Echoes of Silence

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘The Armitages’ flat is exactly like this, most of them are,’ she said, noticing his appraising glance as she came back with the key. ‘They’ve decided to live in Spain permanently now they’ve retired, which is why they’re selling. They’re over there now. Mrs A thinks it’s better for her asthma,’ she added, as though she might know better, inserting the key into a door two flats along from her own, right at the end of the corridor.

  She was small and dark and he thought she might be clever. The slightly backward tilt of her head that some short people were inclined to adopt lifted her decisive little chin, giving her an air of alertness, or maybe watchfulness would be a more appropriate word. Nothing given away by those intelligent, almond-shaped eyes. She was dressed in a smart woollen suit in winter-white, chunky gold costume jewellery and black tights. Without comment, she showed him what the flat had to offer: a good-sized bedroom, a smaller one, a bathroom and an efficiently equipped kitchen, a living-room with a view along the valley.

  ‘It looks smaller than your flat,’ he commented.

  ‘It’s not, really. Just this poncy clutter makes it seem so.’ A wave of the hand dismissed the obviously expensive furniture, the thick Chinese carpets, silk cushions, pictures and the plethora of highly decorated porcelain and glass objects with a casual wave of the hand. ‘Worth pinching, though. That’s why Lance Armitage is paranoiac about not leaving keys all over the place. I used to work for him, so he knows he can trust me. Have you seen all you want to see?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. It’s a very attractive proposition. I’ll think about it,’ Richmond said, though knowing he’d already made up his mind that, stripped of its shiny wallpaper and fancy carpets, the place would suit him to a T. The price was a bit of a facer, but he was earning a respectable salary, he’d done a lot of DIY on the small house he’d had in Bristol and sold at a profit. The housing market round here wasn’t exactly booming; maybe he’d be able to do a bit of horse trading with Mr Whiteley. He reflected in passing that Steynton Fine Art must be doing well for Elvira Graham to be able to afford such prices.

  ‘Thank you for showing me around. But before I go, I’d like to have a word with you about something else.’ He produced his warrant card but she didn’t look at it.

  ‘I know who you are. Polly told me you were back.’

  ‘Then you obviously know why I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Not here,’ she said abruptly. ‘My place.’

  He remarked, when they were sitting opposite each other on matching blond leather sofas, ‘You’re not what I expected.’

  ‘What did you think I’d be like? Someone twee and twittery? People do, you know, once they hear that name, which I hate, by the way, and don’t answer to now. They called me Elf when I was little, and that’s so bloody patronising to a grown woman! Though I don’t suppose they mean it, it’s just habit – with Ginny and Polly, anyway. Freya meant it, though. She hated my guts.’ She paused, evidently to give him the opportunity to ask why.

  ‘Why was that?’ he obliged.

  ‘She couldn’t do anything with me when I was little. Frankly, I was a bit of a problem. Plus, she didn’t like children very much, even her own. Except Peter, of course, because he danced to her tune.’ She paused. ‘You know I was a poor, penniless little orphan, brought up as part of the family?’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘My parents died when I was a baby and I was brought to live with the Denshaws. Dot Nagle was sent for to come and help out at that time, which I gather was a condition of my being taken in. As I said, bringing up children was never Freya’s scene. Just as well, seeing I was such a horror.’

  She smiled mockingly, but he had a sense of something not quite right. The heavy irony was overdone, and didn’t sit right on her. She was talking too much, telling him more than she needed to, an information spiel so pat he guessed it was automatic; given so many times she scarcely heard it. It was basically the same explanation Polly Winslow had given him and Elvira had obviously decided to stick to it. How much had been omitted, or embroidered upon?

