by Nicola Slade
Fiona was counting heads again when she was interrupted by a squeak from Jess who darted forward.
‘Where’s Eve? This note must have been posted through the letter-box.’ She scanned the crumpled sheet of paper and raised her eyebrows.’It must be an advert, listen to this. It starts off ‘To whom it may concern…’ Fancy that!’
Sam raised his eyebrows at this and nearly laughed out loud as he caught his cousin rolling her eyes heavenward. ‘Melodramatic tosh,’ she hissed in his ear.
‘Oops, it might be private.’ Jess was abashed. ‘I’ll put it on the hall table for Eve.’
‘Oh, go on, let’s see; don’t be so prim, it’s not sealed. It looks like a poem, Jess. Not one of yours, is it?’ To Jess’s evident surprise Nina twitched it out of her fingers, flicking a glance at it as she unfolded it, while Harriet bit back the scolding she’d been about to deliver.
‘No business of mine if she’s so bloody rude,’ she murmured to Sam. ‘I really must put the headmistress back in her box.’
Apparently oblivious of the faint hum of disapproval, Nina skimmed through it and looked up, her eyes bright with malice.
‘Good gracious, this is interesting, I wonder if it’s meant for anyone here. Listen to this:
“Do you sleep well at night?
Do you lie in your bed, sweating in terror, praying for absolution?
Have you spent a single, solitary day wracked with guilt?
A liar, a whore, and worse.
Do you fear retribution?
Perhaps you should …”
She turned the piece of paper over again and raised her eyebrows before dropping it casually on to a side table as she stared round at the others, some embarrassed, a couple disgusted, but all intrigued and curious.
‘Do you suppose it’s meant for one of us?’ she asked again and on receiving no response her mouth twisted in a malicious smile. ‘Have you signed us up for one of the murder mystery weekends they’re planning, Linzi? Or does someone have a guilty secret?’
Harriet’s startled gaze flew to Fiona and flickered across to Linzi whose face was drained of colour.
‘Goodness, Linzi …’ Nina was also looking at the group Chairman, her expression avidly inquisitive ‘… you look as though you’ve seen a ghost! Do tell.’
Shaking her head Linzi limped off to her room, leaving an uneasy hush behind her. After a moment or so Harriet took charge, her face stern and troubled. ‘If this isn’t some kind of marketing idea it sounds like a particularly unfunny joke,’ she said, in the magisterial tones that had won her the nickname Boudicca when she was teaching. ‘Anyone know anything about it?’
She picked it up and glanced briefly at the folded piece of paper before replacing it on the table. Only Sam saw her eyes widen slightly. Without pausing she looked at the group, glad to see that her calm authority seemed to have the desired effect. ‘Very well then, I suggest we forget about it and head for the pub, I’m hungry, even if the rest of you aren’t. Somebody had better see if Linzi’s all right,’ she added.
She turned on her heel and swept out of the front door, followed by the loyal Sam, while Fiona, who was looking distinctly flustered, headed for Linzi’s room.
‘Sam,’ Harriet hissed as he caught up with her, ‘for pity’s sake slap me if you think I’m getting involved in anything, and no,’ she murmured making sure nobody was in earshot, ‘before you say anything, you need to listen to me. I’d much rather not connect that letter with what Fiona told me, but there has to be some link. It’s beginning to look as though there really is something weird going on.’
‘Go on then, what was it that surprised you? I saw your face when you looked at the letter,’ Sam spoke softly.’Something gave you a jolt.’
‘I might have known you’d be on the ball,’ she managed a faint smile. ‘Jess missed it. She didn’t really look at the outside of the note but Nina must have seen it. I saw her turn it over again to check.’
‘What? What must she have seen? Come on, Hat, this is no time to go discreet on me.’
‘On the other half of the fold, as though someone scribbled on it without spotting that the letter was upside down, I saw the initials LB, written in pencil with a line drawn underneath, like an address. Admittedly it was a bit faint, probably an afterthought as the actual note or whatever it was, had been printed, but I’m wondering whether it was addressed to Linzi Bray.’ She was walking even more briskly now but she shivered. ‘It’s weird, Sam, I might be adding two and two and making five, but I don’t like it and I absolutely don’t want anything to do with it.’
