Heirs and Assigns

by Marjorie Eccles

  His knock at Number Six was answered by a large, rumpled young man with untidy dark hair and enough family resemblance to Anna Douglas to proclaim him her son. ‘Jack Douglas,’ he said, confirming this after Reardon had introduced himself and asked for Miss Brewster. ‘Carey’s in here.’ He had lively brown eyes and a humorous mouth. Despite his rangy and athletic build, it was noticeable that he walked with a very slight limp as he went towards a door on the right of a small hallway, where stairs rose at the end.

  The young lady herself was kneeling on the floor in front of a large tin trunk from which rose a powerful smell of mothballs. She was a small, fair-haired person wrapped in an overall several sizes too big for her. She had a smut on her nose, and was nothing like the chic young woman conjured up by Claudia Llewellyn’s condescending remarks, or for that matter the description of her in Kate Ramsey’s journal.

  Scrambling to her feet as introductions were made, she cleared a chair of a tottering pile of old framed photographs by placing them on the floor and gracefully inviting him to take a seat. ‘Please excuse the muddle.’ And indeed this room, evidently the parlour, was in its own way as much of a mess as the one he’d just left, with miscellaneous objects occupying every available surface, obscuring any impression of what the room might be like when it was tidy – except for the feeling that it would always be cold and inhospitable. ‘Jack’s helping me sort things out. I feel I ought to keep more than I want to throw away, but I can’t take it all with me,’ she said rather helplessly.

  ‘You’re going away?’

  ‘Yes. My mother died recently, you see, and I’ve been living in France for the last three months. But I shan’t be staying. I’m leaving Hinton.’

  ‘We’re both leaving,’ said Jack, who had perched himself rather elegantly on the edge of the central table. ‘Me, as soon as this pesky leg of mine lets me, and Carey when she’s sold the house. I’m off to wherever I’m sent and Carey to parts unknown.’

  This somewhat cryptic remark was received in silence. Carey picked out what looked like a pair of very old curtains from the trunk and began to unfold them. Suddenly, with a look of distaste, she crammed them back, shut the lid and rubbed her fingers together. ‘None of this stuff needs keeping. I’m tempted to just leave it, and everything else, close the door and walk away. In actual fact,’ she went on, addressing Reardon and not looking at Jack, ‘my destination isn’t unknown. I’m going back to stay with my friends in Paris until I find some sort of job. Which might take some time, considering I’m not trained for anything.’

  ‘I’ve told her it’s too soon to be making decisions, but the lady’s too stubborn to listen.’

  ‘And I’ve told him,’ she answered rather coolly, ‘there’s nothing for a dreary old spinster like me here in Hinton.’ She smiled very slightly, but there was a subtext going on here beneath the presumably friendly sparring passing between these two. Despite the smut on her nose, she was really very pretty, quick and active in her movements, and couldn’t possibly have been the wrong side of thirty. A gently spoken young woman with soft fair hair that fell in a bell around her face. The dark, smoky-blue eyes that Kate had mentioned were indeed beautiful. ‘Look, Mr Reardon, we were just going to stop for a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Will you join us?’ He said he’d like that very much. ‘Or coffee? I’ve got rather good at coffee lately.’

  ‘Coffee it is then.’

  She went out and across the passage, leaving the door open. Still perched on the table, Jack’s eyes followed her.

  ‘You have an interesting career, Mr Douglas, I’m told.’

  ‘I suppose I do. No – correction – I know I do, and a lot of people out there who might envy me. Lots of travel, doing what I most want to do and getting paid for it. That can’t be bad.’ He smiled, showing very white teeth. ‘But at the moment I’ve mucked things up a bit. Fell off a mountain ledge in China, being too impetuous. Reaching out too far for a specimen before I thought about the risk. Stupid. Meanwhile, I’ve been helping my mother a bit, and writing up my notes, plus a few articles, but to tell the truth I’m getting restless. Trouble is, this damned leg is taking too long. The medics tell me I’m too impatient, but to hell with all that.’

