Island-in-Waiting

by Anthea Fraser

  “I wasn’t!” I said meekly.

  After a few breathless minutes he looked at his watch. “Hell and damnation – Lower Sixth Greek in five minutes! Darling, I’ll have to go. It’s anybody’s guess what those boys will be taught this afternoon! Promise me faithfully that you’ll take care. I’ll be round about five and perhaps we’ll be able to discuss things more calmly then.”

  I backed Martha’s little car out of the farm track and drove the few yards to the college gates. Then, having dropped Neil, I turned in the direction of Ballacarrick, my mind such a jumble of joy and fear that I gave up all attempt at logical thought. Which was probably why, seeing the telephone kiosk opposite the village school, I decided not to waste a moment longer in contacting Inspector Quiggin with my report about the lighter. In any case, it would be easier to explain without Martha listening in the background, full of questions.

  It was after four by now, and the school was emptying rapidly, children hurrying out of the yard and along the road in search of tea and the telly. Two minutes later I was speaking over the wires to the inspector.

  “Mr Sheppard’s lighter, you say?”

  “Yes, but he lost it ten days ago. He can prove that – there was a notice on the board about it. I just assumed it was Ray’s, but now that I think of it he always used matches. And, Inspector, there’s something else. I’m not sure if you’ll believe me. Perhaps, as a Manxman, you just might.”

  “Another of your warning dreams, is it?”

  “No, not this time. I can’t really explain over the phone.” Standing in my bright little capsule, I was suddenly aware of the swift approach of darkness, the now deserted school looming on my left. Belatedly I remembered my promise to go straight home.

  “Very well, Miss Winter, if you think it’s important I’ll be with you in about twenty minutes.” The phone clicked in my ear. I put down the receiver and pushed my way out of the kiosk. Alongside me, hardly distinguishable in the deep shadow thrown by the school wall, the guy still lolled in his barrow, patiently awaiting his conflagration.

  As I took a step forward a sudden explosion close at hand jerked me to a standstill. Up into the darkening sky shot the white streak of a rocket which hung poised for a moment before cascading into a shower of brightly coloured stars. Someone apparently couldn’t wait till the fifth of November.

  Coloured stars! My involuntary movement brought me up against the barrow and the huddled form of the guy toppled slowly sideways. Automatically, my mind a riot of conjecture, I bent to straighten him and found myself staring with glazed eyes at a human hand which hung lifelessly down from the shabby black sleeve.

  As Granny Clegg had promised, I had found Ray.

  Eighteen

  I seemed to have been standing for ever in that colour-streaked darkness while fireworks burst all round me, spattering their garish red and green light on the dusty black figure in the barrow. Finally, with a supreme effort I uprooted my feet and, abandoning the car, set off at a shambling run along the dark lane to the cottage.

  Martha had only just managed to decipher my hiccupping sobs when Inspector Quiggin arrived in response to the phone call. After that, police procedure slipped smoothly into gear. The inspector went back to the kiosk to await the arrival of his colleagues and Martha sat me down in Hugo’s chair and held a glass of brandy to my shaking lips. The inspector had still not returned when Hugo and Neil arrived, commenting on the flurry of activity at the end of the lane.

  Briefly Martha explained what had happened and I turned away from the horror on their faces. Neil gripped my hands. “Darling, what possessed you to stop at the phone box? The last thing I impressed on you was to come straight home.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Whatever my motive had been, subsequent events had erased it from my memory.

  Hugo said jerkily, “It just doesn’t make sense. What was the point of going to all the trouble of removing the body, only to leave it where it’s bound to be discovered within the next few days? Surely it would have been much simpler to have left him where he was.”

  “It might have been a delaying tactic,” Neil suggested, “or perhaps it was only meant as a temporary measure and he intended to move him again when he got the chance. We can hardly expect whoever did it to have been thinking rationally.”

  A few minutes later Inspector Quiggin returned, accompanied by the grim-faced sergeant. “Now, Miss Winter, are you feeling better?”

