An Accidental Shroud

by Marjorie Eccles

  'Forde Manor,' Atkins stated, unmoved by the broad hint, inured to offence where his smoking was concerned.

  'What?'

  'Speaking from hearsay, mind, but there was a lot of talk last year when Wilding nipped in smartish and bought Forde Manor, just before Save All's announcement they were going to build a hypermarket. And Nigel Fontenoy was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, which might or might not mean anything ... I'll say no more, and don't quote me.'

  If Atkins, who knew more about Lavenstock than God, said so, it would be true. Mayo said, almost forgiving him his pipe, 'That's a better reason for Wilding agreeing to do what Nigel asked him than we've come up with so far, George, and one I'm inclined to believe. Right then, so we put him, and Matthew, on hold. It's possible that Matthew, for all he's denied it, knew about the Fabergé in the safe, and that his father did, too, for that matter, through Christine – but I think both are becoming long shots. Callaghan I think we can cross out. Leaving us with our latest suspect. Joss Graham. Who interests me very much. For whatever reason, he's deeply implicated in all this. It's quite possible he knew all about this Fabergé business and decided both objects would be better in his hands – if in fact the idea wasn't at his mother's instigation. Money like that would mean something to them.'

  'Money isn't something that interests Naomi,' Abigail said.

  'Money of that sort interests everybody,' Mayo averred.

  'How come she had this letter in the first place?' asked Carmody.

  'Maybe she lifted it when she worked for the Fontenoys, and that's what Fontenoy was so uptight about. According to Callaghan, they quarrelled over something or other just before she dropped out of the scene,' Abigail reminded him. 'But did Graham have to kill Fontenoy?'

  'We don't know that he meant to go as far as that,' Mayo said, 'but who's to say, except him? I don't somehow feel the usual rules apply where Joss Graham's concerned. And there are deep undercurrents in all this. We need to have another session with him, immediately. At the moment, we're going too much on supposition.'

  Yet no one knew better than he did that that was largely how it worked – putting forward a theory and then testing it out to see if it held water.

  A telephone rang somewhere behind them. A WPC stood up and called out, 'There's someone at the front desk asking to see you, ma'am.'

  'Sorry,' Abigail said. 'They'll have to wait, I'm busy.'

  'She says to tell you her name's Lindsay Hammond, ma'am. It's urgent and she won't see anyone else.'

  Abigail cursed silently but soon curbed her feelings of irritation at the interruption, realizing that Lindsay Hammond, of all people, wouldn't have come down to the station if what she had to say wasn't important. 'I'll be along to see her right away. Could you rustle us up some tea or coffee?'

  Lindsay looked different in some unidentifiable way that was nothing to do with clothes or make-up, though she'd done something different to her hair and wore a neat blue suit that emphasized the colour of her eyes. Maybe it was the way she sat, not with her eyes lowered and knees and feet demurely together, but confidently, with her legs crossed.

  She looked older. Nevertheless, she was finding it difficult to begin with what she had to say. Abigail helped her out.

  'You're studying music, aren't you? Hasn't your term started yet?'

  'I've been ill, glandular fever, it comes and goes. My tutor knows and in view of what's been happening ... well, anyway, I needn't go back yet.' She drank some tea, wrapping her slender-fingered hands round the thick white official china, and said suddenly, 'No, that's just something I made up, to account for ... I've been very depressed, and my mother worries about me. But she knows now that I – it's not true, about the glandular fever. Well, the truth is, I had an abortion.'

  Abigail thought that explained a lot about Lindsay Hammond. Some girls might dismiss an abortion lightly, but not girls like her. That must've been rotten for you,' she said gently.

  'It was dire.' The girl sipped more coffee, her eyes wide above the rim of the cup. 'But it's over. I wasn't the first and won't be the last, as they say.' Despite the flippant words, the pain, shame and despair were naked on her face, but then suddenly she smiled, a totally transforming smile that warmed and lit up her face and for a moment made her beautiful. It was her mother's smile and again Abigail noticed what lovely eyes she had, not the same blue-green as her mother's, but the same shape, grey with thick dark lashes. The illumination was as brief as it was beautiful. Then her face fell back into its habitual grave composure.

