Quick off the Mark

by Moody, Susan

  ‘No …!’ I pretended shock and dismay.

  ‘I’m telling you yes!’ She leaned towards me. ‘Look, this is the twenty-first century, right?’

  ‘Indubitably.’

  ‘I mean, we don’t go in for witch-hunts and such any more … though there’ve been witches burned right outside this very door. Not all that long ago, neither. One of my own ancestors, made herbal potions and the like …’ She paused, eyes looking back to a grimly primitive past.

  ‘Witch-hunts,’ I prompted, since she seemed to have lost the plot.

  ‘Nothing wrong with Guy Wheatley,’ she said. ‘Ask me, we just weren’t ready for him and his sort. Very chummy with Lady P, he was. Always up at the Park. Drinks. Dinner. Lunches and that. Him and his arty friends.’

  I hardly dared asked what had happened to Guy Wheatley but I managed somehow.

  ‘Oh, the Vicar had a word, so he packed his bags in a huff and flounced back to the city. Isn’t that right, Den?’ She addressed one or other of the old boys but neither of them answered. They both appeared to have fallen asleep. Or died.

  ‘But what had the man done?’

  ‘You know …’ She sounded mildly surprised that I didn’t. ‘He was One Of Them.’ She did one or two of those bloody silly gestures that ignorant folk go in for when describing gays. Smoothed an eyebrow. Flopped her hand forward from the wrist. I loathe bigotry. Especially against gay people. And although I’ve met dozens of gays, I’ve never seen any of them go in for eyebrow smoothing.

  ‘What’s wrong with being gay, you ignorant bigot?’ I said rudely. ‘As it happens, I’m gay myself.’

  ‘Uh … um …’ Sheila swallowed and backed away behind the bar, as though I might otherwise reach across and besmirch her. ‘No offense meant.’

  ‘Plenty taken.’

  I knocked back my tomato juice and left. The Vicar? What the hell happened to brotherly love and all God’s chillun’? But had I learned anything useful? Mainly that it would be a brave soul who stepped out of line in a village like this one. Poor Peggy Mitchell, murdered for a fuck. I wondered if the Oklahoman had ever been brought to book.

  NINE

  Back in Longbury, gulls swooped above the seafront. Fisherfolk flogged herring out of white polystyrene boxes. Sunshine sparkled on gentle waves.

  I turned down into the High Street, past the Chinese takeaway, the pizza parlour where nobody ever came or went. Past Willoughbys Books and Vines Wines. Edward waved as I went by. I turned left, and went into Dimsie’s place. For once she was there, listlessly turning the pages of a sample book of upholstery fabrics and crying. She looked utterly forlorn and defenceless.

  ‘Oh, Dimsie,’ I said. I held my arms wide and she rushed into them, burrowing against my chest like a puppy, wiping tears against my shirt. I hoped they weren’t mixed with snot.

  ‘Are you getting anywhere?’ she demanded.

  ‘Not particularly. But I have several lines of enquiry I want to follow up. If you still want me to.’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘Then what I’d like from you is a list of as many of Tristan’s contacts, and friends as you can remember. Especially the local ones. And if you have a contact number for his former wife, give it to me.’

  ‘Christie? Surely you can’t imagine she’s had anything to do with this.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘But for the moment all options have to remain open. And also she may know things about him that you don’t.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Any idea where she might be living now?’

  ‘As I told you, we don’t exactly keep in touch. Sometimes a card at Christmas, sometimes not. I’ve heard from a mutual friend that they keep a flat in London they use when they’re over here. Otherwise I presume they live in Spain.’ She shrugged, wiping her face. That’s it, really.’

  ‘Did you like her?’

  ‘She was OK. But after she married again we kind of drifted apart – not that we were ever all that close.’

  ‘Do you think she’s heard that Tristan’s died?’

  ‘If she has, she certainly hasn’t contacted us in any way. No condolences and so on, if that’s what you mean. So perhaps she doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘Has Tristan had any fallings-out with people recently, do you know? Employees, clients, anyone who might be harbouring a grudge?’

  ‘The Dame might be a better source of information than me.’