  Reardon made sympathetic noises. He’d been through it himself, with the difference that Jack Douglas’s problems appeared to be merely physical. But when you’re an active young man, the time taken for recuperation after any sort of accident isn’t easy, especially when you blame yourself for it.

  Carey put a head round the door and announced the coffee was ready. ‘Let’s have it in the living room – it’s a bit tidier, and certainly warmer.’

  Warmth and tidiness were surely its only attributes. Small and cramped, it was indelibly stamped with the decorating tastes of thirty years ago, probably furnished when Mrs Brewster had come here as a bride. Although a cheerful fire was going in the black iron range, the place was depressingly dark, the narrow window facing the street being the only source of light. The impression of dinginess wasn’t helped by a wallpaper that had faded into an overall muddy yellow, and doors and cupboards painted the same serviceable dark brown as the outside of the house. It struck Reardon that Carey Brewster was to be congratulated for wanting to shut the door on all this and start a new life. She showed spirit beneath that soft, pliant exterior. Not many a modern young miss would have put up with it for a minute, never mind for as long as she apparently had, he thought, recalling Dr Fairlie’s remarks about the regular tyrant Muriel Brewster had been.

  When they were seated at a central table covered with dreary maroon chenille, she poured coffee. ‘Have a macaroon, they’re home-made.’ She pushed the sugar across to Jack. ‘You want to ask us about that night at Bryn Glas, don’t you?’

  ‘I know from Sergeant Bridgstock over at Castle Wyvering that you’ve already given preliminary statements and it’s tedious to go over them, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped and since you were both among the last to see Mr Llewellyn before he died, it would be useful to have your impressions. I believe my sergeant’s already spoken to you, Mr Douglas?’ Jack nodded.

  ‘Were you surprised at the announcement Mr Llewellyn made?’

  ‘That Anna and he were to be married?’ Carey answered. ‘In a way, yes – but everyone was.’

  ‘Except me,’ Jack remarked. ‘My mother had already told me. Naturally, she didn’t want to spring that sort of news on me with all his family present.’

  ‘That’s understandable. How did you view the prospect?’

  ‘Did it matter what I thought? It was right for them and that was the only thing that counted. The only surprise was that it had taken so long.’ He met Reardon’s glance. ‘All right then, might as well say it as think it,’ he said, rather less cool. ‘She was nervous about that evening, which should have been a very happy affair but … That family – two-faced, every one of them, pretending to be pleased when anyone could see they were anything but. Terrified my mother would persuade him to change his will in her favour. I wouldn’t put anything past any of them.’

  ‘Including Pen?’

  ‘Pen was—’

  ‘Pen wasn’t like that,’ interrupted Carey, whose colour had risen.

  ‘What they haven’t the wit to see is that she’s supported herself – and me – for many years, and if she’d been that way inclined, she could have found herself a husband before now willing to keep her. Or even relied on me if necessary.’

  He drained his coffee in one gulp, then shoved his hands deep in his pockets and thrust out his legs, though he winced a little.

  ‘The thing is, Mr Reardon, Jack’s right. They weren’t pleased at the news. To be honest, I felt we were in two camps that night – Pen’s friends, and his family. I don’t include Verity. She didn’t join in or say anything, not a word. But that’s because she wasn’t well that night.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been told about that. She was attached to Mr Llewellyn, I believe?’

  ‘We all were,’ she
said, with a slight hesitation. ‘Of course, we saw the best of him … they say he was tough in his business, and he wasn’t always easy, I have to admit. He liked to rule the roost a bit, you know?’

  ‘In the nicest possible way, of course,’ Jack added. She looked at him reproachfully, but he was smiling.

  ‘He could be very kind, as well, you know.’

  Reardon came back to the breaking-up of that supper party. It added nothing new to the statements already made but he heard them out. ‘All right, that seems satisfactory.’ Shutting his notebook, he remarked casually, ‘By the way, you don’t happen to have seen Miss Lancaster today, do you, Miss Brewster?’

