‘Yes, in Texas. Here’s his picture.’ Melissa fetched a framed photograph of a bronzed and beaming Simon, resplendent in Stetson and cowboy boots and mounted on a chestnut horse.
Lou’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. ‘He’s gorgeous! Is he married?’
‘Not as far as I know. I think he’d tell me; we’re pretty good friends.’
Lou’s eyes followed the photograph as Melissa returned it to its place on the shelf. Plainly her heart, though bruised, was far from irretrievably broken.
‘Why don’t you come and talk to me while I prepare some lunch,’ said Melissa. ‘I don’t know much about the world of fashion so tell me about your job.’
After they had eaten their chicken and stir-fried vegetables, with a glass of white wine and some cheese and fruit to follow, Melissa suggested a walk. They reached the village just as Snappy was having a noisy argument with Sinbad outside the shop. Dudley Ford was waving a menacing stick and Eleanor, looking pink and flustered, snatched up her dog and backed away.
‘Quiet, Snappy, silly boy!’ she chided him, smiling uncertainly at Ford. ‘They don’t seem to like one another very much, do they, khikhikhi!’
Ford was not in the best of tempers. ‘Aggressive little beast!’ he growled. ‘Didn’t expect to meet you!’ he added with a glare in Eleanor’s direction. ‘Usually off out somewhere on a Tuesday, aren’t you?’ Then, appearing to notice Melissa and Lou for the first time, he remembered his manners and reached for his hat. ‘Afternoon, ladies!’ His eyes skated backwards and forwards between them, inviting an introduction and identification.
Deliberately ignoring the blatant curiosity in the old man’s eyes, Melissa walked past with a curt, ‘Good afternoon, Dudley’ and called a greeting to Eleanor, who had retreated a short distance before putting Snappy down. She was wearing a bemused expression and seemed lost for words.
Not so Lou. ‘What a dreadful old man!’ she said in a high, penetrating voice as the door into the shop was flung open to the accompaniment of a furious tinkling of the bell. ‘Are you supposed to ask his permission before changing your routine?’
‘Major Ford is the ultimate in nosey parkers!’ explained Melissa. ‘He and his wife between them keep an eye on the comings and goings of everyone in the village. Next time I meet him he’ll be pumping me like mad to find out who you are. Let me introduce you. Lou Stacey – Eleanor Shergold. Lou was a friend of Angy’s.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Eleanor.
‘We were at college together,’ said Lou. ‘I was absolutely shattered when I heard what had happened.’
‘Such a terrible thing!’ Eleanor’s green eyes were sombre. ‘She was such a good secretary, my husband used to say. He’s quite lost without her and you know, they still haven’t found him anyone else. It’s really very difficult for him.’ Eleanor quickened her pace as Snappy plunged forward in a bid to pursue a cat crossing the road ahead. Behind her back, Melissa and Lou exchanged glances.
They parted from Eleanor at the corner of Woodbine Close. In the distance, Melissa spied Dudley Ford striding up the village street towards them. If they retraced their steps they’d walk straight into him.
‘Shall we go back across the fields?’ she suggested. ‘It might be a bit muddy in places, though,’ she added with a doubtful glance at Lou’s dainty little boots.
‘No problem,’ the girl assured her.
The sun was warm and every tree, hedge and flower responded with an eager thrust of new growth. A lark filled the air with song, hovering above a field of young corn as if suspended on a thread from heaven. Lou tilted her face towards the sky and closed her eyes.
‘Isn’t that just beautiful?’ she murmured.
Soon they met Harriet Yorke. In her green jacket and tailored slacks, her skin glowing from exercise, she looked as sleek and glossy as the red setter bounding ahead of her.
‘We’ve come this way to dodge Dreadful Dudley,’ said Melissa after introducing Lou. ‘He was beastly to poor Eleanor outside the shop, just because Snappy barked at Sinbad. He had the cheek to tell her off for not sticking to her regular times! Can you believe it?’
