‘So?’
Oliver didn’t sound interested. I glanced sideways. In profile his face was sharp, with lines bitten deeply into it.
‘It’s only that Rowley Fields owned both those old houses, and they were in the way of it all.’
‘I don’t get your point.’
I sighed. ‘If Rowley disappeared, then there’d be seven years to wait before he could be presumed dead, and during that time a man might invest his money —’
‘A man?’
‘A man called Tudor Kemp, then. Do I have to spell it out? The point is that if Kemp killed him, and knew he was dead —’
‘Which seems likely, if he killed him.’
‘Yes!’ I bit it off, then forced myself to relax. ‘He’d be the only one who could be certain Rowley wouldn’t be coming back to block the planning permission.’
‘Who told you this?’ Oliver demanded.
‘Inspector Connaught.’
‘Hmph!’ Thus Oliver dismissed him. ‘Probably pulling your leg.’
‘Or slipping in a distraction,’ Terry said lightly.
I let it lie. Connaught being crafty, perhaps. But I had an inborn suspicion of big business. I’d had close contacts with it in my work in New York, and it hadn’t done much to change my opinion. Yet a man might risk his own money on a chance, and stand to gain if it worked out. All to his praise; it was he taking the chances. As Rowley Fields had done with his football pools fiddle. It was all a matter of degree, Rowley with his thirty pounds a week, Kemp with his several millions.
‘It’s along here, I think,’ I said. ‘You can just see the motorway work, beyond that dip in the ground.’
In two minutes I was certain I had the correct lane. The mud was there, the tattered hedges, and, when we reached the site, most of the Fields’s house still standing. But the wrecker’s ball had been busy. I could see the crane, poised beyond the building. I turned to swing into the drive, and a uniformed policeman suddenly stood dangerously almost under my wheels. I ran the side window down.
‘You can’t go up there, miss.’
‘I just wanted to show —’
‘There’s nothing to see, and what there is isn’t pleasant.’
‘I know that only too well.’
Why wasn’t Oliver saying something? Did a detective inspector become a mister the moment he moved off his own patch? Then he did speak, a gentle murmur.
‘It’ll do in the lane, Phil.’
So I backed out, and slowly we drove on up the lane, me knowing it was going to come to an abrupt and probably dangerous end. There was a slight curve. Because of this I hadn’t seen that there was already a car at the far end. Behind it, we drew to a halt. It was a sleek, black Daimler Sovereign.
We got out, Oliver slowly and awkwardly. Terry caught my eye and shook his head. Oliver looked grey and old when he unwound to full height.
Beyond the Daimler, only feet from the front bumper, there was a line of cones barring the way. Beyond them the lane surface ended abruptly. The digger had run along at a right angle and chopped it off, not cleanly, for the layer of tarmac heaved and writhed as though in its terminal agony. Beyond that there was a fall, not steep, not so steep that your feet might run from under you, but of slashed and impounded clay.
The air was still, the sky a flaring red over to our left, touching the soft wet edges of tumbled soil with lines of blood. Clear in the glowing evening I heard the double bark of a shotgun, so much deeper and carrying more weight than the snap of a pistol or the crack of a rifle. It came from not far away, but its source was difficult to locate amongst the mounds and terraces of upflung earth out there, spread below us and swinging round in an arc into the sun.
But a man stood with his back to us at the very rim of the fractured tarmac, hands above his eyes, and by following the direction of his attention I could locate the gunman, who was moving slowly across from left to right, plodding, head moving as his eyes darted around. As I watched, the gun was raised and two more shots cut the silence. Nothing tumbled down from the sky, nothing was picked up, limp from the ground.
‘Rabbits,’ said the man at the edge, as though I’d asked. Into that one word he condensed a bitter anger and a deep contempt.
