Death is a Word

by Hazel Holt

  ‘And,’ I said, ‘he’s very much not the sort of person you ask personal questions.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘What’s he going to do about the London flat?’

  ‘I think he’ll sell it.’

  ‘But surely he’ll need somewhere to live when he goes back there. I mean, he’ll need another job and London’s the place where his sort of job would be.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have thought about that. He seems to be in a sort of limbo, living one day at a time.’

  ‘Of course, he and Daniel were very close, it wasn’t just a business relationship. I suppose he can’t really imagine life without him.’

  ‘He’s really disoriented. I suppose he’s just clinging to anything connected with Daniel.’

  ‘Like your mother.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘I’m really worried about her, she’s very much not herself. She enjoys Patrick coming but, just lately, she seems to have lost interest in things. She didn’t even seem interested in the Muriel Masters story.’

  ‘Muriel? What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, she and Dennis are separating.’

  ‘Good heavens, after thirty years!’

  ‘Well that’s what Muriel says, but you know what’s she’s like. They were going to be divorced eight years ago, but nothing ever came of it.’

  ‘But why? Dennis isn’t seeing anyone else?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. She just says she wants to go and live in Spain.’

  ‘And Dennis doesn’t want to?’

  ‘Dennis in Spain! No, it’s just another of her “I’m so bored” things and she wants to liven things up a bit – you know what she’s like.’

  ‘And your mother wasn’t interested in that?’

  ‘No – well, there was a flicker but she just couldn’t be bothered.’

  ‘There must be something wrong.’

  ‘Yes. Seriously, though, I think I’ll get Dr Horobin to have a look at her.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dr Horobin’s verdict was that Mrs Dudley had had a slight stroke. ‘Not unusual at her age,’ he said briskly, ‘but she must take care.’

  Needless to say, Mrs Dudley was very scathing. ‘It’s perfectly ridiculous. I think I would have known if something as important as that had happened – or does Dr Horobin’ (immense scorn at the mention of his name) ‘believe he knows more about me than I know myself? He’s only been my doctor for a very short time. Dr Macdonald was my doctor for many years and he would never have dreamt of saying such a thing.’

  ‘She’s being absolutely impossible,’ Rosemary said wearily. ‘I suppose she’s in denial, or whatever the phrase is. And she refuses to do any of the things that might help – it really is so difficult. She had a mild stroke years ago and Dr Horobin says that this one may well be the first of several or even a possible major one. I’m at my wits’ end!’

  A second stroke, however, which left her with some loss of movement, persuaded her that she was, indeed, in need of specialist care and she agreed to go into hospital (‘I shall go privately, of course’) for treatment.

  ‘Such a relief. She’s being difficult, of course, but, since she’s paying to be looked after she’s much more inclined to do what they say,’ Rosemary said. ‘Of course, it means I have to go up to Taunton every day, but it’s such a relief to know she’s under cover.’

  ‘Do you think she’d like a visit?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, would you? It’s not just seeing people – though, of course, she enjoys that – but it’s a matter of prestige how many visitors you have.’

  Mrs Dudley was watching the racing on television when I arrived. At least the television was on but she had dozed off and I was shocked to see how frail she looked, leaning back in her chair. But as the nurse ushered me into her room she woke up, almost her old self, looking critically at the pot plant (a white cyclamen) and the lavender water I had brought. These, apparently, were approved and she greeted me in her usual brisk manner.

  ‘Well, Sheila, it was good of you to spare time from your busy life to pay me a visit. Now you’ve arrived we can have tea.’ The last words were addressed to the nurse, who retreated hastily, and she went on, ‘The food here is tolerable but not, of course, what I am used to at home. Now then, tell me what has been happening. Rosemary is useless, always dashing off somewhere, she never has time for a really good chat.’

  I was pleased that she seemed to have regained her appetite for gossip and I’d come prepared with various items that I hoped would catch her attention. The appearance of a young girl with the tea things provoked sharp comments.

