‘I'm so glad that Kevin and I are getting away,’ Lucille said. ‘Did I tell you about our plans to go to my relatives in Toronto? We're going next week. I'm so looking forward to it. They're always so good to me. Last time I went, about a year ago, Kevin couldn't go with me, as he hadn't got leave from his office, but this time we've arranged things so that the visit coincides with his holiday. You're very pleased about that, aren't you, Kevin? Kevin loves Canada.’
At that moment, a man with a camera aimed it at Lynne and rapidly snapped a photograph of her. She seemed unconscious of it, as she did when another man did the same, unless a certain air of sadness about her, that appeared to me to increase just then, was her response to it. It might have been that she thought this appropriate to her situation, rather than the almost cheerful face with which she had listened to Lucille. I was afraid that these men might be going to intrude on our lunch party with questions to Lynne, but they had the courtesy not to do so.
A few minutes later, when our steak and chips was just being served to us, Fred Dyer and Sharon Sawyer came into the bar.
They made for a table at the far end of the room, and in passing us, Sharon gave us a shy little smile, and Fred a stiff nod without a trace of a smile on his face. When they sat down, Fred had his back to us and his broad shoulders blotted out Sharon from our view. All of us except Lynne had nodded back to them as they passed, then acted as if we had no special interest in them, but Lynne gazed after them with a look of astonishment on her face.
‘Who is that perfectly gorgeous man?’ she asked.
It took me by surprise. I had never thought of Fred as gorgeous. But his air of remoteness, that trick he had of looking through one as if he did not really recognize one's existence, had always put me off. I knew that in appreciating people's looks I was more likely to be influenced by the expression on their faces, rather than by their features, and Fred's expression had none of the warmth and liveliness that I liked. But trying to see him now with Lynne's eyes, I had to admit that his features were excellent. If you did not care too much about what his face told you about him, he really was very good-looking.
Brian responded to Lynne. That gorgeous man is very likely a multiple murderer.’
She gave a smothered little cry and Lucille said, ‘What do you mean, Mr Hewlett?’
He gave a shrug. ‘I shouldn't have said that. Forget it.’
‘No, but you must have meant something,’ Lucille said.
‘I know there's some suspicion that he may have been connected with poor Peter's death, but a multiple murderer — what can you mean?’
‘As I said, I shouldn't have said it,’ Brian replied, though I felt fairly sure that he had done it deliberately, for reasons of his own. ‘But the truth is, every time I see him, I find myself wondering what he's doing in Raneswood. He worked for a time in Edgewater, you see, where I live myself, and he left it because he found himself being suspected of having committed three particularly revolting murders. You no doubt remember them. Three girls were found strangled, with their heads smothered in black plastic bags, and a woman claimed to have seen Fred Dyer, or Jack Benyon as we called him then, leaving the spot where one of the bodies was found -’
‘Oh, please, please,’ Kevin broke in, his voice unnaturally shrill, ‘don't go on with it! I can't stand it. I'll never be able to eat my steak and chips if you go on.’
‘Don't be ridiculous, dear boy,’ Lucille said. ‘I find this very interesting. You say he was called Jack Benyon when he was in Edgewater, Mr Hewlett. You're quite sure of that?’
‘Yes, quite sure,’ Brian replied. ‘He may or may not be a murderer, but he's some kind of crook. People don't change their names for nothing.’
‘But he wasn't arrested?’
‘No, there wasn't nearly enough evidence against him. The woman who identified him changed her mind and his girlfriend gave him an alibi. But then he disappeared. That seemed to tell against him, but actually, he'd told our Inspector Dalling, who was in charge of the case, that he was going, and why. And I suppose his reason was a perfectly good one, that he couldn't stand the atmosphere of suspicion in which he was living. I think most people thought he was guilty. But I'd like to know what brought him to Raneswood. Was it just chance, or did he come here for some reason?’