‘I can believe anything of that man,’ said Harriet. ‘His wife’s just as bad. My brother-in-law had some business in Gloucester the other week and he called in to see me during the afternoon. From the way that old crow looked down her beak, you’d have thought she suspected us of having an affair. “Ay hope yaw husband kneows about yaw visitah!”’ Harriet gave a wicked impression of Madeleine Ford’s plummy voice. ‘“Yew kneow how people tawk!” I just smiled and said I was sure she’d find an opportunity to mention it to him and she went all pink and sniffy.’
‘They sound a real pain in the bum,’ said Lou chirpily.
Harriet’s smile flashed like a row of pearls and she gave Lou an approving nudge on the arm. ‘Oh, they are! Like ferrets up a drainpipe, the pair of them!’ Her eyes scanned the field. ‘Damn, where’s that dog gone? Ruuufus!’
‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ whispered Lou as Harriet went striding off along the edge of the field, calling and whistling, her red-gold hair catching the light as it lifted in the breeze.
‘It’s reliably rumoured that Dudley Ford fancies her!’ said Melissa with a grin. ‘That’s why his wife never loses an opportunity for a dig!’
Lou gave a little squeak of delight. ‘And I always thought country life must be dull!’
‘Far from it!’ Melissa assured her, thinking how good it was to hear her laughter.
Back in Hawthorn Cottage, Lou said, ‘Could you give me the recipe for that chicken dish? It was scrumptious!’
‘Of course.’ Melissa took her recipe book from a drawer and found a sheet of paper and a pencil. She glanced up at the clock. ‘We’d better be leaving when you’ve jotted that down,’ she said, realising as she spoke that she would be sorry to see the girl go. ‘You’ll keep in touch, won’t you, and come and see me again?’
Lou’s face lit up. ‘I’d love to!’ she said. Her eye fell on the calendar that hung on the wall. ‘Are you doing anything over Bank Holiday?’ she added with a touch of wistfulness in her voice.
‘I’m not sure. A friend of mine is spending it with relatives in Yorkshire and he’s asked me to join him.’ Barney had issued the invitation on Sunday but she hadn’t yet made up her mind whether to accept.
Lou, scribbling away at the recipe, glanced up and looked at Melissa with open curiosity. ‘Is it a serious relationship?’ she asked, her tone entirely matter-of-fact.
It was a question Melissa had been asking herself for the past couple of days but she had not expected to hear it from Lou. For a second, she was nonplussed. When I was in my twenties, she thought, it wouldn’t have entered my head to say a thing like that to someone twice my age. Young people have absolutely no inhibitions nowadays. Yet in a way the girl’s frankness pleased her. At least, she didn’t consider her too old to have a man.
‘It’s fairly serious but I don’t think it’s permanent,’ she heard herself saying, and it seemed as if she was removing a doubt from her own mind.
Having finished her writing, Lou got up, took the teacups over to the sink to rinse them and then went up to the bathroom. When she returned, she was wearing her red woollen jacket in readiness to leave. Its loose bulk hung on her slight figure, giving her the air of a small girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. Melissa felt a rush of maternal tenderness towards her. Perhaps the poor kid had been thinking ahead to the holiday that, had things gone the way she had hoped, she would have been spending with Rick and his family. Instead, she’d be stuck on her own in a house of mourning.
‘We could make it the weekend after,’ she suggested.
Lou’s face lit up. ‘Oh thanks! I’ll really look forward to it.’
When she got back from seeing Lou on to her train, Melissa went into the kitchen. The recipe book still lay open on the table and as she picked it up a piece of paper fell out. Idly glancing at it, she saw that it was the recipe fo
r scones that Eleanor had insisted on giving her. She had put it away without bothering to read it but now, for some reason, she glanced through it. The handwriting was not easy to read; the letters were small and cramped and the words ran into one another, giving the effect of knotted string, interrupted at intervals by spiky up or down strokes. It seemed to Melissa to reflect the writer’s repressed, submissive disposition, with the occasional streak of assertiveness that had won her the right to keep a dog.
She studied the paper for several minutes before replacing it. It seemed to be trying to tell her something but for the moment its message eluded her.
Twenty-Two
The following morning, shortly after the postman had called, Iris appeared at Melissa’s front door, brandishing a large envelope. She was obviously bursting with news; her eyes shone and her hair, newly-washed and unruly, threatened to erupt from the restraints of the tortoise-shell slides.