  ‘No, not there, my visitor will pour – put it down there, on that table. Goodness gracious,’ she went on when the girl was barely out of the room, ‘the service here is not what you might expect given the exorbitant charges they make for everything.’ She took up a sandwich and regarded it disapprovingly. ‘Egg and cress again. And the cakes aren’t much better. The macaroons are tolerable but I can’t recommend the Victoria sponge.’

  I poured the tea and took one of the despised sandwiches and said, ‘Oh well, Elsie’s Victoria sponges are very special.’

  She sighed heavily. ‘You see what I have to put up with.’

  However, I was pleased to see that she ate quite a few of the sandwiches and a large piece of Dundee cake. We had just finished when a nurse appeared.

  ‘Now, Mrs Dudley, it’s time for your physio.’

  ‘I can’t possibly go now, I have a visitor.’

  ‘You know it’s only a fifteen-minute session; I’m sure your visitor won’t mind waiting.’

  I waited with interest the outcome of this little interchange, saying, ‘Of course you must go – I’m happy to wait.’

  There was a pregnant silence for a full minute, then Mrs Dudley rose reluctantly, heaving herself out of her chair with exaggerated movements.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, Sheila,’ she said sharply and slowly followed the nurse out of the room.

  Since I never travel anywhere without a book, I fished a copy of Barchester Towers from my bag and settled down to read. After a few minutes the young girl came in to clear away the tea things. She glanced curiously at the book in my hand.

  ‘Is that a good book?’ she enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘a very good book.’ Feeling unable to elaborate on this judgement, I asked, ‘Do you read much?’

  ‘I read Harry Potter. That was a good book.’

  ‘I believe it was.’

  ‘I went to that Lord of the Rings film and my boyfriend got the book of it, but neither of us could make head or tail of it.’

  ‘What was the problem?’

  She gathered up the last of the cups onto the tray. ‘Too many words,’ she said and went away. Slightly unnerved by this exchange, I returned to Trollope.

  When Mrs Dudley came back I thought she looked tired and made as if to go, but she said irritably that I’d only just got there and there were things she wanted to talk to me about.

  I sat down obediently and waited. She made a great fuss about settling back into her chair, saying that she was exhausted by having been Pulled About, but eventually she said, ‘It’s about Patrick. I want you to talk to him.’

  ‘Me? What about?’

  ‘I want you to make sure he’s going to be staying on at the cottage.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be more suitable if Rosemary asked him?’

  ‘That would look as if she wanted him to go.’

  ‘Well, I did speak to him a little while ago and he seemed to be settled there then.’

  She was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Now that Daniel’s gone …’ She paused. ‘Patrick has very good manners, a most unusual young man, always so interested in what I have to tell him. There’s no need for him to go back to London, he has the cottage and the money Daniel left him.’ She looked at me almost anxiously. ‘He seems to be happy down here – I’m sure I’ve
heard him say so many times.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said gently, ‘he seems to be. I don’t believe he’s thinking of moving – for a while, at least.’

  As I drove home I thought of the way Patrick had gradually become so important to Mrs Dudley. Not as important as Daniel, but a sort of substitute for him. And, of course, she couldn’t ask Rosemary to sound him out about staying in Taviscombe. There’s no way she’d want Rosemary to know how much he meant to her. But was Patrick, I wondered, really that interested in her endless stories of the old days? It seemed unlikely. If not, what did he have to gain from his attentions and his constant visits? It wasn’t as if he had monetary expectations – as she had pointed out, Daniel had left him well provided for and somehow I didn’t feel that he cared too much about money anyway. Perhaps he just liked her, but it was an improbable relationship, especially given Mrs Dudley’s acerbic manner.

