A Short Time to Live (Miss Pink Book 4)

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘That should narrow the circle of suspects.’

  ‘Not much; I’d postulated a cultured person and that’s what it remains—except that the intelligence level has risen because not everyone with a high I.Q. can imitate a semi-literate writer. I doubt if Quentin Bright could.’ Privately she thought that Rumney couldn’t either. ‘But blackmail or not, Lucy was terribly upset,’ she recalled, ‘she was trembling when she told me what was in her letter.’

  ‘So there are four people who’ve had communications of some sort—excluding me: Lucy, but she isn’t being blackmailed, Mossop who said that someone tried it on; then Sarah knows someone who’s getting demands for money, but as for Peta: blackmail, but not for money?’

  She hadn’t divulged Peta’s secret, nor had he asked. ‘It could be that someone was threatening to expose her unless she performed some action, or refrained from doing something. Could she have criminal knowledge of some local person?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone other than Mossop.’

  ‘And you’ve no proof against him.’

  ‘Proof! When the magistrates—ah, you’re thinking of the sheep stealing, but I was thinking of the crate of Scotch. I reckon his telephone call related to something more criminal than after-hours drinking. It could have been about stolen whisky and when he didn’t pay up, the blackmailer called his bluff. The police had a tip about that whisky; they were told to look in Mossop’s cellar.’

  ‘Who would know it was there?’

  ‘Not that so much; who’d know it was stolen? It must have been someone close to him: a waiter perhaps, someone he’d sacked—but he hasn’t sacked anyone since May. A southerner, he told you; his staff are almost invariably Scots or northerners.’

  Miss Pink said doubtfully, ‘Peta was the closest person to him.’

  ‘But if he killed her he’d have cleaned the priest.’

  They stared at each other. ‘Yes,’ Miss Pink said, ‘we were talking about the blackmailer and suddenly we’re at the murder. The crimes must be related. Either Peta was the blackmailer and Mossop the victim who turned on his tormentor and killed her—but he didn’t because he didn’t dispose of the weapon, or she was a victim and was killed by the blackmailer. And since Mossop didn’t kill her, he wasn’t the blackmailer. So the blackmailer is a third person who entered the bar after Mossop had gone to bed, and killed her, then put the priest back. Why was the body moved?’

  ‘Why was she killed?’

  ‘Either because she refused to comply with what was demanded of her, or because she could expose the blackmailer.’

  ‘How did she get the message?’ Rumney asked.

  ‘What message?’

  ‘Well, blackmailers always have a message. I suppose it was in her original letter because nothing was said on the phone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hers were the kind of phone calls where nothing was said. It’s an odd sort of blackmail, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’ She was thoughtful.

  ‘And who does Sarah know who’s getting letters?’

  ‘I think it’s herself, and I think she wrote that letter to you. She knows too much about the blackmail to be talking about a friend’s experiences. She wasn’t drunk, you know. Her conversation was disjointed and she gave the impression of being indiscreet but I thought her an intelligent woman and, considering she’s an alcoholic, she was pretty lucid this afternoon.’

  ‘But she suggested Peta and Mossop were in it together.’

  ‘That was wishful thinking and based on the fact that there have been no letters or phone calls since Peta’s death. She gave herself away there. But if the letters and calls have stopped, I think it means merely that the criminal’s lying low.’

  ‘What did you think of Noble?’

  ‘Too simple for the blackmailer, but he could be a killer—which was why Sarah stressed the brevity of his affair with Peta, and why Lucy Fell said the girl was only a nuisance: both throwing out a bit of protection in passing. It never seems to cross their minds that you don’t consider people as suspects until you find others trying to protect them. Where was Noble when Peta was killed? He said he was very drunk at Thornbarrow. Lucy is his alibi but would she stand by him now that Jackson Wren has come into her life?’

  ‘Noble doesn’t know about Jackson?’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t; he’s too stupid to dissemble. And nor did Sarah, although I wouldn’t put it past her to lie successfully; it’s so easy for people who are a bit potty to confuse the so-called normal person. When did Harper come to the dale?’

  ‘Late in August. Why?’