  'Do you want to tell me who it was?' Abigail prompted, thinking my God, not Nigel Fontenoy again.

  'Does that matter?' Lindsay asked quickly, defensively. 'It wasn't anyone you know. Oh, I see! You think that's what I came about – that it's got something to do with Nigel's murder. In a way, it has, though not directly, I think.'

  'Why don't you tell me what you have to say and let me judge?'

  'I'm sorry, I've never been very good at getting to the point,' Lindsay confessed. She hesitated, then quickly plunged her hand into the large shoulder bag she carried and brought out a flat cardboard box, which she pushed across the table.

  When Abigail opened it, she saw an amethyst and diamond pendant, fastened on to a gold chain, the clasp of which was broken. This seems to be one of the items missing from the Cedar House,' she said, after a moment. 'Where did you get it, Lindsay?'

  'It was sent to me – as a present. Then after Nigel was killed, this came, with a note asking me to keep it safe.' Out of the bag came a screw of tissue paper. Opened, a heavy gold ring was revealed, set with a lapis-lazuli seal. Abigail picked it up and held it near the light and saw the bearded, two-faced god, Janus.

  She looked assessingly at the girl sitting opposite. 'You realize this is the ring Nigel Fontenoy was assumed to be wearing when he was killed?' Lindsay gave a barely perceptible nod. 'You know who sent them to you?'

  Lindsay bit her lip. 'She helped me when I needed it ... I was desperate and I hadn't a clue what to do, but she found out. She's only been in England a few months, and she's younger than me but she knows about things like that. I couldn't refuse to help her in return.'

  'Who exactly are we talking about?' They had to be sure.

  Lindsay swallowed. 'Cassie Andreas.'

  Cassie. That dark, memorable face. That strong, butch girl. Everything that applied to her brother could equally apply to her.

  Joss Graham walked very carefully down the narrow stairs and stood in the doorway of the little sitting room, watching his mother.

  She knelt in front of the tin trunk which had stood in the middle of the room, half-packed, a nuisance to everybody, for days. Now it was almost empty, the contents strewn about the floor. He could see that wooden toolbox of hers, open, in the bottom of it. He sat on a chair arm and watched her as she pretended to tidy the already neatly assembled tools in the tray. It satisfied him deeply to see how nervous she was, that her hands trembled, that she was deliberately avoiding looking at him.

  Finally, she put the tray on the floor, lifted up the false bottom and took out the leather pouch that he knew contained the gold bangle. 'I'm going to give this to Cassie,' she said, holding up the bangle so that it gleamed in the light. 'I've no use for it any more. D'you think she'll like it? It's quite pretty.'

  He ignored the bright bauble. 'How did you know where they were hidden?' he asked conversationally.

  She turned even paler than she'd been before, but he was glad to see that she wasn't going to make a pretence of not understanding that he meant the Fabergé flower, and the letter, because that sort of thing was liable to annoy him. And he was already angrier than he'd ever been in his life, except once, on that memorable day when Nigel had made the twin mistakes of disowning him, and showing them the flower.

  'I just kept on looking until I did find them,' Naomi said. 'Under the floorboards was a fairly obvious place, anyway – and they're easy enough to pull up, God knows, with most of them rotten.'<
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  'What made you think they were here at all, in this house?'

  She raised her eyes to his, still kneeling on the floor, and he saw that the fear had left her. She looked sad and careworn in the dusty, tatty old black she was wearing, like an old Greek widow. 'Oh Joss, when I heard Nigel Fontenoy had been murdered and found that the letter had disappeared, there was nothing else I could think. What have you done, you and Cassie? What made you do it?'

  He said harshly, 'The bastard deserved it.' And as he said it, he saw the scenes which had led up to Fontenoy's murder in fast-action replay: first, the night in the garden when she had told him he was not Jake Wilding's son, but Nigel Fontenoy's. And next, what had happened on the following day.

  It had been Cassie's idea to go and see Nigel.

  Joss's first thought had been to quit Lavenstock, to get away, forget the whole thing. Then he'd begun to agree with

  Cassie, why should he leave empty-handed? Nigel Fontenoy wasn't rolling in it, but he wasn't exactly on the breadline.

