by Rebecca Tope
‘Nice looking, both of them,’ said Dave, casually. Amos recalled his long hours of television viewing with their good cop/bad cop routine, and was unmoved. His feelings for Miranda had nothing to do with these youngsters and their clumsy obtuseness. Torture wouldn’t persuade him to speak about her. There was only one woman he would be prepared to talk about, and that was with a view to saving himself from further intimidation. But it wasn’t easy to introduce her name into the conversation. Especially as they seemed so intent on Miranda Beardon.
‘You must have seen quite a lot of her, over the years,’ one of them said. ‘Got friendly with her too, I dare say?’
Amos shrugged. ‘Not specially,’ he muttered. ‘Hardly spoke to her.’
‘But you went to visit her last week. What was that all about? She said you were in quite a state about something.’
The small betrayal stung Amos. Could Miranda have been cruel enough to tell these men about his tears? Had she had any idea what had caused them? Surely not, since he scarcely understood it himself. He merely shook his head at the question.
‘Are you acquainted with Mrs Mabberley at all? Or Mrs Westerby, next door to the vicarage?’
Amos stared at them, impatience rising from chest to throat, so he could barely speak. ‘I see the Mabberley woman now and then. She gives me a lift to the shop once in a while. Mrs Westerby blames me and Isaac for her little kid dying, years ago. Haven’t hardly spoken to her from that day to this. Her’s best friend with Miranda.’ He shook his head again slowly.
The men exchanged glances; one jotted down a note. ‘Miranda? You know Mrs Beardon as Miranda, do you?’
Impossible to explain, without admitting too much. He kept his eyes on the table in front of him, and said nothing. He thought of her as Miranda, of course he did. But he would never say it to her face.
The man prompted. ‘Mr Grimsdale? Could you answer, please?’
‘It’s a pretty name,’ he mumbled. ‘I tell you, I hardly ever spoke to her. Just a bit of a wave over the hedge, if she came to the top field. Which she didn’t often do. Blackberrying, maybe. Mushrooming. She didn’t do much farmwork, that I could see.’
‘And you could see, couldn’t you?’ put in the other. ‘From your yard, you can see right down into Redstone’s.’
This was touchy territory for Amos, and he tensed. ‘S’pose so,’ he muttered. ‘No time for staring into other folks’ yards, all the same.’ Mercifully, the men let it go, and moved to another topic.
‘With Sam Carter dead, everything’ll be different there now, won’t it?’ This didn’t sound like much of a question to Amos, so he merely nodded. He didn’t care about Sam Carter, beyond a persistent thump of surprise at his killing which never seemed to go away. Sam’s death didn’t seem to Amos to be part of any conceivable pattern.
‘My brother’s dead, too,’ he said quietly. A hint of reproach reached his questioners. It was true they had given Isaac Grimsdale much less attention than he warranted. They looked at each other and grimaced briefly. ‘Do you think I killed him?’ Amos sat up straighter and looked from one to the other. ‘I’ve told you, it was a man with his face covered up. Tall and thin. Dark eyes.’
‘That’s all right, sir,’ said Dave, soothingly, meaninglessly. ‘Now, if we could go through the Redstone murders one more time. Is there anything else you think we should know about that?’
Amos sighed. It was at least a better question than the others had been. Treating him for a change as if he had some sense. But he knew nothing about the Redstone murders. He had no opinions about what had happened.
‘It’s got nothing to do with me,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve got troubles of my own.’ Again he looked at them, willing them to listen properly. But they didn’t. They thought he was simply talking about Isaac again, and they put on kind, patient expressions, sitting back in their chairs and staring at the ceiling.
‘Am I going to be arrested?’ he asked.
‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ Dave answered quickly. ‘There’s still a lot of work to do.’
