Buried in the Country

by Carola Dunn

  The one blue eye he could see looked him up and down, lingering on the sodden, bedaubed denim. “Oh, all right. I wouldn’t want your death on my conscience, for sure. Half a tick.”

  The door closed. Through it, the rattle of the chain was audible. As it started to open again, Nick thought he heard a man’s voice at some distance.

  The woman’s head was turned to look back down the hall. “It’s up to you,” she said, and turned back to Nick. “Come in. Goodness, you are wet!”

  “This is just from three minutes on your doorstep. Thanks. I’m Nick Gresham.”

  “Mrs. Mason.”

  She was a plump woman in her forties, with rosy cheeks and smile lines around her eyes and mouth, though at present she looked troubled. Her dark red wool dress, pink cashmere cardigan, and pearls suggested a certain degree of affluence, as did the modernised farmhouse. The hall retained the old slate paving, but the walls were painted pale blue, with a white picture rail and doors. A well-polished antique half-moon table held a registration book and a bowl of pink hyacinths in bloom, their fragrance heavy in the air. Above hung a mirror in an ornate gilt frame. It reflected a picture hanging on the opposite wall: one of Nick’s landscapes of the North Coast.

  “Mr. Gresham?” Her eyes flicked from jeans to painting. “The artist?”

  “Yes. I hope you have no objection to housing the artist as well as the art.”

  “It’s an honour. And when the weather clears, you’ll have a hundred-yard walk to the most wonderful views.”

  “Sounds terrific, but I wasn’t intending to stay. Benighted by the storm. I haven’t any luggage.” Nick grinned at her. “Would you like payment in advance?”

  “No, that’s all right.” She gave him another dubious up-and-down look. “You ought to get out of those wet things. I can lend you a dressing gown. I keep a spare for people who forget to bring one. I haven’t put in en suite bathrooms yet, I’m afraid.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. It’s very kind of you to take me in.”

  “Why don’t you take off your shoes while I fetch the dressing gown and some slippers. I’ll dry everything over the Aga.” She bustled off towards a narrow staircase, carpeted in haircord, at the back of the hall.

  Nick sat on the straw-bottomed chair beside the table. As he untied his sodden plimsolls, he wondered whether Mrs. Mason would expect him to strip off his clothes in the hall, too. He took off his wet socks. The slate floor felt icy.

  Returning with a white towelling dressing gown and a pair of carpet slippers, she pointed to the second door on the right. “That’s the cloakroom. It’s all yours. The next door is the kitchen. Bring the wet stuff in there.”

  The first part of the cloakroom had a washbasin—next to a door to a lavatory—and a row of pegs for coats. Nick noticed several plastic rain capes, and on the floor were gumboots in various sizes, as well as a well-stocked umbrella stand. Apparently a good many of Mrs. Mason’s guests arrived ill-prepared for Cornish weather.

  Nick’s anorak hadn’t actually soaked through—he had exaggerated a little. He hung it on one of the pegs. His T-shirt was dry, his pullover a bit damp at the front where the rain had blown in at the neck of the anorak. His jeans were wet from mid-thigh down. He took them off and put on the dressing gown. With the aid of the mirror over the basin, he attempted to smooth down his hair, making himself as respectable as possible for someone in slippers an inch too short and a fluffy garment halfway down his bare shins.

  He didn’t mind so much being seen by the kindly Mrs. Mason, but the man she had spoken to, presumably her husband, was bound to laugh himself silly.

  Jeans, socks, and shoes in hand, shuffling so as not to lose the slippers, Nick went out to the hall. The kitchen door was slightly ajar. From within came a man’s voice, an educated voice with nothing of Cornwall.

  “… All very well, Rosie, but if he’s staying the night, he’s sure to see me and he’d wonder why I haven’t spoken to him.”

  Who? Not to mention Why?

  Nick coughed and cleared his throat. “Hello?”

  “Too late,” said Mrs. Mason softly, then in a louder voice: “In here, Mr. Gresham. I hope you haven’t taken a chill. I’ve made you a cup of tea.”

