by Hazel Holt
I drove up behind it and sat for a moment, wondering what to do. I didn’t, somehow, feel capable of consecutive thought, and acted simply on instinct. I got out of the car, went over to the front door and rang the bell. I stood for several minutes and then rang again, but there was no reply. So I went round the side of the house, as I had done with Lee, past the stables, and knocked on the kitchen door. Again there was silence. As I stood there, irresolute, there was a strange snuffling, scuffling sound and I swung round quickly. Just beyond the back hedge was the open moor, and a group of wild ponies, made bold by the winter cold, had gathered by the back gate and were pressing near, hoping that someone was bringing them hay or other food, as people did in the really hard weather.
This little incident made me pull myself together and think what I should do. Boldly, I tried the back door, but it was locked, so I moved along and looked through the large, uncurtained kitchen window. For a moment I didn’t take in the reality of what I saw. Lying on the floor was a woman, face down, with a large kitchen knife sticking out of her back. As I had done with the body of the goat all those years ago, I looked quickly away, but I was no longer seven years old: I was not a child, I had to look again, to take in the full, unspeakable details of what I had seen so fleetingly.
I forced myself to look through the window. It was Lee, as I had known in my heart that it would be. She was lying stretched out on the floor, her face hidden, but the ash blonde hair was unmistakable, and on her outflung arm was the heavy gold charm bracelet that Rosemary and I had commented on rather cattily after the first time we had met her. The straight skirt of her dark grey suit had hitched up as she fell, and one high-heeled shoe had fallen off and lay on its side beside her. I forced myself to look at the knife that had been driven into her back. It was an old-fashioned, bone-handled carving knife, of the kind that people used to use for poultry – I have one myself, that belonged to my grandmother.
I felt deathly cold and found that I was shivering uncontrollably. I couldn’t move, my legs simply wouldn’t work. ‘Oh God,’ I found myself whispering, ‘Oh God.’ I clenched my hands, driving the nails into my palms, to bring some life, some sort of feeling, back into my body. I must have stood there for several minutes – it felt like hours; time was suspended, as, I felt, were all natural laws. Eventually my brain accepted the evidence of my eyes and told me that Lee had been murdered.
I should, I suppose, have got into the house some-how, broken a window, or something, to make sure that Lee was indeed dead and that there was nothing I could do to help her, but I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t bring myself even to look through the window again. A violent sense of physical revulsion gripped me, and I turned away. I went back and sat in my car. It didn’t occur to me that Lee’s murderer might still be around – I knew, even from that relatively brief inspection, that her body had been lying there for some time, alone in that cold dank house. I drew in a harsh, shuddering breath at the thought.
I switched on the car engine and turned the heater fan full on and, gradually, as the merciful warmth brought me back to life again, I tried to pull myself together. I remembered that there was a telephone box on the main coast road just before the turning off to Plover’s Barrow. I turned the car clumsily, almost scraping the side of the Jaguar as I did so, and drove back the way I had come. The phone box was silhouetted against the sky at the top of a steep incline. It looked like the last phone box in the world.
I got through to the Taviscombe police and was surprised to hear my own voice explaining clearly, carefully and unemotionally what had happened, giving them my name and describing the exact location of Plover’s Barrow, while all the time my senses were in turmoil and I honestly didn’t really know where I was or what I was doing. The police sergeant asked me to go back to the house and wait for them – he hoped they wouldn’t be more than half an hour
– if I didn’t mind. I agreed mechanically and rang off.
Now that I had actually done something, made an effort, I felt calmer as I got back into the car. I drove very slowly back to the house, spinning out the time so that I wouldn’t have so long to wait there alone. I parked in the drive, a little way back from the Jaguar, and waited. After a while I put on the radio, but it was one of those consumer affairs programmes and I felt that the problem of non-functioning washing machines was trivial and irrelevant in the present situation. It was cold sitting there, and I got out of the car to walk about a bit to get my circulation going. I approached the Jaguar and tried the door handle. It was locked – Lee was obviously taking no chances with her precious car, even out here. I looked through the window. On the back seat there was a briefcase, half open, with what looked like property descriptions spilling out of it. There was also a cream leather dressing case and the fawn suede jacket that Lee had been wearing the first time I had seen her.
I turned away to go back to my own car, but my hands were cold, even with my gloves on, and my car keys slipped through my fingers. As I bent down to pick them up, I noticed the tyre tracks – there was only one set. As I mentioned before, we had had quite a lot of frost in these first weeks of January. On New Year’s Day it had poured with rain the whole day – I remember that everyone said what a dismal start to the New Year it was – and the following couple of days had been unseasonably mild. But after that, there had been a continuous heavy frost, until now, really. The ground was still too hard for my tyres to have made any impression, so Lee must have come here on the 3rd or the 4th. And she must have come alone, or brought her murderer with her. Suddenly I fully realised that Lee was not just dead, but that she had been murdered. Someone had actually killed her, had driven that kitchen knife into her body, through the resisting flesh. someone had hated her that much. All my new-found calm disappeared, and I was shaking again, frightened now as well as distressed. I got back into my car and locked all the doors – a futile gesture, I suppose – and sat there with my eyes shut and my hands tightly clasped together, hunched over the steering wheel, waiting for the police to arrive.