Amos sighed again. He didn’t mind. He wasn’t in any great rush to go home; and things weren’t so bad here. If he went home he’d have to do something about Isaac’s long-overdue funeral. He’d have to make a whole lot of decisions about what to do next. And he’d probably have to face Phoebe again. Facing Phoebe was by far the worst thing he’d have to do. Compared to her, being interrogated by policemen was nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By mid-afternoon, everyone was exhausted after their early awakening. Roddy and Lilah drifted about outside, trying to decide which jobs were the most vital. Taking food and water to calves, keeping the cows milked and the milking equipment clean were the only things that couldn’t be postponed, they concluded. Put like that, it didn’t seem so bad. ‘Well, we can probably survive another twenty-four hours,’ said Lilah. ‘That seems like quite a long time, from here.’
‘It does when you think back a day,’ Roddy agreed, with a doleful shake of his head. Then he grinned at her. ‘But we’re coping okay for now. I think we’re pretty brilliant so far.’ The friendliness of him was like a warm blanket, and she slapped at his arm. He butted his head into her shoulder, in an intimacy they hadn’t known for a long time.
At three o’clock Miranda announced that she was going to the supermarket outside town to get some much needed supplies of groceries. Roddy and Lilah drifted into Guy’s office, to try to make sense of a number of letters that had piled up since Guy had died, and somehow seeing it as the best place to avoid thinking about Sam. The police had taken nothing further, and a small mound of papers now lay on the table in front of the computer. Miranda had merely opened letters addressed to Guy and thrown them into a chaotic heap.
‘Funny how much easier it is to think about Daddy now,’ remarked Lilah, as they sorted his correspondence. ‘He hasn’t faded in my mind, or anything, but it doesn’t hurt so much. I dreamt he was still alive last night. I’d forgotten it, with all this drama. He was all big and warm and clean. It was lovely. Although when I woke up, I was in a panic that I hadn’t done any of the things he’d expect me to. I knew he’d be cross and sarcastic, even more so with me than with you and Sam. So then I felt a sort of relief that he wasn’t really alive. Quite a lot of relief, to be honest.’
‘Yeah,’ growled Roddy. ‘I’ve had that dream as well. I’ve got used to him not yelling at me all the time. There’s a kind of space where he used to be and it’s getting bigger every day. I can just do what I like with my life now, without him being in control of everything. Mum won’t even care what my exam results are.’
‘Are you sure that’s better? At least Dad paid us some attention.’
Roddy looked at her, more serious than she had ever seen him. ‘Believe me, Li, it is.’
She put her hand on his arm and squeezed hard. ‘He was nicer to me,’ she admitted. ‘It’s different for me. I’ve got that great big space as well, but I don’t think I like it much, in spite of what I just said. I don’t know if I can manage without Dad giving me orders.’
‘Course you can,’ he said roughly. ‘You’re not a kid any more, whatever he might have thought. Now you can act your age.’
She removed her hand and for a moment felt like slapping him. But he stood his ground and his words echoed in her ears; she knew they were true. She even permitted the idea that without Guy’s disappearance, she might never have been able to act her age. She might have been stunted all her life, trapped in the little-girl act that she’d never been aware of until these past few days.
Roddy changed the subject. ‘I still feel numb about Sam. It’s as if I was already full up, and there isn’t any room to properly cope with what happened to him. Except those nettles …’ He shuddered. ‘And the way he screamed.’
Lilah pulled a face. ‘He probably would have married Mum, like you said. They were already joint owners of Redstone. It would have kept things neat.’
‘I won
der. Can’t see Sylvia being too pleased about that. She wants them to be all girls together.’
‘Don’t start getting paranoid about Sylvia,’ she advised.
‘According to Hetty, she’s Prime Suspect for the killing of Isaac.’
‘I can understand the theory, but it feels completely wrong.’ She shook her head, and went back to sifting through the letters. ‘They’re almost all bills,’ she concluded. ‘Mum will have to pay them – I can’t write farm cheques.’ She found a letter at the bottom of the heap that caught her attention. She turned it over, and took the sheet out of the already opened envelope. ‘Hey, look at this.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the bill from the undertaker for Dad’s funeral.’
Roddy took it from her with a macabre snort of laughter. ‘Father Edmund charged a hundred and eighty pounds for his services,’ she went on. ‘That seems a lot for what he did.’
