keep this knowledge to yourself for a while longer. With a bit of luck, it need never come out at all.’
Sir Hugh, not surprisingly, let out a huge sigh of relief.