  ‘And when I was growing up,’ she was continuing, watching him covertly, ‘she thought I was going to take her precious Peter from her.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’ He was developing an unpleasant hunch, not sure yet whether it was viable, but one he’d pursue. Time and experience had taught him that women could hate their own children. However unnatural or inconceivable it was to most people, it happened, especially if their birth was an embarrassment or an inconvenience. Did it apply here? It could be, of course, that he was barking up the wrong tree, but if he was right, it would explain why Freya Denshaw had been alarmed at any developing intimacy between Peter and Elf.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She was suddenly serious, dropping the flippant manner, leaning forward, clasping her hands around her knees. The thought of Isobel, who had eventually taken him away from Freya, lay between them, unspoken. She said abruptly, ‘I won’t mention this again, but I just want to say I’m sorry about what happened to Beth. She was a super kid.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He wanted to believe she meant it and thought she did, sensing something deeper than a conventional expression of sympathy. He was somewhat disposed to like this stiff, aggressive, abrupt and opinionated little person. ‘You were the last one to see her,’ he said, taking his cue from her own directness.

  ‘Yes. I helped her build that snowman.’

  ‘Tell me what happened that day?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I’d like to hear it in your own words, as you recall it now.’

  ‘We-ell … then.’

  She repeated the statement she’d made at that time, recalling it almost word for word, how she and Beth had made the snowman together, how she’d gone indoors to find the finishing touches. How, when she came out again, she saw Peter turning in at the gates and found that Beth had gone.

  ‘It was terrible,’ she said. ‘We were running about like headless chickens. I’d been gone longer than I thought because I couldn’t find a hat for the snowman. I thought I knew where there was an old bowler we used to use for dressing up but I couldn’t find it. I wasn’t gone longer than fifteen or twenty minutes at most, though. It just wasn’t possible she’d disappeared into thin air. For a while we thought she was hiding. We all used to do that when we were kids, Low Rigg isn’t short of hidey-holes, whatever else. We searched every nook and cranny. Which took some time, as you’ll imagine. Then Eddie Nagle took his car and the dogs and drove out looking for her. We thought she might have wandered off, set out to meet her mum. She’d had a watch for Christmas and it was still a novelty. She was keeping tabs on the time, looking at it every few minutes.’

  Her first watch, his own present to her. An inexpensive, fun thing he hadn’t expected to last five minutes, but despite frequent over-windings and adjustments, it had still been working by January.

  ‘If she’d set off down the road to meet her mother, Peter Denshaw would have met her on his way up.’

  ‘We thought maybe she’d got lost … or slipped and fallen into a snowdrift.’

  The snow had been thick that year. A terrible winter it had been, starting with a white Christmas, snow blanketing the hills, blocking the roads over the tops, blowing into ten-foot high drifts in places, with freezing temperatures and no signs of a thaw for weeks. They had wakened that morning to a fresh, heavy fall, virgin snow under a brilliant, cloudless sky. The world had looked so innocent.

  ‘When did you call the police?’

  ‘After an hour or so, when we’d exhausted everything else, when Eddie came back without having found any trace of her. He’d driven right down beyond the main road but there was no sign.’

  And that was when he knew how it had been done. So easy. Everyone panicking, the big old house being searched from attic to cellar, then Nagle taking her, already dead and stuffed into the boot of his car, down to East Park. Using his dogs as an excuse for b
eing in the park, letting them loose to frolic in the snow while he put her body under the bandstand, covering his tracks. Tracks which had been covered in any case by later snow. So, had Nagle killed Beth himself or had Peter Denshaw, as Dan Brearley had at first believed, arrived earlier than he’d said? Twenty minutes Beth had been alone. Twenty minutes for some sort of quarrel to start up, in which Beth had been killed, and arrangements made with Nagle to dispose of her? It was possible, but an unlikely supposition, and it had been the point at which Brearley had stuck.

  Why had the possibility of Nagle as a suspect been overlooked, his car not examined for traces? Another sloppy oversight, Brearley fixated on Peter Denshaw as the culprit? Doubtless, there had been reasons at the time. With hindsight, it was hard to see just what they’d been. Rarely could there have been a bigger cock-up.

