False fire

by Veronica Heley

  ‘I didn’t cope with the situation very well.’

  ‘You asked them to leave, twice. He laid hands on you first. You’re in the clear.’

  ‘Yes, but if he goes to the police and files a complaint, perhaps accuses me of kidnapping …’

  ‘You have a rich imagination, Mrs Abbot!’

  ‘You haven’t met him. Remember that the child’s mother is gravely ill in hospital and he’s Alicia’s father by adoption. Legally, he has every right to take her away from me, even though her grandfather is strenuously trying to get custody himself.’

  ‘You could file a complaint against him yourself.’

  ‘My witness being a child of ten?’

  ‘If he does take action, you can always refer them to me, but … yes. Awkward. Can you not get someone to sit with you?’

  ‘Yes. A good idea. Alaric frightens me. He burned a hole in the teddy bear which the children have been using as a comfort blanket.’ Again she tried to laugh. ‘Can I get him for assaulting a teddy bear?’

  ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’ Manisa disconnected.

  Bea tried to get William on the phone. As she did so, she checked that Bernice was all right, down below in the garden. The child was sitting on the bench near the birdbath. She had Teddy on her knee and was talking to him, or maybe just making sure he was all right. Which he was. Of course he was.

  An inanimate toy can’t communicate, can it?

  ‘William? Thank heaven you picked up. Where are you?’

  ‘In Kew Gardens, feeding the ducks. The river was high so it was too muddy to walk along the towpath. Something’s wrong?’

  ‘Yes. No. At least … did you see Daphne?’

  ‘Well, no. Not yet. I rang and asked if it was all right to visit and they said to leave it till later this afternoon, as she had some specialist or other there, doing some tests.’

  A specialist? More tests? On a Sunday afternoon? That sounded serious.

  William said, ‘Why? Something’s happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Keep in touch?’

  She disconnected and dialled another number. ‘Steve? Mrs Abbot here. I know you’re busy and I’m probably way out of line, but have you heard anything from the hospital this afternoon about Daphne? They haven’t been trying to get through to you and failed, have they? Yes, I know you’re up to your eyes, but would you check with them that she’s all right?’

  Steve was sharp. ‘Something’s happened?’

  ‘I had Alaric and Ninette here, wanting Alicia, who is out with her grandfather. Something Ninette said caused me to wonder if Daphne had taken a turn for the worse. I’ve contacted William and he says the hospital put him off as they were doing more tests on her. I thought that was most unlikely on a Sunday afternoon, unless … You understand?’

  ‘I’ll get Mel to check. I’ve got the information the fire investigator needs from Dad’s desk at home and the address of Mrs Frost’s son, and now I’m back at head office, trying to deal with, well, everything. I’ll ring you back.’

  Bea paced up and down. If Alaric came back with a policeman … If what she suspected was true … What could she do to protect herself and the children?

  Well, if all else fails, call in the cavalry. She had an old friend who was a freelance bodyguard. Hari was part Maltese. He could drift through locked doors like smoke, leaving not a trace behind. He owed her a favour, so she rang him.

  ‘Mrs Abbot? You don’t sound like yourself.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not, Hari. At least … I am, but … start again. Hari, I’m in trouble. Are you free to look after a couple of ten-year-old children and their teddy bear for a couple of days and nights? Oh, sorry; I didn’t mean to add that about the teddy bear, because he’s actually mine and not theirs, although I suppose they’d dispute that. Sorry. Rambling. Start again. Hari: are you free to do some bodyguarding? I have two children staying who I believe were the intended victims of a house fire on Friday night. Various relatives are buzzing around. Some of them don’t seem to have the children’s best interests at heart. One has threatened me and … well, I drew a knife on them, which means I may be in trouble with the police. If you’re free, can you get here soonest?’

  ‘Thirty minutes.’ He rang off. That was the great thing about Hari; he knew when to ask questions, and when to act.

  Heavy breathing. In the old days, Bernice would have had her tonsils and adenoids out. Perhaps Bea ought to ask what was being done about that?

  Bernice said, ‘Teddy’s says he’s all right now. When Alicia gets back, we’ll have a ceremony to present him with his medal.’

  Bea nodded. ‘My sewing basket’s in the cupboard by the fireplace. There should be some red ribbon in there, and a packet of assorted buttons.’

