The Love Letter

by Fiona Walker

  Chapter 38

  Legs woke abruptly mid morning to the sound of one of Poppy’s bloodcurdling screams which was clearly distinguishable above the wind, howling wilder than ever now.

  She scrambled out of bed and onto the landing, reeled around, coughed a lot and looked for a weapon in case she needed to take on the assailant. Despite her years reading racy detective fiction, she made for a hopeless female lead as she crept downstairs in a short nightie, wheezing consumptively, holding aloft a stone doorstop shaped like a pineapple which was so heavy she was forced to rest it on the banisters halfway down before resuming her mission.

  Now wailing in anguish, Poppy was flapping about in the hallway, beaded jewellery rattling like castanets. She was clutching a piece of paper in her hand.

  Legs hovered on the bottom step. ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked dumbly, because it plainly wasn’t.

  Barely pausing in her lament, Poppy wailed past like a siren, then wailed back again to snap: ‘Put that pineapple down, Allegra. It’s from Goblin Granny’s roof! It’s one of the last th-things we laughed about – and the only things h-a-ave to r-r-remember her by. It almost f-fell on me the d-d-day she d-died.’

  Goblin Granny had always possessed a very dark sense of humour. She would no doubt have been highly amused by the note Poppy thrust at Legs now.

  ‘Isn’t this j-just beastly? The spelling’s di-diabolical.’

  The single page of standard cartridge paper was printed out in neat twelve point font: Once Upon A Time there was a woman who culd never be trusted and used to pathetically hide behind tall walls creating misery in the name of art … it started.

  Legs read on in alarm as the deranged note described the brutal killing of Farcombe’s headline act and most of the festival organisers by a shadowy figure who disembowelled them all before throwing their corpses over a cliff. As she scanned it, she thought she recognised the style, but couldn’t think from where. It was surprisingly readable. Many of Fellows Howlett’s esteemed clients would struggle to get this much action-packed plot into three hundred times the page length.

  Then she caught her breath as she read: and the blonde girl came running through the woods to rapashously meet with her evil lover wearing a long black coat and eating sweets and nobody heard her scream as her throat was cut for stealing …

  ‘What do you think?’ Poppy asked fearfully.

  ‘The punctuation is rather reminiscent of the final episode of Ulysses,’ she joked, her first defence reflex when scared witless. At the bottom of the page, the author had finished with the line and if I do not get what I want you will ALL die!

  ‘At least nobody gets to feel left out.’

  ‘It was delivered in the early hours. I’ve told Francis we must install CCTV. Anybody can get close to the house through the graveyard, as you know.’

  Legs swallowed uncomfortably, realising that it was quite possible the stalker had hand-delivered it while she and Francis were gazing out of the window at the fields of camping Ptolemy fans. Had she just glanced down, she might have seen a shadow stealing through the cloisters.

  ‘Are you still thinking about cancelling the festival?’ she asked, suddenly thinking that might be a very good idea after all.

  But Poppy had entirely changed heart in the light of the enthrallingly large crowds flocking into her beautiful gardens and grounds. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling. It’s far too late for that. I’m thinking of asking Gordon Lapis to unveil my latest sculpture on the live television broadcast. He can hardly refuse given the hospitality we’re extending – and the peril we’re putting ourselves in. I will check with Conrad Knight that it’s all arranged when he dines with us later.’

  Legs reeled. ‘Conrad is having dinner here?’

  ‘He and his colleagues are here meeting with the festival team now; Francis is kindly sitting in for me because I really have so much to do, what with the press launch and tonight’s party.’ She cleared her throat. The truth was that her terror had now reached such a fever pitch that she couldn’t even bear to cross the courtyard to the festival offices. ‘In fact, I must press on now,’ she reached out to snatch the letter back. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed? That nightie must be letting in a frightful chill. Isn’t it one of mine?’ She eyed it suspiciously.

  Legs hung tightly onto the folded paper with one hand and the hem of her nightie with the other. If she kept hold of the letter, she realised, she could try to get it to Byrne. It suddenly seemed terribly important that he saw it. ‘Don’t you think somebody should tell Gordon about this?’

