Hollow Vengeance

by Anne Morice

  I was tempted to ask why he was not the most popular boy in the neighbourhood, since, as well as being good-looking, he had always impressed me as possessing plenty of charm. However, in view of the lateness of the hour, I considered it advisable to stick to essentials and I said, ‘But it’s all rather absurd, surely? They couldn’t seriously believe that he had murdered her and, even if they did, they would very quickly be proved wrong.’

  ‘I know, but imagine all the unpleasantness we should have to endure in the meantime! And afterwards there would probably still be some people muttering that there was no smoke without fire; because I’m afraid that the forces of law and order would be obliged to treat it seriously, whether they wished to or not.’

  ‘Why would they?’

  ‘Because Marc has a very special motive, all of his own. He is in love, well, engaged perhaps I should say, to a girl whose family is about to be evicted from their home by Mrs You-Know-Who.’

  ‘The final touch of melodrama! It was the only thing lacking. Who is she?’

  ‘A girl called Diane Hearne. You probably wouldn’t know her. James, the father, makes pottery, some of it rather good too, but he’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, what you’d call successful; and the mother’s delicate and mentally unstable. She’s had to bring up five children on practically no money, no help and no mod cons, so I suppose she has every excuse.’

  ‘Where do they live?’

  ‘Orchard House, which is on the Pettits estate, and there’s the rub. The Hearnes rented it from the previous owners about twenty years ago, when it was falling to pieces from neglect. It’s not in much better shape now, but they’ve done their best to make a few improvements and keep it in reasonably good trim. In return for which they’ve been paying just a tiny peppercorn rent.’

  ‘Even so, didn’t they have a lease?’

  ‘Yes, which was renewed annually, it now appears. The Hearnes are like that, completely hand-to-mouth and feckless, and James is the worst of the lot. When they heard that the property had been acquired by a solitary old lady, it never occurred to them that things wouldn’t run on in exactly the same way as before. They were prepared for their rent to go up, naturally, but with Diane out of school now and in a job of sorts, that wouldn’t have been such a terrible blow. Instead, they got a notice to quit as soon as the present lease expires and not a single day later. That was three or four months ago and I imagine their time is now rapidly running out.’

  ‘So what will they do?’

  ‘So far, they don’t appear to be doing anything. Mrs Hearne had quite a serious breakdown and had to go into hospital for a while; James, who is a real Micawber type, seems to take the view that something is bound to turn up to save the day, while Marc goes around loudly threatening to take matters into his own hands; and that seems to be about the sum of it.’

  ‘Can’t they appeal? How about possession being nine-tenths of the law?’

  ‘My dear Tessa, you obviously still haven’t understood what we’re up against. The woman doesn’t miss a single trick and, as Toby pointed out, she also holds all the cards. You or I couldn’t turn the Hearnes out of a house they’d been living in for twenty years, but Mrs Trelawney only has to say that she needs it for her workers and there’s no further argument.’

  ‘Which could be genuine, I suppose? All those fancy bits of machinery must need a lot of extra men?’

  ‘On the contrary. If you knew the first thing about farming, you’d realise that they cut down on manpower, which is something else that hasn’t made her very popular with the natives; but what she has the effrontery to say is that she needs this particular house, out of half a dozen others which one would have thought equally suitable, for her estate manager, who also happens to be her grandson.’

  ‘Ah! I’d been meaning to ask whether she’d acquired any family from her various marriages?’

  ‘He’s the only one, so far as we know. She had a son early on in her career, but she quarrelled with him over his choice of wife, or so we hear, and he went back to Australia and took up sheep farming.’

  ‘In the time honoured style?’

  ‘Although, of course, that’s where the roots were, in his case. Still, you’re right, the whole dreary saga is not unlike some Victorian melodrama. Even down to David, the handsome young grandson she’s never seen, coming back in the other direction to seek his fame and fortune over here. He ought to be the hero of the piece, but no one feels too confident about that.’