  “A little, thank you.”

  “Then I’d like you to answer some questions as fully as you can. To go back to the beginning, where’s that cigarette lighter?”

  He held out a clean handkerchief to receive it. “If you’ve been carrying it around all this time I’m afraid there’s very little chance of fingerprints. A pity; it could have been a vital clue if you’d left it where it was.”

  “I didn’t know then that anything had happened.”

  “I appreciate that. Now, sir.” He turned to Neil. “Have you any idea where or when you lost it?”

  “I’m afraid not. I don’t smoke regularly so I didn’t miss it straight away.”

  “When do you last remember using it?”

  “I know I had it at the Quayles’s dinner party.”

  “That would be Mr and Mrs Quayle of Mona Lodge?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Nearly a fortnight ago now. The twenty-first, I think it was. I missed it the following weekend and put a notice up on the Monday morning.”

  “Were any other guests there that evening?”

  “We were,” Hugo put in. “The three of us. That’s all.”

  “Right. Well, we’ll need Mr Sheppard’s prints and Miss Winter’s, for elimination purposes.”

  “And Mrs Clegg’s,” I said. “She handled it, too.”

  “The Granny?” The inspector looked at me sharply.

  “When did you see her?”

  “This afternoon. I wanted to ask her where Ray was.”

  “Oh, Chloe, really!” Hugo began, but the inspector raised his hand.

  “Go on, Miss Winter. What did she tell you?”

  “That I’d find him beneath the coloured stars.” They all stared at me blankly. “As I came out of the telephone box someone started letting off rockets. It suddenly struck me that they were coloured stars, and that was when I – knocked against the barrow.”

  “My God!” said Neil softly.

  “Did she say anything else? Anything-” the inspector’s mouth twitched – “that as a Manxman I might be able to accept?”

  “She went into a trance,” I said expressionlessly, “and – and played back Ray’s last words, to his murderer.”

  There was total silence. Then the inspector said with an effort, “I presume no names were mentioned?”

  “No. He just said, ‘What the hell do you want?’”

  “He? Don’t you mean Mrs Clegg?”

  “It was Ray’s voice,” I said in a whisper.

  “Did you hear the other one?”

  “No.” I shuddered. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  “What else was said?”

  “Something like ‘I wouldn’t have said anything’.”

  “But not what about?”

  “‘Inclinations’, I think he said. I suppose it was some of Ray’s usual scandalmongering.”

  The sergeant was writing assiduously in his notebook, his impassive face betraying no flicker of what he thought of mediums and their ways.

  “It doesn’t narrow the field much. We always assumed the motive was to silence him. Anything else?”

  “He said he wasn’t alone, that I was there.”

  “That’s what I’ve been afraid of all along,” Martha said in a low voice.

  “The painting itself was a give-away,” Hugo pointed out.

  “Not necessarily. It might have been someone who didn’t know her, but not if he spoke of her by name.”

  “If it was someone who kne
w her as Chloe, it more or less brings it down to St. Olaf’s,” Neil said flatly.

  “But it can’t!” I burst out. “We know them all! How could one of them be a murderer?”

  The inspector smiled wryly. “Unfortunately murderers aren’t a race apart, Miss Winter. It would be much easier for us if they were. Usually they’re just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives who for some reason or other are suddenly pushed too far. It’s as simple as that, the line dividing them from the rest of us. That, and the grace of God.”

  His eyes went round our strained faces and he cleared his throat. “Of course, we must remember that Granny Clegg’s trances, realistic as they may seem would hardly count as evidence in a court of law. They’re a guideline, nothing more. Now, to return to your discovery of the body, Miss Winter. Was that the first time you’d noticed the guy?”

  “No, I saw it several times when I was with Ray.” ‘I always feel sorry for him,’ Ray had said.

  “The boys from the village have been trundling it round for a week or more to raise money for fireworks,” Hugo confirmed. “How long do you think –?”

