by Rack, Ruin
‘Oh, Monty…’ Jess said sadly.
He sighed too. ‘Later on, I had reason to believe my mother knew of the affair, though possibly not about the baby. There’s no way of finding out now, but if she had known it might have been enough to push her – but there’s no use in speaking of that now, either. Nothing can be changed about any of that. It’s all water under the bridge, as they say, ancient history. The main thing is, I never spoke of it. I think that drove the first wedge between Penny and me. It wasn’t the only reason our marriage hit the rocks. There were plenty of others and most of them down to me. But Penny was shrewd and knew me well. She realised I was keeping something from her and it rankled with her. As the years went by and I still didn’t speak, she became angry. “I never know what you’re thinking, Monty!” she would say to me. “But whatever it is, it always comes from the same place. You’ve got something on your mind, worrying you, and you don’t trust me enough to share it.” So she kept tapping at that wedge, and eventually the tree trunk that was our relationship split clean in two, right down the middle. Of course, I couldn’t ever have shared it, not with her. I couldn’t have told the poor girl the truth, could I?’
Monty turned his head sharply in Jess’s direction and stared at her. ‘Could I?’
‘No, Monty,’ Jess said quietly. ‘No, you couldn’t.’
Monty looked relieved. ‘Thank you for that, I’m glad to hear you say it.’ He made to struggle up out of the chair. ‘You may not want a drink, I certainly do.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Jess said quickly. She got up and opened the brass lid of the coal scuttle. The whisky bottle lay in it, nestling in ancient coal dust. She found a glass in the sideboard and poured a generous measure. The poor old fellow deserved it.
‘Monty,’ she said when she had retaken her seat. ‘There is one thing that may not have occurred to you but I must warn you about.’
‘What’s that, then?’ asked Monty over the rim of his glass.
‘It is quite possible that Lionel could still be alive somewhere. He would be younger than you, a good eleven or twelve years younger. He turned out a bit of a rotter, I’m sorry to say, deserted his wife and baby and disappeared. He would have been afraid of being found for a long time after that. He might have left the country or at least moved hundreds of miles away; he might have changed his name by deed poll. But, well, after all this time he may think there’s nothing to fear any more. Jay tracked you down and who knows? One day Lionel may turn up. I don’t want you to worry about it but you should be prepared. There will be a lot about all this in the newspapers, I’m afraid. All of the story will get out. Wherever he is now, and whoever he is now, Lionel may read it.’
Monty scratched his ear. ‘I suppose so. Can’t be helped. Much good it would do him, anyway.’ Monty looked at her quite mischievously. ‘It’ll be too late for him to get his hands on Balaclava!’ He grew sober again, shaking his head. ‘Not, I repeat, that I’d ever allow that.’ He gave a sad smile. ‘Funny thing, when I was a youngster I’d have quite liked to have a brother. But not now, I couldn’t be doing with complications now.’
He brightened. ‘See here, the fellow has never tried to find me yet. He may have popped his clogs. If he’s alive he could be living anywhere in the world. He may know nothing about his true parentage or Balaclava. He’s a happier man for it, if so. It would have been better for his son if he’d learned nothing, poor devil. If this Lionel chap reads the newspapers, he might be more afraid I’d find him, than I’m afraid he’d try and find me. He deserted a wife and kid, you said. He’ll still be lying low.’
Monty waved a hand at their surroundings. ‘By this time next year, Hemmings will have pulled this place down, every last damn brick. That’ll be the end of it, at last…’ His voice trailed away into a whisper. ‘Yes, at long, long last, it will be an end to it all.’
This was true, thought Jess. What Jay Taylor had discovered had led inexorably to his death. Lionel had his own guilty secret to keep, wherever he was. He might not even know his abandoned wife, Deirdre, was long dead. He might just be frightened of her sister, the acid Miss Bryant.
‘One other matter, Monty,’ she began.
‘What?’ asked Monty, eyeing her warily. ‘You’re not going to produce any more of my wrong-side-of-the-blanket kin? I can’t be doing with any more.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of your family. I was about to mention Seb Pascal and Mrs Sneddon who were using the room upstairs…’
‘Your Superintendent Carter told me about that,’ Monty said crossly. ‘It doesn’t matter a damn now, does it? They’re not going to be using it again. Any problems arising from that are all theirs, nothing to do with me! You’ve taken Pete Sneddon’s gun away, I assume? Silly bugger, why did he have to go blasting it off at Pascal’s petrol station?’