  ‘Not the second villain, I trust?’

  ‘It wouldn’t altogether surprise me. It didn’t take him long to discover where his fame and fortune lay, to change his name by deed poll to hers and to instal himself as the young laird. Quite what qualifications he has for a job of this kind no one really knows, but he certainly has his old grannie eating out of his hand, by all accounts.’

  ‘That’s interesting too,’ I said.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes, because if you’re going to put a spoke in her wheel, or her Achilles heel, you’ll need to find out where she’s most vulnerable. This David could be the answer. What’s he like, apart from being good-looking and having an eye to the main chance?’

  ‘Pleasant enough, actually, and certainly more socially engaging than his grandmother. Quite good manners and all that, but there’s something about him that I don’t entirely trust. Let’s go to bed now, shall we? I’m all in.’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed, putting away the last plate, although, as it happened, the night had not finished with us yet. We were scarcely half way upstairs when there were three loud knocks on the front door, causing me to clutch the bannister rail in alarm, although Elsa seemed more annoyed than apprehensive.

  ‘Who the hell could that be?’ she asked.

  Since I was in no position to tell her, I did not reply and, being unaccustomed to casual country ways, watched in amazement as she unlocked the front door, opened it a few inches and called out:

  ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

  I could hear a man’s voice answering, though the words were too indistinct to make out, but Elsa unhesitatingly pulled the door wide open, saying, ‘Why, Tim! Whatever’s the matter? Is something wrong?’

  I went slowly downstairs again and this time I could hear him plainly.

  ‘Very sorry to bother you, Elsa, but I saw your lights on and I wondered if I might ask you for a bowl of water?’

  At this point, possibly wandering a little in the mists of fatigue, I began to think I must have slipped into one of those old fashioned Westerns and that a lady passenger on the stage coach was about to give birth, but Elsa’s reaction was more prosaic.

  ‘Yes, of course. Is your engine boiling, or something? Do come inside!’

  Doing so, he said, ‘No, it’s for Daisy, our retriever. Poor old girl’s been caught in one of those beastly snares. Probably been lying out there for hours.’

  ‘Oh, my dear Tim, how dreadful for you! Is she badly hurt?’

  ‘Can’t say, until I get her down to the vet in the morning, but it looks as though one front leg is a goner. She’s pretty exhausted too and thirsty, I imagine, so I ventured to knock you up, late though it is.’

  ‘Let me fetch it?’ I suggested.

  ‘No, no, Tessa, you don’t know where anything is. You stay here. I won’t be a moment, Tim.’

  He was a thin, pale, twisted up sort of man, with gold rimmed glasses and a disdainful manner. I judged him to be forty, or a little over, and he was somewhat eccentrically dressed in a formal suit, with the trousers tucked into heavy black rubber boots. He was also afflicted by a nervous tic, or, to be accurate, two. The most constant and noticeable affected his facial muscles, jerking down the corners of his mouth in a spasm which at times became so pronounced that it spread to his whole face and produced an involuntary sneering grimace of anger and disgust. The other, milder and less frequent, was of brushing the palm of his right hand with a folded handkerchief, but in a perfunctory way
, as though the urge to remove the damn’d spot had turned from a driving compulsion into a fixed habit.

  ‘How d’you do? My name’s Macadam,’ he announced, in a clipped, staccato voice, as though the words were being forced out of him against his will.

  ‘And I’m Theresa Crichton.’

  I was chagrined to notice that he did not appear to be particularly thrilled to hear it, but of course he had more pressing matters on his mind and, furthermore, if this kind of misadventure befell him often, he obviously did not get much opportunity to watch television.

  ‘You were lucky to find her, weren’t you?’ I suggested. ‘In the dark and everything?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say luck had much to do with it,’ he replied snappishly. ‘She’s been missing since lunch time. When I got back from my office this evening there was a note from my wife, telling me which areas she was covering and which I should take on. I just pulled on some boots and off I went. Even so, I was tramping around the woods for three or four hours before I happened to hear poor old Daisy whimpering.’