  ‘I’m sure Conrad has all that under control,’ Poppy wrenched the letter from her, leaving Legs just clutching the envelope. ‘His author will be escorted everywhere under heavy security, I can assure you, although I may personally finish him off. He’s brutalised Ptolemy. If he gets murdered, he probably deserves it for what he’s done to that poor boy!’

  Legs sucked her teeth, realising that Poppy still had no idea that her son was the fêted writer, currently living unguarded and under canvas amongst his most fanatic fans, one of whom might well be hand-delivering highly personalised death threats.

  She wondered if she had the physical strength to make another run for it and race through the tent-strewn fields in search of him with a warning, but even if she had been wearing something that fell lower than her buttocks, she was terrified that by doing that she might lead any killer straight to him. She clearly recalled Gordon telling her once that the crankiest Ptolemy fans knew all about his publisher and agent and their staff. Even though she no longer worked for Fellows Howlett, she was clearly in this mad stalker’s scrapbook under ‘blonde girl’ and had been observed in the woods yesterday with Hector’s tailcoat and a Fisherman’s Friend. The thought made her feel faint with fear.

  Then it occurred to her that all she had to do was break into her little silver car and get her phone back so that she could message him. Delighted, she hurried past Poppy through the green baize door to the back lobby and out into the main courtyard where several big, glossy cars were now parked, including Conrad’s sleek black Jag. But her little silver Tolly had gone, she realised with a cry of frustration.

  The wind was wild, promising more storms. Gusts were threatening to hoist her crotch-length nightie up her torso like a flag. Still clinging onto the hem, she looked around wildly, catching sight of several faces watching her from the big glass windows of the festival offices which had once been a vast arch to the coachhouses.

  A moment later, Francis had rushed out carrying a long Mackintosh.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, darling, get back inside the house!’

  ‘Where’s my car? I want to break into it.’

  ‘We had it removed.’ He propelled her back through the door to the hall’s rear passageway, where Poppy was lurking behind a hat stand looking thrilled at the brewing row.

  ‘Where did you have my car removed to?’ Legs demanded.

  ‘Just one of the barns.’

  ‘Take me there.’

  ‘Not now, darling, I’m in the middle of a meeting.’

  She gaped at him, suddenly reminded of Basil Fawlty at his most laconic.

  ‘Tell me where it is then.’

  ‘The other side of Home Farm.’ He looked unapologetic. ‘We need all the space here for the festival, and the new security chaps suggested it might be a bomb threat.’

  To get to Home Farm would mean crossing in front of the campsite, she realised. It was completely counter-intuitive. She’d still be the Pied Piper to their switched-on stalker, and the mention of bombs was seriously off-putting too.

  ‘I have to get back – I can’t let this meeting overrun; I’ve an important lunch lined up with Vin Keiller-Myles,’ Francis was already retreating through the door, looking to his stepmother for help. ‘Poppy will keep you company.’

  But, patting her turban, Francis’s stepmother announced that she was going down to the cellars to work on her sculpture again, where she must not be disturbe
d.

  Legs felt so trapped and incensed that she was death-rattle deep-breathing again. ‘I must have Tolly!’

  Francis faltered. ‘Who?’

  ‘My Honda. He’s called Tolly!’ She lifted her chin defiantly.

  Francis stepped back inside hurriedly, his tone tightly condescending ‘I know you’re bored, darling, but this really is a very tricky day for me, and “Tolly” will have to wait.’ Basil Fawlty was on the verge of exploding into a rage. ‘But I promise as soon as this meeting is through, I’ll call a locksmith to get the bloody thing open. Then you will have everything you need to read a few crime thrillers, redo your nails and text your chums.’

  ‘And look ravishing for tonight!’ Poppy called over her shoulder as she headed for the cellar doors.

  Legs started in horror. ‘What’s tonight got to do with me?’

  ‘You mean you haven’t told her yet, Francis?’ Poppy doubled back in consternation. ‘You were the one who insisted I include her in the first place. It’s been arranged for days; I’ve finalised the seating plan.’

