by Moody, Susan
As I drove up the short drive to her door, I could smell honeysuckle. Roses bloomed in beds along the front of the house. Fuchsias hung over pillared balustrades. The scent of newly-mown lawns drifted in the air. England at its most picturesque. Getting out of my car, I could hear the languid drone of a plane high above on its descent into Heathrow or Gatwick. I walked around the side of the house and found Clarissa in the back garden, looking impossibly languorous on a chaise beneath a weeping willow. There were tea things spread on a wicker table beside her, a covered silver dish of toasted teacakes and an iced walnut cake of the kind my Scottish grandmother, Lady de Cuik, used to bring down to Kent years ago when she came to stay with my parents.
‘Quick!’ she said, smiling. ‘How lovely to see you.’
I blew a cursory kiss in her direction. ‘Did you make that?’ I said accusingly, pointing at the cake. ‘It’s my absolute favourite.’
‘Which is why it’s here waiting for you. And no, I didn’t make it but I know the person who did.’ She began to pour tea from a silver teapot. ‘Or, more correctly, I know the person whose mother used to work for the late lamented Mr Fuller and who gave her the recipe on her deathbed.’ She handed me a mug of tea.
‘Will she share it?’
Clarissa shook her head. ‘Sadly, no. I already asked.’
‘And how is Rondel?’ I asked.
‘I’m only halfway through the new book, so naturally he’s still totally flummoxed,’ Clarissa said. ‘Was it Fremont La Blanche, the hunchbacked chamberlain, who murdered nice Sylvan de la Mare? Or was it his rascally squire? Or was it someone else altogether? We shall see. I want to bring Eleanor of Aquitaine into the mix this time, and someone’s just brought out a new biography, so I’m researching her at the moment.’ She wrinkled her brow the way concerned friends do. ‘And how about you, Quick? Anyone significant entered your life since the Love Rat slithered off, scaly tail up his bum?’
I swallowed a piece of my slice of layered walnut cake and shook my head. Sam Willoughby flashed across my mind. Followed – to my surprise – by Todd DuBois. ‘No,’ I said. Sam appeared again briefly. ‘Um … not really.’
‘Um … not really sounds promising.’
‘It’s not.’
‘Honest?’
‘Cross my heart.’ I felt a twinge of guilt. Sam was a good friend, and wanted to be much more. I didn’t. Was it the fact that I didn’t fancy him, or something more fundamental? If I examined my attitude to him too closely, I would have to admit that there was an element of apprehension in our relationship. On my part, that is. About what? I didn’t know. Nor did I want to go there, for fear of what I might uncover about myself.
‘That’s a shame,’ Clarissa said, not believing me. ‘As for your Piper Whatsit, in the house I have all the salient points about her for you to mull over. We’ve run across her and her husband from time to time. Drinks parties and the like. She’s quite a character, I think you’ll find. At least, on paper.’
We spent a convivial evening, discussing old friends and their doings, until Mark came home, when we switched to more general topics over dinner. The children were all away, except for the youngest one, who slumbered peacefully in his carry cot beside his father’s place at the table until the Icelandic au pair bore him off to bed.
‘Why are you interested in Lady Paramore?’ Mark asked at one point.
I took a deep breath. ‘I presume you’ve heard about Tristan Huber’s murder,’ I said. They both nodded sombrely. ‘Apparently he was commissioned to do some interior design work for the woman. His most recent commission. I thought it might be useful to talk to her, see if she has anything new to add. She probably doesn’t, but it’s worth a try.’
‘Are the police baffled?’ asked Clarissa. ‘Like my Rondel?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Not yet. It’s just Dimsie – you remember Dimsie?’ Again they both nodded. ‘She asked me to look into it because she’s afraid the police won’t give her all the information that I would. If I find anything out, that is.’
‘I can see her point,’ said Mark. ‘The fuzz like to play things very close to the chest. As,’ he added hastily, remembering my former career, ‘you would yourself, I’m sure.’
‘And why not?’ asked Clarissa. ‘They’re there to track down criminals, not to provide the ravening hordes with newspaper titillation over their breakfast eggs.’