  What Patrick had said about Daniel’s death not being an accident came back to me when I saw Bob Morris coming out of the police station a few days later. I was on the other side of the road and didn’t have an opportunity to speak to him about it, but it set me thinking and I wondered if Patrick had actually spoken to him about it and, if so, what his reaction had been. Why on earth would anyone want to kill Daniel? Local people hardly knew him and it was unlikely, to say the least of it, that someone would have followed him down from London for the purpose. No, Patrick must have been wrong, but then, if it was Daniel’s death that Bob Morris had been uncertain about …

  I resolutely put it out of my mind and hurried along to Brunswick Lodge with the cakes I’d made for the Red Cross coffee morning. It was in full swing when I got there and Anthea accosted me as I came through the door.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘I couldn’t think where you’d got to. Brenda Morrison’s been waiting for ages to set up her stall.’ She unwrapped my offerings. ‘Oh dear, we already have two ginger cakes, I thought you were going to make a fruit cake. Well, I suppose we must manage somehow.’

  I got myself a cup of coffee and looked for somewhere to sit down. My heart sank when I saw Alison Shelby waving at me and reluctantly went and sat down beside her.

  ‘What a squash,’ she said brightly. ‘Still it’s lovely that so many people have turned out – such a good cause. I did a Red Cross first-aid course last year – well, I do think everyone should be able to help in an emergency. And, would you believe it, just a few weeks after I’d finished the course, Mrs Shoulders, my daily, cut her hand so I was able to bind her up quite professionally. Of course, if it had been a really deep cut I’d have taken her to hospital; you can’t be too careful. Oh, I meant to tell you – Anthea asked me to tell any of the committee members I happened to see, that the meeting on Monday has been cancelled. Derek can’t make it and there’s no point in having a meeting without the treasurer.’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ll be quite glad not to—’

  ‘It’s Edna, his wife, she’s making him go with her to the venue.’

  ‘The venue?’

  ‘The wedding venue – for their daughter’s wedding.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember now …’

  ‘I think it’s that place just outside Porlock. Very nice, I’m sure, and not too pricey – well Derek’s always been careful with money, though you’d think for his only daughter! Of course when our girls were married, with Lydia marrying a barrister and Charlotte marrying an important doctor, we had to push the boat out, as they say. A lot of people down from London, so the actual ceremonies had to be at St Mary’s in Taunton – not enough room in our local church, though that would have been nice – then the reception was at the Castle Hotel, and that cost a pretty penny, I can tell you.’

  ‘I’m sure …’

  ‘Of course, just having a son you didn’t have all that bother – buy a new hat and you’re done!’

  I drank my coffee and let the flow of talk wash over me and fortunately Anthea came back to make sure I knew about the committee meeting so I was able to get away.

  ‘I can’t imagine how Maurice Shelby, who seems to be a sensible man, puts up with her,’ I said to Rosemary when I ran into her in the post office. ‘I’m absolutely exhausted after fifteen minutes of all that chat. How on earth does he bear it day after day?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s home much these days,’ Rosemary said. ‘Since his partner’s gone, he seems to be working all hours, so Jack says.’

  ‘And glad to! He doesn’t seem like someone who would have been trapped by a pretty face – you can see that she must have been pretty when she was young – but, of course, there was the money. It probably seemed a reasonable price to pay.’

  ‘Well, he never seems to have much to say for himself so perhaps she’s got into the habit of chattering away to fill the silence!’

  ‘Actually, if you remember, I did have a reasonable conversation with him in that tea room in the precinct. I suspect that dry precise manner hides a perfectly good sense of humour.’

  ‘“Precise” is the word,’ Rosemary said. ‘Matthew Philips was telling Jack only the other day how he fusses about things. Matthew, who’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud himself, has always had Maurice Shelby as his solicitor and he had to consult him about a legacy. A bit of a complication – the obvious beneficiary had gone abroad and though they advertised for him he hadn’t turned up. Apparently there’s a thing called a beneficiary insurance, which means that if the person does eventually turn up after you’ve had the money, you can pay him back with the insurance. The legacy was only a small sum and Matthew didn’t want the bother of it but Maurice Shelby was really insistent that they should do it, made quite a thing of it!’