  ‘Is she likely to pass anything on?’

  ‘If it’ll bring Tristan’s killer to justice, she’ll tell you absolutely anything you want to know.’

  The pretty Georgian house where the Huber-Draytons had lived for several generations was small but rather grand. Despite a considerable amount of dilapidation, and being separated by a crumbling brick wall from a family graveyard complete with yew trees and burial vaults, the place was in much demand for photo shoots for fashion shows or period TV programmes, or even the kind of Regency films featuring Hollywood actresses who have mastered the art of speaking with impeccable English accents. Dorcas pretended to be way above the vulgarities enjoyed by hoi polloi, but she’d always suffered from a lack of funds and had no problem accepting their money.

  I drove into the forecourt between gateposts decorated with a bracket supporting a square-shaped lantern and parked. Roses, interspersed with fecund lavender bushes and flowering sage, bloomed in beautifully tended beds, thanks to Gibson, the gardener who’d been in charge since I was about six. The gravel looked as though it had been raked just five minutes earlier. The air was fragrant with choiysa. Instead of pulling at the elaborate bell system beside the front door, I walked around the house, as I used to do in childhood, to the kitchen door. It stood open. I could see Dorcas inside, upright at the big pine table, staring rigidly at the green Aga, her hands clasped in front of her.

  I had thought that Kevin Fuller’s father had epitomized grief, but here was a grief more profound than any I had ever caught sight of, except possibly for an image I had once seen of a grieving Madonna. The face she turned to me as I knocked lightly and entered was a shock. She’d never been a beauty. Her eyes were too ferocious, her nose too insistent, her habitual expression too commanding. Most of the time she gave the impression of an unfriendly Komodo dragon on a bad day. Now, she looked like the rind of a dried-up melon, or a withered autumn leaf which had once been bright green. Her eyes had sunk so far into their sockets that they seemed to be no more than puddles at the back of her face.

  ‘Dorcas.’ I didn’t dare attempt anything as personal as a hug. Or even a hand on her shoulder. Dorcas had never welcomed intimacies in the past and I sensed that she would not appreciate them now. ‘I’m so terribly sorry.’

  She moved her gaze from the Aga to stare at me for such a long time that I wondered if she had even heard me. ‘Dorcas,’ I began again. ‘I’m so—’

  ‘Find them!’ she said. It sounded as though a harrow was ploughing its way through her chest, tearing up gobbets of flesh as it went. Normally, she spoke in the kind of voice which would stop a herd of charging hippos at twenty paces. She held out a large hand which tremored uncontrollably. ‘Find them and bring them to me.’

  ‘Dorcas, you know I can’t—’

  Once again she interrupted me. ‘This – this cruel outrage won’t go unpunished,’ she said. ‘And you’ve done it before, you’ve brought justice to bear. You have to do it again, for my sake. For Tri-, for Trist-, for my son’s sake.’

  To hear this indomitable, not terribly likeable woman reduced to a stricken falter, unable even to articulate the name of her lost child, was almost sadder than Mr Fuller’s dignified grief. ‘Do you have even the slightest notion of who could be behind this?’ I asked.

  ‘He was too good,’ she rasped.

  ‘In what sen—’

  ‘Beat them all into a cocked hat. They could never keep up with him. He outstripped them all. Always did.’

  I have to admit that I didn’t have the foggiest idea what
she was talking about. Tristan had always been an extremely able person, highly skilled in many different areas. But a saintly Leader of Men? I didn’t think so. ‘Are you suggesting that a rival is behind this? Someone in the same business as he was?’

  She snorted unpleasantly. Her chin trembled. ‘Interior Design?’ she said. ‘What was he thinking of? He had a brilliant career ahead of him in the Army. He could have been anything. Risen to the highest ranks, like his uncles.’ Again she pushed her hand towards me. ‘Find his murderers, Alexandra. Please.’ The note of pleading in her unsteady voice was terrible to hear. ‘My golden boy …’

  ‘Do you have any suspicions about the identity of the person or persons responsible?’ I asked.

