The Affacombe Affair

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘I expect Dr Coppin gave her an antibiotic,’ Olivia said reassuringly. ‘Hugh said he’d left something for her to take on Monday night. They have the most frightfully depressing effect on some people. And after all, parting with your only daughter is a wrench, and I think she’s probably got everything out of focus at the moment.’

  A look of relief came into Julian’s face.

  ‘What a clot I am,’ she said. ‘I never thought of that. People are always talking about antibiotic depression at the hospital.’

  ‘Why not see if you can get David now? You’ll feel much happier after a chat with him.’

  Going into the kitchen Olivia listened anxiously until it became clear that David was at the other end of the line. As she went automatically through the process of coffee-making she began to feel increasingly indignant towards Barbara Winship. Of course, when people were ill their real selves were apt to come out, and Barbara was a spoilt, self-centred woman. Naturally she didn’t want Julian to go off for good, nor the wear and tear of organizing the wedding, and wasn’t making any attempt to disguise the fact.

  The sitting-room door opened, and Julian came across to the kitchen looking relaxed and much happier.

  ‘David sends you his love,’ she reported. ‘He says he thinks your diagnosis of Mummy’s upset is probably correct in the light of the information available to him: the legal mind in action! We’ve decided to take a soothing line with her, and say we’ll be talking it over when I go up to Town the weekend after next. Of course, we’ve no intention of putting off the wedding, but she’ll have got over her ’flu by then.’

  ‘You’re finishing up at the hospital on Friday week, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m coming straight back here from London on the Sunday night. My being at home all the time ought to make it easier for Mummy. Silly of me to get into such a tiz just now, but when I want a thing really desperately I’m always terrified it won’t come off. David teases me about it. Do let me carry that tray for you.’

  Half an hour later when Julian had gone back to Crossways Olivia settled down once more to read. After a time she found her attention wandering, and putting her book aside stared into the fire. Everything had been going so well until Barbara started this disruption. At least, almost everything. The unfortunate Earwaker business was a marginal worry, and that had come absolutely out of the blue, too. What was it David said about it? ‘The balloon seems to have gone up very suddenly’, wasn’t it? Ethel had been her normal self on the morning of her abrupt departure, and Hugh had said that Barbara was perfectly all right when he went off to his County Council meeting. Quite an odd coincidence.

  Feeling rather tired and depressed she decided to go up to bed. Tomorrow she would make another attempt to see Barbara.

  On the following morning Olivia duly carried out her resolution and went to Crossways. She found Barbara installed in the drawing-room, surrounded with invalid comforts and being cosseted by Hugh. The spectacle was irritating until she caught sight of her face. Discomfited, she had to admit that Julian had not exaggerated, and that her mother did look dreadful. About ten years older, and her eyes were frightened.

  ‘...few days in a decent hotel at Polharbour,’ Hugh was saying. ‘Keeps on that she doesn’t feel up to going away, but I’m digging m’heels in for once.’

  Barbara smiled wanly.

  ‘I really can’t face packing and shutting up the house until after the weekend. I must get on to my legs and go out once or twice first.’

  ‘Down here today. Turn in the garden tomorrow, what?’

  ‘Polharbour sounds a splendid idea,’ Olivia said bracingly. ‘I’ll gladly come round and pack for you, Barbara, if it would help. You could just sit and tell me what to put in.’

  ‘Oh, no, really. It’s too sweet of you, but I’m sure I’ll be able to cope by then. I wouldn’t dream of letting you.’

  After some rather desultory conversation Olivia rose to go, remarking that visitors were tiring when you were under the weather. Barbara made no effort to detain her, and she left feeling that she had been warned off. Various casual encounters later in the week confirmed this impression. They met in the village and once in Leeford, and on each occasion there was an unmistakable sense of a barrier having sprung up between them. We’re far more out of touch than before the engagement she thought. Really, Barbara was being most peculiar and tiresome.

