Bright Young Things

by Jane A. Adams

  I believed him. I thought he loved me. I thought he was an honest man and a kind man but I learnt that he was none of those things. That he was cruel and sadistic and wanted only to control me and every other person in his life. He is worse than my father ever was.

  Friday 10 January

  They had spent the night at the Duke of Wellington and then caught a local train which stopped at the tiny station serving the Belmont estate. A chauffeur from the estate was waiting to take them up to the house, a drive of another two miles. Henry did not seem disposed to speak and Mickey sat back enjoying the scenery. He had not been into the Peak District before, but considered that it was well named and also outstandingly beautiful. The train had brought them through a wild landscape – now the car drove them through parkland, the truly natural giving way to the manufactured naturalistic. Sheep wandered across the road, others grazed beneath mature trees and when the house came into view it was not the gritstone, grey and a little drab, that Mickey had noted in the villages they had passed through, instead this massive edifice was faced with limestone, the frontage flat and he guessed Georgian or at least imitating Georgian. The driver paused at the front entrance and let them out and then disappeared around the back of the house having murmured that his employer did not like cars parked on the gravel and that they only had to send for him when they were ready to leave.

  ‘At least they didn’t make us use the servants’ entrance,’ Mickey joked.

  Henry led the way up the flight of ten steps where the large front door was already opening and a liveried footman stood aside and welcomed them in. A middle-aged woman stood in the wide entrance hall. She was dressed in lilac, a woollen dress with a heavy cardigan over the top and she had both hands extended in greeting. ‘Come along in. I hope you’re not too cold – there’s a good fire burning in the morning room. Would you like tea or coffee or both? I’ll send for both. Jackson, please take care of it for me.’ This last to the footman who bowed and went on his way.

  She introduced herself as Mrs Phyllis Belmont but it was clear that she was not a woman who stood on ceremony. The morning room was comfortable with overstuffed chairs that were at least, Mickey reckoned, a half century old, strewn with warm woollen rugs and crocheted afghans. This, it seemed, was not a room for guests, more one for family comfort, and he was reminded of Cynthia’s house. It seemed that Mrs Belmont knew Henry’s sister well because she asked after her immediately, wanting to know how the children were doing, and if Melissa was still enjoying her books. ‘I sent her a parcel a little while back. Our brood of course have now well outgrown the children’s literature that they once enjoyed so much. Now all they seem to read is magazines. You would not believe what nonsense there is in all of these female journals. I’ve no time for it myself, but I suppose each generation despises what the new generation loves.’ She laughed warmly. ‘Melissa sent me such a lovely letter in thanks. She is such a sweet child.’

  Mickey glanced in Henry’s direction. The one direct way to Henry’s heart was to praise Cynthia or Melissa. The boys too – he was very fond of the boys, but he was not so good at talking about cricket and motorcars; that was very much Mickey’s domain.

  Jackson arrived with a large tray and an accompanying housemaid with another large tray and these were set down on butlers’ tables. ‘Sergeant Hitchens, I shall appoint you as mother, so if you’ll pour the tea or the coffee and I will take care of the cake and the sandwiches.’ She smiled at him with a knowing look in her eye which somewhat unsettled Mickey as she continued, ‘I have heard so much about you too, both from Melissa and from the boys. Apparently you took them to play cricket on the beach and ended up taking out a boat. I’m told they both got very wet.’

  ‘Indeed I did,’ Mickey agreed. ‘Cynthia was not amused.’ But to be fair she had soon got over her pique and seen the funny side.

  For a few minutes they fussed with plates of cake and cups of tea and then Mrs Belmont grew sober. ‘This is a bad business,’ she said. ‘It was a bad business to start with and it can only get worse now that the poor girl has been found dead, all over again. I was dreadfully shocked when the local police came to tell me. What on earth has happened here? I’m not sure how much I can tell you because that weekend we were away from home, but Eliza was here. Our daughter Elizabeth,’ she explained.