‘Yes, we have his gun and he won’t be getting it back. His licence has been revoked. Nevertheless, we’re keeping a close eye on him until his trial. However, without wanting to harp on about it, Seb and Rosie were trespassing, Monty, and you may want to consider bringing some civil charges…’
‘No, I don’t,’ snapped Monty. ‘I’m just glad I never walked in on the blighters. I walked in on my father and Penny’s mother and that was enough. I wouldn’t have wanted a second experience like that, thank you! They kept the place tidy up there, I’m told?’
‘Very tidy,’ Jess agreed. Tidier than Monty had kept the rest of the house.
‘Oh well, then,’ said Monty. ‘They didn’t cause me any trouble. They only caused trouble for one another. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’
The door opened and Hilda looked into the room, smiling brightly. ‘I’m just about to make some coffee. Would you both like a cup?’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake…’ groaned Monty.
‘Yes, please,’ Jess said hastily. ‘That would be very nice.’
‘Don’t encourage the woman,’ begged Monty.
Hilda, ever resolute under fire, beamed at them. ‘I won’t be a tick.’
‘Monty,’ Jess said when Hilda had gone, ‘that was a bit unkind. She’s being very helpful.’
‘You should know me well enough by now, my dear,’ said Monty stiffly, ‘to have learned I don’t like being helped.’
‘I like being helped,’ argued Jess. ‘I’m always grateful for help.’
‘That,’ Monty said, ‘is because you’re young and can still do things for yourself. Help isn’t a necessity for you. When you’re as old and as decrepit as I am – though I hope you never are such an old ruin as me – you won’t be able to do things and you will hate other people drawing your attention to it.’
He pushed himself up out of his chair and ambled towards the sideboard. ‘I’ve got something for you. I don’t want it and I don’t know what to do with it. You might as well have it.’
‘I can’t accept a gift, Monty!’ Jess protested in alarm.
‘You haven’t seen what it is, yet.’ Monty stooped awkwardly and rummaged in the cupboard. He emerged backwards clasping something to his chest. Returning, he set it down on an ancient bridge table near Jess’s chair.
It was a round tin, very old and scratched, still sealed with yellowing tape. On the lid was an illustration showing a coat of arms similar to the one above the door of Balaclava House, but here flanked by a smug lion and a palm tree.
‘It’s Bickerstaffe’s boiled fruit cake,’ said Monty, indicating it with a wave of his hand. ‘It’s probably the last one in existence. Must be fifty years old or very nearly. It’s an historical artefact. I can’t throw it out. You take it. Only for heaven’s sake, don’t try and eat it.’
* * *
Jess, Detective Sergeants Morton and Nugent, with Detective Constables Stubbs and Bennison, all stood together with Ian Carter in a circle round the cake tin. They looked, Jess thought with amusement, as if they were all going to break into some sort of New Age ceremonial dance. There was something very totem-like about the ancient sealed tin.
>
‘Blimey,’ said Stubbs, breaking the silence at last. ‘Are you going to open it? I don’t mean eat it. Just to look at it, make sure it’s really in there?’
‘It’ll be all horrible and manky!’ protested Bennison. ‘It’ll probably smell, too.’
‘Don’t see why,’ argued Stubbs. ‘My mum’s still got a bit of her wedding cake in a tin. It’s dried out and crumbled and you wouldn’t eat it, but it’s not smelly.’
‘Why’s she kept it?’ demanded Bennison. ‘What is she going to do with it?’
‘What are we going to do with this?’ Carter interrupted.
There was a moment’s silence while they all gazed at the tin again.
‘Chuck it out,’ suggested Morton. ‘The old bloke should have got rid of it years ago.’
‘It’s an antique, you can’t just bung it…’ protested Stubbs, in his role of upholder of tradition. ‘There are museums with that kind of stuff in them. We were all taken on a school trip to one, when I was a kid. It was arranged like a Victorian grocer’s shop. It had rusty old tins just like that on the shelves.’
‘Can you remember where this museum was?’ asked Bennison. ‘We could send it to them.’
‘I did have one thought…’ Jess ventured. They all looked at her expectantly. ‘It’s rather on the lines of what DC Stubbs was saying. The company that bought out Bickerstaffe’s business may have some kind of an archive, documents, biscuit tins and packaging and so on, to do with their company history. We could write to their head office and ask them if they’d like it.’
‘That’s a very good idea,’ Carter said approvingly. ‘I’ll do it.’
