by Fay Sampson
She showed her notebook, taking care that no one else could see. The first page was set out as dialogue. But below was a list of briefer notes. The first one read: Plot to poison Dinah Halsgrove?
The second: Elaborate charade for us students?
The suggestions went on, growing ever more tentative or fanciful.
‘I can’t read this out.’ Veronica’s whisper was becoming more of a wail. ‘Not in front of Theresa. Even if I wrap it up as fiction, she’ll know that I heard what they said.’
Hilary studied Theresa as she joined their circle. A sensible figure in a brown skirt, beige jumper and cardigan, with a string of brown wooden beads. Her stockings and shoes were brown too, as was her rather severely cut hair. Not elegantly shaped to her square head, but trimmed to a level just below her ears. What Hilary’s mother would have called a ‘pudding basin’ cut.
And this was the woman who had called her an ‘old biddy’.
It occurred to Hilary, with a jolt of honesty, that the two of them were not unlike in build, though Hilary had taken rather more trouble with her greying brown hair. Yet Theresa, she thought, must be about twenty years her junior.
Their group leader gave them a brief smile, which quickly fell into to a more businesslike demeanour which she seemed to try self-consciously to soften. The writers responded somewhat nervously. Hilary felt herself listening for any sign that the seemingly incriminating words Veronica had heard might be rooted in dark reality, or whether there was a more innocent explanation. She found herself wanting to believe it was related to Gavin’s colourful plans for the weekend. To believe otherwise was too heavy a thought.
Could Dinah Halsgrove’s illness really have formed part of those plans? It seemed too extreme. Hilary wondered if she was already going off the idea of the murder mystery.
Yet her sharp brain would not let her rest. There had been an ambulance, the paramedics. Or was it an unfortunate accident on which Gavin thought he could try to capitalize? Still, the words Veronica had overheard seemed to indicate foreknowledge.
And a determination to try again.
She was startled back into the morning’s purpose when Theresa cast around the group that rather unconvincing smile.
‘We have an hour in front of us. Plenty of time to hear what you’ve been up to, and where it might lead you next. Colonel Truscott?’ Her smile brightened for the elderly man at her side. ‘You’ve gone to the top of the class, so perhaps we can start with you.’
‘Dan, please. Let’s not stand on ceremony. Right, then. Here goes.’
He launched into a reading of his script, in a confident voice rather devoid of variety or emotion. Hilary had to strain to find the atmosphere he was supposed to convey among the bald recital of facts. The colonel – she found it hard to switch her mind to Dan – had chosen to set his crime scene in the town of Totnes, as she had herself, but he had taken himself up to the castle at the top of the hill. He had picked, not the Normans who built the original motte and bailey, but the seventeenth-century Civil War. It came as no surprise to Hilary that he had cast his hero as the gallant Royalist commander of the fortress. The history teacher in Hilary scolded inwardly at the anachronism. Clearly Colonel Truscott was unaware that Totnes had been a Parliamentarian stronghold.
There was something so predictable about this beginning to his story that Hilary began to wonder how much they would all be revealing about themselves in their choices.
The group received his offering with kind-hearted praise. Hilary wondered, rather snappishly, what was the point of the exercise if no one was prepared to offer constructive criticism. She held back, expecting Theresa to make some positive suggestions, but the leader of the group was still looking round the circle enquiringly. Hilary drew a breath.
‘You’ve got the makings of a good idea there, Dan.’ She forced herself to use his first name. ‘The Castle. Royalist commander in lace collar and curly wig.’ She would take him aside and correct his history later, rather than embarrass him in front of the group. ‘Plenty of opportunity for swords and cannons as things hot up. But don’t you think … well, couldn’t you try a bit harder to bring the castle to life? What’s it built of? How does your Lord Portland feel as he touches the stones? How long has it stood there? What previous warfare has it seen? Give it some character. Make the setting a player in your story.’
There was an uncomfortable rustle around the group. Colonel Truscott flushed a mottled red. Had she been too direct? Should she have sugared the pill with more praise?
