The Temptation

by Vera Morris

  This room was too tidy, it told him nothing. Was it exactly as David left it? He strolled to a large window which overlooked the back of the house: expanses of lawn, a tennis court and a rectangular pond with a stone statue of Neptune, complete with trident, overlooking the sterile water. Certainly superior to Dorothy’s dolphin burping green slime in front of Greyfriars House, but not as much fun or character.

  He took a camera from his briefcase and started to photograph the room and the view from the window. He hadn’t asked permission to do this as he didn’t want to be refused. He’d found photographs useful when the team were discussing cases. Often one of them saw something the photographer hadn’t noticed, and it also gave all the team a better understanding of the case. He wasn’t the world’s best photographer, Laurel was much better, but at least he was one step ahead of Stuart Elderkin. He’d produced some extraordinary snaps: views of people’s feet, clouds in the sky and once a reflection of himself in a shop window.

  He frowned; Stuart and Mabel’s relationship seemed to have hit a sticky patch. Marriage plans were on hold and although Mabel had moved into Greyfriars House to take over the catering, Stuart hadn’t yet let his bungalow.

  Frank was fond of them and although the detective agency could work without one, or both of them, it would be a pity if the team broke up. It had seemed ideal when Dorothy, Stuart and Mabel had proposed they should be part of the agency, with Dorothy as secretary as well as providing Greyfriars as their base, Stuart as another detective, and Mabel looking after all of them. The bonds they’d formed during the Nicholson case had shaped them into the perfect team.

  He refocused on the room. All the furniture was made of a pale wood: maple? ash? He started his search by opening drawers in a chest to the right of the door. The top drawer was full of socks, all neatly paired; light cotton summer socks, mostly white, arranged to the right, and to the left winter woollen socks, black, brown and grey. No pair of socks looked old and worn, no sign of baggy edges round the ankles or darned heels. Could these socks belong to a thirteen-year-old boy? No, a devoted and obsessive mother presented this drawer to the world.

  The second drawer held underwear, pants and vests, cotton and wool, and to the right a pile of handkerchiefs, all in apple-pie order. He couldn’t believe the content of these drawers reflected the boy’s personality. If they did there was nothing to get hold off.

  The third drawer contained jumpers, neatly folded, a layer of tissue paper between each garment. Soft grey lamb’s wool, a deep maroon crew neck, a beige V-neck; these weren’t the clothes of a young boy; they were the week-end wear of a bank manager. Where was the colour a child would revel in? He still had his yellow Snoopy sweater, with ‘To dance is to live and to live is to dance’ printed on the back. He’d still wear it, but it had shrunk, or he’d muscled up. Where was the fun in this room?

  He opened the wardrobe and brushed his hand through clothes on hangers. More of the same: boring trousers, jackets, suits, shirts and ties. Where were the jeans? The t-shirts? The track suits? A row of sensible shoes and boots, neatly arranged on a rack, some with shoe-trees, were at the bottom of the wardrobe. These were the clothes of a middle-aged man, a dull middle-aged man, not a teenager. Poor kid, did he get a chance to express himself? He remembered creating havoc at home when he was David’s age by using his birthday money to buy a mock-leather jacket and skin-tight jeans. His father had sworn at him and threatened castration if he ever appeared in public dressed in ‘those hooligan clothes’. He thought he looked cool and tried unsuccessfully to comb his curly hair into a DA

  ‘What kind of hair-cut is that?’ his dad had asked

  ‘It’s a DA.’

  ‘What’s a DA?’

  ‘A duck’s arse,’ he replied.

  ‘You’re the arse, if you ask me.’

  Parents!

  This search was getting him nowhere, except he realised the boy was controlled by his parents, at least regarding his clothes.

  Under the window was a desk: large, modern, matching the other pale wood furniture. A narrow top drawer took up the entire length of the desk with three smaller drawers on each side of a knee-hole. A short easel sat on the top.