  Cassie went with him. They had simply walked into the shop, found Nigel alone, and told him who they were and what they'd come for: Joss demanded either recognition as his son, or enough money to make it worth his while to go away. At first disbelieving, Nigel had eventually lost his temper and said contemptuously that he would never in a million years get anything from him, what proof was there that Joss was his son?

  'Because my mother says so,' Joss had replied.

  'Oh? And how would she know? How many other candidates d'you think there were?'

  Joss's temper was slow to catch fire, but unquenchable once it did. He had nearly put his hands round Nigel's throat then and there, in the shop, in broad daylight, strangled the life out of him and knocked the supercilious smile from his face for ever. But something inside him said no, wait. The bugger deserved to die, but not before he, Joss, had found some way to benefit from it.

  The possibility opened up even before they left the shop. They'd prepared to leave then, suddenly, Nigel's attitude had changed. 'You do something for me,' he'd said, 'and I'll make it worth your while.' He went on to tell them about the Russian letter, which he swore Naomi had stolen from him, and had even shown them the Fabergé flower to add authenticity to his story when they looked dubious. If Joss could get the letter from his mother, he would not find Nigel ungenerous. 'And to show I'm in earnest,' he'd added, 'take this, it's worth a bob or two.' And he'd tossed to Cassie an amethyst and diamond pendant that was lying on his desk, waiting, with one or two more things, to be picked up by the man who did his repairs. 'It only needs a new clasp.'

  After a few minutes' silence, Joss had promised, with apparent docility, that he would do his best to get the letter.

  Nigel was looking very pleased with himself as they left. No doubt he thought he'd made a good bargain, but then, he didn't know Joss. Joss had been absolutely livid. A mouldy old pendant that didn't even fasten properly, like throwing a bone to a dog! And giving it to Cassie. Cassie, who despised wearing any kind of jewellery. It was another thing to add to the list of what he'd make Nigel Fontenoy pay for.

  Just how wasn't clear, but bigger obstacles than this hadn't stopped Joss before. He'd never admitted to being thwarted by anything, whatever he'd ever wanted to do in his life, and he wasn't about to start now. He began to brood on how he could get even.

  Once back home, they'd searched for the letter, and found it under the false bottom of Naomi's toolbox, an obvious place, where she had always kept such treasures as she had, like the gold snake bangle.

  The letter had not, however, been taken to Nigel as promised, because long before then, Joss and Cassie had begun to talk of getting the Fabergé for themselves as well.

  'Why did you do it?' Naomi's voice rose to a despairing wail. 'Why did you have to kill him? He was your father, after all.'

  'What has that got to do with anything? He was your lover once, but he was prepared to cheat you out of what was yours. He wouldn't acknowledge me as his son, but he was prepared to use me, to buy me off if I'd get that letter for him. It was his own fault. I wouldn't have killed him if he'd done what I asked.'

  She closed her eyes, then, gripping the edge of the trunk for support, got to her feet.

  'Don't waste any more of my time,' he said through his teeth. 'I want to know what you've done with them – the flower and the letter.'

  'They're where you'll never get at them,' she said. 'I've put them in safe hands.'

  'I thought you might've been stupid enough to do something like that.' She was really a very stupid woman, his mother. Useless. If she'd played her cards properly, she could've had anything she wanted. As it was, she deserved everything that had ever happened to her, just as Fontenoy had. He felt power surge in him as he swooped to the toolbox. Hardly knowing how it had got there, he was aware of the smooth, remembered feel of the wooden cap of the needle-sharp engraving tool in his palm.

  She grabbed his wrist with bony fingers that were surprisingly strong and tried to force the burin away. They struggled, swaying to and fro. He couldn't hear her, under the din of the train rushing through the cutting, but he could see her, her face contorted in a parody of that painting called The Scream'. He hadn't heard the roar of Cassie's motorbike, either, had no idea she'd come in until he saw her standing in the doorway.

  As when Abigail had called at the ramshackle brick house before, there was no response when she knocked. This time she tried the door.