I heard several cars driving up and opened my eyes. There was a white police car and a dark red Sierra. The door of this opened and two men in plain clothes got out. One of them was Roger. I wrenched open the door of my car and ran towards him, calling his name. He caught me by the arm and led me gently to his car and sat me down in the passenger seat.
‘It’s all right, Sheila,’ he said, ‘we’re here now. It’s a horrible thing to have happened.’
I said incoherently, ‘I didn’t go in – I couldn’t. I should have seen if I could do anything, but—’
‘You did absolutely the right thing. Much better to leave things exactly as they were.’
‘But she might have been alive. I feel so dreadful about it...’ My voice was rising and I was sobbing. He said soothingly, ‘It’s all right, hang on.’
He leaned over and reached into the back of the car. ‘Here we are then, I’m sure Sergeant Coleford won’t mind if we borrow some of his coffee.’ He unscrewed the cup of the vacuum flask and poured some out. ‘Now then, try some of this.’ The coffee was very milky, and so hot that it burned the roof of my mouth, but I drank it gratefully and felt the wave of hysteria that had threatened me receding.
‘Oh, thank you, that’s better – I’m sorry I was so stupid.’
‘Not stupid at all – perfectly natural. Now, you stay here and have a spot more coffee and I’ll come back as soon as I can.’
He got out of the car and joined the others and they went round the back of the house.
I sat there quite calmly. I felt better now, as much from the sudden burst of sobbing as from the hot coffee. Catharsis, I thought, and then despised myself for having such a literary thought on such an occasion. I allowed my mind to go blank, and sat there, my hands clasped round the warm cup, staring at the activity before me.
After a while Roger returned.
‘Feel better now?’ he asked.
‘Yes, indeed I do,’ I replied. ‘Th
ank you so much.’
He got back into the car, and I suddenly realised something.
‘Roger, why are you here? I mean, it’s marvellous that it should be you, but why?’
‘Pure coincidence. I was at the Taviscombe station when your call came through, and when I heard your name and that you had found the body, I asked Inspector Dean if I could come along. I knew what a shock it must have been. People don’t realise – finding someone like that – it’s very traumatic.’
‘I’m very grateful. It was such a shock – though I suppose I might have guessed...’
Roger looked at me keenly. ‘Was she the one who had disappeared?’
I nodded.
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘You can always tell – you suddenly became very vague! I think you had better tell me all about it, don’t you?’
So I told him about Charles’s phone call and how strange it had seemed, and how no one had seen Lee since the beginning of January. I didn’t tell him about Jay though, or about the shady business dealings, because I thought I must let Carol tell him about that herself.
‘There really was so little to go on,’ I said, not quite honestly.
‘Well, there seems to have been enough for you to have come here. Why did you do that?’
I gave a nervous laugh. ‘A sort of instinct, I suppose. I know it sounds silly. But, well, I was driving in this direction and I remembered the turning. I came here with Lee just before Christmas to pick up the keys from the caretaker – she was hoping to do a good deal on the property.’
As I spoke I felt that my explanation sounded rather thin, but Roger appeared to accept it as perfectly reasonable.
‘Had she any relation?.’
‘I don’t think so. I suppose there is a Mr Montgomery – she’s divorced, I believe. I just know what Charles told me – I only met her a couple of times.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, Inspector Dean will be dealing with all that.’
‘Yes. Roger – I imagine you’ve noticed – but you see there’s only one set of tyre marks...’
He smiled. ‘Very Sherlock Holmes. Yes, I had noticed. Until the pathology people have had a go and we’ve established exactly when she died, we can’t get a proper picture.’
I felt slightly dishonest, not giving him all the information I had, but the police would find it all out soon enough – I could leave it to them now.
Roger was looking at me earnestly. ‘Now, are you going to be all right to drive yourself? I could take you back and get someone else to collect your car...’
‘Oh, goodness, no. I’m perfectly all right now. It was just the shock – you know.’
He looked slightly relieved, and I realised that although he was not officially involved in the case he wanted to look around for himself.
‘Inspector Dean will want a statement, of course, this afternoon or tomorrow.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll have pulled myself together by then and should be a bit more coherent! I sup-pose I’ll have to telephone Charles – I’m not looking forward to that! Is it all right if I tell Rosemary?’
‘Yes, certainly. I suppose she might know a bit more about Lee Montgomery.’
‘I shouldn’t think so – I don’t think she knew her any more than I did.’ I had a sudden thought. ‘I tell you what, though, I bet old Mrs Dudley – you know, Jilly’s grandmother – knows something. She knows absolutely everything about everybody in Taviscombe – preferably something to their discredit!’
Roger grinned. ‘I can well believe it!’ he said. ‘Right, then, off you go. Have a good stiff drink when you get back and a long chat with Rosemary – very therapeutic – shake off the horrors!’