  “I imagine the switch was made on the night of the murder, sir. If our man waited until it was dark, he would just have had time before rigor mortis set in. That’s assuming Mr Kittering was killed straight away. The path lab will be confirming the time of death.”

  Without Granny’s clue the gruesome disguise might have remained undetected for a while longer; perhaps, I thought shudderingly, until the village children had tried to haul the supposedly straw figure on to their bonfire.

  As though reading my mind, Neil said quietly, “Thank God they didn’t decide to take the barrow round this week.”

  So the questions went on, routine and repetitive, and I tried to fasten my attention on them in order to hold at bay the appalling memory which was lying in wait for me. But at last the sergeant closed his notebook and the two policemen rose to their feet.

  “Miss Winter, I want you to ensure that when you leave this house you have someone with you at all times. If you have to stay here alone, don’t under any circumstances let anyone in. Anyone at all,” he repeated emphatically, “however well you may think you know them. And if anyone contacts you and tries to arrange a meeting, get in touch with us at once. I think that’s all for the moment. Thank you all for your co-operation. Let’s hope that now we have the body, the whole unpleasant business can be cleared up without too much delay.”

  “Unless you come to college with me, you’ll be alone most of the time,” Martha said worriedly as the policemen left. “I’ve been asked to go in full-time until they find a replacement for Ray.”

  “With the doors securely locked, she’s probably safer here than she would be at college,” Hugo said grimly.

  “I don’t see why I should be in more danger now than I was on Saturday,” I commented. “I should be safer, since the inspector’s no doubt got all of you under surveillance.”

  “Good grief, do you think so? That’s quite a thought! I’ll have to watch my step!” Hugo winked at me, while Martha pretended not to see.

  “Whether you imagine you’re safe or not,” Neil said sternly, “you do exactly as the inspector says, do you hear? Let’s hope this time you really have learned your lesson.”

  I remembered his words the next morning when I stood at the kitchen window watching Hugo and Martha drive off to college. Martha had promised to slip back for lunch. Apart from that, the lonely hours stretched unrelieved until five o’clock: a long time when, despite my bravado, I found my ears were constantly on the alert for approaching footsteps.

  By the time Martha returned for lunch my nerves were in shreds and I’d decided that the lesser evil would be to go back to college with her. When I suggested it, however, she sounded dubious.

  “It’s up to you, of course, but frankly I think you’re better here, if you can stick it. The atmosphere at college is absolutely appalling. Far from what you said to the inspector, I can easily imagine any one of them being the murderer.”

  I shivered. “I hope this won’t go on much longer. It’s a nightmare.”

  “At least things seem a lot better between you and Neil. Is it too early to ask if it’s serious?”

  “It’s not too early and it is serious. He wants us to be married as soon as this is all over.”

  She jumped up impulsively and kissed me. “That’s wonderful! I couldn’t be more pleased, especially as I was so afraid we’d spoiled things for you.” She pushed in her chair. “I’ll have to be getting back. Pass the time by making out a list of wedding presents!”

  It was starting to rain as she drove off and by three o’clock I had to switch the light on. I had already watched a television programme, read the paper and written to my parents, but none of these occupations had claimed more than a quarter of my attention. Whatever Martha said, I should accompany her the next day. I’d had more than enough of my solitary confinement.

  Across the room the telephone shrilled. Probably Neil checking up on me during break, I thought gladly. But it was Hugo’s voice that spoke in my ear. “There’s been a new development, love, and the inspector wants to see us straight away. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. O.K.?”

  “I suppose so. What’s happened, do you know?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you.”

  At least it would mean getting out of the house. I went to the bedroom for my mackintosh and, shrugging it on, returned to the sitting-room window to watch for the car.

  The rain was becoming heavier now, drumming on the gravel path and blotting out the hill. All the glorious colour was drained from the trees, leaving them dull and drab like the painting that had been all night in the rain. An incipient sadness seeped into me and I thought for the first time of Ray’s family, his sister, whose skirt still hung in my wardrobe, and his weary-faced old grandmother who had suffered a double tragedy in the last two weeks, Ray’s death following swiftly on that of Tom Kelly.