‘What reason could he possibly have?’ Lucille asked. ‘I suppose he was just drifting about, getting jobs where he could, and then he happened to pick up with that girl, Sharon, and she gave him a place to live and no doubt introduced him to people she knew who gave him jobs and he found he could make a living.’
Lynne leant forward.
‘But you've some idea in your mind, haven't you, Mr Hewlett?’ she said.
‘An idea?’ he said.
‘An idea about a reason that could have brought him here.’
‘Not really. No.’
‘I think you have.’
He shook his head. ‘One has fancies, but I think Mrs Bird's probably right, that he drifted here by chance.’
At that moment, Fred got up and went to the bar to get himself and Sharon more drinks and I had the first clear view of her that I had had since they had sat down and if ever I had seen fear on a human face, there it was. There was an agony of anxiety in her eyes. Then she leant back in her chair, closing them, as if she felt that they were betraying her. She looked very young and forlorn. I felt a disagreeable twinge of guilt, because it was almost certainly my identifying Fred as the man whom I had seen at the Loxleys’ gate that now filled her with terror. Whether it was terror of what might happen to him, or of the man himself, I could not tell. If it was of what might happen to him it must mean that the alibi that she had given him was false and that she herself believed in my identification and that she was living with a murderer. But more probably it was fear that he would be unable to prove his innocence and at any time now might be arrested, what she had to say for him simply not being believed. I wondered if I could get hold of her and tell her that I was almost sure now that I had been mistaken in thinking that it was Fred whom I had seen at the gate.
Fred returned to their table with a couple of whiskies and his broad shoulders blotted out her face again, but the memory of it stayed with me. I would have to do something about it, I realized. I could not leave her in that state of misery.
Lucille was talking to Avril, ‘Perhaps it's wrong of me to ask you such a thing here, Avril, dear, but have you made any plans for your future? It must be a terribly difficult time for you and if there's any way that Kevin and I can help you, you must tell us. Of course, I don't suppose there is. So often in life one has this desire to help, and actually there's nothing whatever one can do, but you must remember we're friends.’
‘You're very kind,’ Avril said in a low voice. ‘But actually, I've made what I think is a very good arrangement for the immediate future. I'm moving in with Jane as a lodger. I know that Frances would let me stay on as long as I liked, but I feel I'm imposing on her, whereas with Jane it's a business arrangement which will be beneficial to us both. But I don't suppose I shall stay with her for very long. I think I shall go to London. We've a flat there and I can just move in without any trouble. And perhaps, when I'm feeling more normal, I'll look for a job. I might even look for something at Loxley Matthews. I always took an interest in Peter's work there, and they might find something I could do.’
‘But what about your dogs?’ Lucille asked. ‘You can't take them to a flat in London.’
‘Oh, I'll have to have them put down,’ Avril answered.
She said it casually, as if the animals which had seemed for the last year or two to have been the centre of her life were of no importance to her. I looked at her face. It was very pale and expressionless and I realized that probably she hardly knew what she was saying.
Kevin seemed to feel the same. ‘You can't mean that. Those lovely creatures. Of course you don't mean it. If you really want to get rid of them, you can sell them, or even give them away to fr
iends. Ma and I would take the Belgian shepherd.’
‘I couldn't do that,’ Avril said in her new flat, matter-of-fact voice. ‘They're mine. It would feel like giving a bit of myself away.’
‘But it's cruel,’ Kevin said, ‘killing them.’
‘I hate to hear it called killing,’ Avril responded. ‘They'll be put down. It's quite painless.’
‘You don't mind having a bit of yourself put down?’ Brian said. ‘You won't give it away, but you don't mind killing it. Because, after all, it is killing.’
I saw the stubborn look come on to her face, which I had sometimes seen there before. It made it look uncommonly hard. But there was something else about it that troubled me, though I could not make out what it was. It reminded me of something, though I could not think for the moment of what. It was something that I had seen somewhere, but where or when it had been eluded me.