  A further irritation to an orderly person like herself was the non-appearance of Fred Earwaker to mend the trellis fence damaged by the storm. He was avoiding her, and according to the village had been living more or less like a hermit since the departure of Ethel and Tommy. Olivia finally wrote an urgent note and took it up to his cottage. As she put it through the letter box she found herself wondering again if Ethel had learnt of his affair with Luisa through an anonymous letter, and almost simultaneously a startling idea flashed into her mind. Was it conceivably possible that Barbara’s attack of nerves was the result of an anonymous letter?

  Really, she thought as she walked slowly home, I’m getting anonymous letters on the brain. To begin with there’s no proof that Ethel ever had one. Still, from what one reads in detective novels once people start writing them they’re apt to go on, so if she did there’s nothing improbable in Barbara getting one as well. But what on earth could have been in it to shatter her so completely? I can’t believe that she’d take it seriously if it accused Hugh of infidelity, or Julian of doing something frightful.

  Deciding that she was allowing her imagination to run away with her Olivia made a determined effort to dismiss the whole subject from her mind. But in spite of some hard work on the Parish History she found herself unable to do so, and after deliberating wrote a long letter to David at the weekend. His reply came at mid-week. It was neither teasing nor irritated, a fact which she found rather disturbing. He was very glad to have been briefed on the situation at Crossways before Julian came up to London. He still thought that a medical explanation of Barbara’s behaviour was tenable, but agreed that there was an apparent odd parallel with the Earwaker explosion. However, although it seemed quite possible that Ethel had received an anonymous letter, perhaps it was going a bit far to attribute Barbara’s vapours to one? All the same, it was a dangerously intriguing idea if it could be taken a stage further to imply a skeleton in his prospective mother-in-law’s cupboard.

  On the following Saturday afternoon, a team from St Hector’s, Polharbour, came over to play the Priory School. It was the chief match of the term, and John Ainsworth anxiously watched the foxy brilliance of the early morning clouding over. The weather was still holding up after lunch, however, and from half-past two onwards faint yelling and cheering came floating down to the village.

  Olivia Strode had been invited to tea at the Vicarage. Shortly before four o’clock she went upstairs to get ready, and noticed that the noise had stopped. She hoped that the home team had won: John Ainsworth cared so much about such things. At any rate everybody would now be enjoying one of Faith’s celebrated match teas. Judging that the rain was likely to come soon, she took an umbrella and started off on foot.

  The village seemed deserted. A bus left for Polharbour at one on Saturdays, taking people in for shopping and the cinema, and would not return until six. As she reached the Church Lane turning she saw the Winships’ Jack Russells dart out of the gate leading from the Monk’s Path. A moment later Barbara followed them, and returned her wave as the church clock jerkily announced the first quarter. Olivia hurried on, relieved at not having to stop and engage in constrained conversation about the visit to Polharbour. But sooner or later, she thought, frowning, I’ll have to tackle this situation and try to get through to her.

  The Priory School had deservedly won the match, and after seeing off the St Hector’s coach with the decorum demanded by the Ainsworths’ presence, the boys showed every sign of getting above themselves. Mrs Claythorpe, the matron on duty, had her hands full, and when one Stephen Biggs reported that he felt si
ck she bundled him along the colonnade to the school sanatorium in the East Wing.

  ‘If you’re going to be sick you can do it over with Sister,’ she said in an exasperated voice. ‘You’ve overeaten at the match tea, that’s what it is. You’re a thoroughly greedy little boy, Stephen. I haven’t forgotten what happened when your Granny took you out last term, if you have... Sister!’ she called, sweeping him through the door and into the surgery. ‘Here, hold this.’ She thrust a white enamel bowl at him. ‘Sister! You’re wanted!’ she called more loudly.

  There was no answer. Hurrying to Sister Roach’s sitting-room, Mrs Claythorpe found it empty, and a few moments were enough to establish that she was nowhere in the sanatorium. Clicking her tongue in annoyance Mrs Claythorpe returned to the surgery and ran a practised eye over the hapless Stephen, by now looking decidedly green.