  ‘Noble used him as a scapegoat. He asked what I thought of him but didn’t push it.’

  ‘Someone’s pushing if they broke into Burblethwaite.’

  ‘I don’t think Harper can possess anything valuable; it’s his air of mystery that intrigues people—ordinary people. He’s harmless, he could be someone who’s had to retire from circulation for a while; he certainly hasn’t a clue about country life—and he’s playing a part, but who isn’t? Just because he reverts to a London accent when he gets excited doesn’t mean he’s a villain.’

  ‘Why this emphasis on crime?’

  ‘There isn’t really; he seems lost, as if he’d have loved to go back to London with Caroline, but couldn’t.’

  ‘So what questions would you have to ask him tomorrow after what you’ve learned today?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘None. None at all. Any mystery in his past can’t relate to what’s happened here.’ She paused. ‘He seems timid, at least in the country. He was worried about noises in the wood behind his cottage.’

  ‘Sheep? There shouldn’t be any in that bit of woodland.’

  ‘He said it was more noise than a sheep makes.’ A wave of fatigue engulfed her as she sensed the tail of some thought slip through her mind. Rumney was saying, ‘Why have no letters been found? Don’t you think that’s odd?’

  ‘Lucy burned hers, Peta lost the one she’d had, that could imply that it’s still in existence; as for Sarah, another talk is called for with her. And Wren: I have to see him; he’s the only one whom I’ve not talked to. Where was he today?’

  ‘I didn’t see him.’

  ‘He didn’t appear to be at Thornbarrow when I was there; all the same, the atmosphere was highly charged, sexually charged. She was excited; it might well have been that he was in the house. He had to be somewhere. Arabella is afraid that he’ll bleed Lucy dry.’ She gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I doubt it. I imagine that some of Lucy’s passion might start to wane when she saw her money dwindling.’

  He wasn’t interested in Lucy’s affairs. ‘What about telling the police?’

  ‘Nothing I’ve discovered today is evidence.’

  ‘There’s the priest.’

  ‘Salmon blood. Yes, I know it can be analysed, but there’s nothing more than the priest. Shall we leave it for the time being, for the weekend anyway? I’ve a feeling the priest isn’t going to disappear; someone, presumably, put it back in order to incriminate Mossop, so it will stay there until it’s fulfilled that purpose. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Monday morning will be time enough to think about the police.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘What happened in June?’ Grannie repeated at the breakfast table. ‘We had no rain and the hay was poor.’

  ‘Can you remember anything happening at High Hollins?’ Miss Pink pressed.

  ‘To the Nobles?’ The old lady was reflective, not curious. ‘At that time Denis wasn’t friendly with Peta, that came later; as for Sarah, what could have happened to her in June?’

  ‘Miss Pink’s asking you, Mother; you hear all the gossip.’

  ‘How can I? I don’t get about.’

  ‘You pluck it off the wind,’ Arabella said softly.

  ‘And Sarah Noble doesn’t visit me any more,’ Grannie was saying, ‘I’ve known that woman all her life and she was always careful of herself.’

  ‘Careful?’ Arabella
was puzzled.

  ‘The drinking was sent.’ The old lady was ambiguous. ‘But it must be a great help.’ Her granddaughter raised her eyebrows at Miss Pink. ‘I would never have allowed your father to behave like Denis Noble,’ Grannie told her son sternly. Rumney concentrated on his bacon and eggs, unmoved. ‘She takes care of herself,’ she repeated. ‘Always did; you never see Sarah Noble driving after midday.’

  ‘Because she’s drunk by then.’ Arabella stated a fact, neutrally. ‘What’s she afraid of: damaging herself or her car, or someone else?’

  ‘She doesn’t drive to town,’ Rumney put in, ‘but she comes to see you, Mother, and our lane’s a dangerous place in summer.’

  ‘She doesn’t come here,’ Grannie contradicted.

  ‘Mother! Sarah comes up for a crack with you almost every week.’

  The old lady looked mischievous. ‘You’re getting old, son; you don’t notice time passing. Sarah Noble hasn’t been in this house for weeks. She won’t drive to visit me and she won’t come through the woods because she’s not steady enough on her feet. We visit in the afternoons here,’ she explained to Miss Pink.