We finished our lunch mostly in silence, though Lucille made several rather brave attempts at starting a conversation. Afterwards, as we left, we had to run the gauntlet of the press. They had gathered outside the Green Man, waiting for Lynne. She dealt with them with professional skill, assuring them that her arrival had nothing to do with the murder but was purely to spend a little time with a cousin of hers. To direct questions she answered, ‘No comment’. Lucille and Kevin left us and went to their house. The rest of us started the walk back to our house.
When we reached the Loxleys’ house it looked as if the police had left it. Avril stood still at the gate.
‘D'you know, I think I'll go in and pack a couple of suitcases to take to Jane's,’ she said. ‘She said I could move in as soon as I liked, and I hate the feeling of being a nuisance to you and Malcolm, Frances. What about coming in with me, Lynne, and helping me pack? Then I'll drive down to Jane's, as I suppose I'm allowed to use the car now that the police have gone.’
‘All right,’ Lynne said. ‘Is it far to Jane's? I'll go with you if you like.’
‘No, let me get settled in first, but come and see me this evening,’ Avril said. ‘It isn't far beyond the Birds’ house — a modern bungalow. And Frances and Malcolm, I do want to thank you for being so good to me. I don't know what I'd have done yesterday if you hadn't looked after me. Now I'll go in and pack a few things, then I'll come round for the dogs.’
‘You didn't really mean what you said about having them put down, did you?’ Malcolm said.
‘Didn't I?’ she said vaguely. ‘I don't know, perhaps I didn't. Well, I'll be round presently to collect them.’
She opened the gate and she and Lynne went up the path to the house.
As we went on to ours, Malcolm said to Brian, ‘What induced you to tell the yarn about Fred Dyer in Edge-water? Were you just enjoying shocking them all with a little gruesome gossip, or had you some end in view?’
‘Not much of an end,’ Brian said. ‘But I really would like to know what brought him to Raneswood, and talking about it and seeing if there's any reaction is one of the ways of getting information. I could see the people at the next table listening, and that girl who waited on us lingered near us while I was talking, so I expect the story will be spread around fairly soon and something may come of it.’
‘That seems rather hard on Fred,’ I said. ‘If he left Edgewater because he couldn't stand the atmosphere of suspicion there, he may soon have to be moving on from here.’
We had entered the house and could hear the barking of the dogs in the garden.
‘That comes a bit hard on Sharon,’ Malcolm said.
‘Best thing that could happen to her,’ Brian said. ‘Even if he isn't the Edgewater murderer and didn't shoot Peter, I don't trust him. Anyway, if they really care for each other, she could go with him, though I think it would be a mistake.’
I thought of the frightened face that I had seen in the Green Man, and felt inclined to agree with Brian that the sooner Sharon parted from Fred Dyer, the better it would be for her. Yet I was quite convinced by then that he could not be the man whom I had seen at the Loxleys’ gate.
Brian was going on, ‘I wish Judy was here. She's so much shrewder than I am. I'd never have managed things as well at the school if it hadn't been for her, though she always kept herself in the background. She's got a way of seeing through people that is almost uncanny. I think, if you don't mind, I'll phone her now and tell her the latest developments.’
Malcolm and I left him in the hall with the telephone and went into the sitting room. I could not help thinking, as we settled down there, that our telephone bill for that quarter would be uncommonly large, but I was also thinking of something else which continued to tantalize me, as it had when we were at lunch. It was the look that I had seen on Avril's face when Brian had insisted that there was no difference between having her dogs put down and killing them. The look that had reminded me of something, though I had not been able to think of what. And suddenly I knew what it was, though as soon as I had thought of it, I dismissed it. I did not trust my own perception, for it was the look, exhausted, strained and ill, that I had seen a number of times on the faces of young women in the earliest stages of pregnancy.
