by Fay Sampson
It had been two years now since the embolism that had taken Andrew’s life so suddenly. Veronica had put her altered life together with a quiet dignity and grace. She had her children: Morag in her final year of a journalism degree; Penny just starting maths at Cambridge, and Robert doing something Hilary had never quite understood with banking in Malaysia. But Hilary knew that however supportive her own Bridget and Oliver would be, it could never be the same as talking to David about a thing like this.
She pressed his number. At least she had learned to keep her phone charged and use some of its simpler functions. She had rarely felt more glad of what she still regarded as a new-fangled gadget than she did now.
A wave of enormous relief washed over her as she heard his voice. She had not realized quite what a toll it had taken on her to find that body in the well to which she had led Veronica so optimistically. Then she had had to rally her shocked body to apply CPR until the paramedics came to take over. Finally there had been the dawning reality that Melissa would not recover, even in expert hands. It was not a simple case of drowning. There was that bloody head wound. She had already been dead when Hilary found her, in the Long Crippler basin of the triple Leechwells.
‘David!’ The shock must have poured into the emphasis on his name.
‘What’s wrong?’ His own voice was suddenly sharp with concern. He knew her too well.
‘Only that … It’s a long story, but the gist is that Veronica and I went into Totnes this afternoon. I wanted to show her the healing wells where I’d found the inspiration for my crime novel this morning. Only when we got there … she … this is bizarre. You’ll think I’m making it up …’
‘Just tell me. Let me decide.’ A doctor’s voice. Calm, controlled, reassuring.
‘There was … Melissa. She’s the wife of Gavin Standforth, who’s leading this course. We’d been divided into groups, Toads, Snakes and Slowworms. Like the three springs of the Leechwells in Totnes. And there she was. Face down in one of the basins. Dead. I tried to revive her, but, well, the paramedics couldn’t either. I’m terribly afraid – I know this is sounding ridiculous – she’s been murdered.’
‘You’re not the hysterical type. Of course I believe you. Where are you now?’
‘Outside Totnes police station. They wanted to ask us all sorts of questions, of course. I’m waiting for them to finish with Veronica.’
‘I’ll come. I can be there in less than an hour. Or would they let you come home straight away? No, belay that. I expect you’re still too shocked to drive safely. I’ll come.’
‘No!’ she said in alarm, though it was what she wanted more than anything. ‘It’s … well, it’s Veronica. I don’t want to rub it in that I’ve got you and she … hasn’t got Andrew. I’ll cope.’
‘I know you will. I just don’t want you to have to do it on your own. But I take your point. God bless you, love. Stay safe.’
Hilary’s voice grew gruff. ‘Thanks. I feel better already for talking to you. And you’re right. Inspector Foulks has already asked us to stay around until the end of the course tomorrow. There’s still that matter of Dinah Halsgrove and now this …’
‘What matter?’
There was a silence while Hilary racked her brain to remember what she might or might not have told David when she talked to him last night.
‘You said she’d been taken ill,’ David’s voice went on. ‘But why were the police involved? What’s that got to do with a dead woman in the holy well?’
‘Oh dear. I forgot I hadn’t brought you up to date. The police came to the abbey this morning to question us about that. It appears it wasn’t food poisoning, or a stroke, or whatever we suspected. Someone appears to have given her something. Someone here at Morland.’
‘This is sounding worse. Look, Hilary, if you’ve already given the police your statement, I really don’t see what there is to keep you there.’
‘Inspector Foulks was quite adamant about it. I can see his point. I have to say it looks like murder, and the first could be attempted murder. Look, I have to go. Veronica’s just coming out of the police station.’
She started to close down her phone over his farewell words.
‘It sounds a ghastly business. But you’re being a good friend to Veronica. She’ll be shocked as well. Tell her I’ll be praying for you both.’
She snapped the call off as Veronica came towards her, her usually delicately pink face pale and drawn.
