‘We’ve asked at the theatre. But there were four hundred people in the audience. We have no way of knowing who they were.’
‘You might ask if anyone arrived late. Or if there was anyone in the audience who seemed distracted.’
‘That’s a good idea. I’ll do that.’ Hare drank some wine. At home, he might occasionally have a glass of beer with his evening meal and this was a rare treat. ‘You may have noticed that he told me how much he enjoyed the performance.’
‘I did indeed read that in your excellent notes.’
‘He could have been lying, of course. But it’s not the behaviour of someone who has just strangled his wife.’
Pünd raised his own glass and drank with half-closed eyes. ‘It is true what Miss Cain observed, is it not,’ he said. ‘How sad it is that even in a place as quiet and as charming as Tawleigh-on-the-Water, there are still so many people who might be capable of murder.’
Outside, the waves broke, black against the pebbled shore.
II
Inside the lighthouse, the two children – Mark and Agnes Collins – had not yet gone to sleep. They were much too excited, lying in twin bunks in a room that was completely circular, halfway up the tower. Every time the beam swung round, it flashed past the two small windows, making the shadows leap. It was like being inside an adventure story.
In fact, the room had once been an office. Brenda Mitchell, Nancy’s mother, had put the bunks in so that any children who came to stay could have the magical experience of sleeping inside a real lighthouse. She herself, her husband and Nancy had their beds on the ground floor in a much less interesting building that had been tacked on to the side. This was where the kitchen, living room and small bathroom were also located; the mother, father and daughter were confined in a space that could quite accurately be called too close for comfort.
Nancy Mitchell had read a few pages of the Narnia book that Mark had brought with him and now she smoothed the covers of the two bunks and turned out the lights, leaving a single lamp glowing on the floor. In just six months’ time this room might be needed for a quite different reason. There would be a third child, and this one would be her own. A boy or a girl? She hadn’t dared ask Dr Collins and anyway, she doubted that he would be able to tell.
She made her way down the winding stairway and through the door that led into the kitchen. Her father was sitting at the table, her mother stirring something at the stove. It was stew again. Brenda would have got the scrag-ends from the butcher, who always threw in a few bones at no extra cost so that they could make stock. All three of them had jobs but somehow they never seemed to have enough money to go round. Both women were forced to give their earnings to Bill Mitchell and he parcelled them out to them for housekeeping and all the other expenses. The trouble was that what he returned to them was always substantially less than what they had given.
Nancy thought of the sixty pounds she had received and which she had hidden inside the cover of her pillow. She had almost no private space in the lighthouse and she was too worried that her mother, who did all the washing, might come upon it accidentally if she left it with her clothes.
‘How are the children, Nancy?’ Brenda asked.
‘They’re still not asleep, Mum. I read to them and tucked them in, but they just wanted to look out of the window.’
‘You should charge.’ Bill Mitchell was a man of few words. He very seldom used more than three or four of them at the same time.
‘What do you mean?’ Brenda asked.
‘Dr Collins and his missus.’
‘Mrs Collins has always been very good to me. And they do pay me extra for babysitting.’
‘They can afford it.’
Brenda Mitchell transferred the stew to the table and reached for three plates. ‘Come and sit down, Nancy.’ She stopped, examining her daughter. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Mum. I’m fine.’
‘You look tired. And there’s something else . . .’
Her mother knew. Or if she didn’t know, she was suspicious and she would work it out soon enough. And of course she would tell her father. Brenda would be too afraid to keep that sort of thing from him, and even if Nancy begged her to stay silent it would be obvious soon anyway. When that happened, all hell would break loose. When you crossed Bill Mitchell, you soon knew about it. Nancy had lost count of the number of times she had seen her mother with dark bruises on her back or her arms – and she had felt the back of his hand occasionally too.
But she had made her plan. Everything was ready. As she lifted a plate to pass her father’s dinner across, she realised she couldn’t wait another day.
She would do it tomorrow.
III
In their London hotel, Leonard Collins and his wife were unable to eat a single mouthful. And it wasn’t just because the food – rissoles, stewed carrots and mashed potatoes – was cold and unappetising.
They had taken a taxi directly from Paddington Station to the solicitor’s office in Lincoln’s Inn. There they had been greeted by the elderly Mr Parker, who shook their hands warmly and led them through the elegantly furnished chambers and into his private office. As they had followed him, Samantha had been aware of heads turning. The clerks and assistants were watching them and that gave her an inkling of what she was about to hear. It was like being famous. She had seen people behave the same way when Melissa James came into the room. They know about us, she thought. And what they know is going to change our lives.
She had been right. She wondered why they had even gone back to this room in Alleyn’s, a tatty hotel in a Victorian terrace in Earls Court. It wasn’t even a hotel really, just two houses knocked together, with cheap carpets and the smell of frying oil and old laundry. Their bedroom was small and they weren’t going to get much sleep, not with the traffic thundering past outside. Shouldn’t they have moved into the Ritz or the Dorchester?
Seven hundred thousand pounds.
It was like winning the pools – not that Samantha ever gambled. It was more money than she had ever dreamed of. More money than she could even understand.