  He went in, saying, “Thanks, that’s very—” and stopped abruptly as he recognised the man sitting at the table, cradling a cup of tea in his hands.

  “Hello, Gresham. Caught by the storm, eh?”

  “Freeth!” They were pub acquaintances. “What a coincidence.” On the point of explaining that he’d driven Eleanor to Tintagel, Nick hastily reassessed the position.

  Whatever Eleanor was doing apparently required a degree of secrecy. She had mentioned spies. The lawyer had been in confab with Mrs. Mason as to the wisdom of concealment of his presence, though he had decided against. He hadn’t been stranded out here in the middle of nowhere by the storm: His Range Rover was more than capable of coping with wind and rain.

  However unlikely it seemed, for all Nick knew, Freeth was a spy.

  “Rosie is … a friend of my youth.” Freeth was obviously considering each word carefully. It was a lawyerly trait, and Nick didn’t know him well enough to be sure it wasn’t his usual manner. Or perhaps he was just avoiding the word trap of “old friends,” an expression that women on the whole did not appreciate. “I came over to give her a hand with some legal matters. It’s taken longer than expected, so she kindly offered me a room.”

  With most men, Nick would have made certain assumptions that didn’t apply in this case—unless a good number of people had been mistaken for a good number of years. Freeth was as gay as the Gay Gordons.

  During this brief exchange, Mrs. Mason had taken Nick’s wet clothes, draped jeans and socks over the Aga rail, and placed his shoes on a tin tray on top of the lid of the slow oven.

  “Sit down, do,” she said. “Milk? Sugar? Here you go. And help yourself to a piece of cake.” She seemed nervous. The old friends avoided each other’s eyes, even when she offered him more tea and another slice of cake.

  The cake was homemade, chocolate, and delicious. Nick, who had somehow missed lunch, was also happy to accept a second helping.

  “I’ll have to walk this off tomorrow,” said Freeth. “The storm is so violent, I should think it’ll blow itself out by morning.” He paused, and they all listened for a moment to the whistle of the wind and the hammering of the rain. “It’s just as well you’re not driving home tonight. But what brought you to this out-of-the-way spot? There are plenty of guest houses in Tintagel.”

  “All the signs I noticed said ‘closed,’ but I wasn’t really looking until I left the village and the wind tried to blow my car off the road. I spotted Mrs. Mason’s sign and thought I’d chance it.”

  Now he was here, it seemed an ideal spot for keeping an eye on Eleanor. By footpath along the cliffs to her hotel couldn’t be more than a couple of miles, an easy walk—depending on the weather—or, by road, a ten-minute drive. If he stayed a day or two—depending on Mrs. Mason’s consent—he might also be able to find out whether Freeth’s business here was as innocent as he claimed.

  He always had painting and sketching equipment in the back of the car, so he had a ready-made excuse for staying. In fact, just remembering previous visits to the ruins on the island brought visions—a phantom castle rising from the broken walls; ghostly knights riding out through the surviving archway, its solidity supporting insubstantial walls and turrets.…

  Freeth and Mrs. Mason were staring at him.

  “Sorry, occupational hazard. Sometimes the pictures I want to paint are more real to me than what’s in front of my eyes. I’d rather not go out to the car to get my sketchbook. I don’t suppose you have such a thing, Mrs. Mason?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. One of my guests left it last summer. When I wrote to her, she said not to bother to post the whole thing to her, just the used pages. It’s a very nice one, just half a dozen sheets missing, so I kept it. It’s in the cabin
et in the front room. There’s a packet of drawing charcoal, too. Is that what you need?”

  “Mrs. Mason, you’re an angel!”

  “I’ll fetch them.”

  Before Freeth had a chance to intervene, Nick hurried after her out to the hall. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to winkle any information out of a canny lawyer, but Mrs. Mason might respond to carefully phrased questions.

  She turned to the door beyond the cloakroom, near the front door. It was marked PRIVATE. As she opened it, she heard the shuffle of Nick’s slippers close behind her. Startled, she swung round with a look of alarm.