‘Well done, Hilary.’ She was startled that Theresa remembered her first name. ‘That’s the stuff. Come on, the rest of you. You’re not going to grow as writers if all you do is pat each other on the head. I’ve been in groups like this where strong men have retired to the toilets in tears.’ Her grin was wider now, making her face oddly more toadlike. ‘Ceri. You’re next.’
The local woman ran a hand through her dark curls, making them stand up on end. ‘Oh, dear. I was looking forward to showing off what I’d got. I’m not sure I dare open my mouth now.’
‘Nonsense. Nobody was saying Dan’s offering was rubbish. Only that he could do more to bring his setting alive.’
‘Yes, sorry. Anyway, I’ve set mine closer to here.’
Ceri had not gone far from where they were sitting. She had chosen to set her crime scene in the chapel, which was all that remained of the magnificent abbey church. It rose, solitary above the monks’ graveyard beyond the East Cloister. It was just possible to glimpse it from Veronica’s window. Ceri dwelt lovingly on the lost remainder of the building: its soaring vaults, the stone carvings and stained-glass windows, the choir stalls where the monks would have gathered for worship. Now, all that was left was the Lady Chapel with its monuments to the Woodleigh family. Not exactly sinister, but imbued with shadows of the past and solemn reminders of death.
‘That’s it, I’m afraid. I ran out of time before I really got a plot going. To be honest, I don’t even know yet what the crime is.’
‘Never mind. The scene is certainly realized. Something should happen there. There’s time yet to invent some interesting characters to perform dark deeds in your setting.’
And so it went on around the circle. The younger ones had come up with some colourful, even sinister, ideas. Rob’s imagination had gone to town with a macabre use of the water wheel at Dartington Tweed Mill.
‘Gruesome!’ Jake exclaimed, with evident delight.
It was getting near to Hilary’s turn. After taking apart Dan Truscott’s offering, she could hardly expect the others to show mercy on her.
As she began to read, though, the memory of the Leechwells came back to her. She was there again, with her feet resting on the cobbles just above the surface of the shallow water. The springs falling into their separate basins – Toad, Snake, Long Crippler. The sound of the old man’s stick tap-tapping away along the windowless lane. It was all there, as her fictional Bartholomew told Miriam his fears for the life of his grandfather.
There was a rather flattering silence after she had finished reading.
Dan Truscott cleared his throat. ‘Seems to me I’ve taken Gavin’s prize under false pretences. It never occurred to me to actually go to the well. You deserve to be the winner, dear lady.’
‘Never mind that,’ Hilary said. ‘Be honest. Does it work?’
There was a rush of enthusiastic endorsement. Only Ceri hung back.
‘I don’t know. It was quite powerful, the way you wrote it. But you made our wells sound sinister, and they’re really not. We love them. A few years ago, we stopped them laying down a car park there and created a play garden just below the well instead. We had a procession with pipes and drums and garlands of flowers, and the mayor had a golden key to the gate, and there were three benign giants looking over the wall to welcome us in. Toad, Snake, and Long Crippler. Our children play there now. I couldn’t square all that with the setting for a murder – if that’s what you intend to happen.�
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‘Well, yes. I did rather. Grandfather comes to a sticky end in a few inches of water.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. Profane a holy well.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. Through it, Hilary was aware of Veronica’s mounting nervousness at her side. It was her turn next. And all she had was the brief conversation she had overheard between Theresa and Gavin, and her attempts to think through what it might have meant. Hilary glanced at her watch. Still twenty minutes to go before they broke for lunch. She had better keep things going.
To play for time, she asked Theresa, ‘What about you? Do you think what I’m doing is fair?’
‘Murder in a holy place? You’d be joining a long line of distinguished writers. Ruth Rendell talks about the extra frisson which comes from the profanation of what should be sacred. It’s not for nothing that the murder of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral is a draw for pilgrims, even today.’
Hilary was growing embarrassed. In other circumstances, she would have been only too glad to pass the ball on to someone else. But not to Veronica. Not this morning.