‘It does include the organist,’ Roddy pointed out, wryly. It was then that the two heard a throat being cleared outside.
Lilah’s first reaction was sheer terror. Her heart turned over and she stared wildly at her brother.
Roddy put out a reassuring hand and went to the door. He was confronted by the black-garbed vicar, his attire seeming ludicrous in the hot summer farmyard. When Lilah saw him, she gasped; she knew he must have heard them talking about him. Surely he would exact some sort of revenge?
Father Edmund looked hot and uncomfortable. ‘Have you walked here?’ Roddy demanded, his voice loud and accusing. ‘We didn’t hear a car.’
‘My aggravating motor is out of action again. I got a lift to the top of your lane with Mrs Mabberley. She is a kind lady, haven’t you found?’
Roddy shrugged. Cappy Mabberley was not a significant character in his life. ‘I suppose you heard us just now?’ he challenged.
‘Roddy!’ Lilah was horrified. It seemed to her that they’d successfully put the moment behind them; why in the world had he returned to it?
Father Edmund fluttered his hands in an attempt to pacify them both. He smiled, a twisted, unfriendly grimace. ‘Listeners never hear well of themselves,’ he told Roddy, as if this were a new-minted observation. ‘But it isn’t quite fair to criticise me in this instance. The church sets the fees – and takes most of them. I see almost nothing for myself, believe me. You don’t begrudge poor Mrs Simpson her little bit as organist, I hope? I always think she gives us an especially magnificent performance for funerals. Now, my dears—’ the two flinched at his pseudo-affection ‘—it’s your mother I ought to speak to. Is she about somewhere? Busy, I suppose, after this morning’s terrible business. Such a dreadful thing to happen. Police all over everything, I imagine, too?’ He cast his eyes around the yard, taking in the official tape and the barrier across Sam’s door. ‘Such a very unexpected turn of events.’
‘That’s a strange thing to say,’ frowned Lilah. ‘What did you expect, then?’
He avoided her questioning stare, turning his large face up towards the Grimsdale house, appearing to be deep in thought. Lilah wanted to shout at him angrily, to make him go away and leave them alone. He brought with him an aura of some secret satisfaction, as if he privately relished the whole catastrophic business. A twitching smile pulled at his mouth, and his elaborate speech about the church fees could be interpreted as mocking, even cruel.
Slowly the man turned back to them. ‘Your mother?’ he repeated.
‘She’s gone into town,’ said Roddy. ‘What did you want her for?’
‘Well, young fellow, your man Sam Carter will be needing a funeral, will he not? I just dropped by to offer my humble services once again.’
Lilah finally found her voice and seized at random on words which would make him leave. Words which would protect them all from this intruder – and that included Sam, even if he was dead. ‘He has family, you know, besides us. They’ll have to decide what’s to happen. If it’s the same as Daddy, we’ll have to wait for the Coroner’s Officer to give us permission to go ahead, anyway. We’ll phone you when there’s any news.’
‘And where might this family be living? I understood that he’d been with your father since he was little more than a boy.’
‘The police are still trying to find them, I think,’ said Lilah vaguely. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, we’re desperately busy here.’
‘I suppose you’ll have to walk back?’ said Roddy, with obvious malice. ‘Lucky it’s not muddy in the lane. Hot, though.’
The vicar gave another grimace, and turned to go. They watched him pick his way through the scattered cowpats on the yard, as if it were a minefield, and slowly move out of sight up their lane.
‘You could have driven him back,’ Roddy said, quietly.
‘There’s only Daddy’s car here, and I’m not insured to drive it.’
‘And we never asked him to come. Why didn’t he phone us, instead of trogging all this way? And why did you fib about Sam’s family?’
‘I didn’t think it was any of his business. He already seemed to know too much. This is a serious business now, you know. A real murder. No shadow of a doubt, like with Daddy. You have to be careful what you say to people.’
‘I don’t see why. Not unless you’re the murderer. You didn’t do it, did you, Li?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Sor-ree,’ he snarled, obviously hurt.