  ‘She used to visit you regularly?’

  ‘About once a week, as Zeke said.’

  ‘So she was still coming in June?’

  ‘Yes, she wasn’t drinking so bad in June; she couldn’t have been—but when you took me to Storms that weekend, son, when your cousin Randolph was with us, I hadn’t seen her for quite a while. She apologised; it was then she told me she wouldn’t drive her motor car when she’d been drinking, so I knew the drinking was getting worse.’

  Arabella was studying Miss Pink’s face. She turned to her uncle. ‘When was cousin Randolph here?’

  ‘October.’

  Arabella poured herself some coffee. ‘Perhaps something happened to Sarah in July or August,’ she said idly.

  ‘Nothing, or she’d have told me.’

  ‘If she visited you.’

  ‘Oh, she was here in August; that was when we had the sudden storm and the wall crept at Striking Knife.’

  ‘That’s a field halfway down the lane,’ Zeke explained. ‘She’s right; traffic couldn’t get through till the Council cleared the rocks and got the bank built up again.’

  ‘She didn’t come that week,’ Grannie said calmly. ‘She stopped soon after that.’

  Her listeners were silent, September in their minds. September and blackmail—for, although Miss Pink had gone up early last night, Rumney had told her he would say something to Arabella. They were a very close family; he would have told his mother too but she’d already gone to bed. This morning she had said to Miss Pink, as if the observation explained her lack of curiosity: ‘I’ll wait till you can tell me about our sheep.’ Nevertheless, Miss Pink wondered about the extent of the old lady’s knowledge, and regretted the other’s advanced age. It was not that one had to exercise compassion towards them in their frailties; on the contrary, their resistance to questioning could be unassailable. Old people, she thought, smiling vaguely at the table cloth, were rock-hard.

  ‘The hiker was killed in September,’ Grannie said.

  ‘Which one?’ Rumney asked in bewilderment. In the hills death was usually associated with climbing accidents.

  ‘The one at Storms’ bend.’

  *

  It was late when Miss Pink left Sandale House but before she got out her car to drive to High Hollins she remembered that there was something to do first. If Sarah Noble were involved, however unwillingly, with a criminal, Jackson Wren was a possible candidate.

  Coneygarth appeared not to have changed since yesterday morning, its door and windows were closed, its chimneys smokeless. She climbed the high steps to the gate and went up the slate path. It had stopped raining for the moment but everywhere there was the sound of water: dripping gutters and down-pipes, and the chatter of innumerable runnels in the wood as the hillside drained, while behind her the beck, which one could have waded on Friday, roared down the dale like a glacier torrent, confined between its banks but safe only to that extent. Anyone who fell in wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Coneygarth’s front door appeared to give access to the cow-house rather than the cottage but it was of good quality wood with a Yale lock; this would be the cross-passage customary in old longhouses, giving on to both barn and house once one were inside. There was no bell or knocker so she beat on the door with her fist. The sound was puny against the continuous background of rushing water.

  To her left were split doors which would open directly into the byre. She moved along and saw that they were unsecured except by the wooden latch lifted by poking a finger through the hole in the upper half-door. Yet solid staples were secured to door and jamb. There was a raw gash in the wood and on the grass at her feet lay a padlock and chain, the padlock still locked, the chain broken. The weakest link, she thought, and lifted the latch.

  Daylight showed her the byre with tyings for cows on each side. At the end on the right was the way through to the cross-passage with, opposite, an open door giving access to the house. She stood on the threshold and shouted for Wren. In the silence that followed she heard rats scamper over bare boards.

  The house was dark. She found a switch and the light showed her an untidy and untenanted living room with the curtains drawn over the windows. She crossed it and hesitated in front of a closed door. Shouting again was only a ritual. She swallowed unhappily, braced herself and pushed the door open. It swung inwards silently, revealing a parlour with the curtains undrawn. It was empty except for a couple of easy chairs, and climbing equipment strewn about the floor.

  At the back of the living room was a stone staircase. She sighed heavily and mounted the steps which spiralled round to emerge in another dim space. Her hand crept up, feeling for the switch.