‘Too right!’ Sam spoke in hearty agreement. ‘What on earth was that Nina woman thinking? Oh well, we’ll talk later but remember, it’s barely two months since you were nearly killed. I know perfectly well you’ve been having nightmares ever since, not to mention being off your feed.’
As he had intended, this last remark distracted her, but at that moment Fiona caught them up. She made a discouraging ‘no’ face at Harriet and said she would walk at the back to keep Linzi company.
‘Shall I come with you?’ Sam offered, but she shook her head so he fell into step with his cousin, frowning at his thoughts.
*
The solicitor, Tim Nicholls, was still wondering whether he could plead a sudden indisposition, a slight attack of bubonic plague perhaps. Or an earthquake ten miles up the road, not serious enough to hit the local news but certainly bad enough to engulf his flat. Anything to give him an excuse to get away.
Perhaps he could plead the urgency of his house-hunting? Pretend the lease on his rented place was up and that he had to find a house or be homeless? Well, it was true there was some urgency about it; he had to find somewhere Jamie would approve when he turned up and Christmas was already on the horizon. Could he use Jamie as an excuse?
Good manners told him no, even though the bombshell had dropped. He’d just begun to relax in the unfamiliar surroundings, realising that the other members of the fledgling group were perfectly pleasant. One or two seemed even more nervous than him and then – there she was. Dear God, that woman. He remembered the cold fear that had overwhelmed him when she’d confronted him all those months ago and the damage she could do. Of all people to be trapped with for a whole weekend, why did it have to be her – so charming at first encounter and then so frightening?
*
Jess Tyndall walked silently down the road, her thoughts whirling. Bill had been in a raging temper the previous evening, his anger edged with sharp anxiety. That damned woman, Jess fumed. How dare she turn up in Bill’s office at the County Council; worse, could her smiling threats ruin his career?
*
Madeleine Durham hoped she could pass muster at a social gathering. ‘I’m here as an artist like the rest of them,’ she’d told her reflection in her bathroom mirror as she sluiced her tear-stained face with cold water. ‘I have a perfect right to be here. Fiona thinks my designs are wonderful so I must be able to paint. I don’t suppose she means it but she’s nice and I won’t let her down. I can’t let her down and I’ll stand up to Linzi. So what if she tells everyone about me?’
Stiff with tension she walked on, ignoring the soft beauty of the September evening. She knew that Linzi would bully her with impunity because she, Madeleine, would always let her. She was too beaten to fight. Her fellow guests on this course, her fellow villagers in Locksley, might not care, but Madeleine was her own judge and jury and had long since found herself wanting.
Her lips folded in a tight line. Out of earshot of the rest of the group, she whispered aloud: ‘I need a cigarette.’ Terrified someone might hear her, she scuttled along, knowing that it was the least of her cravings. The art teacher, Donald something or other; she had spotted his shaking hands as well as the direction of his longing gaze. He was another, she concluded, another one like her.
A cigarette wasn’t the only thing she longed for, and Donald, she suspected, felt the same.
*
Ev
e Paget tidied the drawing room with her lips drawn into a tight line. Jess Tyndall had handed the anonymous note to her with a brief explanation and apology and Eve had assured her it was nothing, probably an advertisement. But was it? Her thoughts flew to her husband, now humming cheerfully in the kitchen as he finalised his breakfast menu and made notes about tomorrow night’s dinner, the highlight of the weekend. He hoped it would be the stepping-stone towards Tadema Lodge becoming a destination guest house.
Her hands clenched into fists. The scrawled initials on the back of the note went unnoticed, so concentrated on her husband were her thoughts. Hughie had no idea of her devil’s pact with Linzi Bray. As far as his wife knew, he’d never actually seen the woman, either recently or back then when it all kicked off. As long as Eve kept her nerve and maintained an atmosphere of serenity and comfort there was no reason he should ever know. Hughie must never know who Linzi Bray really was; he was doing well at the moment and nothing must disturb his balance. ‘I’ll rise above it all,’ she vowed, ‘and take everything in my stride. I’m a professional.’