‘What a dreadful day. At least the police have offered to drive us back to the abbey.’
‘Thank God for that. I’d made up my mind to get a taxi anyway. I certainly don’t feel up to the walk back.’
FOURTEEN
Hilary leaned back in the rear seat of the police car. She was terribly tired. As they sped up the drive, away from the tree-hung River Dart and through the grounds of the Morland Abbey estate, she reflected wryly that what should have been an amusing day in a delightful venue had been overturned by horror.
‘At least,’ she murmured to Veronica beside her, ‘this knocks on the head my idea that Melissa might have been responsible for Dinah Halsgrove’s illness last night.’
‘I thought Gavin and Theresa were the prime suspects for that. After what I heard.’
‘Yes, I know. But let’s be honest. It was only a fragment of a longer exchange. It may not have meant what it seemed to. But I still can’t put out of my head the venom in Melissa’s reaction when I bumped into her. She didn’t want me in that corridor. Still, she’s dead now. And it can hardly have been an accident. The water in the well’s only a couple of inches deep, and it’s hardly something you’d fall into by mistake. From the look of that head wound, I’d say she’d either been hit or pushed with some force. And it’s extremely unlikely there will be two murderers, or would-be murderers, on the same weekend.’
Something was buzzing at the back of Hilary’s mind. A murdered body found in a pool. Why did that seem oddly familiar?
The car drew up in front of the abbey’s arched entrance. A policewoman sprang from the front seat to open the rear door. Veronica and Hilary climbed out and stood, rather dazed, on the cobbled path to the inner courtyard.
‘Here you are, ladies. And thank you for your assistance. This must have been a shock for you.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ muttered Hilary.
‘And remember, say nothing to the others about how Mrs Standforth died.’
As the car turned and sped away, a woman came running out of the gatehouse. Hilary could put a name to her now. Fiona, who had signed them in and given them their keys when they arrived. Only yesterday?
Fiona’s usual air of efficient self-possession seemed to have shattered. Her long face had crumpled up into an expression of near panic.
‘Not the police again! Has something else happened? It’s not bad news about Miss Halsgrove, is it?’
Veronica looked at her oddly. ‘You got my message, didn’t you? You brought Gavin to the phone. Didn’t he tell you why?’
Fiona’s face took on a guarded look. ‘I didn’t like to ask him, since he didn’t say. Not after last night.’
‘You mean Dinah Halsgrove falling ill?’ Hilary put in.
She saw the receptionist’s desire to answer warring with … fear?
‘His assistant, Theresa, phoned through to reception when she found her. I was on duty. If she hadn’t gone back to check if she wanted anything else and found her … She was in a coma. They said she’d have been dead by morning.’
‘A coma?’ Hilary asked sharply. ‘We assumed at first it was food poisoning, or something very like it. But the symptoms weren’t right. Then the inspector talked about a stomach pump. And they seemed to rule out heart or stroke.’
Fiona shook her head vigorously. ‘It certainly wasn’t food poisoning. The chef had prepared a special meal for her. She has diabetes, you know. When they heard that, the paramedics thought it looked like a diabetic coma. Apparently, you can get that if you take
too much medication, insulin and stuff, and you don’t have the carbohydrates to balance it. Chef was mortified, but he’s been assured it wasn’t his fault.’
Hilary’s brain was working overtime. ‘If she had a low-cal meal, and her normal pills or injection, or whatever she usually takes for diabetes, then I still don’t understand …’
‘They gave her tests at the hospital and called the police in,’ Veronica said quietly, ‘Maybe they found it wasn’t her normal dose.’
The implications sank in during the silence which followed.
‘That would be clever, wouldn’t it? Poison her with her own medication? It seems terrible to say this now, but I thought that’s what Melissa was doing in the corridor when I surprised her. Stealing something from Halsgrove’s room while the rest of us were in the Great Barn.’