  Frank opened the top drawer. There were drawings, piles of them, mostly in pencil, some in pen and ink. He carefully pulled them out and laid them on top of the desk. All were well drawn, beautiful in their execution; scenes of town and city buildings, modern skyscrapers, eighteenth-century coaching inns, street scenes with buses and cars, shop fronts, department stores and country scenes of thatched cottages, tiled houses with plaster work on the walls and the spires and towers of churches. The workmanship was sophisticated, the detail obsessive and minute. He thought he could discern, by the increasing control of the pencil, the later works from those David had drawn at a younger age. He took a few snaps of those drawings he liked best. Laurel would be interested in this aspect of David. Had she ever taught or known a child with such talents? This might make her more willing to try and forget her natural antipathy to any case connected to children or schools. He hoped so. Also, there was something else: the drawings were obviously from the same hand; he was sure he’d recognise David’s work if he met it again, just as he’d recognise the work of Turner. He bit his lip. Was that too strong? He didn’t think so. The beige sweaters and the brogues didn’t match this outpouring of talent.

  He sat on a chair in front of the desk, sifting through the drawings, looking for …? He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Something that would leap from the thick, cream paper and say: this isn’t right, this is suspicious, or this poses a question. Why did he run away? Why was he afraid to go back to the school? Did he run away? All he saw was an incredible talent, but nothing in the lines of buildings, churches and houses raised alarm, only admiration for the skill of the young boy.

  He opened the top right-hand drawer: pencils, row after row of pencils; all carefully gradated according to the hardness of the graphite. Long thin pencils, sharpened to points as fine as the end of a darning needle, to short fat pencils, the graphite ends soft for shading. A wave of sadness and melancholy washed over him. When he was a boy at school, the art master had given each pupil three pencils of varying hardness, they were to choose a partner and try to sketch their likeness using only the three pencils. Nothing else was needed. He showed them drawings he’d done of some of them, using only the same three pencils, and asked them if they recognised their classmates. This aroused instant excitement and as the master held up each portrait in turn there was loud shouts, laughter and the red-faced boy, the subject of the portrait, squirmed in his seat. The last portrait was Frank’s. There were gasps, no laughter, just muttering. Frank could see the boy in the portrait was him. He was scowling, the knot of his tie loose, the mouth full-lipped, sulky, eyelids half closed, with thick lashes framing his eyes. The master had coloured in his irises, the only colour used in all the portraits of the boys. The emerald eyes seemed obscene, staring directly at you. He’d been shocked by the portrait. He didn’t recognise himself. It was like him, but not him.

  The art master put away the sketches. ‘Well, there you have it, boys. You can see how with a limited range of pencils, you can produce sketches that are recognisable.’ They split into pairs and spent the rest of the lesson either acting as the subject or as the artist. Frank couldn’t remember who he partnered, or if they had any success, but his memory of his portrait remained with him. It was hard being a teenager: wanting to break away from parents, school, conventions, but not having the independence to do anything about it. How much more difficult for a teenager with problems like David? Little blighter had the balls to run away when he didn’t want to go back to his school. Or perhaps he didn’t want to stay at home and be controlled by his parents? Be a teenager again? No way. A mass of insecurity, not knowing who you are, full of sexual urges and the lust for adventure but having neither the means nor the know-how to fulfil them.

  He opened the second drawer down: pe
ns and nibs, bottles of ink, mostly black but a few coloured inks: red, green, and brown. Also erasers. This search was getting him nowhere, except to reawaken memories of his own teenage years. The bottom right hand drawer contained neatly folded cloths, some ink-stained. He rummaged below them, but there was zilch. His shoulders were tight with frustration. There was nothing to get hold of, no clue to David’s personality or to the reason for his disappearance.