The others drifted away, leaving him with Jess.
‘You’ve done very well in this case,’ Carter said.
‘We had a bit of luck, sir, in Tom Palmer remembering he’d seen a photo of Taylor in the magazine at his dentist’s. Any thanks is due to him.’
‘It still had to be put together. You moved very quickly to catch the two women at Colleys’ pig farm. Well done.’
‘Thank you,’ Jess said, reddening.
Carter, too, looked awkward. ‘I was wondering if, by way of celebration, you might like to go out for a drink tonight.’
Jess reddened even more. ‘I would, sir, but I’ve made an arrangement to meet up with Tom Palmer. Of course, we’d be delighted if you’d join us . . .’
Carter looked horrified. ‘No, no, wouldn’t dream of it… It was just an idea. Enjoy your evening and give my regards to Palmer.’
He took himself off at such speed, the phrase ‘fled the scene’ came irresistibly to Jess’s mind.
‘Listen!’ she wanted to shout after him. ‘Tom and I are just friends!’ But he probably wouldn’t believe her.
* * *
‘All I’m saying, Billy,’ protested Terri Hemmings, ‘is that you ought to think about what you’ll do when you retire.’
‘I’m not retiring, not bloody yet, anyway,’ retorted her spouse.
Terri took up a combative stance. ‘So, when are we going to go and live in Spain as you’ve always said we would one day? What day? You’re nearly at pension age. You’ll be sixty-four next birthday – you could have a bus pass, if you wanted!’
Billy glowered at her.
‘Of course you don’t look it,’ she added in a mollifying tone. ‘No one would think you were nearly an OAP – senior citizen. But you’ve got to think of your health, sweetie. You hardly ever take time off, just a few days at the races now and again. It’s always business with you. Now it’s this Balaclava House deal. All right, it’s going to make lots of money. It’ll also mean loads of work for you and I’ll be lucky to see you. You know we were off to the Spanish villa for a nice break in the sun. I’ve already started packing.’
‘You can still go, can’t you?’ was the reply. ‘I’ll come out and join you when I’ve got this deal all sewn up. It’s at a very tricky stage.’
‘You’ll have a heart attack or something,’ his wife warned. ‘You work too hard for a man of your age.’
‘Will you stop going on about my age!’ shouted Billy. More calmly he went on, ‘I won’t have a heart attack. Why the heck should I? I’m as fit as a fiddle. Go and pack for Marbella.’
Terri clattered out, muttering furiously.
Billy moved over to the window and took out of his pocket the photograph showing Terri with Jay Taylor at the races. The police had just returned it, with their thanks for his help. He moved so that the sunlight fell on it.
‘I intend to push this deal through for you,’ he told the grinning image of Jay Taylor. ‘It meant a lot to me that you and I were going to develop this bit of land together. And I’ll see it through, Jay, don’t you worry. A signature on the dotted line and Balaclava House and its land are mine.’
He contemplated the photograph for a few minutes more and continued to address it, this time mentally.
Fate brought us together, that’s the truth. If I never believed in Fate before that day at the races, when we met up, I started to believe in it then. After all those years, eh? And you none the wiser.
He gave a little laugh.
Well, I couldn’t tell you the real truth, could I? I couldn’t tell you why I agreed to come into this deal so quickly, was so keen to work with you. You might have asked yourself why I wanted to tie myself to working with a complete novice. Fair enough, I did think it was a good project, developing that land. There was money to be made and if I was able to steer some your way, it might make up for pretending you didn’t exist all those years. Not that you knew anything about that. Nor was I going to tell you. The last thing I wanted was to have you start calling me “Dad”. I walked away from being Lionel Taylor long, long ago. There was no point in telling you now who I was back then. I’m Billy Hemmings now, Gerald – sorry, Jay! I’ve been Billy Hemmings so long, I can’t believe I was ever that other chap. Besides, there’s Terri to consider, you know. She wouldn’t have understood. She’d have kicked up a hell of a fuss. So I had to keep it all a secret.
The Campbell and Carter Mysteries will thrill fans of M C Beaton, T E Kinsey and The Midsomer Murders.
Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter get to the heart of chilling crimes and mysterious murders in a sleepy British village town – and meet colourful characters along the way…
Find out more…
About the Author
Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is married, with two sons, and she and her husband, who also worked for the Foreign Office, are now permanently based in Oxfordshire.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by Headline Book Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Ann Granger, 2011
The moral right of Ann Granger to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788631006
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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