‘Still, it tells us one thing,’ Veronica mused. ‘If Theresa roused the house to call an ambulance, then she can’t have had anything to do with Dinah’s collapse. She’d have left her to die, wouldn’t she? Whatever I …’
A warning look from Hilary shut her up.
‘And here we are, standing around discussing what happened last night,’ Hilary continued, ‘which didn’t result in a death, thank God, and yet we still haven’t told you the worst news, and why we came back in a police car.’ She watched the anxiety increase in Fiona’s face. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Melissa Standforth has been murdered.’
She saw the second it took for her words to penetrate. Fiona’s hand flew to her mouth. She leaned back against the wall of the archway to steady herself. She had gone quite white.
‘How?’ The question was a thread of sound.
‘She was face down in the Leechwells. But with a head wound as well.’ Too late, she remembered the inspector’s warning. ‘Sorry! I wasn’t supposed to say that. Keep it to yourself, will you?’
‘We found her,’ Veronica added.
‘And Mr Standforth knows?’
‘That’s why I called him to the phone.’
‘He never said anything! He looked upset, but he has ever since we found Dinah Halsgrove ill. He went tearing off to the car park, but he never said why.’
Hilary looked at her watch. ‘There’s the irony. The next thing on the programme is what I’ve been looking forward to all weekend. A proper sit-down evening dinner in your splendid restaurant. But I seem to have lost my appetite.’
As they went up the long staircase to their rooms, Veronica admonished Hilary. ‘The police said we shouldn’t tell anyone how and where Melissa died.’
‘They’re hoping someone might give themselves away by knowing more than they should do? Hmmph! Well, it’s too late now.’
Hilary and Veronica changed out of the clothes that were the worse for wear. Hilary’s were still uncomfortably damp.
She draped them over the furniture and sat at the window in clean shirt and trousers. She turned up a troubled face as Veronica entered the room.
‘I feel terrible. Ever since last night when Melissa opened that door you’ve just come through, I’ve had her down as my prime suspect. I wasn’t sure exactly what she’d done, but I was sure she was behind Dinah Halsgrove’s collapse. And now …’
‘I know. She can’t be the culprit now she’s the victim, can she?’
Hilary shook her head dumbly. After a while she stood up. ‘I’d put myself down as fairly unshockable. But I can’t get that picture out of my head. That dead white face lying in the pool that was supposed to be healing.’
Veronica laid a hand on her arm. ‘You can’t blame yourself. Whatever the real reason, Melissa was certainly behaving strangely. Anyone would be suspicious. And, as you said before, how did Gavin know she’d be up on this corridor? He’s also got some questions to answer.’
‘You don’t think he …?’
‘I’ve no more idea than you have.’ Veronica tried an unsuccessful smile. Then her blue eyes took on a faraway look. ‘And yet … what about that strange conversation I overheard by the tiltyard? Hilary! He and Theresa were talking about a death, even though it hadn’t actually happened.’ She turned a stricken face to Hilary. ‘We thought they must have meant Dinah. But what if it was Melissa all the time? “I’ll shut her up.”’
‘You mean, Gavin was plotting to kill his wife?’
They took their places in the dining room, still in a state of shock.
Overhead, the ancient vault of the Chapter House soared almost to the height of the tithe barn next to it. Evening sunlight slanted through tall windows high in the walls. But Hilary found it hard to delight in her surroundings as she should have.
The moods of the others had relaxed somewhat, now that their interviews were over. But the two women found themselves locked in near silence. There was nothing else they could talk about, but it was not the sort of news you could pass on casually over the dinner table, even if they had not been warned to say nothing.
Halfway through the meal, Detective Inspector Foulks walked into the dining room, with DS Blunt at his heels. The inspector’s tall, dignified form stood for a moment, sweeping his gaze round the tables. Conversations began to still as the would-be writers recognized him. People looked at each other uneasily. Was it not yet over? Hilary glanced swiftly round. Neither Gavin nor Theresa was present. She had not expected them to be.