The conversation continued with a discussion of why hordes always ravened, and whether, apart from a small and dwindling band of middle-class standard-bearers, anyone still ate eggs for breakfast, let alone read a newspaper while consuming them.
Clarissa handed me a see-through plastic folder before I went upstairs. I lay in a four-poster bed which smelled of woodworm and starched linen, and leafed through it. I knew that if there was any further info to find, she, a meticulous researcher, would have winkled it out.
I read that Piper Paramore was raised by her socialite mother, who’d left Piper’s father and moved to New York. She’d wed again and subsequently managed to marry Piper off to a minor English aristocratic, Sir Piers Paramore, who worked at something esoteric in merchant banking. Piers brought to the marriage a shabby ancestral mansion set in some neglected acres of Kentish countryside, a pretty good income and half a dozen miners’ cottages near Salford, all that was left of a considerable coal mining fortune. Piper, meanwhile, contributed money and an enormous amount of Yankee energy. In between producing four children, she had begun rehabilitating the house, doing up the cottages as holiday lets, transforming the paddocks, and setting up a thriving company offering Rollins Park as a wholesome entertainment package for families on holiday.
And in what seemed to me, lying back among Clarissa’s luxurious pillows, a stroke of genius, she had invited her father over from Tennessee, where he had retired. Dad – Hank Rogers – was an established star on the rodeo circuit. His mother had been a famous barrel racing champion, whatever that was; his father – Elmer ‘Red Tex’ Rogers – was renowned for the speed in which he could rope a steer and the length of time he could stay astride a bucking bronco.
Hank’s lucky break came when he was still living in Texas and they found oil in one of his back paddocks. Since then, he had done pretty much as he pleased, which had mostly involved setting up a fine stable of horses in east Tennessee, which he presented worldwide, and now, starring in a Wild West show for the delight and entertainment of the paying public in one of the Rollins Park fields. Apparently children from all over the country were dragging their parents to see the performance. There were plenty of headshots of Hank’s weather-beaten face smiling from under a white ten-gallon Stetson. I stared at it for some time. Smiling, yes, but there was more than a hint of granite about the crinkled eyes and craggy jaw. Not a man you’d want to get across. There were also photos of him in thrilling encounter with mounts which definitely didn’t like having him on their back and were trying their utmost to get him off it.
I looked forward to meeting him.
SEVEN
It was a weekday, and despite the number of vehicles parked in the car park, Rollins Park Amusements seemed almost deserted as I drove in through the gates and up the drive. I came to a fork and took the left-hand road, which was signposted NO ENTRY and underneath that, PRIVATE ROAD. I motored along an avenue lined on either side by well-aged lime trees. Pulled to a halt in front of a country house of no particular architectural merit but nonetheless presenting a pleasing aspect.
As I stood beside my car, admiring the tastefully repointed brickwork, someone came out of the front door and stood where two sweeping curves of stone steps met in front of it. The steps were not very high and the sweep was not exactly huge, but nonetheless, the general effect was relatively imposing.
The someone who’d emerged was now staring down at me in a distinctly unfriendly manner. She had dark hair cut like a man’s short-back-and-sides. She was wearing jeans with a striped dress shirt tucked into them and a broad Western
belt.
‘You’ve come the wrong way,’ she said, both her tone and her body language offensive. ‘Didn’t you see the sign that showed you were following a private road? Or can’t you read?’
‘I can indeed. And frequently do.’ Unimpressed by her far from dulcet tones, I smiled up at her. ‘Which is precisely why I forked left.’
‘It’s marked Private, so what’s your reason, if any beyond idle curiosity?’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘I don’t know how ill-bred they are in your country, but I would have thought you’d lived in England long enough to know that on the whole we try to keep a civil tongue in our head. At least until we have good cause to be discourteous.’
There was a pause. Then she said, ‘I apologize. I was rude. But if you knew how many times a day in the season we get strangers invading our privacy …’
‘My name’s Quick,’ I said. ‘I suppose I should have made an appointment. I was hoping to speak to Lady Paramore.’
‘What about?’
‘It’s to do with Tristan Huber,’ I said.