CHAPTER 6
When Brian had finished his telephoning, he said that he would like to lie down and disappeared upstairs. Malcolm went upstairs to his autobiography. I stayed in a chair by the fire, so startled by the thought about Avril that had come into my mind that I felt wakeful and restless. For of course if there was anything in it, it probably altered everything that we had been thinking about Peter's murder. And then I fell asleep, which was the last thing that I had been expecting. Naturally, I only became aware that this had happened to me when I woke up. It puzzled me then that all of a sudden there was dusk in the room and I assumed for a moment that it was morning and that I must have woken unusually early. Then I noticed that I was fully dressed, that I was not in bed and that the electric fire was glowing in front of me. As I came gradually to my senses, I looked at my watch. It was nearly half-past five. It was too late for it to be worth getting tea and besides someone was ringing the front doorbell.
I went to answer it. Lynne was on the doorstep.
‘Are you busy?’ she asked. ‘Am I a nuisance?’
I said that I was delighted to see her and led her into the sitting room. I turned on the lights and drew the curtains and offered her a drink, but she shook her head.
‘No, thank you. I seem to have been drinking on and off all day,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to have a talk with you.’
‘Do you want Malcolm too?’ I asked. ‘Shall I fetch him?’
I had noticed that the typewriter was silent. Then I remembered that the divan in his room, on which Avril had slept the night before, had not been made up, and that the few things of hers that Brian and I had fetched from the house next door the night before had been forgotten and not taken to Jane's house with her other baggage.
‘Oh, don't trouble him,’ Lynne said, sitting down, ‘I just wanted to tell you that I'm going back to London tomorrow. I don't seem able to be of any help here. In fact, all I do is bring the press down on you. If I hadn't come they wouldn't have bothered Avril nearly so much as they've been doing. I'm sorry about it, but I can't help it. I'm used to it and don't get much bothered by it, but she's finding it a horrible strain. They've pursued her out to Jane Kerwood's house and interviewed her and photographed her and nearly driven her mad. But that isn't what I meant to talk about. You're a close friend of Avril's, aren't you?’
Her face was pale and anxious and less beautiful than I had yet seen it. She was twisting her fingers together with nervous stress. She seemed to me to be in a state of wanting to talk and yet being half afraid of doing so.
‘We're good friends, yes,’ I said.
‘Her closest friend here?’
‘Perhaps I am. Yet I don't really know an awful lot about her.’
‘Well, you remember what I told you about Peter this morning, don't you?’
‘Yes.’
�
��Oh dear, I don't really know if I'm doing the right thing talking to you or not,’ she said. ‘Only I feel that someone here should know the truth about Avril, so that they can help her if she needs it. You see, she's pregnant.’
So my intuition about that had been right. It gave me no satisfaction.
‘And of course,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘Peter couldn't have been the father. And she won't tell me who he was. I suppose that's natural. I don't know if she means to have the child or have an abortion. I don't think she knows herself. And I don't know if there's any possibility that she'll marry the man, whoever he is. Tell me, do you know anything about a man called Hugh Maskell?’
‘Did she tell you about him?’ I asked.
‘Yes, she said she thinks he wants to marry her, but she wouldn't say whether or not the child is his, or if it isn't, does he know about her being pregnant? And she said, anyway, even if she's right about him, she can't think of marriage now, it would be indecent. I suppose she's right. Yet if he really cares about her, he might be able to help her so much. What do you think? Is she right that he wants to marry her?’
‘Quite right, I think, to go by what he told me this morning,’ I answered.
‘What sort of man is he?’
‘Well, he's in his sixties, which might be a bit old for Avril. He was a surgeon of some distinction, I believe, but he retired early because his wife, Anna, was dying of leukaemia and he stayed at home to care for her. She died about two years ago. And it's a generally accepted thing in the village that he'll marry again, and there was always gossip about him and Avril. She was a close friend of Anna's, you see, and used to spend a lot of time in the house with her, but naturally people didn't talk of marriage, as Avril already had a husband. But now that Peter's dead — well, I don't know.’
‘But you like him? You think he'd be good to her? You see, I'm thinking that once the case of Peter's death is solved, I might take her out to Hollywood with me. But I wouldn't want to interfere if there's the chance of her making a good marriage.’
Seeing is Believing Page 10