  I was roused from my reverie by the sound of the car. It made a U-turn to face the main road again and drew to a halt just beyond the gate. I picked up my bag and hurried out, pulling the door shut behind me. The garden gate was cold and wet beneath my fingers and I was wiping them on my mack as I ran to the car and slid inside.

  “Well, what’s all the panic?” I asked, reaching automatically for the seat belt. And without warning a tiny query zigzagged rapidly in my brain. Some minute difference in the mechanism of the belt, and between one moment and the next I was drenched in icy certainty. This, though almost identical, was not Hugo’s car. In the same split second we rocketed forward and I spun to see the tightly smiling face of Nicholas Quayle beside me.

  “You must forgive the deception, my dear,” he said in his precise voice. “I had a feeling you might not agree to meet me in my own right.” He took the corner on two wheels and I noted despairingly that he had turned not towards Ramsey and the safety of the police station, but in the direction of Ballaugh and the lonely, stretching curraghs.

  The last piece of the jigsaw fell effortlessly into place. I had known that the tall fair man, ambitious and frightened, was not Neil. By the same token I should have known it was Nicholas. Nicholas, who had the same model car as my brother, who was a brilliant mimic; Nicholas, who for so long had been under such an intolerable strain and at whose home Neil had mislaid his lighter. My mouth was arid.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the scene of the crime, Chloe, where else? Isn’t it accepted that the murderer always returns there?”

  “But-why?”

  He didn’t answer directly. “Old Granny Clegg told you where to find him, didn’t she? I’m afraid you must blame her for your present predicament. Truly, I’ve been bending over backwards to avoid hurting you, but when Vivian mentioned seeing you at the Cleggs’, I knew it was hopeless and of course my fears were confirmed an hour or so later, when the police mustered in force outside the village school. I wa
ited all evening for them to come and arrest me. I could hardly believe you hadn’t told them.”

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered sickly. “She didn’t say –”

  “I appreciate this must seem poor thanks for having spared me, but you see I’m too old not to be cynical. You’ve obviously been weighing up the pros and cons and I didn’t kill Ray just to start paying out to someone else.”

  “He was blackmailing you?”

  “It wasn’t even true,” he continued, as though I hadn’t spoken. “I swear to God I never laid hands on any boy in that way, nor wanted to. But I’ve been paying Ray twenty pounds a month since the beginning of term and he took that as confirmation of guilt. Of course it was stupid of me, but with the mainland appointment in the balance I couldn’t afford to take chances. The merest suspicion of such a charge would have wrecked everything and Vivian had set her heart on that appointment. But in spite of the money he was beginning to make hints. You heard him yourself. It wouldn’t have been long before people began to wonder.”

  Since the beginning of term; ‘Begun in September –’

  He expertly manoeuvred the speeding vehicle past a tractor. “Surely you agree that I was justified? I could hardly be expected to sit back and allow him to destroy me. And it wasn’t only myself; he was corroding the whole college. Believe me, there will be a lot of people breathing more easily now that he’s gone.”

  “But I’m not a threat to anyone!”

  “Unfortunately you are, since visiting the Cleggs yesterday. Why couldn’t you have let well alone? You’d have come to no harm.” There was anguish in his voice, and all the time the needle of the speedometer was flickering steadily upwards.

  “Of course,” he went on after a moment, “I’d intended to wait until he’d taken you home and then waylay him, but when I saw you go off alone – I’d been watching all morning through binoculars – it seemed too good a chance to miss. My car was parked out of sight round the far side of the hill and once he was dead it was a simple matter to push him over the steep face. That was for your sake, of course, to save you finding him. I believe I almost bumped into you on the way back. After you’d gone, it only took minutes to wrap him in tarpaulin and bundle him into the boot. I rather enjoyed making use of the guy – a suitably macabre touch.”