‘The decorator?’ She frowned. Looked at her watch then down again at me. ‘He’s not here.’
Since she had a clipped east-coast American accent, I assumed this was Piper Paramore herself. ‘It’s not Tristan I’ve come to see. It’s you,’ I said. I was getting heartily sick of directing my conversation to a point ten feet above my head. Besides, I was developing a hell of a crick in the neck. I started towards the nearest curve of steps.
‘Hold it!’ She held up her hand like a policeman, more or less forbidding me to climb any higher, so I sat down, my back to her. If this was the get-up-and-go expert, it wouldn’t have hurt her to direct a portion of her energy towards acquiring some manners. She didn’t speak. Neither did I. I was fairly sure which one of us would break the deadlock. It wouldn’t be me. Sure enough, I heard her start to descend the stone staircase. ‘What exactly do you want?’ she asked, sounding somewhat less aggressive.
‘Come down here and I’ll tell you,’ I said.
Eventually she reached the same level as me and sat down on the broad lichened steps. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
I stuck out my hand. ‘Alexandra Quick. You obviously haven’t heard the sad news.’
‘What sad news?’
‘That Tristan – Mr Huber – was killed a few days ago.’
She went pale. ‘Killed? Tristan?’ A sudden flush washed away the pallor. ‘Tristan,’ she said faintly. ‘Do you mean … he’s dead?’
I didn’t retort that when a person reported someone had been killed, it usually meant that the someone was dead. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But he was such a …’ she said. Tears began to flood down her face. ‘He can’t be dead.’
I said nothing. I longed to know what words she had been going to employ. Hard worker? Handsome bloke? Great lover? Old friend?
‘No! I don’t believe it. He can’t be,’ she said again, raising her voice as though hoping that if she denied it long and loudly enough, I would change my mind and admit that I’d only been joking and after all, he was alive and well.
I didn’t. ‘When did you last see him,’ I asked.
‘It m-must have b-been two or th-three weeks ago.’ Her lower lip trembled. ‘He’d taken a couple of weeks off. Not that …’
She stopped. She knew as well as I did that being on vacation didn’t preclude getting murdered.
We sat in silence for a few moments. Then I said, ‘What was Tristan working on for you?’
The use of the past tense provoked another downpour of tears. Again I waited. Finally, she got up. ‘I’ll show you.’
It was odd that she should have accepted the news without asking when and where, let alone how Tristan had died. Perhaps it was still sinking in. We walked across sheep-shorn turf, in the opposite direction from the amusement park. In the distance, I could hear excited screams and a voice yelling ‘Yee-haw!’ The Lariat King himself, I guessed. We were approaching a building which I mentally categorized as a gazebo or pergola, without being a hundred per cent sure what either was. It was round, its domed roof supported by slim white pillars. It was open on three sides, with views across the park in one direction and down to a broad flat river in the other. Inside, a tiny spout of water bubbled flatly in the centre of a small square pool set into the marbled floor. Beside it a metal stork stood on one leg. Unless it was a flamingo.
‘We call this Lady Anne’s Retreat,’ explained Piper. ‘After her tenth child was born, she was never in the best of health, and she liked to sit here gazing at the view, doing nothing very much.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ I couldn’t help thinking of poor Lilian Harkness and her lack of fruitfulness.
‘We normally have couches set around the walls. Small tables. House plants,’ said Piper. ‘A drinks cabinet. A little icebox. My husband and I like to come down here and have a martini or something, when he gets home from London. It’s very peaceful. Gives him a chance to unwind.’ She gestured at the wall. ‘But obviously we had to take everything out while Tristan did his – his decorations in here.’ She gazed at the unfinished mural. ‘Beautiful pictures, aren’t they? Such delicate work. He was so gifted.’