  ‘Yes, Michael says he’s got the reputation of being a stickler for things like that, all the niggling detail. I don’t think he has that many clients – old-fashioned – so I imagine it’s mostly elderly people who’ve been with him for some time. It must be very difficult these days for someone in a single-person practice.’

  When I got home I still felt stifled by Alison’s endless conversation and felt the need for some fresh air, so I got the lead and took Tris for a walk along the beach We both walk quite slowly now but there’s something about the sea air that invigorates us. Tris wandered off to investigate clumps of seaweed and I walked right down to the water’s edge to watch each little wave lapping on the hard ribbed sand. After a while it began to rain, lightly at first but suddenly very heavily. I gathered up Tris and made for one of the shelters. I was trying, ineffectually, to dry my hair which was dripping onto my collar when someone else came in. It was Patrick.

  ‘What a day!’ I exclaimed. ‘Are you very wet?’

  ‘Not too bad, I made a dash for it.’

  Tris chose this moment to shake himself vigorously and we both became much wetter.

  ‘I was so sorry about Mrs Dudley’s stroke,’ I said tentatively. ‘But she does seem to be making a good recovery.’

  ‘She was in good form when I saw her last week. Quite her old self.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that. I pity the nurses, though I suppose they’re used to difficult patients.’ I paused for a moment and then went on, ‘It was very good of you to visit. It means a lot to her, you know.’

  ‘Yes, well, I know how much she must be missing Daniel; it seemed the least I could do.’

  ‘She’s not an easy person but you both seem to get on really well.’

  ‘Oh, she just wants someone who’ll listen. Someone new to tell her stories to.’

  ‘You’re doing her a lot of good, especially just now. She’ll miss you when you go.’

  He shook his head. ‘Oh, I’m not going, not until all this business about Daniel’s death is sorted out.’

  ‘Did you speak to Inspector Morris? What did he say?’

  ‘He was very non-committal, but I still get the feeling that he’s uneasy about it.’

  ‘Are they doing anything? Surely they’re trying to find the driver?’

&nb
sp; ‘I asked him, of course, and he said the case was still open but with no witnesses it’s more or less impossible.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he burst out. ‘They’re still treating it as an accident.’

  ‘You told him you think it was deliberate?’

  ‘Yes, but I couldn’t give him any reason why anyone would want Daniel dead. No reason, no person – it’s all so frustrating. But I just know it was deliberate and I’m sure he thinks so too. I don’t know what to do, Sheila, that’s why I want you to speak to him. You know him and he’ll listen to you.’

  ‘I’ll try, but, really, I have nothing more to say to him than you have.’

  ‘Please, Sheila!’

  ‘I’ll mention it to him when I see him, if that’s any use. But I don’t believe there’s anything else he can do, whatever he may feel about it.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  As it happened, I did run into Bob Morris in the library.

  ‘Are you looking for gardening books for your father?’ I asked casually.

  ‘No, something on the First World War – there’s been a lot on TV lately and he got interested.’

  ‘How is he? I really meant to drop in on him again but I seem to get caught up in things. And, of course, there’s been all this terrible business about Daniel.’ I paused for a moment. ‘I believe Patrick, his partner, doesn’t think it was an accident.’ I looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘Well, not an accident, exactly – a hit-and-run.’

  ‘And you’re no nearer finding the driver?’

  ‘No witnesses – there hardly would be on that road at that time of day.’

  ‘Surely that’s the point. Who would have been driving along there then?’

  ‘Some drunk returning from a night out.’

  ‘But where from? That lane – not a road even – doesn’t lead anywhere that someone like that would be coming from and it’s not a short cut.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that puzzled me. I can only imagine it wasn’t a local but some visitor who’d got lost.’