  ‘Sister must have gone over to school,’ she said more mildly. ‘You’d better come and lie down until she comes back. Bring that bowl, for goodness sake.’

  After putting him on a bed with the bowl strategically placed, she hurried back to the main block in search of Sister Roach, but an appalling uproar in the senior boys’ common room diverted her. She found Sheila Wills, an assistant matron, vainly trying to quell a free-for-all in which a chair had already been smashed. Having restored order, and made it clear that anyone who gave further trouble would be sent straight to the headmaster, she reverted to her original purpose.

  ‘Just run across to the San, dear,’ she said to Sheila Wills, ‘and explain to Sister about that little wretch Stephen Biggs. She’s sure to have got back by now. It’s better for me to be about here with the boys being so over-excited.’

  Within a few minutes Sheila returned to report that Sister Roach was still absent, and that Stephen had been frightfully sick and looked awful.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to do the best you can for the moment, then. Give him a hot-water bottle, and a few sips of water if he can keep it down. I’ll run and see if she’s in the kitchen.’

  No one on duty in the kitchen had seen Sister Roach since she collected her tea tray at about four o’clock, or knew anything of her whereabouts. After looking for her in various other places, Mrs. Claythorpe stood hesitating. Could it be that as there were no in-patients, Sister had asked Mrs Ainsworth if she could go down to the village, and had forgotten to tell the matron on duty? It wouldn’t be a bit like her to forget a thing as important as that. Reluctant to disturb the Ainsworths, and still more to risk giving away a colleague who might have slipped up, Mrs. Claythorpe was still undecided when pandemonium broke out in the little boys’ playroom and tipped the balance. Stephen Biggs couldn’t be left alone over there, so they simply must have a third pair of hands...

  Chapter Seven

  It was a tribute to Sister Roach’s reputation for reliability that the Ainsworths assumed at once that her absence was due to some misunderstanding about off-duty time. Faith hurried across to the East Wing and relieved Sheila Wills, leaving John to ring George Forbes at the Village Stores and find out if Sister Roach was visiting his wife, her main social contact in Affacombe. On hearing that they had not seen her since the previous day, he went over to the East Wing himself, to ask Faith if she could suggest any other likely household.

  Faith came out of Sister Roach’s sitting-room looking puzzled and slightly bothered.

  ‘Her everyday coat’s gone,’ she told him. ‘It always hangs on that hook, just inside the door. But she hasn’t taken her handbag — it’s here on the table. I can’t make it out.’

  ‘What about her bike?’ he asked.

  The bicycle was in its usual shed. In the clinically clean and orderly pantry they found a tea tray with an unused teapot and an apparently untouched plate of food from the match tea. A strainer had been used to brew a single cup of tea.

  ‘John, I don’t like it a bit.’ There was a slight tremor in Faith’s voice as she stared at him with large, anxious eyes. ‘Suppose she went out into the grounds for a breather, meaning to have her tea later? She could have slipped and fallen, and be lying somewhere with a broken leg.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Could be,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘Not very likely, though. She wouldn’t have gone far as she was on duty. Somebody would be sure to have heard her calling for help. Still, perhaps I’d better get a torch and have a quick look round.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ she said. ‘I’d feel much happier. I think I’d better put a blanket round Stephen Biggs and take him over to the spare room. It’ll be easier to look after him there.’

  Twenty minutes later John Ainsworth re-entered the main front door of the house. Faith came running down the staircase.

  ‘Not a sign of her,’ he said in a low voice, peeling off a wet Macintosh and leading the way to their sitting-room. ‘I’ve been all round the back and into the ruins, and along the Monk’s Path a bit, and yelled and listened. It’s drizzling, which doesn’t help.’

  As he spoke there was the sound of a car coming up the drive. They turned their heads, but it went past the window towards the West Wing.

  ‘Garnishes,’ John said. ‘I saw them going off somewhere before lunch. Look here, can’t you think of anywhere else in the village where she could be? I can easily run down in the car.’

  ‘I suppose it’s just possible that she might be at Hilda Rainbird’s,’ Faith said doubtfully. ‘Or with Mrs Cummings. I’ve seen them talking to each other once or twice after church.’