I too stared at Tristan’s design. A landscape-in-the-half-round. A vista seen through mist or in a dream. I was reminded of the work of Eric Ravilious: the muted colours and slightly offbeat style complementing the real scenes outside. A distant river wound its way past woods and fields. A church with a square Norman tower lay half-hidden by cloudy trees. Another, this time with a gothic spire. There were cattle dotted about: Jersey for the most part but with a sprinkling of Fresians and big white Charolais. A flock of black-faced sheep. White weather-boarded mills. A train rattling along, old-fashioned, a plume of smoke streaming backwards above a red engine with shiny brass fitments. People stood about, singly or in small groups. All contained within a backdrop no more than six or seven feet by twelve. The scene was like a dream of lost innocence, and entirely enchanting. Especially since it was hard to say where image ceased and distant reality took over. Tears clogged the back of my throat at the remembrance that the creator of this small marvel was gone.
‘So,’ Piper said, turning to look forcefully at me. Her eyes were wide and fixed. To prevent further tears, I was guessing. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
I found it interesting that she didn’t query what right I had to question her. Basically, whether you could have killed Tristan Huber … ‘While Tristan was working on the pergola—’
‘Gazebo.’
‘—whatever, were there any altercations? Someone on your staff who he might have quarrelled with or annoyed in some way? Had negative dealings with of some kind or another? Did he stay here overnight or go home at the end of each day? Did anyone come to see him here that you were aware of? Did he … uh … engage in activities of which you did not approve? Did he have issues with your father or your husband?’
‘Goodness, so many questions. Let me think …’ While she thought, Ms Paramore busied herself with hiding the way her hands shook by tucking her shirt more tightly into her jeans. Smoothing down her little-boy-at-Sunday-School haircut. Picking up a stray leaf which had blown into the pergola … or gazebo. Straightened up, she shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. We could ask the Wild West personnel … they always seemed to be good pals with each other. Everyone liked him.’ Her voice shook too.
‘Fine.’ I had been hoping for an excuse to talk to Mr Rodeo. I looked at my watch. ‘Is your father working at the moment?’
‘His next show’s at eleven thirty,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to wait until he’s finished.’ She nodded in the direction of the Park. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you over.’
Some way behind the house, what looked like an authentic-looking rodeo ground had been built, complete with sand, bleachers and rough-hewn fencing. A full complement of spectators occupied the seating.
Hank Rogers, Piper’s father, was already astride a l
arge indignant mount which been boxed into a tight space of heavy iron railings. One of the rider’s hands gripped a kind of handle attached to harness round the front of the bronco, the other waved a hat in the air. The horse seemed pretty pissed-off, showing the whites of its eyes and tossing its head as it tried to shake off the man on its back. When he saw us, Hank gestured his big white hat at his daughter and, by association, me. She waved back. He was wearing a fringed buckskin shirt and leather chaps over western-cut blue-jeans, with a red spotted scarf tied round his sinewy neck. A couple of guys in jeans and checked shirts, topped with wide-brimmed cowboy hats, were standing around, looking ready for almost anything. Someone else was holding on to the top of a metal gate, penning in the bronco.
Somebody yelled something that sounded vaguely bronco-busting. The gate opened. Out bulleted the horse and its bareback rider, kicking up its heels, arching its back, while Hank kept the arm with the hat in the air for balance. The help hovered here and there, ready at any time to turn the horse. It was a bit like a bullfight, though a lot less ceremonious. No lovely señoritas with flowers in their hair. No black sombreros and strutting suits of light. Just a bunch of overweight Brits and their pudgy children, half of them chewing sweets or chocolate bars.
‘I’m so proud of my father,’ Piper said, gazing fondly at him.
‘He’s really something,’ I agreed. I wasn’t quite sure what, but definitely something.
Hank clung on for grim death while the horse bucked and reared and frothed. Then suddenly, it gave up and stood docilely with its head hanging and its sides heaving. Some calves appeared in the ring, shooed in by one of Hank’s assistants – I’m sure there was a more official name for them – and began running round, mooing loudly as Hank slid off the horse’s sweaty back and waved his hat while the audience cheered and clapped. An assistant ran in and led off the animal while Hank twirled his lariat.
‘Yee-haw!’ he yelled, sending the rope flying and catching one of the calves by the neck. The others ran off in a group, while with a second rope, Hank expertly lassoed the calf by the back legs, bringing it to its knees, to the delight of the crowd, now fully engaged in the action. ‘Come along, ya little dogies!’ he shouted. ‘Come along now. Come, come, come.’