  ‘Not at the moment. But if I come up with anyone, you can be certain that you’ll hear about it.’

  It struck me that Dimsie knew as little about her mother as she did about her brother. Any chance of this poor husk of a woman, hollowed out by grief, giving me anything useful to work with was out of the question. At least for the moment. All she wanted right now was vengeance.

  ‘One last question … Tristan’s former wife.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Do you know whether she or her new husband could possibly be implicated in some way?’

  ‘No idea. Never liked the woman. And when she abandoned my son … it nearly broke his heart. It was unforgivable.’

  I didn’t like to bring up the matter of Dorcas’s own marital failings.

  ‘But no. A vulgar creature, I always thought. But not vicious. Not a murderer.’ She didn’t speak again. Her dislike of physical contact was so ingrained in me that I simply said that if there was anything at all I could do for her, I would be happy to do it. Then I went back to my car and drove away.

  Her words had been enigmatic. He outstripped them all … What did that mean? It could have been anything, from winning a tennis match to scoring a lucrative contract from under a competitor’s nose. But that must go on all the time, not just in the interior design field but in almost any commercial undertaking.

  I urgently needed to see Tristan’s client list. And tomorrow I would pay a call on Mr Michael Compton.

  I’ve often wondered whether the grimy chaos in which most solicitors’ firms exist is intended to create confidence in the bosoms of their clients. Whether there were obscure little companies marketing spray-on dust, dead flies and tattered files, in order to create the right impression. In such a grungy environment (the reasoning might go) and notwithstanding the holiday home in France, the yacht moored in Portofino, the legal person in question could not possibly be embezzling clients’ funds. Could he? Or she? Particularly when, as so often, you added a suit which some time ago had seen better days, a ditto shirt and shabby suede Hush Puppies, one lace of which had clearly been broken at some point and had the two ends knotted back together. All of which proved bugger all.

  But I wasn’t here to consult a solicitor. A business manager was an entirely different kettle of fish, as I twigged as soon as I reached the building which housed, among many other enterprises, MICHAEL COMPTON, FINANCIAL CONSULTANT, followed by a string of letters. The place was in one of the choicest parts of town, halfway up the hill to the university, standing back from the road with a gravelled parking area in front of it. Which already held two Beamers, one Mercedes, and a racy little sports car in electric blue. Perhaps they were props, put away at night, intended to assure customers that this was the place to come for advice on money and investment. But probably not. The Huber-Draytons wouldn’t be putting just any old hack in charge of their financial affairs. No, indeed.

  I was shown into an office full of glass and leather. A pricey designer chair was offered. Coffee was suggested and refused. This wasn’t a social call. A window looked out on to a leafy bit of garden. Above trees, I could see sunshine gilding the university bell tower. Some birds flapped busily about, the way they always do. Compton was sitting opposite me in a pale linen suit (I would have to remember to ask him how he managed to keep it so uncreased) and striped red-and-white shirt, open at the neck. Neat brown hair, expensively barbered. One of those baby’s bottom chins. A pervasive scent of some bespoke aftershave permeated the air.

  And he was talking. Talking mesmerically. If he’d asked me to eat a red hot chilli pepper or go out and rob a bank, I might well have done so, such was the power of his voice. Forceful, imperative, silkily superior; it hung above his wavy hair with an ungainsayable authority. Looking at him, silver spoons danced a fandango inside my head.

  ‘So,’ he said. He reached for a pair of black-framed banker’s glasses lying beside the blotter on the desk in front of him and hooked them over his ears. What, hoping to make himself more impressive? Didn’t work for me. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘You probably can’t,’ I said. ‘Or more likely won’t.’

  ‘Won’t?’

  ‘Knowing people like you, I expect you’ll hide behind client confidentiality.’

  He gave a practised chortle. ‘Oh, come now, Miss Quick. You sound extremely biased.’

  ‘I probably am. With good reason.’ I dared him to ask me what the reason was but luckily he didn’t, since there wasn’t one.

  He straightened a file on his desk, then leaned back in his leather swivel chair. ‘My client, Dimsie Drayton, has asked me to cooperate with you as far as possible. I understand you’re looking into the horrible death of her brother.’