‘It’s come!’ she announced in triumph.
‘What has?’
‘Philippe’s prospectus.’ Iris followed Melissa into her sitting-room, thrust the envelope into her hand and subsided on to the floor, legs crossed under the folds of her green pinafore dress. ‘Go on . . . read it.’
‘Who is Philippe and what is he prospecting?’ enquired Melissa as she pulled a glossy brochure from the envelope.
‘Philippe Bonard,’ said Iris with a simper.
‘Ah!’ said Melissa. ‘I asked you about him when you came back from France and you were jolly cagey. Are you having a torrid affair when you go off to the Midi every winter?’
Iris’s smile became positively coy but she made no comment. Melissa, noticing the colour creeping into her friend’s cheeks, suppressed a smile and began scanning the literature. After a few moments she looked up to meet a pair of eager eyes.
‘What do you think?’
‘It looks fascinating . . . but you never told me you were interested in study courses in France. Why all the secrecy?’
‘Didn’t know if it’d come off,’ said Iris. ‘Question of capital. Philippe wasn’t sure he could raise enough to buy a larger place.’ She cleared her throat and played with the hem of her skirt. ‘Remember I told you he’s been running an adult study centre for some time? Terrific demand . . . language and literature courses mostly . . . wanted to branch out into crafts and music and things but needed more space. Then he found this super house.’ The hem became more engrossing than ever. ‘He asked me – if it came off – if I’d run an art course in July.’
‘And you’re going to? Yes, I see you are.’ Melissa ran her eye down a list of tutors. Among the names, that of Iris Ash, the internationally known fabric designer and water-colourist, caught her eye.
Iris gave a sigh of pure rapture. ‘The house is sublime! Wonderful mountain views!’
‘Sounds fascinating,’ Melissa repeated. She put the papers together and a sheet fell out. She glanced at it before replacing it. It was a registration form for prospective students at the Centre Cévenol d’Etudes, propriétaire Philippe Bonard. Something jogged her memory.
‘Leave it with you if you like,’ said Iris, rising to her feet and adjusting several metres of green cloth. ‘Have a browse.’ She glanced out of the window. ‘Nice day. Going to do some gardening later on?’
‘Mmm?’
Iris waved a hand in front of Melissa’s nose. ‘Wakey wakey!’
‘Sorry, I was thinking.’ It was a mild word to use for the activity going on in her head. Her brain was clicking like a machine, wheels turning and cogs interlocking one after the other at a feverish rate.
‘Planning to join one of the courses?’ said Iris hopefully. ‘Come and brush up your French. Philippe’s a superb teacher.’ She gave a dreamy sigh. ‘Must go. See you later.’
Melissa, wondering among her other thoughts what sort of lessons Philippe had been giving Iris, smiled absently. ‘Bye,’ she murmured.
Iris peered into her face. ‘You’re miles away. What’s on your mind?’
Melissa tucked the registration form into the envelope with the prospectus. ‘I’m not sure, but I think I may have hit on the answer to a riddle. I’ll explain later,’ she added in response to Iris’s raised eyebrows. ‘I have to go out.’
The minute Iris had gone, Melissa put on a jacket and outdoor shoes and left the cottage. Deliberately taking the longer route to avoid the village centre and a possible encounter with one of the Fords, she reached Cotswold View just as Eleanor was returning with Snappy on his lead and a shopping basket in her hand.
‘You’re an early bird!’ said Eleanor. Her smile seemed a little too bright.
‘Have you got a minute?’ asked Melissa. ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about.’
Eleanor hesitated for a moment before replying, ‘Yes, all right. I hope you won’t mind coming in at the back door. Rodney doesn’t like Snappy coming in through the front because of dirtying the hall carpet.’
In the small glassed-in lobby behind the house, Eleanor put down her basket, inspected the dog’s feet and wiped them with a towel.
‘You can’t be too careful, can you?’ she said fussily as she unlocked the back door. ‘You never know what they walk in.’ Indoors, she changed her shoes, hung her jacket and Snappy’s lead on a hook and put her gloves and her purse on the Welsh dresser. Then she washed her hands, dried them carefully and massaged cream into them.