  Bernice said, ‘My ear feels red where that man twisted it. He does that to Alicia, too.’

  ‘Is that hearsay, Bernice, or have you actually witnessed him doing it? You do know what hearsay is, do you? That’s when someone’s told you about it, but you haven’t seen it for yourself. There’s a difference.’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Have you, now!’ Grimly. ‘I think you should tell William that.’

  ‘I’ve been to stay at his place with Lissy twice; no, three times. She’d told me he liked to twist her ear and make her cry, and I said if he did it to me, I’d bite him. I wish I’d been quick enough to bite him today. I liked it when you nearly cut off one of her curls.’

  Bea grinned. ‘So did I.’ She fetched her sewing basket. ‘See if you can find some red ribbon and I’ll look for a suitable button. I always keep odd buttons. You never know when they’ll come in handy.’

  Bernice found some bright red ribbon and held it up against Bear’s chest. ‘Ninette’s worse than him, though. She knew Lissy used to wet the bed years ago. She emptied a glass of water into Lissy’s bed and made her sleep in it, and she told Alaric that Lissy was still wetting the bed and needed therapy. That’s because Ninette doesn’t want to be bothered with her.’

  ‘Did you see that happen, too?’ asked Bea, picking a gilt button out of her sewing basket. ‘Will this do? Order of Bravery for Mr Teddy Bear.’

  ‘I was there,’ said Bernice. ‘She doesn’t think anyone would take any notice of what a little girl says.’

  ‘She’s wrong there. I’m listening, and so will Lord Morton.’ Bea cut a piece of ribbon off, threaded it through the back of the button, made a loop and sewed it into place over the burn mark on Teddy’s chest.

  Bernice watched, her expression bleak. ‘I was there when Alaric spanked Lissy and said she was a dirty little girl, even though it wasn’t her who’d wet the bed.’

  Spanking was allowed by law, within reason. But this was abuse, wasn’t it?

  Bea said, ‘We’ll see what we can do about that.’ She put the teddy bear into Bernice’s arms. ‘Teddy needs a cuddle.’

  Bernice said, ‘There, there, Teddy. That didn’t hurt a bit, did it?’

  Bea’s phone rang.

  William, sounding distant. ‘How did you know, Bea? I’m coming straight back. Fortunately I asked the driver to wait. Thirty minutes? Forty? Depends on traffic. Does Steve know?’

  He rang off.

  Infuriating man. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

  Bernice was close enough to hear every word. ‘What is it? Is Lissy all right?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. They’re on their way back.’ Could Bea ring the hospital and enquire about Daphne in front of the child? But, which hospital?

  Her phone rang. A woman. ‘Mel here, on Steve’s phone. He’s lost his voice. When he got through to the hospital, they told him his sister died half an hour ago. He’s in shock. Mrs Abbot, may I bring him back to you? I thought of taking him back home with me, but my brothers are home for half-term and the house is bedlam. Steve’s a good man …’ And then, speaking to Steve, ‘Yes, you are, Steve. You help everyone else who’s in trouble and …’ And back to Bea. ‘I’ve tried
to get hold of his brother, but either I’m not making sense or he doesn’t want to listen. Is Lord Morton there? Can you ask him to tell Lissy?’

  ‘He knows, and he’ll tell Alicia. Of course you must bring Steve back here. He has found the name and address of the electrician who’d done the wiring?’

  ‘Yes, and we found Mrs Frost’s son’s address, too. I put in a call to him and he rang back a while ago. He’s very shocked. Steve will speak to him again later. That’s as far as we’ve got on that.’

  Bea noted the pronoun ‘we’, and smiled to herself. Steve and Mel were melding into a team, weren’t they? She said, ‘Thank you, Mel, for everything,’ and switched off.

  Bernice’s eyes were wide with shock. ‘Lissy’s mother? She’s not dead, too, is she?’

  Bea nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Bernice counted on her fingers. ‘One, two, three deaths?’

  Bea nodded again.

  Bernice climbed on to Bea’s lap, with Teddy. She didn’t say anything, but clung to Bea as if she were drowning.