  ‘What sort of animal was the snare intended for?’

  ‘Foxes, presumably.’

  ‘Isn’t it awfully cruel?’

  ‘Awfully irresponsible, which is slightly more to the point. Not that the lady in question would give a damn about that, or care whose dog happened . . . Oh, thank you so much,’ he said, losing interest in me, as Elsa returned, carrying a large pudding basin.

  ‘Don’t bother to bring it back,’ she told him. ‘Just leave it by the gate and I’ll pick it up in the morning. That is, if you’re sure there’s nothing else I can do?’

  ‘Well, if you’d be so good as to give Louise a ring? Tell her what’s happened and that I’m on my way. If I know her, she won’t sleep a wink until she knows that Daisy is safe.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I’ll see to it right away.’

  ‘Oh, and tell her not to worry if I’m not back for half an hour or so. I’ll have to take it dead slow, to try and avoid any jolts.’

  ‘Yes, right you are, Tim, and good luck! I do hope it won’t turn out to be serious.’

  ‘More of Mrs Trelawney’s work, do you suppose?’ I asked, as she picked up the telephone.

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly. Charming, isn’t it? You begin to see why we all feel so persecuted? We soon shan’t dare to go near the woods, for fear of getting mangled in a gin trap, or falling into an elephant hole.’

  ‘That’s odd!’ she said a moment or two later. ‘No reply.’

  ‘Are you trying the right number?’

  ‘At this time of night I couldn’t be certain of anything. Be a dear and check it for me in that address book. Under Macadam.’

  ‘Tim and Louise? Two-one-three-eight.’

  ‘Right! One more try and then we’ll give up and go to bed.’

  ‘So perhaps he doesn’t know her quite so well as he thinks?’ I suggested, when she had dialled the number again and waited for over a minute.

  ‘It’s odd though, don’t you think? Even if she had been asleep, surely the telephone would have woken her by now?’

  ‘Unless she’s still out, searching for the dog herself?’

  ‘Oh, hardly, Tessa! It’s past midnight.’

  ‘All the same, I had the impression they were both Daisy fanatics a bit above the norm.’

  ‘Well, I admit they are inclined to treat the creature as though it were human, but that’s only because their only child was killed in a road accident a year or two ago and they’ve had to find something to fill her place. But Louise is not the hysterical type at all; very clear-headed and practical, in fact. Never mind, there’s nothing we can do about it and we really should go to bed, you know. Don’t forget your tree watching starts tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. What time does Geoffrey want me there?’

  ‘Rather early, I’m afraid. Everything in Geoffrey’s life is organised down to the last wine gum and he likes to get all his household supplies in for the whole week on Tuesday morning, as soon as the shops open. No use expecting Millie to be conscious at that hour, so I’ll give you a shout about seven.’

  I was not entirely confident about my own chances of being conscious at that hour and made a mental note to take a pillow with me, as well as the rug, in the hope of catching a quick snooze under the tree.

  TUESDAY A.M.

  When the time came, however, neither pillow nor rug was needed. We were on the point of leaving the house, in the cool dawn of Tuesday morning, when the telephone rang. Millie was still in bed, so Elsa had to go indoors again to answer it. Being compulsively interested in other people’s lives, or as some would say, inquisitive, I followed her, being eager to learn who had something so urgent to convey that it could not wait for a more godly hour.

  Urgent it undoubtedly was and distressing as well. That much I could tell from Elsa’s expression; from her words only that the caller was Louise, with a long, long tale to unfold. The one-sided conversation lasted for seven or eight minutes.

  At the end of it Elsa replaced the receiver with a trembling hand and regarded me in silence for a moment or two, as though formulating the words to announce that this country was now at war.