Theresa forced her hand. Her brown gaze focussed relentlessly on Veronica. ‘Right, then. Mrs Taylor. Valerie, isn’t it?’
‘Veronica.’
‘Sorry. Veronica, your turn next. What have you got to round off the morning?’
Veronica’s fingers fidgeted with the notebook on her lap. She had closed it. Could Theresa, Hilary wondered, have read the incriminating words earlier, upside down from across the circle?
‘I’m sorry,’ Veronica faltered. ‘I didn’t get very far. It took me a while to decide the right place. In the end I settled for the …’
No, don’t say it, Hilary silently begged her. Not the yews by the tiltyard.
‘Under one of the trees beside some stone steps. They’re rather elegant, don’t you think, all those stairs with balustrades. You can imagine ladies sweeping down them in rustling silks.’
‘Good,’ Theresa encouraged her. ‘The setting leads you into the characters who inhabit it. Well, read us what you’ve got, even if it’s only a beginning.’
‘I … I didn’t actually …’
The door behind them opened abruptly. All three groups turned to look. Two men, one in a suit, the other in a corduroy jacket, paused for a moment, then strode towards Gavin on the far side of the room. The third figure stopped in the doorway. Her head turned to survey them all, observant, vigilant. A uniformed policewoman.
TEN
Gavin’s face looked ashen when he turned from his consultation with the two men to address the room. Ashen. Hilary savoured the word on her tongue. Like the ashes of a fire next morning, a lifeless white streaked with grey. The assured smile of the successful author was gone. But it had become increasingly fragile, even before this. Had what these men just told him come as a total surprise, Hilary wondered, or the news he had been fearing?
It was a moment before the true impact of the shock wave caught up with her. She had leaped to the conclusion that this was somehow connected with the conversation Veronica had overheard in the tiltyard. But what if it was something even worse? What if Dinah Halsgrove, overturning the good news Gavin had given them, had died in hospital?
Gavin was speaking to them, his voice as strained as his expression. ‘I’m sorry, folks. This is DI Foulks from the local CID and DS Blunt. Contrary to what some people have suggested to me, I can assure you this is not a stunt I have staged for the purposes of this crime weekend. We’re not playing a game of Cluedo. These gentlemen wish to question all of us about our knowledge of events here in the last twenty-four hours.’
There was a shudder of dismay around the room.
Ben, the shorter of the pair of men in Hilary’s group, shot a triumphant look at the sceptical Tania and Rob. ‘Told you! It really is a murder investigation.’ His exclamation rang embarrassingly loud.
Hilary heard her own voice rise above the clamour of disquiet and apprehension. It was something they all had to know.
‘Is Dinah Halsgrove dead?’
That stilled their tongues.
The detective inspector in the grey suit stepped in front of Gavin. He had a lean, rather canine face, with rimless glasses.
‘I’ve reassured Mr Standforth that Miss Halsgrove is alive, though still not entirely well. That’s all I’m prepared to say at the moment. I need to take a statement from each of you, individually. Perhaps …’ His gaze travelled over the room to the Toads. ‘Perhaps we could begin with the group over there.’ He glanced at Gavin. ‘I understand you were about to break for lunch. So if the other two groups wish to proceed as normal, we’ll move on to them after they’ve eaten.’ Again, an apologetic look at Gavin. ‘I don’t know what you had planned for this afternoon, Mr Standforth, but, given the numbers, I doubt if we’ll have completed our enquiries much before four. Would it interfere with your plans much if we call people out from whatever they’re doing to question them?’
‘No … no, not at all.’ Gavin’s words were tumbling over themselves, too fast. ‘You do whatever you have to.’ Turning to his students, he said, ‘I was going to work on turning some of the people you’ve already introduced into your settings into three-dimensional characters. But it won’t do you any harm to see how a real-life investigation works. Right, people. Back at two o’clock.’ He was trying desperately to sound like a man still in charge.
‘Looks like a late lunch for us,’ Hilary muttered to Veronica as the other two groups filed out of the room. ‘Pity. I’ve worked up an appetite.’