  Francis gave his stepmother a withering look and drew Legs aside. ‘As you know, there’s a rather dreary formal dinner here to follow the press launch; Poppy and Dad are putting on a united front and hosting an emergency schmooze for the great and the good to try to nail enough private backing to underwrite a small shortfall in liability cover this year,’ his eyes didn’t quite meet hers as he glossed over the true extent of the problem. ‘The family would like us to put on a united front too.’

  ‘Who’s going to be there?’ she gulped, already aware of at least one guest she preferred not to see, particularly in her current washed-out state, surrounded by Protheroe propaganda.

  ‘Oh, everybody basically,’ Francis said airily. ‘I know you’re still weak, so you don’t need to come if you feel too ill. It’ll all be too much for you, I think.’ He clearly didn’t trust her recent erratic behaviour.

  But Legs saw freedom beckoning. She could surely make a run for it with a big, rowdy dinner going on to divert attention away from her escape. Kizzy had once managed it in similar circumstances after all. This time she’d plan ahead and have money, correctly fitting shoes and – with any luck – car keys. ‘Of course I’ll be there. Count me in!’

  ‘Well that’s a relief,’ Poppy headed back down into the cellars again, her seating plan safe, along with Hector’s secret plans to announce his son’s re-engagement over a champagne toast.

  Francis looked irritated. ‘In that case, I’ll ask Imee to prepare clear soup and plain noodles for you.’

  ‘Great,’ she smiled a little less enthusiastically. ‘I’ll take a shower and wash my hair.’

  About to go outside again, he stopped in his tracks. ‘That’s really not wise. The boilers here are playing up as usual, and you can’t risk a chill.’ He suddenly flashed that chivalric smile, as bright as a blade of steel caught in sunlight, ‘Why don’t you spend the day in bed and read the new Lapis? It’s in my room.’

  Legs didn’t need asking twice. She rushed upstairs and gathered up Ptolemy Finch and the Raven’s Curse into her arms like an injured bird. The copy was seriously battered from being hurled against a wall by Poppy, its spine twisted and broken, but she conveyed it to the Lavender bedroom as delightedly as a Victorian slum orphan with a new toy.

  She fell on its pages hungrily, speed reading in her haste. By lunchtime, she was already almost halfway through and glutted with fictional pleasure overload.

  Her head soon throbbed, but whether this was from the lingering vestiges of infection or just reading too much, she couldn’t tell, and was far too engrossed to break off and take a paracetemol. It was Ptolemy’s greatest adventure yet, flanked by lion-hearted pragmatist Purple. The plot twisted and turned from the first page, propelling her from one chapter to the next, spiralling through time and space with the little white-haired hero and his sidekick, fighting their battles alongside them, hanging from cliffs between them, sharing their wisecracks and wielding Lenore at a cornucopia of vividly described evil foes.

  As the day wore on, wracked with coughs that seemed to turn her lungs inside out, she lost all sense of time. Still she read like a demon, forgetting to take her antibiotics and analgesics. She sat in a lukewarm bath with the book, then on the loo, then back in bed. While erotic canvases flaunted their sexual chemistry with shameless guile on the walls all around her, the little Freud more than any, promising untold pleasures beyond those soft furls of skin, Legs found a relationship that was far more innocent yet no less sensual within the fast-turning pages of the book.

  For the first time, she saw it in absolute black and white. Ptolemy and Purple were in love.

  Chapter 39

  Legs was just two chapters from the finish when Francis came in, already dressed for dinner. He was using a crutch and had one foot heavily bandaged, although she was too distracted reading to notice until he banged the crutch on a wooden bedpost and propped the injured foot up alongside her.

  Even so, she remained too distracted by the Ptolemy’s quest – and the very chance that he was about to enact ‘that kiss’ with Purple at any moment – to afford his injury a second glance, very much doubting that he’d just assailed the Farcombe stalker in a manly fashion.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked vaguely.

  ‘I broke my toe on a stone pineapple some idiot left on the stairs,’ he said, in a very black mood. ‘I’m sure it was Poppy. She’s incredibly annoyed about us two getting back together again. You think she’d be pleased; after all, Dad is just waiting for her signal to move back in, but that’s Poppy for you. She thinks it’s my fault there’s a financial crisis. I’ve been too diverted by you to deal with it, she says.’