  ‘In the end we rang the police and went indoors and waited,’ Elvira was saying. By then the snow would have been well and truly trampled over, any hope of finding traces of Beth’s abductor gone. ‘Philip ordered Dot to pull herself together and make some tea. She’d laced it with whisky, I remember, and it tasted horrible, but I suppose we needed it. We were all frozen, as well as shocked. Philip … He’d always thought such a lot about Beth – yet he was the one who took charge and got us all organised.’ The admission came out reluctantly.

  Philip Denshaw. An unknown quantity, as yet. An old man, even then, a kind old uncle figure for Beth. With whom any connection with Wyn Austwick, at least, seemed remote. Wait a minute, though. She’d sung in a choir, hadn’t she? How many choirs in Steynton? In fact, only one came to mind, and it was the one Philip Denshaw conducted, the rather grandly named Steynton Choral Society.

  Press on. Find out who killed Austwick, he reminded himself yet again, and he’d have found Beth’s killer: a now familiar and somehow disturbing litany. He’d always had a sense of priorities and it had stood him in good stead: this ruthless thrusting away of anything that was going to hinder him in his ultimate aim was new, and nourished him in a way that alarmed him and told him he’d have to watch it. Truth, not revenge, was what he wanted, but he was discovering that the thought of vengeance could become addictive.

  He looked at his watch and thanked Elvira for what had evidently been a difficult few minutes. ‘I’ve already taken up more of your time than I promised, but before I go … I’d like to ask you something about Mrs Wyn Austwick. We found the copy of a letter she’d sent to you among her papers.’

  ‘Yes, she did write to me. We were going to meet when she came back from holiday. She wanted to talk to me, see where I figured in the family and so on.’

  ‘Had you met her before?’

  ‘Briefly, once, up at Low Rigg. She struck me as a poisonous woman. I’d have had nothing to do with her if I’d been Freya. Just the sort to take advantage of the confidential material she was entrusted with, I thought.’

  A snap judgement that he wouldn’t have found far off the mark, had his own judgement not been tempered by what he now knew of the dead woman, what had motivated her. One side of her character didn’t negate the other.

  ‘So you know she’d been threatening Mrs Denshaw?’

  ‘I’ve told you. I saw Polly yesterday. She told me what Freya had done. I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Yes, it’s muddied the waters somewhat – which might, of course, have been the intention. Give me your opinion. Is it possible she did know who killed Beth?’

  ‘I think she thought she did, which isn’t quite the same, is it?’

  ‘And what do you think, Miss Graham? You were there, you must have gone over the possibilities in your mind, then and since.’

  ‘Endlessly.’ She looked suddenly bleak and pinched. ‘But the only thing I am sure of is that no way would Peter have killed your little girl.’

  Sonia’s little Fiat had been a birthday present from her parents four years ago, and on every subsequent birthday she received a cheque to cover the costs of taxing and insuring it, plus a little something over which, her mother directed without much hope, she should spend on some luxury for herself. Her mother was right not to be sanguine – the little something extra generally went into some charity box or other. Peter’s lips tightened every time the envelope came from Montignac in the Dordogne, where her parents had now retired, but he never said anything. On Monday he remarked on it no more than he ever did, giving her the bunch of flowers which was his own invariable present, with a kiss and a smile, since it was, after all, her fortieth birthday.

  Her face lit up. A kiss, a smile, and flowers! And when he said, ‘You’re a good girl, Sonia, you deserve more than a bunch of flowers from a poor parson,’ her day was made.

  ‘That wasn’t why I married you,’ she ventured with a shy smile.

  He might have asked her why she had married him, and might have received a surprising answer, but he merely smiled sadly in return. ‘I have George Sedgwick to see for a few minutes at twelve, but we’ll have a drink together before lunch, as a celebration.’

  Sonia blushed guiltily, to think that, even momentarily, among the excitement of her birthday and preparations for the Mothers’ Union Christmas carol service, she could have forgotten. George Sedgwick was the churchwarden and they were doubtless meeting to discuss Freya’s funeral service, which Peter himself was to conduct. She felt even more guilty when, for some reason, he kissed her again when he left.