  The light came on and showed her one large room with an unmade double bed. There was a wardrobe with open doors, clothes on hangers and, apart from an old-fashioned washstand, that was all. She looked under the bed. Dust and a pair of men’s sandals.

  The ceiling sloped, so there was no loft. The cow-house had a loft. There was no ladder but she muscled up with some difficulty from the side of a stall. Light showed round the edges of a shuttered window in the gable end. She worked her way across to it carefully, feeling for rotten boards. It opened with ease to reveal a few stalks of hay and crumbs of rubble. Coneygarth was as unoccupied as it appeared from outside.

  *

  Rumney was puzzled. He stood at the cow-house door and fingered the broken chain. ‘It looks like a break-in,’ he said, ‘but it could just as well be Jackson: come back last night and forgotten his front door key. I had a spare, but if he came back late, he wouldn’t like to wake us up.’

  They looked across the hamlet. Lucy’s chimney smoked but not Harper’s.

  ‘This door’s definitely been forced,’ he went on. ‘I didn’t hear his van come back last night, nor leave this morning, but then the beck’s making a fair noise.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s down at Thornbarrow. Lucy’s almost certain to know where he is.’

  ‘If he’s at Thornbarrow, where’s his van?’

  Arabella came up the garden path. ‘Has someone broken in?’ She’d been in the kitchen when Miss Pink went back to tell Rumney.

  ‘Looks like it,’ her uncle said. ‘Would you know if anything had been taken?’

  ‘He had a transistor—’

  ‘That’s still here.’

  ‘And all his climbing gear.’

  ‘There’s a lot of equipment in the parlour,’ Miss Pink told her, ‘valuable stuff too: ironmongery and a new rope.’

  ‘It wasn’t a climber,’ Arabella said firmly. ‘A new rope would be the first thing to go.’

  Rumney looked at Miss Pink doubtfully. ‘Perhaps you’d better see Lucy. I won’t come; I might complicate things.’

  *

  In the cold daylight Lucy looked her age but she was still elegant and courteous, if surprised. ‘Jackson
?’ she repeated, ushering Miss Pink into the house, ‘I haven’t seen him since you were here: Friday night.’

  ‘Not seen him? Even in the distance?’

  ‘No.’ The other bit her lip and looked out of the window. ‘I thought it a bit odd myself—’

  Miss Pink did not appear to be waiting for the end of the sentence. She regarded the bread cupboard thoughtfully. ‘Climbing, I suppose.’ She turned to Lucy. ‘You don’t think—?’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Does he climb alone?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Lucy said slowly. ‘When did he go?’

  ‘I didn’t see him after Friday. Didn’t you hear him leave? I mean, hear his engine?’

  ‘I didn’t hear him drive away yesterday—or did I?’ She thought about it. ‘When you’re used to hearing things, it’s difficult to remember. My God! It’s so easy to slip . . . and all that rain yesterday. His van! That’s what we have to find.’

  ‘We don’t know that he went climbing,’ Miss Pink said reasonably, ‘he might merely be visiting over the weekend.’

  Lucy’s face blossomed in relief. ‘Of course! That’ll be it. He’s gone—oh, to Wales or—or Scotland—anywhere. He could be anywhere, couldn’t he?’

  *

  ‘It’s those bloody sheep,’ Rumney said viciously. ‘He’s cleared out; you must have said something Friday evening.’

  ‘I don’t think I said anything about the sheep.’ Miss Pink was calm.

  They were back in Sandale’s kitchen, ‘You didn’t say anything, Miss Pink,’ Arabella assured her. ‘The sheep weren’t mentioned that evening, not at Thornbarrow.’

  ‘I’ve suddenly remembered,’ Rumney said in wonder. ‘I mentioned to Harper that some were missing when he was across for the milk. I’d forgotten him. And he took Lucy’s eggs down to her.’ He stared at Miss Pink in consternation. ‘So Wren knowing they’d gone didn’t necessarily mean he’d taken them.’

  ‘If his disappearance doesn’t have anything to do with the sheep, what’s the next most likely explanation?’ asked Miss Pink.