‘Oh, Christ, I didn’t mean it, Rod. Come on, let’s sort these damned bills out and get outside to something more interesting. I wish Mum was back. I keep thinking something else awful is going to happen with just us here.’
‘You are scared, aren’t you? Scared of the vicar, of all people. I just hate him – always have done. Smarmy bugger. How anyone can smile like that, I don’t understand. As if he wanted to hit you.’
‘I remember you said that about him, when you were little. “Why does that man smile when he hates you?” you said, every time you saw him. We all thought you’d put your finger right on what he was like. No wonder I find him scary.’
Fed up with the stuffy office, he went outside and stood in the yard, looking lost. After a moment, his sister followed him.
‘Doesn’t it seem quiet,’ she said. ‘I wish Mum would hurry up.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been here with just you before. There was always Dad or Mum or Sam around. We’re like babies, aren’t we. Wanting our mother.’
‘You know what I hate most about all this?’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘Not being able to stop thinking about it. After all that stuff with me trying to convince you that Sam killed Dad – when I never really believed it myself? Well, that’s all wrong now. But the things that made us think it are all still true. They might give us some idea of who killed Sam.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have had enough of detective work,’ he said. ‘And you don’t know for sure that Dad and Sam and Isaac were all killed by the same person. It might be much more complicated than that.’
‘I think it’s a reasonable assumption,’ she said. ‘Don’t you? You said there was no way in the world that Sam could commit murder. I’d have thought that what happened yesterday proved you were right. And I prefer to think it’s some sort of psychopathic vagrant than one of our friends or neighbours.’
‘Well, I’m going to bed really early tonight, and I’m locking my door,’ he said.
‘There isn’t a lock on your door, idiot.’
‘Then I’ll barricade it with a chair. Remember what happened to Isaac.’
‘No, I’d rather not. I’m much too tired for that. Let’s get the milking done, quick as we can, and then off to bed.’
‘We can’t do it yet. The cows will think we’ve gone bonkers. Why don’t we go in and have a little rest, and wait for Mum? We could make some tea.’
‘That’s a very civilised idea, Rod. Except I know I’m going to fall asleep the minute I sit down.’
When she got back with the shopping, Miranda was initially alarmed at the lack of mov
ement in the yard or barn. Hurriedly she ran into the house, not daring to call out. It was two or three minutes before she found her children, side by side on the sofa, like exhausted toddlers. Roddy’s head was on Lilah’s shoulder, and both had kicked their shoes off. They were soundly asleep.
Affection for them brought tears to her eyes, as she tiptoed back to the car, pausing to take the telephone off its cradle. She carried the bags of groceries into the kitchen, stowing tins and loaves and butter and cheese in the appropriate places.
Everything was quiet, no animal sounds, no motors running. Every time she glanced out of the window, she felt she had just missed glimpsing Sam crossing the yard, intent on some task. In contrast to Lilah and Roddy, Miranda had plenty of emotion to spare for the most recent loss. Guy’s death had faded, conferring a kind of status on her as his widow, and was turning out to be much less difficult to accept than she had expected. Sam was entirely different. She had unfinished business with Sam, and to have him suddenly dead was both a shock and an outrage. She cursed herself for being so slow to talk to him. Sam had been joint owner of Redstone, a fact she had never allowed herself to forget, even though it was never mentioned between them. She and Sam would surely have formed a partnership in every sense of the word, given time. To lose both her menfolk was a serious blow, and not one from which she would quickly recover.
But Miranda was not a person to succumb to ostentatious displays of grief; nor was she inclined to weep and wail. The farm would go, she had already realised that. And then she would have money and freedom – as long as she could placate Lilah.
How strange death is, she mused. Like a great brick thrown into a pond, sending ripples out, far and wide. And by some linkage in her thoughts, she was moved to put the phone back for a moment, before picking it up again and pushing the 01 memory button. Her call was answered quickly.
‘Mum?’ she said, trying to sound normal. ‘It’s me. There’s some more unpleasant news from here, I’m afraid.’