  ‘In a purely private capacity. She felt the local homicide detectives wouldn’t pass on all the details to her.’

  ‘So, what do you want to know?’ All business now, he leaned forward and put his hands flat on his desk. His elbows stuck out on either side of his body like bony wings.

  ‘As many details as possible about Tristan’s company, including his clients.’

  ‘I can’t possibly divulge—’

  ‘Why not? It must be a matter of public record. I can find out what I need to know but it would be so much easier if you’d just tell me.’

  He saw the sense of that. ‘Well, as you must know, he was in great demand.’

  ‘Yes. But where in particular? Where, for instance, were his last few projects based?’

  ‘I don’t quite follow?’

  ‘What’s not to follow? Which country? Which town? Who hired him? I know about Piper Paramore. What about the others? Over the past two, say, years?’

  ‘I’d have to …’ He pushed back his chair, stood up and went over to a filing cabinet by the wall. If ever a filing cabinet could be called designer, this one, clad in scarlet padded leather, could. Italian, I was guessing. Maybe even produced by my sister Meghan and her husband.

  He pushed drawers in and out. I could tell he was busily trying to decide how much information to provide. ‘Cooperation,’ I murmured, loud enough for him to hear.

  He fished out a file and brought it over to the desk. ‘Right …’ he said. He opened it. Scanned quickly through the contents in a guarded fashion as though afraid I might be adept at reading upside-down. Which, as it happens, I am. ‘Well now …’

  If ever I’ve seen someone uneasy, it was Mr Compton. He pulled a freshly laundered handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket and furtively wiped the palms of his hands … but perhaps I was misjudging him. Perhaps he just had a sweat-gland problem. ‘So where or what were some of his recent commissions?’ I asked firmly.

  ‘As far as I remember, offhand, there’s been one in Qatar,’ he said. ‘One up on the Scottish Borders. The Paramore one. One in Istanbul. One in Kuwait. Another in Vermont.’

  ‘So he got around a bit.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘Qatar, Kuwait … why would they choose an English interior designer?’

  ‘Tristan’s pretty well known in his field.’

  ‘But even so …’ I tried to imagine some imposing lord of the desert, a hooded falcon on his wrist, his red-and-white-checked keffiyeh secured by a golden igal band. What kind of décor would he would
be looking for to embellish the interior of his icing-sugar palace under the burning sun? Fountains? Cages full of nightingales? Couches covered in gorgeous fabrics? Slow fans turning? Perhaps I’d seen too many movies. Why would you need, or even want, an Englishman to produce that kind of thing? Surely there were indigenous designers who would do just as good a job.

  ‘Tristan was all things to all men,’ Compton pronounced sententiously. ‘He always worked closely with his clients, be they big or small. He provided what they asked for, made their fantasies come true.’

  ‘Can you pass on any client names?’ By now I wasn’t too hopeful.

  He coughed. ‘I’d have to ask his sister about that.’

  ‘She did request that you cooperate.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘I’ll have my girl make a list …’

  I could see the girl in question, cashmere cardie, string of pearls round the neck, fifty if she was a day, idly leafing through a copy of Country Life in the next room. I hated to disturb her. ‘Surely you have them right in front of you,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Don’t give me all of them. Just the names and addresses, including phone numbers, of clients over, say, the past couple of years. I don’t want any further details.’ Of course I did, but that would be enough to be going on with. ‘And Tristan’s company was doing well?’ I added.

  ‘Obviously I’m not going to divulge details of his earnings. Let’s just say that there wasn’t much likelihood of him being forced into panhandling outside Waterloo Station in order to supplement his income. Even given the current economic downturn.’

  ‘There’s always an economic downturn,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not necessarily true.’ He thrust out his jaw and removed his glasses, as though daring me to challenge him on that or any other matter. When I didn’t, he added, ‘Yes, My client was doing very well for himself.’

  ‘Guided and advised by your good self.’

  ‘Guided. Assisted. And, of course, advised. Not that he took much notice of our advice, though he was happy to accept our guidance.’