  As though on cue the door opened and a young woman came in. She was, Mickey judged. about nineteen or twenty, long limbed and with shingled hair, but her smile was very much like her mother’s. She helped herself to coffee and cake and sat down opposite Mickey, looking at him with interest. He assumed she too knew all about the cricket and the sailing.

  ‘As I said, Eliza was here that weekend. The police questioned her of course, albeit briefly, but anything we can do to help—’

  ‘Not that there’s a lot I can tell you,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I was here, but I didn’t see them leave. I heard about it afterwards. The truth is Faun Moran was a flighty sort of girl. She liked the young men, and they liked her, but there was no harm in her. She just liked fun. She would set her cap at somebody or other, some young man, run around like a thing possessed for a while, assuring everybody that she was in love with them, and then a week or two later she’d be on to someone else. She was too, too frustrating at times, and the boys would get upset with her, but I don’t think she ever meant harm.’

  ‘And Malcolm Everson, was he her latest interest?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Well, that weekend he seemed to be. It wouldn’t have lasted, of course, and Mal was the last person to take her seriously – he was well aware of the game. He’s a nice boy, it’s all been too bad for him. It’s all been frightful. He is still not recovered, you know.’ There was a warning tone to her voice, something protective, Mickey thought.

  ‘We will be trying to see him, of course,’ Mickey said, and saw her scowl.

  ‘Good luck with that,’ she said. ‘Even his closest, closest friends have been kept at bay. The family have been so protective of him. Of course the poor boy was distraught.’

  ‘He had been drinking,’ Mickey reminded her gently. ‘I’m sure he feels responsible.’

  A moue of discontent joined the scowl on the pretty face. ‘He had been drinking, but not to excess. We’ve talked about this and it’s something we don’t understand. He had a champagne cocktail when he arrived and perhaps two drinks after that, but Mal was never a big drinker, not like the rest of us.’ She glanced towards her mother who was looking at her disapprovingly and then glanced away. ‘And that was over several hours.’

  ‘I’m told some of his friends tried to dissuade him from driving, that they believed that he had drunk too much.’ Henry this time.

  ‘What friends? You tell me who said that. As far as I’m concerned hardly anyone knew they were leaving anyway. I passed them in the hall and they said they were going for a drive. Mal seemed perfectly sober. Our friend Ginny Greaves saw them straight after that and she said they just seemed in high spirits. The local police came and put a few questions to our guests but if you ask me they were just going through the motions. They saw a crashed car, knew that the occupants had been at a house party and just drew their own conclusions. That Scotland Yard detective that was sent here, he didn’t even come up to the house.’

  Mickey nodded. That did not surprise him. The report on the crash itself had been scant and lacking in detail, it was evident that Shelton had been simply doing the minimum required. ‘And would they have had the car brought round the front of the house for them?’ Mickey remembered that their chauffeur had suggested the lady of the house did not like cars parked out on the gravel for longer than necessary.

  ‘It would have been easier for them to have gone round to the yard, so I expect that is what they did,’ Eliza said. ‘Quicker too. We park visitors’ cars in the old stable yard; the horses, although we only have three left, live in the new stable block. I expect they went round the back, through the French doors in the dining room, collected the car a
nd went from there.’

  ‘And you are certain that this was the impulse of the moment?’ Henry asked her.

  ‘Of course, what else could it have been? Mal said that Faun fancied a drive and so he was going to take her for a quick spin. Those were his exact words; believe me, I have been over and over this many, many times.’

  ‘I’m certain that you have,’ Henry said. ‘So would you be surprised that they had a picnic basket and two overnight bags in the boot of their car? This would suggest that the young couple planned to stop for a picnic, and then perhaps to spend the night elsewhere.’

  ‘And what do you mean by that, Inspector Johnstone?’ Mrs Belmont objected. ‘Faun may have had a reputation for being a little wild, and undoubtedly she flirted far too readily, but she was never fast. These were respectable young people.’