A qualm beset her as she remembered that Hughie had looked in to the entrance lobby just now, where the guests had assembled. Hughie, who had been staring fixedly at the slight woman with the casual tumble of copper waves.
*
As they approached the pub Sam was buttonholed by Nina who had a thoughtful gleam in her eye. He turned a sigh of resignation into a cough and summoned up a smile.
‘I’m looking forward to dinner, aren’t you?’ It seemed an innocuous opening and she nodded tucking her hand in his arm.
‘Something you ought to know, Sam,’ she said in a confiding murmur. ‘I don’t think you’ve met Linzi Bray before and you should be warned. The woman is a menace, a man-eater who devours any man who comes within her orbit, so you’d best be on your guard.’
He was startled but there was no help from Harriet, so he smiled politely and increased his pace.
*
Harriet was being monopolised by George.
‘I saw you were shocked when that woman was so rude about me earlier,’ he began, ignoring her weak smile as started on a litany of complaints about his neighbour.
‘She’s a liar,’ he declared, keeping in step with his unwilling companion. ‘I do a lot of work in my attic, you know, model-making …’ He described in detail his current project, the Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vb. ‘The aluminium skin’s been set on the wooden airframe and it’s time to start painting. How can I keep a steady hand when she pretends she’s overlooked by my attic window?’
Harriet settled for general murmuring as she realised the recent undercurrents in the entrance hall had gone over his head. Life with Clare had probably made him an expert in avoiding unpleasantness. His only concerns were his models and his garden and he described how he loathed Linzi Bray for the carelessness that allowed a weed to spread from her garden to his. ‘As if that wasn’t enough,’ he frowned, ‘she’s had a shed built just where it’ll keep the sun off my vegetable patch, but the worst thing …’ Harriet was alarmed to see his face redden and his breathing quicken ‘… her privet hedge breached my boundary by six inches. Six whole inches! It’s not as though she needed the space, her garden’s massive. When I confronted her, all she could do was laugh and say ‘sorree…’ and that she’d get her gardener to trim it next time he came. And then, tonight, she said—’
Harriet was concerned to see that he was actually shaking, so she said ‘oh dear’ and ‘such a pity’ in a soothing voice. When Clare caught up with George, it was a toss-up, Harriet felt, as to which of the two women aroused the greater visible hatred in him – his neighbour or his wife.
*
Before she nobbled Sam, Nina Allison had stomped along with her head down, beyond despair, her foul temper still holding her in its grip. She had been shaken by Harriet Quigley’s disdainful stare but she felt little contrition at reading aloud a private letter or for sniping viciously at Linzi whenever she had the chance. The bitch had stolen Phil so deserved what she got.
*
‘I had my first pint in this pub,’ Sam confided to Seren, his neighbour at the long table. ‘It wasn’t so upmarket in those days.’ He grinned at her. ‘I swaggered in here in the summer holidays with a gang of other 14-year-olds as the result of a dare.’ He chuckled and she smiled, relaxing as she responded to his unthreatening charm. ‘We each forced down several pints to show we were real men but we were too scared ever to come back. I was as sick as a dog and my father gave me a good hiding. I couldn’t have kept it a secret if I’d tried because I threw up very loudly in his car! He was in the garden when I reeled home so I slid into the car to lie low. Didn’t work, of course; he heard it all and caught me. I don’t think it helped that the car was his pride and joy – a big black Rover, the same as the Queen had at the time.’
For a moment she stared at him, startled, and then to his surprise and pleasure she broke out into a laugh of genuine amusement, her bright greeny-hazel eyes sparkling. He exerted himself towards bringing her out of her shell and poured her a glass of Chablis.
‘Your family’s local, is it, Sam? Did you go to Winchester College?’ she asked.
‘That’s way out of our league,’ Sam laughed and shook his head. ‘My school was okay though.’ There was a twinkle in his eye. ‘I learned a useful trick from one of the masters. He used his glasses as a weapon, pushing them down his nose so he could glare over the top of them.’
‘I can imagine Harriet using that kind of ploy,’ she smiled but Sam shook his head.