  What she in fact said was, ‘That was Louise Macadam.’

  ‘I gathered. About the dog?’

  ‘Oh no, no. She gave up that search as soon as it started to get dark, but when she got home and was drawing the curtains she saw some lights down in the hollow between their house and Geoffrey’s cottage. They looked like head-lights, three or four pairs of them in a semi-circle. She guessed immediately what it meant and she went straight downstairs again, got her bicycle out and rode down there. There were no lights on in the cottage and no answer when she rang the bell, so she went round to the back. There wasn’t a sound and the lights had gone too, but she was just able to see the outline of the tree and for a moment she thought she’d gone mad, because it had completely changed.’

  Elsa had recited all this in a completely flat and expressionless tone, which did not reflect her feelings, for her eyes were now filled with tears.

  ‘Oh, goodness, Elsa, how simply terrible! And I suppose the poor woman had to wait there for Geoffrey to come home, so that she could warn him?’

  ‘No, worse than that, much worse! He’d come home already, before she arrived. Obviously, the cars and lights had still been there at that point, for he must have started running down towards the fence. Louise found him when she went towards it herself, to get a closer look at the tree. He was lying on the ground, unconscious.’

  ‘Not dead, though?’

  ‘She wasn’t absolutely sure, but she thought he was still breathing. It was difficult to make out what had happened to him, or what state he was in, because it was almost completely dark by then. She nearly went out of her mind, wondering what to do and how to get help.’

  ‘So what did she do?’

  ‘Went back to the cottage, but, as she’d foreseen, both doors were locked and the downstairs windows tightly shut. He can’t have gone indoors at all. They’re leaded casement windows and the only tool she had was her bicycle pump, but she managed to break a pane of glass with that and release the catch, so that she could climb inside.’

  ‘Very resourceful!’

  ‘Yes, as I told you, in most ways she’s got her head well screwed on. Which reminds me! How awful of me! I quite forgot to ask her about Daisy,’ Elsa added, as though this was the last straw.

  ‘Well, never mind about that now. Go on about Geoffrey!’

  ‘Not much more to tell. After she’d climbed in, she telephoned for an ambulance and waited outside until it came, which she said seemed like hours, but was probably not more than about twenty minutes. She went with him to the hospital and waited there for what really was hours, until the specialist had seen him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A major heart attack. They’d put him into intensive care and Louise got the impression that his chances of ever coming out again are
fairly remote. When she rang the hospital about half an hour ago, they told her he was comfortable, but that his condition was unchanged, so presumably he could be most uncomfortable, for all they know.’

  ‘So now it’s just watch and pray?’

  ‘No, there are a few practical jobs to be seen to, as it happens. Louise has to get hold of someone to mend the broken window, for a start. She managed to persuade the hospital authorities to hand over the front door key, which was still in his pocket and she wants me to meet her there this morning and help her go through some of his papers. The purpose of that is to try and discover who his solicitor is, in case there are any relatives who ought to be informed. That’s the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t have occurred to me in a million years, but it’s typical of Louise. As I told you, she’s blazingly practical in most ways.’

  ‘Yes, so you did,’ I agreed thoughtfully, although my thoughts were not really on Louise. I was wondering how this new turn of events might be incorporated into Toby’s play, for it seemed to me that what we had here was quite a good twist on which to bring the curtain down on Act One, Scene One. Everyone in Elsa’s circle appeared to be hoping, or perhaps in her case dreading, to hear that Mrs Trelawney had dropped dead, but now it looked as though she had been cast as murderer, instead of victim. If Geoffrey were not to recover from his heart attack, there could be no denying that, morally speaking, it would be she who had killed him.

  No one subscribed to this view more vehemently than Millie and, before leaving to meet Louise, Elsa warned me what to expect.

  ‘I had to tell her the whole brutal truth,’ she explained. ‘Short of bundling her on to the afternoon train to Bristol, there was simply no possibility of keeping it from her.’