‘I’m sorry to disturb your dinner, folks. But I have something painful to tell you. This afternoon, one of your leaders, Mrs Melissa Standforth, was found dead, and not, I fear, from natural causes.’
There was an outcry of shock. Hilary and Veronica stayed silent. The looks they gave each other were tinged with guilt. It would seem strange to the others now that they had sat there in silence, nursing this knowledge.
The light caught the inspector’s rimless glasses as he turned his head to include them all.
‘Now, I know this is more shocking even than Miss Halsgrove’s illness. In the circumstances, it may be that some of you will be thinking of moving out of here first thing tomorrow morning. I understand, but I must ask you not to do that. It would help my investigation greatly if none of you leaves until we’ve finished these new enquiries. You may think you saw the last of me when you made your statements this afternoon. But, as you can imagine, I’m afraid there are some even more serious questions I need to ask you now. This may not be what you expected when you signed up for a crime-writing weekend, but it has now become a very genuine murder investigation. Thank you.’
He and his sergeant walked out of the room, leaving behind a scene of shock and confusion, with none of the course leaders there to take control.
Beside Hilary, Ceri’s voice came unexpectedly.
‘You two came back to the abbey in a police car, didn’t you? Does that mean you already knew about this?’
Veronica looked up uncomfortably. ‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m afraid we were the ones who found her.’
There was a startled silence.
‘Where?’ asked Lin Bell.
Veronica glanced unhappily at Hilary. ‘I’m not sure whether we are supposed to tell you … but it was the Leechwells.’
Ceri drew an audible breath. It came to Hilary suddenly that the local woman had protested about Hilary’s choosing the healing wells as the setting for her fictional murder, and about Gavin’s seemingly joking appropriation of these names.
Hilary looked along their table. At the further end, the two younger men from the Toad group were now talking animatedly.
Jake leaned towards her. His expression was both earnest and excited.
‘You have the advantage over us. The rest of us have never seen a murder victim. What did she look like? What colour was her face? Were her eyes open?’
Hilary’s jaw dropped. There was a stillness round the table, shocked, uncomfortable. And yet Hilary’s instinct told her there was also an avid curiosity in them all.
She rounded on the unfortunate Jake. ‘I can’t believe you said that.’
; ‘I only asked …’
‘I heard what you asked. I had a boy in my class once who was diagnosed as borderline psychopathic. Unable to feel for the pain of others.’
The eyes around the table moved away from hers, back to their plates.
Lin’s bony hand reached out to cover Jake’s. ‘I know what you mean, dear. This is a crime weekend. There’s a ghoulish part of our mind that does want to know. I know I do. In the interests of research, of course. But you could have been more tactful. Poor Hilary is still suffering from shock.’
Hilary choked on a mouthful of venison and took a hasty swig of water.
‘Shock, indeed! If he were a pupil of mine, I’d give him shock!’
The image of Melissa’s grey face, her sightless eyes, would never leave her mind.
On her other side, the curly-haired Ceri shuddered. ‘I’m not sleeping at the abbey like the rest of you. I’m not sure which is worse – going home alone in the dark, or staying here with a murderer.’
There was an indrawn breath around the table, as though the reality of that had not sunk in until now. They looked around at each other speculatively, then at the tables beyond.
‘Us? You know one thing?’ Jake asked. ‘We’re all assuming this has something to do with this course. But what if it hasn’t?’
‘Of course,’ said Hilary, turning back to Ceri. ‘You’re a local, aren’t you? You knew about the Leechwells. You were unhappy about Gavin dragging their guardian spirits into his crime course. And with me because I chose them as my murder setting. You got quite angry.’
The words were out before she realized how they would sound. She felt herself blushing.
‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean … Of course, there’ll be a completely different reason why Melissa was found dead in the well.’
Ceri’s voice took on a sharper edge. ‘I thought I’d made it clear that the wells are about healing. Are you suggesting I’d get my own back on the Standforths by profaning them with murder?’