The Silence Before Thunder

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The Silence Before Thunder Page 13

by Kathy Shuker


  Jo got up, smiling. ‘I know it’s your chair, Eleanor. I was just warming it for you.’

  She held back while the porter and the nurse helped Eleanor into her armchair. Her aunt stood well but seemed nervous and reluctant to do more than shuffle her feet round. She was still catheterised and the bag, on its metal stand, was put close in to the side of the chair. It wasn’t until the porter had gone and the nurse was carefully tucking the cotton blanket round Eleanor’s legs that Jo noticed Louisa had gone too.

  Jo pulled the small chair closer and faced Eleanor.

  ‘How did the physio go today?’

  ‘Phuh,’ said Eleanor explosively.

  ‘That well, huh?’

  ‘Phuh. Awgufl.’

  Eleanor looked tired. She also looked distracted, glancing round and repeatedly staring out of the door as if looking for someone. Maybe she had seen Louisa after all.

  The tea trolley came into view and stopped outside the door.

  ‘Great,’ said Jo, with forced enthusiasm. ‘Here’s the tea.’

  The nurse brought a feeder beaker in with an unidentifiable milky brown liquid in it. Eleanor took it and sucked noisily on the spout, eyeing Jo up as she did so.

  ‘Do you know who I am, Eleanor?’ Her aunt was staring into her face as if learning every contour. ‘I’m Jo. You remember the little brat who used to run through your flowerbeds chasing butterflies? You used to shout at me - tell me off for ruining your plants. I’m Jo, Candida’s daughter. Your niece. You taught me to play chess. You play really well. I’m still rubbish.’

  Still Eleanor stared at her, sucking on the beaker spout. She removed it and put it down erratically but purposefully on the table in front of her and returned her gaze to Jo.

  ‘Can-did…’ she began, then shook her head. ‘No…’ Again the shake of the head then a heavy sigh and a refocussing. ‘No. Not Can-dida. Sheeze ma shishter.’ She nodded, pleased with herself. ‘Jo,’ she said. ‘Jo.’ There was the faintest suggestion of a smile, then her eyes narrowed. ‘Peeno. pee-peeno.’ Eleanor shook her head again, frustrated.

  Jo frowned. ‘Sorry, Eleanor. I don’t…oh yes, the piano. I play the piano, that’s right. We used to play together.’ She leaned forward. ‘Do you remember your garden? You live by the sea. You’ve got gardens all around the house with steps down to a little private beach.’ She watched her aunt’s face for any sign of recognition. ‘Can you remember? When the sun sets it turns the sea by your home glorious shades of flaming orange and red. Beautiful.’

  Eleanor was watching her intently again, focussing on her lips.

  ‘Bootiful,’ she repeated.

  Her speech was definitely getting clearer. She leaned forward too, arms on the table as if waiting to hear more.

  ‘Can you remember the terrace, Eleanor?’ said Jo. ‘That’s where you fell.’

  Eleanor opened her mouth, still looking intent, frowning. Her lips pursed forward then reshaped as if she had changed her mind about what she wanted to say. But nothing came out and she sat back again and banged a hand down crossly on the table, making the tea beaker vibrate.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll come back.’

  Eleanor pointedly turned her head away and a few minutes later her eyes fluttered closed.

  Jo sat back in the chair and tipped her head back wearily. After spending all weekend fretting over what Harry had said, by the Monday morning she’d decided to tell the police and had looked at their website to see how best to contact them. There was a form to fill in. But what was she going to tell them? She had promised not to give Harry away which left her with the spurious evidence of some stones thrown down the cliff side. And even the stones only suggested that Eleanor probably fell from the terrace and not the steps. She needed something else or they’d think her a time-waster.

  Jo looked back at Eleanor, wondering if she would ever remember what happened. Ironically, she’d be safer if she didn’t, because remembering would make her even more of a target than before.