  ‘A picnic basket? Overnight bags? But that makes no sense.’ Eliza’s expression was puzzled now.

  ‘And yet these items were in the boot of the car. They were found at the scene.’

  Both women looked completely shocked, though Mickey suspected for quite different reasons. He glanced across at his boss, willing him to shut up for a moment or two, and then said more gently, ‘If they had wanted a picnic basket made up, would they have been able to obtain one from the kitchen? Would your cook remember?’

  ‘If she was asked for one, of course,’ Mrs Belmont said. ‘But most regular visitors to the house would know where the baskets are kept, and believe me, the party was well catered. They could have packed their own basket from the food on the buffet tables without needing to bother any of the servants. It would not be the first time,’ she added with a tone of disapproval in her voice that led Mickey to wonder what adventures had previously arisen from such picnics.

  ‘And where are the picnic baskets kept?’ Mickey asked. ‘Someone might have seen them taking a basket and packing a picnic.’

  ‘There’s a little cupboard, between the main hall and the butler’s stairs. There are maybe a half-dozen picnic baskets, stirrup cups, even a portable gramophone – they are all kept in there. But as mother says, anyone visiting the house on a regular basis would know that and both Faun and Mal were regular guests.’ Eliza looked slightly uneasily at her mother as she said this and Mickey suspected that Mrs Belmont probably did not know how regular and perhaps only had a vague idea of the frequency of her children’s parties.

  ‘Do you know what happened to the wreckage of the car and to the other belongings once they were taken from the scene?’ Henry asked.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Mrs Belmont replied to him.

  ‘I think Mal’s family might’ve arranged for the car to be taken away, but I don’t know what happened to it after that. It was a terrible business, Inspector.’ Elizabeth turned her face earnestly towards the police officers as though wanting to emphasize just how difficult the whole affair had been.

  ‘And now this,’ her mother said. ‘What a terrible business, what a terrible, terrible business.’

  The chauffeur who had brought them from the station gave them a tour of the stable yard and explained how the dozen cars would have been parked in and around the yard. He remembered that Mr Everson’s car had been somewhere close to the middle of the line. ‘Mr Everson would have had no problems reversing and manoeuvring to get the car out,’ he said. ‘He was a very good driver. It was a terrible shock for everyone, what happened.’

  ‘And do you remember anything about that weekend that might help us?’ Mickey asked.

  The chauffeur shook his head. ‘Some of the guests arrived by car, bringing their friends with them, and others I collected from the station. But apart from that I had little to do with the visitors that weekend.’

  He drove them to the station shortly after, and Henry sat in the car examining the list of guests, caterers, musicians and dancers who had been present. It was not an exhaustive list, the Belmont women had warned him. Some people had only stayed for a short time; others had been houseguests over the entire weekend.

  Mickey sat with his eyes closed visualizing the layout of the house, the drive, the stable yard and the direction that the chauffeur suggested Malcolm Everson might have taken as they left the grounds. ‘They would have been invisible to everyone from the house,’ he said, ‘from the moment they rounded the corner of the building and entered the stable yard. But what puzzles me is why go out through the front entrance when, as Elizabeth Belmont explained to us, they could have gone from the dining room and through the French doors at the rear of the building and then into the stable yard. According to the original report, such as it is, several guests noticed them leaving through the front entrance. However, no one mentioned them carrying luggage, or a picnic basket, which suggests to me that they had loaded the car first and then made a very public exit through the front of the house, wishing to be seen as they left.’

  ‘Telling anybody that they did meet with that Faun Moran had expressed a wish for a quick spin in the car,’ Henry agreed.

  ‘So, were they lovers? Was their relationship much closer than anybody suspected? Was there another reason for them leaving the party?’

  ‘Perhaps we will learn more at the scene of the accident,’ Henry speculated. ‘And then we need to discover where the car was taken to after the event. If the family arranged for it to be taken away then something must have happened to it after that. Was it taken to a scrapyard? Was it stored somewhere?’

