False Pride

by Veronica Heley

  Bea prompted her. ‘How did anyone else know Kent was going to turn up at the studio?’

  Mrs Tarring shrugged. She didn’t like this line of questioning.

  Bea was patient. ‘Look, we found a bug under Lucas’s desk, which would have relayed his telephone conversations to another interested party. That’s how the villains were alerted to the fact that Lucas was not going to play the role they’d assigned to him. I wonder if a similar bug has also been planted at Kent’s place? Has he a full-time housekeeper?’

  ‘No, he likes a bit of peace and quiet. He does have a housekeeper, of course. One you supplied. She doesn’t live in, but puts in three days a week to clean, and to buy and cook food, which she leaves for him to heat up when he feels like it.’

  ‘Magda told me that someone representing himself from your office managed to gain access to Lucas’s study. From what you say, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to run the same trick on Kent’s housekeeper. One way or the other, one bug or two, I believe that’s how someone knew where the jewellery was going to be, and at what time. But who planted the bugs and who was listening in?’

  Still Mrs Tarring refused to play ball. Instead, she said, ‘What I want to know is, who interrupted Lord Rycroft at breakfast and caused him to drive off in a hurry?’

  ‘Someone he trusted. Not Owen, because he was dead by that time. I think it has to be either Kent or Lucas. Both of them would be worried sick about what was happening. They conferred; had Lord Rycroft really gone bananas and organized the removal of the family jewels? If so, he must be taken to a doctor and treated. Or, and I think this is most likely, both Kent and Lucas realized that Owen must be orchestrating this nastiest of scams, and they wanted to tear the scales from Lord Rycroft’s eyes. Perhaps they decided that if they confronted Lord Rycroft together or alone, if they showed him the jewels, the old man would at last be convinced that Owen was a bad apple and must be dealt with. From what you tell me, it’s likely that Lord Rycroft would have taken quite a bit of persuading. But, whether he’d been convinced of Owen’s guilt or not, Lord Rycroft was sufficiently disturbed by what he heard to abandon his breakfast to meet them.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he have wanted Owen there, too? He’d have wanted Owen to prove his innocence.’

  ‘Perhaps he tried to contact Owen, without realizing he’d been killed by that time. Owen was out of touch. I think Lord Rycroft would have tried to contact Owen, but when he failed, he asked Lucas and Kent to show him the evidence before he did anything else. So where did he plan to meet?’

  ‘I don’t know! I can’t think!’

  ‘You know the family well. You’ve observed all their comings and goings. You would have thought that Lord Rycroft would suggest they met at his London home, but his housekeeper is not answering the phone and neither is he, so we can’t confirm that. Perhaps Kent and Lucas wanted to meet him on neutral ground somewhere? You say Owen had access to Lord Rycroft at his country house at all times. Did he by chance have a key to his London house as well?’

  Mrs Tarring bit her lip. ‘Yes, he did. You’ll think security very lax, but when His Lordship asked us to give keys to Owen, we agreed. Naturally.’

  ‘I can see how it was. Now where else would they meet? At Piers’s studio?’

  ‘Well, we know that Kent went there, but I can’t think that Lucas or Lord Rycroft would have attacked Kent. That’s unthinkable.’

  ‘Agreed. So who do you think …?’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t ask me to speculate. I can’t think!’

  ‘All right. Let’s get at it another way. Why did Lucas disappear? He dumped the jewels on Magda and said he’d be back after he’d visited the barber’s. But he didn’t turn up there. So where did he go, and why?’

  ‘I don’t know! I really don’t!’

  ‘What time did he set off for the barber’s? About a quarter past ten, Magda said. His appointment with Piers was at eleven, right?’

  Mrs Tarring nodded. ‘You think it was Lucas who phoned Lord Rycroft and told him the bad news?’

  ‘The timing fits. If we’re correct in our assumptions, Lucas would think that at that point everything was under control. The jewels were in safe hands. Kent had been put in the picture. Lord Rycroft was steaming back to town to see for himself what had been going on and Owen … was dead. So what stopped Lucas from getting to the barber’s?’

  Mrs Tarring lifted her hands. ‘I don’t know.’

  You suspect, but you don’t know. So you won’t talk. Mrs Tarring, are you friend or foe?

  TWELVE

  Saturday evening to Sunday morning

  Bea said, ‘Let’s try again. His Lordship had got very fond of Owen. He wouldn’t want to believe that he’d been deceived by the lad. Suppose, on his way back to London, he phoned Lucas and tore him off a strip. Suppose he said he didn’t believe that Owen would deceive him, and that he was going to go straight to Owen’s place to tell him what was going on. He didn’t know Owen was dead. No one did. So where did Owen live?’

  Mrs Tarring said, choosing her words with care, ‘Kent had allocated him a flat in the Barbican but Owen hadn’t liked it, and asked for something closer to the office, so he was in the process of moving into the apartment under Lucas’s flat.’