  Bea held the child, and subdued panic. ‘Listen carefully, Bernice. I have a friend coming to look after you and me and Alicia. He’s arriving in twenty minutes’ time. His name is Hari. You may have met him when you’ve been hanging around with your uncle Leon, because he’s the partner of Anna, who owns and runs the Holland training school for domestic staff. You do remember him? Good. Now, if I’m not able to talk to him, I want you to tell him everything you know. And, I mean, everything! Everything you’ve seen or heard. You’ll be safe with him here. But, if he says “Jump!” you jump. If he says, “Lie on the floor!” you lie on the floor. Understand?’

  ‘He’s a sort of bodyguard isn’t he? Does he carry a gun concealed, like they do in America?’

  ‘No. But he’s a master of judo and all that stuff.’

  Bernice sat upright. ‘Would he teach me—?’

  ‘Possibly, but you’d have to get permission from your family first. What I think is that he can guard our backs, while we ask questions. We’re going to have Steve and Mel and William and Alicia back here soon, and they’ll all want supper. So, what shall we cook for them?’

  The doorbell rang. It was a little too soon for Hari. Bea looked through the peephole. It was raining – not hard, but with a meaningful persistence.

  The man outside was not Steve. Not William. Not Alaric. A stranger in expensive casual wear, with smoothly brushed fair hair and an air of easy confidence; the sort of confidence you get from having wealthy parents and an easy journey through life.

  Not a stranger, but someone Bea would very much like to pin to a dissecting board and torture till she obtained the answer to one or two important questions. Of course, torture was out of the question. A pity, really. She had a feeling that this man was Teflon-clad. Whatever he’d done or not done, he’d walk away from the family mess, clad in rectitude and wearing a tin halo.

  ‘Gideon,’ she said, letting him in.

  He wiped his feet on the doormat – thoughtful of him – and swiped raindrops off his jacket. A diffident smile, full of charm, which he’d probably mastered by the age of two.

  ‘Mrs Abbot, isn’t it? I’m so sorry to trouble you, but is Steve here? I rang his phone when I heard the terrible news and got a strange girl who said Steve was coming back here. Is that right?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Bea.

  Bernice crept up behind Bea and took hold of her skirt, gazing up at Gideon with a look Bea found hard to interpret. Suspicion? Dislike?

  Gideon smiled and bent down to speak to Bernice. ‘Ah, Lissy’s little friend. Where is she, by the way? I’ve had the whole boiling lot of them on my back, asking where she is.’

  ‘She’s out with her grandfather,’ said Bea. ‘Will you come in for a minute? We’re in the middle of preparing a meal for our guests, aren’t we, Bernice?’

  ‘Expected back soon?’ Gideon shot his cuff to consult a very expensive, very shiny, very complicated-looking watch.

  Bea dodged that one. ‘Come into the kitchen. When did you hear the news about Daphne?’

  ‘Alaric rang. He’s beside himself, poor chap. Can’t think straight. I was out in the sticks – lunch, you know. With Clarissa at her place in the country. Her father has hopes of something in the next Honours List.’

  Bea led the way back to the kitchen and the job of peeling potatoes. ‘You weren’t with Faye?’

  ‘Lord, no. Faye’s all right for a spot of this and that. Pretty little thing; but a sleeper, not a keeper, if you know what I mean.’

  Bea knew, and thought the worse of him. ‘If you didn’t want to get Faye’s hopes up, why did you ask her to the family celebration the other night?’

  ‘Clarissa had a prior engagement.’ He looked around, assessing what he could see. ‘Nice little place, this. Are you thinking of selling … perhaps down-sizing when you retire? I can move one of these little doll’s houses quickly.’

  Bea told herself not to grind her teeth. She took a pot of whipping cream out of the fridge and gave it to Bernice with a bowl and a whisk. ‘Empty the cream into the bowl and whisk till the cream is stiff. Then add just four drops of vanilla essence from the rack by the stove, and give it another stir.’

  How many potatoes would they need? Better be on the safe side. She counted out eight, nine, ten. ‘Tell me, Gideon; did Faye manage to rescue any of her pearls, or is it going to be another insurance job?’

  ‘Who knows? I haven’t seen her since the tragedy. What a dreadful thing. I can’t get over it.’ He didn’t look as if he’d suffered much. He talked about it as if he’d mislaid an expensive Parker pen and been forced to use a biro instead. He wasn’t going to lose his voice, as Steve had done.

  Bea said, ‘You took your father into hospital and stayed with him there. He was pretty poorly, wasn’t he, but there was hope he’d survive? Until you told him about Daphne and the fire.’