  Mickey nodded. ‘And where did the rumours start that young Everson was drunk, I wonder? He claims to remember nothing, according to the information we have, and he was certainly in no fit state to be tested or examined when they found him at the scene. Elizabeth Belmont is probably correct. The assumption of drunkenness was probably made at the site of the crash, put in the report and not questioned further. The young man had been attending a party, a party that had gone on for a full weekend, ergo he must have been drunk.’

  ‘A simple and logical assumption to have made,’ Henry agreed. ‘You and I both know that simple and logical assumptions are not always factual. So far Mickey, there is nothing in this case that is simple or logical or factual for that matter. Each time we think we have grasped a fact it slips through our fingers like sand.’

  It does indeed, Mickey thought, but at least he and Henry were now examining the facts together, and he found that a great comfort.

  SEVEN

  Afternoon found them travelling in yet another car, this time with a police driver, Constable Burton, and heading towards the scene of the accident, some five miles from the Belmonts’ house. The road rose up into the hills, the land dropping off steeply, through landscape that was heavily wooded, and Henry assumed this was in part to keep the land from slipping. There were somewhat disturbing signs of winter landslides having swept the trees away and, so the driver told them, these had already closed the road on three or four occasions that winter.

  He pulled the car on to a narrow grass verge and told them that the crash site was around the next bend, but there was nowhere to park the car any closer. He then led them to where, even six months on, it was obvious that something large had hurtled off the road and down the hillside.

  ‘Did you attend the accident?’ Henry asked.

  ‘I did indeed, sir.’ Constable Burton nodded. ‘We had the devil’s own time getting the bodies up and the car was brought up in pieces, so I’m told. I’d gone by that time but Fred Birch from the local garage brought a winch down.’ He hesitated and then said, ‘It’s on the way to Carter’s farm. I took the liberty of asking Fred if we could pop in after we’ve visited the site of the accident. I thought you might find it useful to have a word.’

  ‘That was a good thought,’ Henry approved. ‘Local knowledge is always useful.’ He saw the man relax and caught Mickey’s quick smile. Henry knew that he was not always adept at saying the right thing. He knew too that local constabularies were often quite resentful of outsiders from London coming in and taking over. But both Henry and Mick
ey knew that local knowledge was absolutely essential and were never too proud to acknowledge that fact.

  Henry struggled with the scramble down the slope. His left arm was still lacking strength and the jolting over rough ground hurt his shoulder abominably. He gritted his teeth, clung to the undergrowth as best he could with his right hand and was grateful that he was wearing heavy boots with a good grip on the tread. Mickey and the constable reached the bottom of the hill ahead of him, and Henry arrived to find that the constable was explaining that the car had ended up resting in a small rocky stream that ran the length of the valley floor.

  Henry glanced back the way they had come, dreading the climb on their return to the road. He would, he knew, be completely done in by the end of the day. Already the fatigue was so overwhelming that he could have sat on the nearest fallen tree and gone to sleep.

  ‘So what was the position of the car?’ Mickey was asking. ‘I understood that it was upside down in the stream.’

  Constable Burton shook his head. ‘No, it had come to rest at a kind of angle, half keeled over so …’ He picked up a stick and drew in the mud. ‘It was not completely tipped, though it was clear it had rolled a few times. The young man had already been taken off to the hospital by the time I arrived. The young lady was still half in the front seat; her ankle seemed to have become wedged and that had held her in place.’

  ‘I’d give my right arm for some photographs,’ Mickey said with feeling.

  The constable looked puzzled. ‘Photographs were taken, sir,’ he said.

  ‘And have subsequently been mislaid,’ Henry told him. ‘Was the car still alight when you saw it?’

  Constable Burton shook his head and glanced uncomfortably at Henry. ‘I don’t want to speak out of turn, sir, especially not against the man – the inspector what came here. I know he is an expert, sir, but none of it seemed right, if you know what I mean.’