  ‘Verity? No, why? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Only that no one seems to have seen her since yesterday evening. She didn’t put in an appearance at breakfast and they’re a bit worried. They seemed to think since you were good friends you might know where she is.’

  ‘Well, she hasn’t been here,’ Carey said. ‘Yes, we are good friends – whenever she comes to stay in Hinton, that is. But I haven’t seen her since that supper, and for ages before that, me being away. I hope she hasn’t been taken ill somewhere – I must say she did look pretty rotten that night. She really was pale as anything, and on edge, and she had to leave the table, though Mrs Ramsey made sure she was all right.’ She was beginning to look worried herself. ‘Perhaps I ought to have left all this sorting out here and gone up to Bryn Glas to see her, but I would have thought visitors were the last thing they wanted at the moment.’

  ‘I think it’s unlikely she’s ill. She’s taken her motor car.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, you don’t think she could have had an accident?’ But straight away she shook her head. ‘No, it’s silly to think that, she’s a good driver.’

  Reardon didn’t want to alarm her further by reminding her that it took two to make an accident, but Jack remarked laconically, ‘Not recently, she isn’t. She careered past me the other day going like a bat out of hell.’

  Carey suddenly looked not just worried, but scared.

  ‘Let’s not start thinking that way,’ Reardon said quickly. ‘Since she took most of her clothes as well, it seems the intention to leave was deliberate. She’s over twenty-one and if that’s what she wants … it was a pity she didn’t leave a note, but if she should get in touch with you, Miss Brewster, perhaps you’ll let me know.’

  ‘Of course I will, but it’s awfully odd, you’ll have to admit.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve any need to worry.’

  Jack said abruptly, ‘Have you tried Adrian Murfitt?’ Reardon looked mystified until he added, ‘at the bookshop.’ Then he remembered where he’d heard the name before, when Gilmour had recounted his first encounter with Sadie Bannerman.

  ‘He and Verity have been seeing quite a bit of each other lately while you’ve been away, Carey,’ Jack said.

  ‘Have they?’ Carey frowned. ‘Are you sure? He’s hardly her type – so much older for one thing.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, she’s certainly been useful to him. He hasn’t got a decent car of his own and she’s been driving him around to book sales and so on. Probably chauffeuring him somewhere even now.’

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone else would want to,’ Carey replied, rather oddly.

  ‘No.’

  There was a small silence. ‘May one ask why that should be?’ Reardon asked.

  ‘Poor man,’ Carey said, ‘it isn’t really fair, after all these years.’

  ‘True. But he was a conchie during the war, Mr Reardon, and unfortunately people don’t seem to be able to forget that.’

  ‘Won’t, you mean,’ said Carey.

  Every town, every village in England had their share of men and boys who had given their lives for their country, and feeling had run high against conscientious objectors, known as conchies, those who had refused to take any part in the war, on religious, moral or political grounds. In a small community like Hinton, where sons had probably been lost, it was easy to see the reluctance to embrace anyone bearing that stigma.

  There was a knock on the door. ‘That might be Verity!’ With some relief Carey hurried to answer it. But it wasn’t Verity. Through the window could be seen a small boy standing outside, red-faced and sweaty, wearing a pair of trousers that had once belonged to someone much larger, the legs cut short but the crotch hanging so low it was surprising he could walk, never mind run. They heard him say, ‘Miss said to bring this straight away, miss.’ He had on a green woollen jersey and a knitted woollen tie, and wore a Wolf Cub cap, a sign of his trustworthiness as a letter carrier.

  ‘Thank you, Ronnie.’ Carey asked him to wait, came back to fetch him a few coppers, and then brought the letter indoors. ‘It seems the wanderer’s been found,’ she exclaimed with relief after she’d slit the envelope open and read the short note inside. ‘She’s with Mrs Ramsey. Kate sent word to Bryn Glas and they told her you’d be here, inspector. She asks that you go there. Kate, I mean, not Verity.’