  Chapter 10

  Jo suspected everyone and suspected no-one. She found it difficult to believe that anyone would want to hurt Eleanor. Her aunt was a strong character and could be painfully forthright but she had no malice in her; she was fair and straight, supported a number of charities and wasn’t given to victimising anybody. And she spent much of each day in her study alone, writing. Her work then? Had something she’d written offended someone that much? It was doubtful. Though she wrote political thrillers, she was careful not to base her characters on real people, alive or dead. It was more likely to be something personal.

  In all the mystery books Jo had edited, a lot was made of motive. But Eleanor had no current lover as far as Jo knew, no-one likely to perpetrate a crime of passion. Money? She had no idea who would benefit from Eleanor’s death. Maybe herself. She hadn’t thought of that before but, as Eleanor’s closest living relative, it was possible. The police would love that as a motive. Of course there was Vincent too. Eleanor might have put him in her will - if she had made a will. But she hadn’t seen Jo in a while and she wasn’t close to Vincent so the estate could have been left elsewhere. Frank? Surely not now, assuming it had been changed. And what about the rest of the ‘old friends’? And Lawrence? He seemed to spend a lot of time and energy safeguarding her financial interests. Were they his interests too? In any case, if Eleanor’s earnings had fallen off in recent years, how much did she have to leave? Though the value of the property itself must be immense - if it wasn’t mortgaged…

  Closeted in Eleanor’s study on the Wednesday evening, Jo searched the drawers and file boxes but could find no sign of a will. Lawrence would undoubtedly know if one existed and where it might be kept but she couldn’t ask him. Of everyone, she distrusted him the most: he had repeatedly lied to her. And if the will was being held by a solicitor, no-one would let her see it anyway.

  She flopped down in Eleanor’s chair and sighed heavily. Perhaps she should go to court and get whatever control she could of Eleanor’s personal affairs. Then maybe she would have access to the will as well as to Eleanor’s accounts. How difficult would that be to arrange? She opened her laptop and logged onto the internet. After spending ages searching different websites, it seemed she would have to apply to be a court-appointed deputy. It looked complicated and sounded like a slow process. Nothing could be done quickly unless an urgent reason were proved - like the need to access funds for care home fees. But there was no urgent reason. Lawrence had all the finances in his grip anyway. More importantly, Eleanor would have to be deemed to lack mental capacity.

  Jo thought about her visit that day. Eleanor’s speech was improving rapidly: words came out more clearly even when they weren’t put together into coherent sentences. Odd memories seemed to be coming back too, though always scenes from the distant past, nothing recent. There was definitely growing activity in that brain of hers. Jo closed the computer. It was too soon to apply to court and she didn’t want to go down that path if she could help it. By the time it was granted, Eleanor might be better. There was a look in her eyes now which hadn’t been there before, a gleam of understanding and fire, a little of the old Eleanor.

  But she could still be in danger from whoever had pushed her. It was unlikely that it had been a trespassing stranger. There had been a row with someone and it had happened in her private garden. It suggested that it was a person Eleanor knew, someone close. Jo picked up a ball point pen, pulled a notepad towards her and scribbled a list of names.

  Lawrence

  Vincent

  Louisa

  Frank

  Imogen

  Mari

  Who else? Charlotte? Charlotte who argued with Eleanor daily and verbally abused her employer to her face but wouldn’t let anyone else bad-mouth her? Who kept preparing Eleanor’s favourite foods for Jo to take in, sure that they would tempt her employer to eat better? Who insisted on cooking and leaving food for Jo’s evening meal every weekday? No
t likely. In any case, Charlotte would have been long gone at that time in the evening. Still, if she was going to do this thoroughly…

  Charlotte

  She stared at the list, then crossed out Mari’s name. Mari had been in Exeter that night, over an hour’s drive away, and it was impossible to imagine her hurting a fly. She scored through Frank’s name too. Once upon a time, he would have been the most likely candidate for a crime of passion but he had been with Mari in Exeter and had a new love anyway and no doubt different romantic conflicts. In any case, she had seen him argue with Eleanor back in the day. It was what they did; they had thrived on it. It had never meant anything.

  Lawrence. He was obsessed with Eleanor’s money and with preventing it from being spent. Maybe he needed money in the short term and knew he would inherit on her death. In that case Eleanor’s survival might account for his sullenness. Or maybe there was other history between them. She had no idea.