  She watched his tall figure cross the snow-sprinkled churchyard, his shoulders bent, his long black cassock flapping around his legs, until he disappeared inside the church door, doubtless to light yet another candle for his mother. It felt like an act of treachery to wonder whether the celebration drink he’d suggested wasn’t in fact a form of Dutch courage, to fortify himself for the interview later that afternoon with the police, but the thought had insinuated itself into her mind and wouldn’t go away. Coupling with that other dangerous little bit of knowledge she’d been keeping to herself and was afraid she wouldn’t be able to much longer: the fact that Peter had been out on the Friday night that woman had been killed, without telling her where he was. But then, he often omitted to tell her where he was going. She was being wholly disloyal and must forget it.

  Freya’s death had hit him so badly. He’d always been the favourite among her children, perhaps because, unlike her daughters, he could not admit to her faults, nor she to his. And because he, like her, was the artistic one, the sensitive one, and as such deserved special treatment. Perhaps, thought Sonia defeatedly, it was better not to have such sensitivities. They didn’t make for happiness. Perhaps I’m too critical of him. But her innate honesty made her qualify that: he’s a man of God, but that is not a state of being which automatically confers perfection.

  Nor had Freya been perfect. Try as she would, Sonia couldn’t find it in her heart to grieve for her. She knew it was wrong and had prayed endlessly for grace to find something good by which she could remember the old woman. But Freya hadn’t shown her much kindness or tried to hide the fact that she found Sonia uninteresting and physically unattractive. Of course she would never have admitted to liking anyone Peter chose to marry. Apparently, she hadn’t cared much for Isobel, either, but at least Isobel had been pretty, which went a long way with Freya. For weeks there had been a certain amount of tension between Peter and his mother when he’d announced he was going to marry Sonia, but Freya could never be angry with her son for long and she’d grudgingly accepted that Sonia was here to stay. That didn’t mean, however, that she’d had to love her daughter-in-law.

  Sonia had had other presents for her birthday: a beautiful knitted garment from Ginny in wines and blues and golds, a pair of swinging silver ear-rings from Polly, some personally chosen, highly scented bath crystals from Harriet, and from the twins a box of chocolates. Each child had also sent her a handmade card, full of effort, which had brought tears to her eyes, and she’d placed them on the mantelpiece in front of all the others. Even Dot had given her a pot plant, a little mock oran
ge tree. The gift which had pleased her most, however, had come from Elvira, of all people. Sonia couldn’t imagine why she’d sent it, delivered by messenger, when she often forgot to send even a card. A last-minute thought, she guessed, because someone had reminded her this was a special birthday. But how kind! A delicate, lovely piece of porcelain, a white bird, its outspread wingtips tinged with the faintest pink, an object more beautiful than anything she’d ever possessed. She looked at all her presents, eyes brimming, unbearably touched by this evidence of thoughtfulness, especially at such a time, but unable to imagine herself using any of them. Not even the chocolates, which no one ever remembered she shouldn’t eat, not with her skin condition. Nor was she any good with plants, and she could all too easily envisage this one’s inexorable fate. Then, remembering Peter’s unaccustomed gentleness, with a sudden access of bravery and a jump of excitement, she thought, why not? Why not run herself an indulgent bath, using the bath salts, dress herself up a bit? Make an effort, Sonia! Yes, she would.

  First, she went to find a vase for the flowers, forgetting her sinuses and burying her face in the bronze and yellow chrysanthemums, their bitter-sweet smell seeming to say everything about her marriage.

  And as she put the stiff stems in water, she began to sneeze. Peter never remembered her allergies, either.

  She had set the table with special care, bringing out the wedding present silverware and putting the solanum with its bright orange globes in the centre, displaying the chrysanths prominently on a bookshelf, though well away from her chair. There hadn’t been time to prepare a special meal, but the Tesco’s chicken thighs were simmering in the oven and giving out a delicious smell. There was just time to slip out to the off-licence to buy a bottle of sherry out of the ‘little something over’ before Peter came back.