  It wasn't locked. The knob turned and she stepped inside to a scene that would remain with her for the rest of her life. Nothing she had yet encountered had prepared her for this. Her hand went to her mouth. The gorge rose in her throat, she felt sick. She backed away and knocked into Carmody, a couple of steps behind her. She took several deep breaths, reminded herself that she was trained and able to cope with this, and forced herself to look again.

  'Hell's bells,' Carmody said.

  Blood everywhere. Three bodies.

  Naomi Graham was lying on the floor, grey hair fanned half over her face, with what looked like one of her own engraving tools driven into her chest. Her son was lying beside her in a pool of blackening blood, a small, sharp chisel on the floor beside him. Cassie slumped in a chair, eyes closed. The room stank like a slaughterhouse.

  Cassie's eyes opened. Slowly, as if they were being forced to against her will.

  So there were only two dead bodies. And one severely shocked girl, alive but in a near-catatonic state. Only one dead body, it soon emerged, since Joss Graham was also still alive, though only just.

  24

  At the Cedar House, the lamps were lit and a small coal fire smouldered in the hearth. It was a mild day, though dark and heavy.

  'You're my second visitors today. Christine's just been here. We were talking about reopening.' Frail and slightly tottery, George Fontenoy bent dangerously forward to attack the sullen coals, finally succeeding in coaxing the fire to spring into flame.

  'You are keeping the business going, then?' Abigail asked.

  'I couldn't cope with it alone, but I've spoken to Christine and she's more than willing to come back and run the shop for me, with a view to an eventual partnership. I intend to buy Matthew out – the share of the business my son left to him. As you've probably gathered, he lacks any attachment to it.' George watched the flames and smoke leap up the chimney; if he was disappointed, he'd clearly no intention of letting it show.

  'Pity he's not interested,' Mayo said.

  'From my point of view, yes, but not from Matthew's. He's come to his senses and is doing what he should've been doing all along, working with his father. I'm not speaking of any obligations to Jake, it's simply right for Matthew. He'll make a success of it, you'll see. He's very like his father. But that isn't why I asked you to come here. I would have been in touch with you before, but –' He hesitated. 'Are you at liberty to tell me about – about what happened, Chief Inspector?'

  'If it won't upset you too much.'

/>   'That doesn't matter. I'd rather know.'

  Mayo couldn't even begin to imagine how it would feel at George's age to discover you had a grandson you'd never known to exist, then to find out he'd killed your son, his own father. It was an insupportable situation which must already have placed obligations and burdens on him he didn't need. Yet he'd a right to know what had happened, to have the chance to come to terms with it. Swiftly, Mayo gave him what facts he ought to know. What seemed to puzzle the old man most was how Joss Graham had got into the shop that night.

  'Nigel let him in because he was told Joss now had the provenance he wanted, although he must've been surprised. It'd been several weeks since he'd put the idea to Joss and nothing had transpired, so presumably he'd thought the deal was off. Time was running out, Naomi was on the point of leaving Lavenstock, and that, I suppose, was why he'd pressured Jake Wilding into trying to get the letter for him.'

  What Mayo didn't say was how much the randomness of the whole thing had struck him – that the circumstances of Fontenoy's death had seemed almost accidental, that Joss Graham had planned only as a notional concept, trusting mostly to luck. It was the sort of single-minded, blinkered approach to any crime, the criminal's unquestioning belief in the success of his actions, the reckless disregard for the usual cover-ups, that put the fear of God into Mayo whenever he encountered it, because no amount of applied logic could make any sense out of a plan which had never existed in the first place.

  'So he simply walked in, killed my son, and took the Fabergé from the safe with Nigel's own keys.' Only a slight tremble in George's voice betrayed his feelings.

  'That's how he said it was, and his sister corroborates his story.'

  'Ah yes, the girl. Naomi's daughter.'

  'Cassie wasn't involved in the actual murder. The whole thing was, to begin with, a sort of folie à deux, and it's very possible she was the moving spirit. She's capable of it – but in the end, Joss went too far, even for her. Her relationship with her mother, not to say her brother, was complex. Naomi genuinely didn't care what her children did, Cassie desperately tried to make her care. She went out of her way to be outrageous, pretended that her mother meant nothing to her, but when it came to it, and she saw Joss stab Naomi, it was too much.'