A Talent For Destruction

by Sheila Radley

  ‘And where does Alec Reynolds come into this?’

  She bit her lower lip in dismay. ‘Oh, poor Alec – the shock of Dad’s death made me completely forget what he’s been going through. He came here early this morning, after the news of Kevin Bedingfield’s death appeared in the local paper, and told me what had happened on Sunday night. He said that he was going to admit responsibility, but that he wouldn’t involve us in any way. I think that Dad probably overheard, and decided to make his own confession … oh God, what a tragedy it’s been.’

  Quantrill waited patiently while she wept again. Then he said, ‘But I still don’t understand why Alec Reynolds was being blackmailed.’

  ‘He wasn’t, that’s part of the tragedy. Kevin Bedingfield came to see me – I didn’t know his name at the time – when the newspaper publicity about Athol was at its height. He suggested, in quite a friendly way, that he thought my father knew something about it. He also told me that he was unemployed, and that his wife was pregnant, and I gave him some money without being asked. Just five pounds at first.’

  ‘And then he started to make a habit of coming?’

  ‘Yes, every week or ten days. It wasn’t at all alarming. He’d call for a chat, and show me his wedding photographs, but then he’d tell me how expensive everything was, and how difficult he found it to manage with the baby on the way, and I’d give him some more. He never once threatened me.’

  ‘Did you tell your husband?’

  ‘I couldn’t. Robin had been through so much. He had some kind of breakdown after Janey left, and then when he realized that you suspected him of murder he nearly cracked up completely. No, Kevin was my problem, not Robin’s. But I had to confide in someone, so I told Alec Reynolds. He pointed out that I was being blackmailed, and volunteered to frighten Kevin off.’

  ‘You knew the boy’s name by that time?’

  ‘He wouldn’t give me his surname, or his address. I didn’t want him to keep coming here, in case Robin suspected anything, so I asked him to suggest a meeting-place on the other side of the by-pass, where I wouldn’t be recognized. Alec went instead of me. I gave him some money to take as a final gift for Kevin’s family.’

  ‘It was found on his body. A hundred pounds?’

  ‘Yes, the last of my savings. Not that he’d asked for it. I sent it as conscience-money, I suppose. Dad had committed a dreadful crime with the intention of protecting me, and I was trying to assuage some of my guilt.’

  She fell silent. Then she said, ‘Dad really took to you, Mr Quantrill. And I did you an injustice when I spoke to you this morning, simply because I wanted to keep you away from him. He knew quite well that you were a policeman – his only confusion was about your rank. He’d have been tremendously pleased if you’d called to chat to him, in these last few weeks. I think he wanted to tell you about Athol’s death, and was trying to find a way of doing so without involving me.’

  ‘I felt sure that he could tell me something. But I didn’t talk to him solely for that reason, Mrs Ainger. I liked him, and I liked the way he spoke of you. He told me that he thought the world of you, and that he’d do anything for you.’

  ‘And so he did, poor foolish old man …’ A large tear slid down one of her cheeks, and she wiped it away with her fingers. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘There’ll be an inquest into his death, of course. But he didn’t give his name when he called to see me at the station this morning, so the only thing we have on record is your telephone call to say that he was missing.’

  ‘Thank you. But what are you going to do about Athol’s death?’

  ‘Nothing. That inquest has already been held, and the file has been closed. It would serve no useful purpose to have the verdict amended. I’ll simply put a note on the file, for the record.’

  She blew her nose. ‘I’m indebted to you, Mr Quantrill.’

  ‘Don’t be. In fact, I didn’t see your father this morning. He asked for me, but I said I was too busy, so he left me a message and went. If I’m not carrying out my duty to the letter now, it’s by way of apology to him.’

  Quantrill got up to go. ‘What you and your husband need now is a holiday,’ he said.

  ‘Probably. But we’ll soon be leaving Breckham Market for good. Even if none of this is made public, we’ve broken too many trusts to stay here. That’s why Robin is in Yarchester today, arranging for us to move to one of the livings in the city. It’s a poor parish, and the stipend is a good deal less than we’re getting here, but at least we’ll feel rather more anonymous. It’s a step down for Robin, but he’s given up the hopes he once had of high office.’

  ‘You’ll be missed in Breckham,’ said Quantrill, knowing it to be true. ‘You’ve both been thought of very highly.’

  Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘That’s just the point, isn’t it? We’ve been expected to live exemplary lives, and we seem to have succeeded in giving that impression. But look at the cost of our deception: Athol Garrity dead; Michael Dade dead; Kevin Bedingfield dead, his wife widowed at eighteen, his new-born baby fatherless; Alec Reynolds’s good name and career ruined; my father dead. And I blame myself, Mr Quantrill. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t insisted on making friends outside the parish.’

  ‘We can’t assume responsibility for other people’s actions,’ he told her briskly, ‘and no one could possibly blame you for wanting to extend your social circle. As I see it –’ he thought of Martin Tait’s description of the stunningly red-haired girl who had played the major part in the destructive process, ‘– your mistake was simply to have been so unguarded in your choice of friends.’

  Part 4 – New Hampshire, last fall

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  At Coburg College, a small private university set high in the hills of New Hampshire, the President was holding a reception for the Faculty, which on this occasion was extended to include graduate assistants.

  One of the new Faculty wives, whose husband had been appointed Professor of European History, sipped her glass of white wine and looked about her shyly. Mary-Jo Daubeny Brown was what the Edwardians would have recognized as a fine figure of a woman: five feet ten inches tall, almost exactly the same height as her husband, but more generous in both proportion and disposition. Among the crowds at Ohio State she had felt relatively inconspicuous, but here, in the rarefied air of Coburg, she had become self-conscious.

  Other Faculty wives were either elegantly East Coast or alarmingly intellectual. Some were both. Mary-Jo Daubeny Brown, who felt that she had neither grace nor intellect, and who had no children to talk about, wondered on what level she could ever establish a relationship with any of them. She was almost afraid to open her mouth. It was only last week that her husband, forty years old and a specialist in eighteenth-century political theory, had made a peevish Bostonian pronouncement about the Louisiana accent that had so charmed him in their early years together. She was, he said, the only woman he knew who needed three syllables to pronounce the word ‘red’.

  As she stood on the fringe of an animated conversation, smiling and nodding and juggling with wine glass and canapé, Mary-Jo’s purse slipped from beneath her arm. It was caught as it fell by a delicate girl with a brilliant flame of hair who said, when thanked, ‘No trouble. Being as wretchedly short as I am has to have some advantages.’

  Mary-Jo warmed to her instantly. The girl wasn’t American, and, despite the fact that she was being eyed with covert interest by most of the male members of the Faculty, she looked wistfully friendless.

  ‘You must be English?’ said Mary-Jo, thinking that she recognized Michael Caine’s film Cockney.

  ‘No, Australian. I’m a new graduate assistant in the Department of English. But I’ve just spent two years in England, taking my M. Phil.’

  They exchanged names. ‘Have you been back home, between universities?’ asked Mary-Jo.

  ‘No, I came straight on here. I spent August in New York and Washington, sightseeing, and I nearly turned into a gr
ease spot. The heat was so sticky and oppressive, and I longed for the beaches at home.’

  The girl paused, evidently overwhelmed by a wave of homesickness. Then she brightened. ‘But Coburg is magnificent. I’ve always longed to see New England in the Fall. Most of the trees in Australia are evergreen, you see; we have nothing like this. Autumn in England is quite pretty, but the colours here are beyond anything I could ever imagine.’

  ‘Oh, for me too,’ said Mary-Jo quickly. ‘I’m a stranger here myself. They tell me there’s a fine scenic route through the hills, but I don’t care to drive it alone. Now, if you’d like to come along –?’

  ‘Are you sure I wouldn’t be intruding?’

  ‘I’d be glad of your company. We – that’s my husband Francis, the one with the brown moustache – have just moved into one of the Faculty houses on the other side of the campus. It was built for a family of ten, I guess – we’re only two, and we’re feeling a little lost in it. So if you’d care to drop by for a cup of coffee, or a meal, I’d be very happy to see you.’

  The girl’s face brightened. ‘Do you really mean it? That would be wonderful. I’ve been in the States for three months, but I’ve never yet been inside a private house.’

  ‘Well, then, of course you must come!’ Pleased and purposeful, Mary-Jo scribbled down her address and telephone number. ‘Now you come over any time, Janey,’ she said warmly. ‘Any time at all …’

  Copyright

  First published in 1982 by Constable

  This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-2644-4 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-2643-7 POD

  Copyright © Sheila Radley, 1982

  The right of Sheila Radley to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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