Then I realized it was Jay Messenger. I ought to have recognized those wide, firm shoulders from behind, and the trim hips, but he was out of context here. To me he lived in a world of spurious sets, or surrounded by hysterical fans. But here he was alone, and he must have walked or jogged, as it seemed unlikely he’d have hired a Daimler Sovereign just to travel from Heathrow to Shropshire. I glanced down. He was wearing tattered jeans and running shoes. All right, so he’d jogged, as Bella had suggested. The man had to keep fit. One day of relaxation and he’d sag into decrepitude.
I was aware that Terry and Oliver had now joined us. Jay glanced round, and I made the introduction. ‘We haven’t met,’ said Oliver, but I noticed he’d become enlivened and that his eyes had lost the lack-lustre look.
‘Bella’s told me all about it,’ said Jay. ‘I reckoned I ought to come and have a look myself. But it’s nearly all gone now.’ He meant the house. ‘And that officer won’t let me near. No way.’ His accent was harsh New York, with a bite to it.
We were looking across a shallow valley with the battered swathe running from right to left. On the far reaches of it, now silent for the weekend, the diggers and shovers and dumpers rested in a yellow group. The lowering sun flushed them with orange, transforming them almost into a romantic setting, the ploughed lines, themselves rimmed, leading the eye to that one spot of colour in an empty landscape. Beyond, the valley rose, scattered with small copses of trees and sheep, climbing towards the summit where a large house perched like a magic castle, crouching in trees.
‘The diggers,’ said Jay suddenly in an empty tone, ‘flush out the rabbits. He waits down there, and slaughters them.’
The figure had now turned and was walking towards us, his stride more purposeful as he saw our waiting group. The shotgun was under his right arm, broken open in the approved manner. As he came closer, I saw that he was rather more old than his youthful stride suggested. He was fit, slim, almost gaunt, and must have been in his fifties, but still handsome in a sharp and clean-cut way, with an aquiline nose, a forceful jaw, and bright eyes beneath heavy brows. He was wearing a waxed belted jacket, tweed trousers and rubber boots, fair hair blown over ears and forehead. There was no wind now. Perhaps there had been. From a small and distant figure he grew, when he halted just below us, to about five feet ten.
‘You’re trespassing,’ he said dismissively. ‘Do you realize that?’
‘This is a public roadway,’ said Oliver quietly. ‘Where we are standing. Where you have come from, you’ve been trespassing. Shooting over someone else’s land —’
‘It’s my land.’ It was a bark.
Jay gave a snap of harsh laughter. ‘And your rabbits. Home is the hunter! Must take a lotta guts, slaughtering rabbits.’
The hunter stood facing us, legs slightly apart. Not angry, not demonstrably so, but his voice was like acid. ‘My land. I shoot over it if I wish ... ‘
‘I think not,’ said Oliver, still gently. ‘Not now. It’s corporation land, I’d guess.’
‘Who the hell’re you?’
‘The name’s Simpson. And you — sir?’
Just that single word — sir — lent the question authority.
‘Kemp,’ he snapped. ‘Tudor Kemp.’ He turned. ‘This...’ He gestured embracingly, ‘as far as you can see, is mine.’
The house? Those extensive acres? And those sheep? He could have walked across from that house, if that was his too. Across and back. Yet he’d used his Daimler. Had it been no more than show? Here I am, Tudor Kemp! As he turned back his right arm jerked the gun, and it snapped shut. It could have been unintentional.
Jay had observed it, though. ‘I’d watch what you do with that.’ His voice had become more harshly American, the tone deeper, in the growl
that the politicians affected. I glanced at him more intently. He was poised on the balls of his feet, but there was the trace of a smile in the corners of his mouth. He’d wanted this. It suited him. I had the impression this antagonism had a deeper base than the wanton killing of rabbits.
‘Get out of my way.’ Kemp thrust himself forward. The angle of the gun was slightly raised.
Jay did not move. Standing as he was on a firmer surface he had the advantage of height as well as the more positive stance. ‘Raise that barrel two more inches,’ he said, his voice now carrying an English inflexion mockingly, almost Kemp’s own accent, ‘and I’ll break it over your head.’
Perhaps he’d observed a lack of cartridge cases in the breech. Perhaps not. The air in this valley seemed to instil a taking of chances.