  “Oh, it’s you! You made me jump. This is my private sitting room and office, where I do my accounts. The income tax rules for B and B’s seem to get more complicated every year.”

  “For artists, too.”

  He followed her into a comfortably furnished room. The windows, facing the front and side of the house, had venetian blinds for privacy as well as green velvet curtains for warmth. A driftwood fire flickered in the slate fireplace. Mrs. Mason had a good record player, a wireless, and a small television, Nick saw at a glance.

  Her desk was more evidence of prosperity, a very nice walnut writing cabinet, eighteenth-century, its glass-doored shelves crammed with books. It would have brought a good price had she needed the money. She knelt on the superb Oriental rug—Persian?—and unlocked the bottom drawer. A sharp tug brought it out a couple of inches, but it was obviously heavy.

  Sitting back on her heels, she clutched her hand to her chest. “Would you mind opening it, Mr. Gresham?” She spoke breathlessly, and, to Nick’s dismay, her lips had taken on a bluish tinge. “My heart’s a bit wonky,” she said apologetically. “I’ll be quite all right in a minute.” From the pocket of her cardigan she took an enamelled gold pill-box.

  Nick stooped over her. “Let me help you to a chair.”

  “Just a moment.” She slipped a tiny pill under her tongue.

  Angina. Nick’s grandmother had had the same trouble. Nitroglycerine worked remarkably quickly. The colour was already returning to her lips, though she kept her hand pressed to her chest.

  He helped her to stand up and move to a comfortable chair by the fire. “I’ll fetch you a glass of water. Or brandy?”

  She gave him a faint smile. “Water. Would you call Alan?”

  “Yes, of course.” He couldn’t help glancing at the bureau, its lowest drawer protruding an inch.

  “Get the sketchbook first. I’m sure I noticed it in that drawer a day or two ago. On the left.”

  With some effort, Nick pulled out the drawer. It was heavy and stuck a bit. The contents formed three piles, the middle and right-hand stacks consisting of five or six ledgers each. The top one in the middle was marked with the previous year’s date.

  The heap on the left was more heterogeneous, and therefore less neat: a couple of photo albums, some folders of loose papers, several worn, faded manila envelopes, bursting at the seams. Nick saw the edge of a sketchpad near the bottom. Trying not to disturb the stuff on top, he pulled it out.

  With it he’d accidentally caught up the item beneath, another manila envelope, this one obviously new. As Nick separated the two, he saw that the envelope was labelled “Last Will and Testament.” He looked at Mrs. Mason, an apology on his lips, but she was leaning back in the chair, her eyes closed.

  Hastily, but careful not to crease it, he returned it to the bottom of the pile.

  So that explained Freeth’s visit. Or did it? Nick frowned. He had a feeling he was missing some obscure factor that spoiled the neat explanation. Not that it was any of his business. He returned to the kitchen.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Mason isn’t feeling well. She asked for you, and for a glass of water.”

  Freeth leaped to his feet. “How bad is she?” he asked, filling a glass at the sink. “Should I call her doctor?”

  “Not too bad, I think. She took a pill and it seems to have helped.”

  The lawyer hurried out. Nick poured himself another cup of tea from the pot keeping warm on the range and sat down at the table with the sketchpad in front of him. Damnation, he hadn’t got the charcoal.

  He looked around. A shopping list with a pencil laid on top caught his eye.

  HB, of course, but better than nothing. He started to draw.

  SIX

  Five minutes before the London train was due, Megan drove into the Launceston station car park. She parked the dark blue Morris 1100 police car at the far end from the only two vehicles already there.

  A light rain was beginning to fall, so she flipped up the hood of her green parka and reached for the umbrella on the floor behind her seat. The people she was meeting might need it, though during her years in London she had never seen a civil servant without one. They were carried, tightly furled, like a badge of office, and seldom actually used.

  Considering all the secrecy, perhaps he wouldn’t want to be identified as a civil servant. He might even have abandoned his pinstriped trousers, waistcoat, and college or regimental tie.