He saw me into my car and waved cheerfully as I drove off. As I went along the drive I looked in my rear mirror and saw him heading purposefully for the house. It wouldn’t surprise me, I thought, if he somehow got himself attached to this investigation. I hoped he would, because I had a high opinion of his competence and I wanted this horrible mess to be sorted out as soon as possible.
The bright winter sun had vanished, and as I drove back swirls of mist and low cloud hid the moor on either side of the road. It was dank and clammy and deeply depressing. Even with the car heater on I felt cold, right down into my bones. Somehow I didn’t feel ready to go back home. I wasn’t ready yet to explain what had happened or face Rosemary’s excited questioning.
I drove into the deserted picnic area at the top of Porlock Common and turned off the engine. Every-thing was quiet and still. The silence felt almost as tangible as the mist around me. The trees and brown grass were sodden with moisture, everything looked totally dead. Not far away I heard a faint sound. It was the thin note of a horn. The huntsman was blowing ‘Gone Away’.
I was just considering the dreadful irony of this when I heard a crashing and clattering around me and several horsemen trotted by. I was aware of someone on a horse stopping near my car. I wound down the window and saw to my dismay that it was Marjorie Fraser. She dismounted and led her horse towards me. It was uncertain of the car and kept shying away.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘I thought that was your car and I wondered if you’d broken down or something.’
My first, totally unworthy thought was that I wished she would mind her own business and leave me alone. The last thing I wanted at this moment was Marjorie Fraser being helpful and organising.
‘No, I’m quite all right, it’s not that.’ I had no intention of telling her what had happened, but I found myself blurting out, ‘The fact is – I’ve just found Lee Montgomery’s body – she’s been murdered!’
Marjorie’s horse suddenly plunged and reared and she had to give all her attention to holding him. When he was quiet she tied him to a fence and came over to me. She put her face in through the open window of the car and looked incredulously at me.
What did you say you had found?’
‘Lee Montgomery – do you know her? She was going to marry our friend, Charles Richardson...’
‘Yes, I’ve met her a couple of times.’ Marjorie’s face was grim, the corners of her mouth turned down – I couldn’t imagine that she and Lee would have been much in sympathy with each other. ‘Her body did you say?’
She seemed to imply that I was having some sort of delusion. ‘Yes, at a place called Plover’s Barrow – up and over the hill. She’d been stabbed.’
‘What on earth were you doing there?’ There was a familiar hectoring note in her voice – the sort of voice that made your hackles rise, Rosemary said – that she used when she was ‘determined to get to the bottom of all this’ at committee meetings.
I had just decided resentfully (a state of mind she usually reduced me to) that I really wasn’t going to allow myself to be cross-examined by Marjorie Fraser, when another rider called out to her and she went over to speak to him. When she came back I had switched on the engine and simply said, ‘I have to get back now – I’ll tell you all about it later,’ and made my escape.
The irritability that that little encounter induced did me good, and I felt much more normal as I drove home. I went into the house, and it seemed incredible that everything should be just as I had left it that morning. Tris rushed to greet me, leaping up as high as his short legs would let him. Foss strolled negligently downstairs, yawning after a long sleep all morning under the duvet on my bed. I patted Tris and rolled him over on to his back, and he barked delightedly. I snatched Foss up to me and held him against my face. He purred loudly and then, impatient, struggled and wailed to be put down.
‘Come on, you two,’ I said. ‘Let’s open a tin.’
Chapter Five
I had a call from the police station early the following morning asking me to go and make a statement at twelve o’clock. It was my day for the hospital run and I had to take old Mrs Aston in for her physiotherapy at ten o’clock, so I had plenty of time. As I helped her out of the car and balanced her on her walking frame, she said, in her usual plaintive way,
‘Will you be able to stay and take me back? You never know how long it’s going to be. They say half an hour, but it could be any time and it’s ever so cold in that passage...’
Swallowing my irritation, I assured Mrs Aston that of course I would call and take her back home, as I always did, and she tottered off into the Out Patients department.
The back of the hospital was almost opposite Country Houses, and as I looked across the road I saw a police car driving away. A light was on so I thought I would just pop in and see how Carol had got on with the police. She looked startled and frightened as the door opened, but when she saw that it was me a look of relief flooded over her face.
‘Oh, Mrs Malory, I’m so glad to see you. I was going to ring you!’
‘They’ve told you the dreadful news then, Carol? About poor Mrs Montgomery?’
‘I really can’t believe it – well, you never think, do you, that something like that can happen to someone you know! And to think that she was lying there like that all this time ... it’s really awful.’ She looked at me in great distress. ‘It must have been terrible for you, finding her like that. When they told me it was you I thought, poor Mrs Malory, what a terrible thing, finding someone like that!’ She seemed more upset at the idea of my finding the body than that Lee was dead.
‘It was a terrible shock.’ I said, ‘but the police were very kind and helpful. I suppose they wanted to know when Mrs Montgomery was last in the office.’
Carol fidgeted with some papers. ‘Yes, well, I didn’t tell them much – just that she hadn’t been in since January the second. And they looked at the appointment book and saw the entry for January the fourth. That’s all really.’