  After two more abortive telephone calls they looked at each other, torn between anxiety and the dread of involving the school in undesirable publicity.

  ‘We’d better face it,’ John said. ‘It’s beginning to point to a proper search. Blast and damn the woman! It would be a Saturday night with the teaching staff away. I’m going to risk getting a flea in my ear, and ring through to Garnish. If he’d lend a hand, it’d be a lot better than digging Blake out of the Priory Arms, and having the whole village buzzing.’

  ‘What’s up?’ enquired Roy Garnish. ‘Evening, Mrs Ainsworth.’ He dominated the hearthrug and eyed them enquiringly.

  ‘We need a spot of help on the quiet,’ John Ainsworth said. ‘It’s like this.’

  Roy Garnish listened to his account without comment.

  ‘Didn’t you have a match on this afternoon?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Look at it this way. There were visitors and strange cars about, I take it? Suppose an old flame of the woman’s turned up to see her, and suggested going off to make an evening of it somewhere? Mightn’t she have risked it, seeing there weren’t any kids in the sick bay?’

  ‘She’d have known perfectly well that she’d only got to come and ask for special leave. My wife would have stood in for her. We’re pretty elastic: have to be, or we couldn’t keep a staff at all.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have gone out for the evening in her old coat, and without a handbag,’ ventured Faith.

  Roy Garnish stared at her.

  ‘You’ve got a point there,’ he agreed. ‘Well, it’s a bloody nuisance, but somebody’s got to make sure she isn’t lying out in the rain. I’ll lend a hand, of course. I’m with you about trying to keep the village out of it. The less talk the better from the school’s point of view, and ten to one it’s a mare’s nest, anyway. I’ll cut home and get into some boots and a raincoat. Be seeing you, Mrs Ainsworth.’

  Olivia Strode cautiously negotiated the turn into the drive of Affacombe Priory, the curtain of the rain glittering in her headlights. The need for concentration interrupted her speculation about what had happened at the school. Faith had sounded desperately worried over the telephone, giving no details beyond the fact that a major crisis had developed. As she drew up at the front door Olivia saw that no other car was parked in the gravel sweep and realized that she had been subconsciously expecting to find Dr Coppin’s there. Perhaps it was a domestic crisis? The foreign girls walking out en bloc, for instance.

  She tied a
scarf over her head and dived for the shelter of the porch. The next moment she had opened the door and was confronted by the spectacle of John Ainsworth and Roy Garnish dragging off muddy Wellington boots, while Faith carried dripping Macintoshes in the direction of the cloakroom. Sounds of a large number of small boys going to bed were floating down from the upper floors: running water, feet thudding along passages in bedroom slippers, doors slamming, young voices and adult exhortation. A composite smell of baked beans on toast, Dettol and wet clothes assailed her nostrils. Roy Garnish looked up, acknowledging her arrival with a nod.

  ‘Good of you to come up, Olivia.’ John Ainsworth sounded abstracted.

  In the sitting-room he dispensed drinks while giving her the facts of Sister Roach’s disappearance.

  ‘We’re now absolutely certain that she isn’t anywhere in the buildings. Garnish and I have been going over the grounds with torches for the past hour and have drawn a complete blank. She hadn’t many contacts in the village, and none of them have seen her. Where do we go from here — if anywhere? We can call at every house, I suppose, or bring in the police. Either will get the school into the papers and set off the parents. What’s your reaction, Olivia?’

  Olivia glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece which registered twenty minutes past eight, and considered for a few moments.

  ‘Let me recap,’ she said. ‘Sister’s absence was first noticed roughly three hours ago, but as far as we know she hasn’t been seen on the premises since she collected her tray about four o’clock. It certainly seems a bit soon to raise the alarm. On the other hand, the old coat, the handbag, the hurried cup of tea and the bicycle taken together suggest that she didn’t intend to go far. Also, from what you say about her, she doesn’t sound the sort of person to be A.W.O.L.’