  A fourth car pulled into the car park. Megan scrutinised it suspiciously. The inside light went on and she recognised the wife of a local man who often had business in Plymouth. He—or she, for that matter—could be a spy, but it seemed highly unlikely.

  As Megan crossed the car park, she glanced at the two vehicles that had arrived before her. One was an empty car; the other, an anonymous van, with no lettering on the side panels. The latter looked pale blue in the bluish light of the mercury-vapour lamp, though it was probably plain white. Backed into its space, it had two silhouetted figures in the front, heads together studying an unfolded map by the light of a torch. Definitely fishy. If a spy had found out that Payne and the student had taken tickets to Launceston, it would make sense to drive down, so as to have transport available to trail them to their final destination. The local train from Plymouth was slow, with many stops, so it wouldn’t have been difficult to get here ahead of it.

  If following Sir Edward’s guests was what they were up to, they’d have a bloody hard time of it on a rainy night. Lacking sufficient information to judge whether the prevailing paranoia was justified, she had her doubts.

  She went onto the platform. Except in the tourist season, Launceston was a sleepy country station that never bothered with platform tickets. The stationmaster was the sole employee. He lived in a cottage nearby and put in an appearance only when a train was expected. He was standing under the awning, gazing along the line. Seeing Megan, he waved.

  “Hello, Mr. Lobcot.”

  “Evening, Sergeant. No trouble, I hope?”

  “Not this time.” Last year, at the busiest time of year, she had had to make him rack his memory with a description of a villain who might or might not have caught a train to London. “I’m just meeting passengers.”

  “Good luck to ’em,” he riposted with a grin. “Got your cuffs ready? Here she comes.”

  The blinding cyclops eye of the diesel engine pierced the night. With the usual clanks and bangs, the two-carriage train drew up at the station. Three doors opened and out stepped the businessman whose wife was waiting for him and a woman laden with Marks & Spencer shopping bags. From the third door, two men descended, one wearing a yellow bobble hat, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder; the other in a tweed cap, carrying a small suitcase and a tightly furled umbrella.

  They spoke to each other, then turned towards the exit. As Megan went to meet them, she saw that beneath the bobble hat was a black face. She hadn’t been given his name, so she addressed the civil servant.

  “Mr. Payne?”

  “Yes?” Cautiously questioning.

  “I’m your chauffeur, Detective Sergeant Pencarrow.” Megan kept her voice low, in deference to the man’s suspicious demeanour. “If you and Mr.…”

  “Tariro.”

  “… Mr. Tariro—”

  “Just Tariro.” The black student grinned at her. “My surname is an Official Secret, I’m told.”
r />   She smiled. “Then I’m Megan.”

  They went out to the car. Megan unlocked the boot, and as they deposited their bags, she opened the back door. Payne got in.

  “May I sit in front?” Tariro asked.

  “You won’t see much, what with the dark and the rain. And the weather’s only going to get worse as we approach the coast, according to the forecast.”

  Tariro slewed his eyes sideways at Henry Payne and said firmly, “I’d still prefer to sit in front, if it’s all right with you. I have a tendency to feel car-sick in the back,” he added in sudden inspiration.

  Megan gathered that the student and the civil servant had not taken to each other on the train journey. “Just as you like,” she said, unlocking the front passenger door.

  As she went round to the driver’s side, she saw the van’s headlights switch on. The offside lamp was the yellowish colour usually confined to fog lights in the UK, though in general use in France. Happily, minor motoring offences were none of her business nowadays.

  When she turned out of the car park, the mismatched lights were close behind. They trailed her to the A30 roundabout, where she lost sight of them for a minute, but they soon showed up again. Not that she could call it significant, since the alternative routes were few.

  Glancing at the rearview mirror from time to time to see if they were still there, she asked Tariro the obvious questions: how he liked Oxford, which college he belonged to, what course he was taking.

  His answer to the last question baffled her. “PPE?” She hazarded a guess, “Education? Or economics?”

  “Philosophy, politics, and economics. Harold Wilson and Edward Heath both read PPE. Philosophy is interesting but not terribly practical. Economics has obvious uses. Politics is my favourite.”