  Legs would have taken issue with the ‘getting back together again’ line were it not for her desperation to get to the end of the book.

  Francis heaved his foot back down, mood blackening by the second in the face of her selfishness. ‘I’ve been in a meeting with Vin all afternoon trying to put together a rescue package.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Will you put that book down? We must be on show in ten minutes. You haven’t even dressed!’

  ‘All my clothes are in my car,’ she reminded him, turning a page.

  Limping across the room, he pulled open the wardrobe of ball gowns. ‘You’ve already taken full advantage of these. I’m no Saint Laurent, but I’d say they’re more suited to parties than running around woods, darling. Let me choose.’

  Suitably chastised, she cast around for a bookmark and picked up a crumpled envelope from the bedside table, realising guiltily that it was the one the poison pen letter had come in and therefore probably an important piece of evidence.

  Francis was rattling through coathangers. ‘There’s bound to be something in here that fits you.’

  ‘Won’t Poppy mind?’ she asked, cramming the envelope between pages.

  ‘That didn’t exactly stop you before,’ he pointed out. ‘She’s worn nothing but smocks for twenty years. She’ll never recognise anything. Here – try this.’ He threw something at her that was Angelina Ballerina over Angelina Jolie any day, with more stiff net petticoats than the cast of Swan Lake.

  ‘Coral really isn’t my colour.’

  ‘You’ll look gorgeous,’ he snapped impatiently, looking at his watch again.

  ‘I have no shoes.’

  In a flash, he’d extracted a basket of Moroccan slippers from the wardrobe – a tiny sample of Poppy’s huge collection – and selected a pair that looked baggy enough to accommodate her feet. Garish purple and green, and covered with orange beads, they were still so tiny that her toes curled inside them like springs in a mouse trap.

  ‘My hair’s filthy.’

  ‘I’ll fetch you a turban.’ He limped out of the room and along the corridor. Usually, Legs would have gone ballistic at the very thought, but she was so desperate to be able to read a few more pages of Ptolemy Finch that she barely noticed, even when he returned and plonked
a pre-moulded green satin wrap on her head. She was far more irate that he wouldn’t let her take the novel downstairs with her.

  As he hurried out of the room, she lingered behind briefly, picking up the book to read two more lines like an addict snorting up a fix. Currently in mortal peril, Ptolemy and Purple were going to kiss any moment now, she was certain of it. Leaving them behind to face a room full of literary snobs was agony.

  Francis was calling from the top of the stairs.

  Surfacing reluctantly, she noticed the envelope bookmark had dropped to the floor and she stooped to pick it up.

  Printed in the same font as the letter itself was FAO Allegra North, Farcombe Hall.

  She let out a whimper. It was addressed to her.

  As she ran from the Lavender Room in a blind panic, she cannoned into a tall figure hurrying in and threw herself into the dress-shirted chest, clinging to Francis’s familiar broad strength in terror, desperately seeking comfort.

  ‘My fragile little bird!’ He gripped her back so tightly she thought she’d suffocate, cheek pressed heavily down on top of her turban. ‘I’m never going to let you down again. Tonight is our reincarnation. My beautiful, precious Poppy!’

  ‘Eh?’ Legs wrenched out of the embrace with some difficultly.

  It was Hector, breathing champagne fumes all over her.

  ‘Legs! You gave me a terrible shock. Thought you were Poppy catching me red handed.’ He reeled back in alarm, hastily pressing a finger to his lips and whispering. ‘You haven’t seen me here, darling. Just popped up here to, er, see an old friend.’ He looked around at the erotic paintings on the walls.

  Legs stepped aside and nodded politely before bolting downstairs, far too terrified by the name on the envelope to care what he was doing skulking around his own house.

  ‘That’s my dress!’ was the first thing Poppy said when she saw Legs belting into the main entrance hall. She and Francis were huddled together in what appeared to be an urgent confab, but now sprang apart as Poppy rushed forwards to air-kiss Legs. ‘Coral really isn’t your colour, but I do like the turban. How are you enjoying Raven? Isn’t the ending dreadful?’