  Did a tinge of pink suffuse his cheeks? Possibly. ‘Well, yes. I wish I hadn’t. He kept on asking where Daphne and Steve were and finally, yes. I was forced, against my better judgement … don’t you think I haven’t wished a hundred times that I’d lied and said everything was all right?’

  ‘Because your news gave him another, and this time fatal, heart attack?’

  ‘I know. I had no idea, none, that … but there it is. You do your best and … Steve said afterwards … but that was nonsense, of course. I couldn’t possibly have guessed that Dad would take it so hard. If only Steve had been there … but no, he’d gone off with Daphne, our drama queen, always making the most of every cut and bruise. He should have been with me and Dad. That was where he ought to have been.’

  Bernice gazed at Gideon, open-mouthed. She seemed to be familiar with the idea that the guilty often rearranged facts in their minds to prove to themselves that they were whiter than snow, but her wide eyes showed she thought this one took the biscuit!

  Bea continued, ‘You did the same to Daphne, didn’t you? As soon as you were on your own with her. You knew how fragile she was, and you deliberately told her that her father was dead and the family home burned out.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear. Total, arrant nonsense. I have always acted in the best interests of the family …’

  In his best interests, he meant.

  ‘… and no one can say otherwise. Daphne was doing so well, sitting up and worrying about her hair and her makeup. She fretted, worrying why Dad hadn’t been to see her, and why Steve had neglected her. He did, you know! He promised to take her a whole list of things. And did he? No, he didn’t. It was entirely his fault that she got into such a state and died.’

  Bea tried to work out why it might be to Gideon’s advantage to have hastened the deaths of his father and sister. Well, Josh had held on to the position of managing director of the estate agency, keeping Gideon as the sales director, whereas he probably thought he ought to be king pin and that it was more than time that his father retired. And Daphne was a drain on the family resour
ces.

  Bea didn’t think Gideon had planned to cause his father’s death, or his sister’s. But when the opportunity had arisen he had, to put it bluntly, put the boot in. Steve knew what Gideon had done. He had used the term ‘murder’. And he’d known there was nothing anyone could do about it … except, perhaps …? Well, it depended what sort of wills old Josh and Daphne had left, didn’t it?

  She put the last peeled potato into the pan of cold water, added a little salt and set it to boil. She found a long narrow dish in the cupboard and two packets of ginger biscuits. Sitting beside Bernice, she said, ‘Now we spread a layer of the stiff cream on the plate, quite thickly. And then we put a layer of cream between two biscuits and stand them up on edge in the cream … so. Then another two. Add them to the others … like a train, one carriage after the other.’

  Gideon had his phone out, checking something, frowning. ‘Faye, again. Stupid little … she must realize I’m far too busy to attend to her now.’

  Bea said, ‘Did you know the electrician who did the rewiring?’

  ‘Domestic matters …’ He waved them away. ‘I suppose Steve attended to it. It’s about his level. Checking on three-pin plugs and all that.’

  A tiny voice said, ‘Piss artist.’

  Bernice?

  Bernice.

  ‘What!’ Gideon couldn’t believe his ears. Bea saw him decide that he must have misheard. Yes. Of course. The child could not possibly have said … that!

  Bea choked on a laugh, and turned it into a hiccup. Running some water into a glass, she gulped it down.

  Gideon beamed a smile at Bernice. ‘Alicia’s little friend, aren’t you? And where has she gone today, eh?’ He patted Bernice on the head.

  A mistake. Bernice picked up a knife with a blob of cream on it, and waved it towards his sleeve.

  ‘Bernice!’ Bea warned her. ‘Take care. Gideon, I don’t know whether or not you’ve been properly introduced to Bernice. She’s Sir Leon Holland’s great-niece and not to be underestimated.’

  Gideon withdrew his hand. ‘Oh. Well. I don’t know where the others have got to. Time marches, et cetera. I’m due at …’ He shot his cuff to give them another sighting of his expensive watch. ‘You know how it is? People to see, places to visit. Moscow one day and Hong Kong the next. I’m rarely in the same city for more than a couple of days at once. This must be the longest I’ve been back in London for … you know? And now there’s the funerals …’ A shake of his head. ‘Terrible business. Absolutely terrible. They’ll have to find a date when I can make them.’