‘Harriet needed no tricks. The kids used to say: “You don’t mess with Boudicca.” They were terrified they’d be impaled on her chariot wheels!’ He acknowledged her laughing protest. ‘I know, I know, she’s a pussy cat, but people do rather straighten their spines and feel slightly guilty when she hoves in sight.’
*
Seren Lawrence found Sam comfortable and friendly but her thoughts were in turmoil. It wasn’t meant to be like this. The article in the paper a few weeks ago had made no mention of an art group. The name was different from the name she sought but the photograph had shown a face amid a cluster of people – a face that was achingly familiar. She’d meant to take it slowly, to watch from a distance and take soundings as she found her feet in this life. More recently, the newsagent’s postcard she had spotted only bore Fiona Christie’s name, but when Seren called in to discuss the forthcoming weekend Fiona had shown her a photograph taken at a recent art class. A wild impulse had made her sign up but it was quite something, she discovered, to find herself faced with a living image from a photograph.
*
Harriet wondered about the earlier exchange with Seren Lawrence. Maybe she was seeing spooks at every turn and what she’d interpreted as a gasp was merely an expression of interest at an unusual name. She wasn’t convinced and during the bustle as people sat down she let her thoughts roam. The Welsh names had startled someone but there was nobody Welsh here, she thought, then corrected that to nobody with an obviously Welsh accent. It was probably a dead-end and she was being stupid. The anonymous note or flyer irked her and the silly ‘To whom it may concern’ hadn’t prepared her for the melodramatic blank verse Nina read out, which had clearly shocked Linzi Bray. There was also the suspicion amounting to certainty that Nina must have seen the initials on the back. ‘What on earth is her game,’ Harriet wondered. ‘Is she so consumed with anger and spite about the husband that she must snipe at Linzi in public whenever the chance arises? I can’t blame her, I suppose. She must be dreadfully unhappy.’
*
‘I don’t often visit Winchester,’ Donald confided to Harriet. ‘I live in Southampton at the moment and I … I taught for a while near Basingstoke.’ Harriet noticed a shadow cross his face as he spoke but he rallied quickly enough. ‘I’ve lived in London, off and on,’ he added.
Donald prided himself on managing quite well as he made an effort to play his allocated role: the teacher – help
ful, knowledgeable, experienced and talented. He had headed for this woman with her reassuring air of calm competence, taking care to sit beside her. He wasn’t sure why she made him feel safe, he only knew he could cope with the evening if he kept close to her.
She smiled at him now, her expression friendly and encouraging. ‘I haven’t been in here for ages,’ she told him, ‘not since I moved out to Locksley, but the food is excellent, so we’re in for a treat.’
He nodded, relaxing as she poured him a glass of sparkling water. That was another bonus. Harriet wasn’t drinking alcohol which meant he could be at ease, away from temptation.
‘Well,’ Jess announced, raising her gin and tonic in a toast, ‘I always seem to be the designated driver but tonight I can drink as much as I like.’
‘I don’t drink.’ The sharp comment came from Bonnie. ‘And I certainly wouldn’t drive if I did.’ Her face darkened. ‘Drink drivers should be flogged, in my opinion.’
There was a slightly embarrassed murmur at Bonnie’s words until the buzz of conversation resumed. Harriet raised her eyebrows but said nothing and smiled at Donald who took another sip of his water. He would have been surprised to know that Harriet was quite aware of the beeline he’d made in her direction and that she had gently manoeuvred him to the end of the table farthest from the bar. On his other hand sat Madeleine, flanked by Fiona Christie who, like Harriet, opted for water. Several of the others had ordered bottles to share but Fiona explained: ‘I need a clear head. Once the show’s safely on the road I’ll have a drink; tomorrow night, perhaps, but not just now.’
Earlier she had whispered in Harriet’s ear: ‘Linzi swears she’s okay, but I think she looks awful though she’s disguised it with loads of slap. She’s popping more pills too, I don’t like the way she just tips a couple into her hand and swallows them.’
‘Goodness!’ Harriet looked blank then lowered her voice as she noticed one or two of the others look up curiously. ‘Should we say something?’