The kindly Mr Parker had explained it all to them. First of all, there would have to be probate. They would appoint an agent to realise all Mrs Campion’s assets, including the flat in Manhattan, the art collection, the stocks and shares. Although Samantha was the sole relative to benefit, Mrs Campion had left money to a library, a children’s home and several charities. But at the end of the day, a sum approaching seven figures would be sent to the young woman she remembered so fondly and who was now Mrs Samantha Collins. It was beyond belief.
‘I had no idea!’ Leonard said. For once, even he seemed stunned into submission. ‘I mean, when we got that letter I thought it might be a few grand. I know I joked with you. But I never thought, not really . . .’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know, my dear. It’s your money. You’ll have to decide.’
The two of them stared at the food that was rapidly congealing on the plates.
‘Maybe I can suggest one thing,’ Leonard went on.
‘What?’
‘Well, we’re behaving as if it’s bad news. Look at the two of us, sitting here in silence, not even looking each other in the eye. Shouldn’t we be celebrating?’
‘I don’t know. Money—’
‘I hope you’re not going to say it’s the root of all evil.’
‘No.’
‘Or that it can’t buy you happiness. Both those things might be true, my dear, but just think what it can do for us. Bedside Manor’s falling to pieces. We’ve got that leak in the roof, and all the carpets upstairs need replacing. We always buy Mark and Agnes clothes that are two sizes too big so they can grow into them, and it’s been ages since you treated yourself to a new dress.’
‘You’re right.’ She reached out and took hold of his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Leonard. Sometimes I think you must find it very difficult being married to me.’
<
br /> ‘Not really. You were the only one who’d have me!’
She laughed. ‘I’m going to use this money for both of us, for the whole family. And I’ll give some to the church too.’
‘The organ fund.’
‘Yes.’ Suddenly she was serious. ‘I don’t think the Lord would have sent us this money if he didn’t want us to enjoy it.’
‘For richer and for poorer. That’s what we promised. And if we’re richer now, it’s hardly our fault!’
‘We’re going to start right now.’ She let go of his hand, taking her knife and fork and laying them determinedly on her plate. ‘I don’t think we should change hotels. It’s only one night and anyway, we’re not going to splash out any money until I really know it’s in the bank. But nor am I going to sit here and eat this slop. I’m sure there must be a little trattoria or something in the neighbourhood.’
‘I think I saw one near the station.’
‘Then let’s go out.’
‘A night on the tiles!’ Leonard Collins got up and kissed his wife.
It was only later, as they left the hotel arm in arm, that Samantha turned to him. ‘What about Algernon?’ she said.
‘What about him?’
‘We’re going to have to tell him, Len. If it’s as much money as Mr Parker said, he’s going to find out anyway.’ She sighed. ‘And really, I think we ought to share some of it with him. After all, we grew up together. It doesn’t seem fair.’
‘Well, that’s up to you, Sam. He’s your brother. But if I may say so, it’s not what your aunt wanted and you know he’ll only blow it on – well, you know the sort of thing he gets up to.’ She said nothing so he continued. ‘If you want my advice, you won’t say anything yet. If Algernon finds out before everything’s been sorted out, he’ll only make trouble. I say we wait until the dust has settled.’
There was a trattoria on the corner just ahead of them. It looked homely and welcoming, with yellow light spilling out of the windows onto the pavement. It still seemed to be open.
‘Spaghetti and meatballs!’ Leonard Collins exclaimed.
‘And a glass of fizz!’
‘Now you’re talking!’
They hurried in.
IV
At that moment, Algernon Marsh was sitting in his bedroom – or rather, the bedroom he had been given all too temporarily – at Church Lodge. He had a large glass of whisky in one hand. In the other, he was holding the letter he had found in the bottom drawer of his brother-in-law’s desk. He had read it several times. ‘Joyce Campion, married to Harlan Goodis. A bequest . . .’
He hadn’t exactly been snooping. That would suggest an actual interest, a desire to find out more about Samantha and Leonard’s private life. The truth was, apart from the occasional sanctuary they offered him, the free meals and the booze, he had no interest in them at all. A slightly bumptious country doctor in a dead-end town married to a religious maniac who probably made his life a misery – that was how Algernon saw them.
But he had known something was up. From the moment he had arrived at the house, Samantha and Leonard hadn’t been behaving normally. There had been whispered conversations, exchanged glances, a sudden silence whenever he entered the room. And then, only that morning, he had come into the kitchen to find Samantha sitting at the table, reading a letter. She had folded it away the moment she’d seen him, but not before he had noticed the formal letterhead and the smart, white envelope it had come in. It was a solicitor’s letter. He had recognised it at once.
‘Bad news?’ he had asked solicitously, pretending not to take too close an interest.
‘No. It’s not important.’
It was the way she had folded the letter away that had alerted him to the fact that she was lying: closing it up and sliding it underneath her cardigan, keeping it close to her heart in more ways than one. And then there was this trip to London, suddenly announced, as if the decision to travel five hours each way and stay overnight in some cheap hotel was completely normal behaviour.