‘I like to take care of my hands,’ she explained over her shoulder. ‘Rodney is always telling me what lovely hands his mother used to have.’ She began unpacking her shopping, reciting the items as she did so and checking them against a list. ‘Tea . . . eggs . . . biscuits . . . ’ Not once since they entered the house had she met Melissa’s eye. She scuttled about the kitchen putting things away and then took cups and saucers from a cupboard. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she said hesitantly.
‘Thanks.’ Melissa pulled a chair from under the table and sat down while Eleanor filled the kettle, plugged it in and then stood at the sink, staring out of the window. ‘It’s a nice day, isn’t it?’ she said without turning round, and her voice had the toneless quality of one whose thoughts are far away.
‘Yes,’ agreed Melissa. She waited for a moment. Had she herself been in a similar situation, she would have been curious to learn the reason for the visit. Perhaps Eleanor had already guessed and would prefer not to hear. The kettle began to sing and she measured instant coffee into the cups and opened a packet of biscuits, all without a word. Melissa waited until the coffee was on the table and Eleanor, with seeming reluctance, sat down beside her. Her face was pale and there were indigo smudges under her eyes.
‘You don’t look well,’ said Melissa in sudden concern.
‘I’m quite all right, really.’ Eleanor stirred her coffee with quick, jerky movements. ‘What did you want to talk about?’ After having avoided eye contact since they came in, she now fixed on Melissa an intense, unwavering stare.
Melissa fingered her spoon. It all seemed so foolish, so trivial compared with the recent horror, yet she knew that what she was going to say would leave a desperately inhibited woman feeling raw and exposed. Throughout this wretched business, it seemed, it had fallen to her lot to break unpleasant news. This was going to be distressing but there was no way of avoiding it. Two women had been brutally murdered and every corner where a shred of a clue might lie had to be explored.
‘I know,’ she began, ‘that you said you couldn’t go to any classes at the college because you thought Rodney wouldn’t like it.’ Eleanor froze in the act of lifting her cup and Melissa’s hunch that she knew what was coming became a certainty, even before she went on, ‘That’s why you decided to call yourself Delia Forbes, isn’t it? Is she a friend of yours?’
Eleanor ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. ‘How did you find out?’ she whispered.
‘I recognised your writing on the registration form.’
‘Are you going to tell Rodney?’
‘I’m afra
id,’ said Melissa, speaking slowly and quietly as if she were approaching a nervous animal, ‘that it won’t be just Rodney who has to know. The police particularly want to speak to you. You may be able to help them in their enquiries.’
At the mention of the police, Eleanor gave a start, spilling some of her coffee over her skirt. Ignoring the stain, she put down her cup, her hand groping for the saucer as she kept her eyes fixed on Melissa. Her colour rose and then faded, leaving her as pale as death.
Melissa put out a comforting hand. ‘Oh, come on, it’s not as bad as all that! They only want to know if you went to Angy’s flat that afternoon and if so, whether you saw anyone hanging about. I’ll come with you, if you like, and explain why you did it.’
‘Did what?’ The voice was barely a whisper and the hand that Melissa held in hers was ice-cold.
‘Went to the classes in disguise, of course, so that Rodney wouldn’t know. I’ll tell him I put you up to it, if you like. It was my idea, after all.’
Eleanor continued to stare with the blankness of a figure carved in stone. As if he knew that something was wrong, Snappy jumped up and put his paws on her lap. She showed no sign of being aware of him; he whined and nudged her hand with his nose but still she did not respond. After a moment he gave an uneasy whimper and retreated to his basket.
Melissa was becoming impatient. ‘Look, Eleanor, forget all that nonsense about keeping it a secret from Rodney. That’s not important any more, don’t you understand? The police want to know if you went to Angy’s flat that afternoon and if you saw anything.’ Still, Eleanor neither moved nor spoke. In her exasperation, Melissa almost screamed, ‘Did you go there? Did you?’
Tears began trickling down the colourless cheeks. The sight filled Melissa with compassion but she felt at the same time a faint prickle of apprehension.
‘There’s no need to cry,’ she said, trying to speak gently. ‘Just tell me what happened and we’ll go to the police together and . . . ’
Murder in the Morning Page 24