  He shrugged his shoulders and wriggled in the seat, trying to release stiffness and tension. His spirits sinking, he turned to the left side of the desk. The drawers were full of more sketches, but smaller than those in the central top drawer. He carefully lifted them out and examined each one in turn, looking again for any clues, anything which he thought unusual. They were mostly drawings of parts of buildings: a few stone steps and iron railings, a chimney pot, a brick pathway leading to a wooden gate, a Georgian front door, with a lion mask knocker. He sifted through them, replacing them one by one in the drawer. Nothing. He glanced at his wrist watch. He’d been in the room nearly an hour. Carol was bound to appear soon, demanding to know what he’d found. The answer would be absolutely nothing, except her son was obsessively neat and tidy and lived in a room more suited to a middle-aged bachelor or a monk.

  He wandered back to the window, looking out but not seeing the garden and pond. He tried to imagine he was David: dominated by his parents, over-protected by his mother, a disappointment to his father. A secretive boy, keeping his thoughts and desires to himself. His passion: art. He soaked up the outside world, retaining images within his brain and releasing them in an explosion of pencil on to paper. What must he feel if everything in his life was pored over by his mother, nothing was private, no part of his life was entirely his own? Every child has secrets from their parents, things they don’t want them to know. Something they might be ashamed off but desperately want to do: smoke a sneaky cigarette with their friends, enjoy a solitary wank over a picture of a topless model, a thousand-calorie chocolate bar on the way to school, or a hot date with the school tart. What girls did in their teenage years he wasn’t too sure of, he’d have to ask Laurel; he was sure she’d give him a comprehensive list from both her own experience and from all the girls she’d taught.

  What were David’s secrets? He might have had some at his boarding school, but here? He’d have to hide them. Where? In this room? He turned back from the window and viewed the room from a fresh perspective. What would David want to hide? Where could he hide it?

  He took off his leather jacket and hung it on the chair in front of the desk. He’d have to be quick and thorough. He didn’t want Carol catching him taking the bedroom apart. He took his jacket off the chair, threw it on the bed and put the back of the chair under the door handle. He’d wriggle out of that one if he had to.

  He took a torch from his briefcase and started with the wardrobe. Pushing clothes aside he tapped on the panels, listening for hollow sounds and shone the torch beam over them. Nothing. He moved to the chest of drawers, pulling all the drawers out and exploring the carcass of the chest, the back and the undersides. Nothing.

  He put the drawers back and used the same technique for the desk. Nothing. He caught a glimpse of his face in the wardrobe mirror: red and sweaty. He turned to the bed, a single divan covered in a pale blue silk eiderdown. Just the thing for a teenage boy! He folded it back over his jacket and felt under the mattress. Nothing. The lower part of the bed was a storage area accessed by pulling out a drawer by silver handles. The cavernous drawer was empty. He pulled it out as far as it would go and lying on the floor shone the light of the torch onto the underside of the bed. Neatly stuck to it was a bulging envelope about fourteen by twenty inches. His heart beat quickened as he leant across the drawer and peeled off the tape. The envelope dropped into his hand. He quickly got up, pushed back the drawer and remade the bed. He looked at his wrist watch. He’d been in the room well over an hour. There was no way he could examine the contents and not be disturbed. He didn’t want Carol to find him doing that. It might contain evidence if the case turned serious. He shoved the envelope into his briefcase. If necessary, he’d have to put it back. He took the chair from the door, put on his jacket and wiped his face with a handkerchief, trying to bottle up the excitement racing through his body. What was in the envelope?

  Chapter 4

  ‘You think Clara is trying to murder your brother?’ Laurel repeated. ‘Are you sure?’ She wished she hadn’t taken up Dorothy’s request to talk to Nancy Wintle. ‘That’s a very serious charge.’

  Nancy’s face wrinkled, distress making her look like a walnut. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? I knew no one would believe me.’

  Nancy’s genuine misery and the hopelessness in her voice made Laurel reach out and take Nancy’s hand in hers. ‘Please don’t think that, Nancy. I’m shocked, I must admit, but please tell me everything you can. Why do you think Clara is trying to kill your brother, her husband?’