  Vincent? There had always been tension between him and Eleanor, blood relatives notwithstanding. He admitted to having discussed his play with her; it felt like there was more to that conversation than he was prepared to say. And what about that visit he had made to the garden, asking Jo for the manuscript back? Was he really making veiled threats? She hadn’t taken him seriously.

  As for Imogen, Jo knew of no reason why she would have issues with Eleanor, nor was she particularly steady on her feet. It seemed unlikely that she would be in a position to push anyone about. And it still felt absurd to consider Charlotte. Which left Louisa. She hardly knew Eleanor and she was the one who had ‘won’ Frank. It was easy to imagine Eleanor being resentful of Louisa but not the other way around. What possible motive could there be?

  Jo put her fingers up to her forehead and massaged the tension in it. Somehow, she needed to find out more about these people and what they were doing that evening. They had been in and out of her life forever and yet she couldn’t honestly say she knew them. She stared down at the names, then ripped the sheet of paper off the pad. After a moment’s hesitation, she ripped the next sheet off with its ghost writing and fed them both through the shredder.

  *

  Matthew hung the tea towel to dry over the front bar handle of the oven and put the crockery away in the cupboards. When he was first married he used to wash dishes and leave them to dry on the sink drainer because that was what he’d done as a student. Sophie soon objected. The drying water left marks behind, she complained, and even when they had finally got a dishwasher, she still insisted on rubbing over the crockery and cutlery with a cloth to buff them up. She had been very particular about it. And now he had to do it too - because she had.

  ‘You’re a tyrant, Sophie,’ he muttered, leaving the kitchen.

  Harry was already in his bedroom, some godforsaken music throbbing through the floor. Matthew shouted up the stairs, telling him to turn it down. It had become a nightly ritual.

  He stood in the middle of the sitting room, restless, edgy. He ought to be working on the website for the festival, adding to it, improving it, but for several nights he’d had something else on his mind which he couldn’t quite bring himself to do. But the idea wouldn’t leave him alone either, so maybe he should just do it and lay it to rest. In a burst of resentful energy, he crossed to the cupboard under the stairs, opened it, pulled out the vacuum cleaner and began tugging out the boxes stored behind it. Each box had a loose description of its contents written on it in felt pen from when they had moved and three of them were already spread across the sitting room floor by the time he found the one he wanted. SOPHIE’S BOOKS was scrawled on the top.

  He carried it over to the hearth rug, left it there while he got a bottle of beer and took a swig, then got down on his knees and opened it.

  On the top of the books piled inside were Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Not in his Line of Work by Eleanor Lambe. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was visible but had been pushed down a gap at the side. After Sophie had died, he had packed all these books himself, pulling them from the bookcase, stacking them up any old how, putting them out of sight as quickly as he could. Sophie had owned a lot of books. Because she read so much she had started reading digital fiction too but still she loved her print volumes, especially her old favourites. Anything which she especially liked she would buy in a hard copy too. Matthew had taken a lot to a charity shop before they came down to Devon but he couldn’t part with her favourites.

  He kept pulling books out, working down the box, checking titles, piling them on the floor to each side. He found a copy of poetry by John Keats and had to pause, had to open it and flick through the pages, his stomach tightening in a knot. It was old and dog-eared, one of the first books Sophie had eulogised about to him when they were students. She had dipped into it often. Her books were like old friends. Sometimes she got so involved reading that she forgot the time, missed putting the oven on for a meal or left something to boil dry. Occasionally she would stay up after Matthew had gone to bed. ‘I’ll just read to the end of this chapter, then I’ll be up. Don’t wait for me if you’re tired.’ And she would be ages, would then slip silently into the bed beside him in the dark room. He remembered reaching for her, feeling the cold of her skin under his touch, wrapping her in his own sleek body warmth.