But Kemp smiled, broke the gun again, and walked past, pausing as he came opposite Jay. Then he frowned. ‘Do I know you?’
‘I’d never admit it.’ We were back now with the New York accent.
Kemp went to his car, then noticed the Rover directly behind it. In that second his temper snapped. ‘Will somebody move this sodding car!’ he shouted.
‘Certainly,’ I said blandly, and I pushed past him, touched his arm, and smiled up into his face — just to see what might happen. The effect shocked me. One corner of his upper lip began to move into an unpleasant shape, then his eyes held me, and he blinked. His smile was ghastly.
‘Please,’ he said softly.
I backed into the house drive, and the Daimler swept past, backing at such a speed that I didn’t know how he did it. I pulled out again, nose now in the direction of the town.
The three men were still standing there when I joined them, not speaking. Jay was staring out towards the house on the rise.
‘Would you care for a lift back into town?’ I asked him.
‘What? No… no, thank you. I’m supposed to be jogging. It’s thataway.’ He told me, laughing now. He jerked a thumb vaguely towards the right. ‘I think.’
Then he jumped down into the ruts and set off at a steady, loping pace, away to our right, heading for civilization.
We got into the Rover. I said, ‘Seen what you wanted, Oliver?’
He grunted. ‘More than I wanted. They knew each other, Phil. Don’t you think?’
‘Jay certainly knew who he was talking to,’ I agreed. ‘But Kemp was uncertain.’ I drove along slowly, half expecting, at each bend, to find the Daimler stuck in a hedge. ‘Bella told me Jay spotted her on the stage in Dublin, and got her into films, but he’d met her before then, in Birmingham. So Jay’s probably been in this area before. They could’ve met then. But that would’ve been ten years ago, which would be a few face-lifts back for Jay. Kemp could’ve half recognized him.’
For a moment I toyed mentally with the possibility that Kemp had known Bella in some way intimately. From their respective bedrooms they might have watched each other’s windows alight at night, across the valley. But ten years ago Kemp would have been twice Bella’s age. As would Jay, come to think of it.
No… Kemp was more the age group of the mother, Dulcie. But I couldn’t imagine their hearts calling to each other across the valley. Dulcie would not be able to play her teasing game at a distance. Closer, very much closer, she would have needed to be. And my imagination rejected the mental image of Dulcie flitting away from the big house in the dark, with Kemp crying out in agony from his open window, ‘Dulcie! Dulcie’ Unlike Heathcliff, he would more probably have sent a couple of barrels of buckshot after her.
‘What’s funny?’ asked Oliver.
‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘that you would appreciate, Oliver.’
And Terry said, startling me with his perception, ‘You’re thinking of Dulcie, aren’t you?’
‘But she went away,’ I reminded him, ‘with another man. And Kemp, you can bet, would never have been persuaded to leave his empire here.’
Oliver was silent. His silence was beginning to worry me. He should not have come. He should not. I glanced at him. He was pensive, but nevertheless sensed my attention. He tried to smile.
‘You know what, Phil?’ he asked, his voice bitter. ‘I felt helpless back there. I could feel violence on the very edge of breaking free, and I knew there was nothing I could do about it.’
‘There was me, Chief,’ Terry said abruptly.
‘Yes, you, Terry. That made it worse. You see, I’d spotted there were cartridges in that breech. Not fired ones — he’d have ejected those. Live ones. And I knew you were about to jump in. You scared me, Terry. I thought I’d got over it… but, a loaded shotgun… I don’t know.’
‘It needs time,’ I said quietly. After all, the physical pain was still there, and the mental wound would surely hang on longer.
But oh how I longed to do something about it, to take him in my arms and reassure him with soft and intimate words. To hell with Terry! I could have managed Oliver alone. I could, I could!
Oliver said, as though we’d been discussing it, ‘In any event, it’s obvious she didn’t go away with another man, leaving little Bella and even littler Tonia.’
‘What...’