  ‘Well,’ Reardon said, ‘I don’t suppose Miss Lancaster will welcome the interference, but since I’ve been charged with finding her …’

  ‘I’d like to see her myself,’ Carey put in tentatively.

  ‘Then if you come with me we’ll pick my motor up at the Fox and I’ll drive you there.’ It had been a long day and he was getting fed up with hoofing it everywhere by now and he had no intention of letting slip this opportunity to talk to the uncommunicative Verity Lancaster. Perhaps she would be amenable to reason with a friend of her own age. He shrugged himself into his overcoat. ‘Your stay in France wasn’t wasted, Miss Brewster. The coffee was excellent. And so were the macaroons.’

  ‘She made them herself – and that’s not due to French influence. She’s a dabster at baking. And she paints, too. Beautifully.’

  Evidently needled, Carey retorted, ‘Then no doubt she could always hire herself out as a cook! Or maybe a pavement artist.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Instantly, he looked contrite and put a hand on her arm. ‘Sorry, Carey, dear. Bad manners, sorry. Flippancy not appropriate at the moment.’

  ‘All right, I’m sorry too. My sense of humour seems to have gone missing, these days.’

  He bent his head and planted a light, brotherly kiss on her cheek. They watched her run lightly up the stairs for her coat.

  While they were waiting, Jack suddenly remarked, as if nothing had been said between the first moments of their conversation and now, ‘I keep telling her not to rush her fences – Carey, I mean, but she won’t listen … She doesn’t really want to leave Hinton. She’s running away, you know.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘From that stuffed shirt, Doc Fairlie. And that,’ he added with a mock-rueful smile, ‘is something I’d no right to say. Forget I said anything, please.’

  Interesting. Fairlie House in exchange for Lessings Lane? It might not be such a bad bargain at that for this young woman. Nothing further was said on the subject before Carey joined them, but while she locked the door and they all they walked along the lane, until Jack left them for his mother’s house along the Townway, Reardon reflected that when women like Kate Ramsey – and his own Ellen, on occasions – accused men of being obtuse and imperceptive, they often had a point. Even an intelligent man like Jack Douglas. Perhaps he was obtuse where Carey was concerned, and maybe jealous, but he seemed to have something on his mind other than that. He was a likeable young man, but also impetuous on his own admission, and with a hearty dislike of anyone called Llewellyn, Pen perhaps not excluded.

  FOURTEEN

  Kate’s cottage at the junction of the road to Castle Wyvering was one of only three along the lane, once tied cottages for workers at Bryn Glas when it had been a farm. The other two, she’d told Reardon, had been sold to a wealthy manufacturer from West Bromwich, who had knocked them together to form one house, and then used it only occasionally as a weekend retreat.

  When they arrived, despite the fading light, she was in
the garden raking leaves into a pile, a Herculean task at any time given the number of large, deciduous trees growing along the lane, and doubly so now that the leaves still littering her tiny patch of lawn were a wet, half-rotted blanket. She threw down the rake with evident relief when Reardon drew the car up.

  ‘Don’t let us interrupt, Mrs Ramsey.’

  ‘On the contrary, you’ve rescued me – I’m no gardener. I was only doing this so I could catch you before you go in. Young Ronnie’s earning a shilling to do it and he can finish when he comes back tomorrow. Hello, Carey. I’m so glad you’ve come as well.’

  ‘Is Verity still here?’ asked Carey.

  ‘I’m afraid she is, and that’s the problem. She’s insisting she won’t go home, and I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid it’s impossible for her to stay here. Never mind whether I ought to send her straight back home anyway, in the circumstances. I’ve only the two small bedrooms, after all.’ She had a high colour, either from her efforts with the leaves or because she was flustered, although Reardon doubted the latter; he’d had her down as the least unflappable of women. ‘And of course,’ she added, looking at Reardon, ‘Ellen’s insisting she should be the one to leave, which I really, really, can’t have, and Verity saying she doesn’t care if she has to sleep on the sofa.’