The moment he had found himself alone, he had made a phone call. He had a friend in London who had spent three years working in the advertising industry in New York before a misunderstanding about his expenses allowance had resulted in his immediate firing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Algernon was sure he had worked for Harlan Goodis.
‘No. I never worked for him,’ Terry had told him. ‘But I met him a couple of times and everybody knew him. He did campaigns for Minute Maid and Paper Mate and he helped launch Best Western Hotels. He started as a copywriter but by the end he had his own agency on Madison Avenue.’
‘How rich was he?’
There’d been a snigger at the end of the line. ‘Why are you interested, Algie? It’s a bit late. He’s been dead two years.’
‘I know.’
‘He was loaded. He had an apartment looking out over Central Park. Not just an apartment – a penthouse! He drove a Duesenberg convertible. Beautiful car. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on it, I can tell you. I don’t know how much he sold the agency for, but I could probably find out.’
‘Could you do some digging for me?’
‘What’s in it for me?’
‘Come on, Terry. You owe me.’ There was silence at the other end. ‘I’ll buy you lunch at the club. But we’ve got to move quickly on this. It could be important. He left all his money to his widow, a woman called Joyce Campion. Maybe there’s a public record of the amount.’
‘There are some people I can call. But they’re in America. You’ll have to pay me back.’
‘Just do it,’ Algernon had said and put down the receiver.
SOLE BENEFICIARY.
Those were the two words that leapt off the page. It wasn’t fair. He and Samantha had grown up together. They had been ordinary, happy children and they had been close. And then a bomb had fallen out of the sky and had killed both their parents and taken away everything he had ever known and after that nothing had been the same. He still remembered the day their aunt had said she would be looking after them. He hadn’t liked her from the start, with her hair dyed jet black, her withered cheeks, too much rouge. She behaved like a grande dame, but she still lived in a poky little house in West Kensington. What had Harlan Goodis ever seen in her?
She had always disapproved of him. She had wanted him to get a job like his sister, who’d been packed off to some hellhole in Slough. Accountancy, she had suggested, or maybe dentistry? She had a cousin who was a dentist and who might be able to help him. In his early twenties, Algernon had come to blame Aunt Joyce for the loss of his early life almost as much as he blamed the Germans – and his inevitable slide into the world of underhand dealing and crime had surely been her fault too.
Not that he had ever been a criminal. Not really. It had just been chance that had put him outside that club in Piccadilly even as a fight – an affray – broke out. If he hadn’t been drinking, he would never have joined in. He still remembered the trial, the way Aunt Joyce had looked at him as he was sent down for three months for disturbing the public order. She had looked even more disgusted than the judge! Before he had been taken down, he had turned round and stuck his tongue out at her and that was the last time he had seen her. He’d been glad when she’d packed her bags and gone off to America.
And now, all these years later, she had shown him what she thought of him. She hadn’t just favoured Samantha over him. She had deliberately slapped him in the face. There was a tiny part of him that regretted that last gesture in the courtroom. It had cost him a half-share in what might be a fortune. But maybe he was kidding himself. She had always been a vindictive old bat. She would never have left him a cent.
There was one aspect of his character, however, that Aunt Joyce had underestimated and which Samantha, too, had ignored. Algernon Marsh never gave up. All his life (and unfortunately on that one occasion outside the Nut House) he had been a fighter. For example, he had launched Sun Trap on the back of a string of business failures and al
though things weren’t looking too good for it right now, it had been remarkably successful, at least up to a point. Samantha might be rich. But Algernon knew things about life in Tawleigh-on-the-Water that she didn’t. He was fairly sure he could use that knowledge to divert a good chunk of the fortune his way. Always assuming there was a fortune to be had.
The telephone rang. Algernon almost dropped his whisky in his haste to answer it.
‘Algie?’
‘Terry! Have you found out anything?’
‘I’ve found out plenty. Hold on to your hat, mate. You’re not going to believe this . . .’
V
It was half past nine.
Phyllis and Eric Chandler were sitting in their private living room on the second floor of Clarence Keep. They had been listening to Record Roundabout on the wireless, but after a while Phyllis had grown tired of the comedy interludes and turned it off. Now the two of them were sitting in gloomy silence. Eric had offered her some hot cocoa – they always had cocoa before they went to bed – but she had refused.
‘I’m going to turn in,’ she announced suddenly.
‘Ma . . .’ There was a tremble in Eric’s voice. ‘I hate it when you’re like this.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes, you do. You’ve always been like this, even when I was a little boy and you were annoyed with me. You were disappointed with me the moment I was born, weren’t you, because my foot was wrong. And when Dad went away, I know what he meant to you. I know you wish it was me, not him, that died in the war.’
Phyllis crossed her arms. ‘That’s a wicked thing to say, Eric. You should—’
‘I’m not going to wash my mouth out with soap and water! I’m not ten years old!’
The two of them were used to speaking quietly. They knew their place in the house and it was their first duty never to be noticed unless they were needed, never to draw attention to themselves. But Eric had shouted at his mother and her first thought was to glance nervously at the door, making sure it was shut.
‘You shouldn’t have done what you did,’ she hissed quietly. ‘You should never have behaved that way.’
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