  Nancy’s face relaxed, but her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. ‘Thank you. I’ve been trying to pluck up courage to tell someone, I’ve nearly told Dorothy many times. Now I’ve come to a point when I’d rather everyone thinks I’m as mad as a hatter rather than do nothing. If Sam died and I’d not tried to help him, I’d never be able to live with myself.’ She withdrew her hand from Laurel’s. ‘I need a drink, and I don’t mean tea.’ She went to the sideboard, opened a cupboard door and took out a bottle of Scotch and two cut-glass tumblers. ‘Can I tempt you?’

  Laurel usually drank her whisky as a nightcap, but she could see the label on the bottle was Glenlivet. ‘You can. With some water if possible.’

  Nancy went to the kitchen and returned with a jug of water, and soon they were opposite each other again.

  ‘Your health,’ Nancy said, raising her glass containing two fingers of liquid, none of it water.

  ‘And yours.’ Laurel sipped the Scotch, rolling it round her mouth before letting it trickle down her throat. The drink had been a good idea: Nancy looked more relaxed. ‘When you’re ready, Nancy. Can you tell me when you first suspected something was wrong?’

  Nancy placed her glass on the floor and went over to the sideboard.

  Not a refill already?

  She picked up two silver-framed photos, sat down and passed one to Laurel. ‘This is a photograph of my wedding day. Sam is next to me.’

  It was a black-and-white photograph: Nancy slim and pretty, with blonde hair and a happy smile, gazing up at her new husband, James Wintle, a tall, serious-looking man who looked tenderly at his bride. On the other side of Nancy was a lanky teenager, a good-looking boy with thick blond hair and a wide smile. Samuel Harrop, looking happy for his sister.

  ‘You were a lovely bride and your brother was a good-looking boy. Is he still handsome?’

  Nancy frowned. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  What does that mean? She didn’t ask her to elaborate – not yet, and passed the photo back to Nancy who gave her the other one.

  ‘This is one taken, oh, a few years ago. It’s Sam and Clara.’

  Against a background of a pebble beach and a calm sea, Sam, still recognisable as the boy in the previous photograph, stood by a tall woman. There was a space between them as they faced the camera, arms by their sides. Sam’s hair was still thick, but the coloured photo showed there was more silver than blond; the charming smile was present. He looked the kind of surgeon who’d put his patients at ease. His wife’s brown hair was fashionably styled, her grey suit well-cut and her expression enigmatic. The face of a future murderer?

  Nancy picked up her glass and took another swallow. One finger down and one to go.

  ‘Tell me about Sam as a boy, before you got married. Were you always close?’

  Nancy smiled. ‘Our mother died soon after Sam was born. I was five. Helping to look after him helped me cope with her loss. We had a nursemaid, but I enjoyed helping to bathe, feed, and play with him. I’d rush back home after school to be with him. I can s
ee him now, lying in his cot; he’d wave his arms when I came in. I’ve always loved him.’ Her voice wavered.

  ‘Dorothy said he went to London, to university and didn’t come back to Aldeburgh much.’

  Nancy’s lips disappeared as she sucked them in, as though she was biting back the words she wanted to say.

  ‘What is it, Nancy? Is there something else about Sam and Clara you find difficult to deal with? I do need to know everything that may be relevant if I’m to help you.’

  Nancy took a deep breath and her body quivered. ‘There’s something about Sam I’ve never told anyone before, but I think it may be the reason she’s … trying to get rid of him.’

  The anguish in her eyes was alarming. Laurel nodded. ‘I’m not here to judge Sam. If you want me to take this further, I’ll only pass on this information to the others if I think it’s relevant to the case.’

  Nancy wiped her eyes. ‘I couldn’t bear it if everyone knew … and Sam would hate me. Everyone looks up to Sam. If this became general knowledge his reputation would be destroyed. Would Dorothy have to know?’

  This was getting difficult. ‘Dorothy’s part of the firm. You know she’s discreet.’

  ‘I know; I’d trust her not to say anything; but I’d find it difficult to face her.’

  What has Sam done? Something to do with his days as a surgeon?