  A thin, old bookmark fell out of the Keats book. It had the name of a bookshop on it, probably long since closed. And, on the reverse, some of Sophie’s crabbed handwriting, scribbled quickly in pencil.

  eggs

  candles

  matches

  chocolate buttons

  A shopping list. She used to scribble them on anything to hand. A list made before Harry’s birthday perhaps. Matthew replaced the bookmark carefully in the page, laid the volume to one side and took a deep breath. This was a bad idea. Really bad. He drank several more mouthfuls of beer, then took another slow controlling breath, and began again, driven on. Maybe he’d got rid of it. But no, he found it near the bottom: Now and Then by Frank Marwell. Several of the pages had small corners turned down and he slowly picked through them. One of the poems marked was instantly familiar. He had known it would be.

  Flirting, fondling, melting, melding,

  Steeps the sun in the skymeet sea.

  The one Jo had quoted to him. What were the chances of her doing that? It was unsettling and yet eerily intriguing too.

  He got up off the floor and sat down with the remains of his beer, closing the book but still holding it against his belly, memories scrolling through his mind. He finished the beer and sat, staring into space.

  ‘Oh Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘Why?’

  *

  When the weather was dry, Imogen walked in the Skymeet grounds every morning early, sometimes with Mari, usually alone. She would stop for a rest on the bench seat tucked under a towering fatsia japonica plant, set back from one of the winding paths through the shrubberies. Jo had seen her there before.

  ‘It’s this hip gets me out of bed in the morning,’ Imogen had confided on that occasion. ‘Aches like crazy sometimes. It helps to walk a bit. Stops me seizing up completely.’

  On the Saturday morning, Jo made a point of walking too and of passing along the nearby path just as Imogen was easing herself down onto the seat. Her timing was impeccable. Imogen called a casual greeting and Jo walked across.

  ‘Lovely morning,’ said Imogen. ‘Great suntrap here. Join me, why don’t you?’

  Jo did, sitting and turning her face up to the sun. It was pleasingly warm.

  ‘Any change in your aunt?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘Not really. She’s still muddled and, well, out of it really.’

  ‘She can’t remember anything?’

  ‘Not much. The doctors aren’t sure she ever will.’

  ‘How sad. Eleanor was such a vibrant person. You will give her our best, won’t you? It’s not easy to get to see her as much as we’d like.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They were
both silent.

  ‘How are the workshops going?’ Jo enquired.

  ‘Fine. No problems so far. Lawrence might whinge about them but he organises it all fairly well. We get quite a lot of repeat students now.’

  ‘Good. I’ll tell Eleanor, just in case she understands.’ Jo hesitated. ‘Imogen? Were you here - on the estate - on the Friday evening when Eleanor fell?’

  She felt Imogen stiffen beside her. ‘Ye-es. Mari and I arrived mid-afternoon. To give her time to settle a bit before going off to Exeter. Why?’

  ‘I was searching for a pad yesterday and found a note Eleanor had jotted on an odd scrap of paper. She’s always doing that. It seemed to imply she had a meeting with someone - a couple of initials and a date but such a scrawl I couldn’t read it. It might have been the twenty-third of the sixth. I wondered if you were here and if you’d seen anyone around, heading for the house maybe?’

  ‘You think this unidentified person might be suspicious then? I thought the police considered Eleanor’s fall an accident. Or, well, you know…’

  ‘Yes, but I thought it was worth asking around.’

  ‘I see. Well I didn’t see anyone,’ Imogen said firmly. ‘The police did ask us if we’d seen any strangers hanging around. No-one had.’

  ‘But I suppose you were inside at that time of the evening anyway.’ Jo said it lightly, eyes closed again, face to the sun.

  ‘What time was the appointment?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe seven-thirty.’

  There was silence and Jo opened her eyes to find Imogen staring at her face.

  ‘I was reading,’ Imogen said abruptly. ‘In our room. All evening. Except for when Mari rang.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  Imogen’s eyebrows lifted. ‘This feels horribly like the third degree. I trust you aren’t trying to accuse us of anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I never meant it that way.’

  Imogen paused, expression shuttered. ‘Mari gets nervous before she performs so she likes to touch base. She was due to go on around eight so a bit before that, I suppose. What were these initials?’

 

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