She turned to look at Veronica, suddenly aware that her friend had gone very still. Her face was pale, though more like the pallor of a rose whose petals are faintly tinged with pink. Hilary laid her own larger hand over hers.
‘Don’t worry. Of course you have to tell them everything you heard.’ She kept her voice low. ‘I don’t know what this is all about, though I’m beginning to guess. They’ll have run tests to find what felled Dinah so drastically last night. They must have found something. It obviously wasn’t any of the usual emergencies for someone her age.’ Her voice sank to a murmur. ‘Whether that conversation you heard had anything to do with it, or it’s something else entirely, is for them to decide, not you.’
She saw Veronica’s blue eyes shoot up in alarm. Across the circle of chairs, Hilary saw Theresa’s darker gaze fixed on them. Had she heard?
The detectives took Gavin first, then Theresa. Hilary watched her go. Theresa had said almost nothing to her group while she waited. Hilary longed to hear what was going on inside that broad brown head. Would she tell the detectives about her exchange with Gavin on the walk above the tiltyard? Not if it meant what it seemed to. Or was it possible that there was some explanation so innocent that she would not think it worth mentioning? And if she did not, what effect would it have on the detectives when Veronica told them, reading the verbatim script from her notebook? Hilary glanced again at her companion. Veronica still looked strained. Hilary hoped they would not keep her waiting too long.
They did not see Theresa again. Probably she had gone straight from her interview to lunch. One by one, others of the Toad group were called by the policewoman at the door and disappeared into the corridor. Ceri, Tania, Rob. Ben gave a thumbs-up signal to Jake as he followed them.
‘Don’t give us away!’ Jake called after him.
‘This is not a laughing matter,’ Colonel Truscott thundered at him. ‘Show some respect.’
Jake tugged that lock of fuchsia-coloured hair in mock deference. ‘Yes, Colonel. No, Colonel.’
A grin threatened to break the forced gravity of his face.
Hilary was growing hungrier.
As she waited, she felt again the intensity of eyes on her. It could not be Theresa this time. The little woman had long gone. When Hilary looked up, it was the quiet Lin Bell who was staring at her and Veronica.
Hilary’s was the sixth name on the list. She shot a look of apology at Veronica, l
eft in the diminished circle, which now consisted only of her, Colonel Truscott, the silver-haired Lin, and the flamboyantly coiffured Jake.
Hilary’s thoughts were still with Veronica when she saw DS Blunt, a burlier figure than his inspector, waiting at the door of a room further along the East Cloister corridor, not far from the glass fire door where she had bumped into Melissa. It must be almost under Hilary’s own room. Some way beyond the sergeant, she remembered, must be Dinah Halsgrove’s bedroom.
Hilary had, she thought, little to report herself. She had been a couple of miles away in Totnes, sitting by the Leechwells, when that strange conversation above the tiltyard was taking place.
The room was considerably smaller than the spacious Lady Jane’s Chamber. A table had been set under the window that gave on to the inner courtyard. There were two chairs behind it. The lean figure of the detective inspector occupied one. The other was presumably for his sergeant. Hilary would have to sit on the third chair, facing the light.
A classic arrangement, she thought. They can see every movement of my face, while theirs are partly shadowed.
A chair scraped across the floor as the stockier DS Blunt took his seat.
She gave her name and address to DI Foulks and watched his sergeant enter the details on a fresh page of his notepad. Would it not, she wondered, be more efficient to tape-record her statement?
She was jolted back to reality by the inspector’s next question.
‘Will you take us through the events of yesterday afternoon and evening? You arrived when?’
Hilary’s mind had been occupied by Veronica’s unsettling experience that morning. She was forced back to a different time and place. She went over their arrival, their joining the group for tea in the garden. Dinah Halsgrove’s arrival.
‘Did Miss Halsgrove appear normal? Was she eating and drinking like the rest of you?’
Surely he had already asked Gavin and Theresa that? Hilary tried to picture the scene. ‘She arrived a little later than us. Melissa – I’m sorry, I don’t know her second name – anyway, the tall woman with the long brown hair …’