‘Dulcie,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious she’s that female skeleton. Don’t you think?’
And Terry, glad to welcome a change of subject, said, ‘Hey, Chief! I never thought of that. Of course! Of course.’
There was silence in the car as we each turned over in our minds the possibilities this exposed, if it were true. Oliver finally broke it.
‘Forensic will come up with something, you’ll see. Bones decompose according to the acidity or alkalinity of the soil. Perhaps not much, but enough, with a bit of luck. If there’d been only one skeleton, its burial would be difficult to date. But with two, side by side, buried in the same soil, you can be sure they’ll spot the difference.’
‘You’re willing to put money on it?’ I asked.
‘If you’re willing to bet against it.’
But I wasn’t, because something else occurred to me. ‘With Dulcie buried twenty-five years ago — if it’s her skeleton — and Rowley only ten years ... ‘
‘Exactly. That was what I meant, there being enough years in between. Forensic will know.’ He nodded to himself, satisfied. ‘If you’d let me finish… I was going to say — how the devil did they come to be buried side by side? Two illegal burials, fifteen years apart!’
‘As I think I said before,’ Oliver remarked, considerably more alert now, ‘it has to mean they were buried by the same person.’
‘Who must, therefore, have killed both?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘But always,’ put in Terry, who’d been remarkably silent, ‘assuming the male skeleton is Rowley Fields.’
‘Assuming that.’ Oliver was placidly confident.
‘And assuming,’ Terry persisted, ‘that the female one is Dulcie.’
And nobody said another word, there being so much to think about, until we reached the hotel, had entered it, and stood at the foot of the stairs. Then it was Terry.
‘I think I’ll go up and have a bath,’ he declared.
Oliver and I looked at each other. Terry was being delicate. We watched him walk away.
‘Want to go and tidy up?’ he asked, offering me the option.
‘It can wait.’
‘A drink in the bar?’
‘Why not?’
Which was what we had.
Chapter 10
Oliver managed a tray very confidently in his left hand, his pint and my short on it. He grinned at me as he slid the tray on to the table.
‘I can manage this much, Phil.’
‘You ought to be resting, you know. It’s quite ridiculous —’
‘I’m resting it now,’ he said firmly, though he was managing a smile. ‘Bound up and immobile.’ He could be very intractable at times.
I touched his left hand. ‘I bet you haven’t been to have the dressing changed.’
‘I haven’t had the time. T
omorrow will do.’ He took a deep draught from the glass, cocking one eye at me over the rim.
‘It will not do.’
‘You’re as bad as Terry,’ he complained. ‘Fussing round me like an old maid.’
‘And so he should. Now promise me, Oliver —’
‘What d’you intend to do, Phil?’
‘Don’t change the subject.’ I couldn’t help being sharp with him. The fact that he was avoiding a direct answer was worrying.
‘But what do you intend to do?’
I was being introduced to an unexplored facet of his personality. Previously, we’d managed to get along fine, apart from the occasional fight. But those had been physical, and this was the first time I’d found him so difficult, almost dictatorial. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he wasn’t far from forbidding its mention. I sighed, looked away from him, and tried to answer his question.
‘I thought I’d try to find this Waterford Farm that Edith Payne mentioned in the fish and chip shop, and have a word with Mrs Porter.’ I could see no interest blooming in his eyes. He seemed not even to know what I meant. I prompted, ‘Who ought to be able to tell us more about Dulcie.’
He looked down at his glass and rotated it between finger and thumb. ‘That wasn’t what I was talking about.’
‘Oh?’
‘Do… with your life. Now that you’re back in England.’
I shrugged, trying to appear indifferent, but I had an unpleasant idea about the direction of his interest. ‘I hadn’t given it much thought. Then this business cropped up.’
‘Will you think about it now.’ He looked me suddenly in the eyes, and his cocked eyebrows turned it into a request.
‘Need I?’
‘It might be a good idea.’
‘Later, Oliver. Let’s get this thing over first.’
Bury Him Darkly Page 13