  Bea grimaced. ‘That was adding fuel to the family’s flames, wasn’t it? Provocative, to say the least, if Owen was making trouble all round. Didn’t Lucas or Kent object?’

  ‘Lucas was surprised but said he didn’t want to make a big deal about it. I believe Kent may have spoken to his father on the subject, but …’ She gestured. ‘Lord Rycroft hates to have his decisions questioned. Owen was having the place redecorated before he moved in.’ Another gesture of despair. ‘It cost a mint. I don’t know what will happen to it now.’

  ‘So, back to what Lucas did this morning. He’s in the cab on his way to the barber’s. Either he rings his elder brother, or his brother rings him. Lord Rycroft says he doesn’t believe Owen has been cheating him. He says they must meet and sort it out. Lucas is presented with a difficult situation. He has taken the jewels out of the bank, remember. He sees that he could well be accused of theft on his own account. He believes that the stuff is safe with Magda. He agrees to abandon his plans for the day in order to meet his brother. He tries to ring Magda, to reschedule the meeting with Piers. He doesn’t know that Magda’s phone has been smashed by the twins. He can’t get through to her. He directs the cab to take him to meet his brother. Where does he go, Mrs Tarring? To the Barbican to Owen’s old flat, or to his new place in the same house as Lucas, or where?’

  ‘Again, I don’t know!’

  ‘Kent, by that time, is on his way to the studio, where he meets up with … who, Mrs Tarring?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’ Mrs Tarring rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m exhausted. I can’t think straight. It’s been a terrible day, and tomorrow doesn’t look any better. I must ring the hospital to see how Kent is, first thing in the morning. As for Lord Rycroft and Lucas, I’m sure they’ll turn up when they’re ready, and there’ll be a perfectly good explanation for everything that’s happened. I’m going home.’

  Bea didn’t stop her. She was tired, too. Almost too tired to get out of her chair. Her eyes switched to the clock on the mantelpiece. A pretty clock, with flowers painted on a wreath on its face. It was past ten in the evening.

  Bea left Mrs Tarring ringing for a cab while she fed the cat Winston, who always swore he couldn’t last through the night without a late-night pouch of food. Bea thought of ringing William Morton to ask how Bernice had got on, and decided it was too late to do so. The child must have been tucked up in bed hours ago.

  She let Mrs Tarring out of the front door, and watched her walk slowly and stiffly down the steps and get into a cab. A fine night.

  Bea hesitated to put the alarm back on, and eventually decided against doing so. It was too unreliable. She busied herself tidying the house, and then went upstairs to get ready for bed. All the time
her ears were stretched to hear … what surely would not happen.

  He still had not come by the time she had showered, got into her nightdress and shrugged on her dressing gown.

  Only then did she hear his key turn in the lock.

  She floated down the stairs, pleased that she hadn’t put the alarm on. A shadowy figure slipped into the house, closed the front door and put his arms around her.

  She was imagining things, of course. She’d been wondering what it would be like if he …

  ‘I’ve been so worried about you,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? I had this fantasy of riding to your rescue, a knight on a white horse. The truth is I’m exhausted, I have a headache and I can hardly stand upright, but I couldn’t stay away. I kept thinking someone would come and try to break in during the night, and you without a working alarm.’

  ‘I can’t trust it. What do you think?’

  He said, ‘I haven’t a clue. You need a specialist. I’ll try to raise one for you, tomorrow.’ He was hollow-eyed, dishevelled. Too tired to be sexy … and yet … and yet …

  She was comforted by his offer. ‘Aspirin and a hot drink?’

  ‘If you have them, yes. Probably nothing will happen but I’ll sleep on the settee downstairs.’

  He had caught her in a moment of weakness. She didn’t want to be alone in the house that night.

  She gave him a drink and some aspirins. She found him a duvet and a pillow. And with a firmness that slightly surprised her, she left him in the living room and went up to her own bed alone.

  She told herself that she was too tired to sleep. She told herself that nothing would happen that night. She stretched out and found herself smiling. Had Piers expected to share her bed that night? In recent years he’d tried once or twice to … well … he’d even seemed to be jealous, slightly, of William Morton … who had behaved badly, taking Bernice off like that. In the morning …

  In the darkest hour of the night, she half woke and started upright. What was that?

  Her heart was beating far too fast.

  She’d left her bedroom door ajar. There was a light on downstairs in the hall.

  Yes, it was the alarm, yammering away. But she hadn’t set it, had she?

  She stumbled out of bed and made it down the stairs to the hall, holding on to the banister.

  She met Piers coming up from the lighted basement. He shouted above the din. ‘Someone bashed in the door again! Can you believe it?’

  She shouted back, ‘But I didn’t turn the alarm on!’ She fed the alarm the code and it took no notice.

  Piers shouted something else, but she couldn’t make out what it was. She tried the code again.

  She was going to go mad! The noise went right through her head, shaking her body. She expected to see Magda running out of her room to see what was the matter, but no … perhaps she’d taken a sleeping tablet?

  The third time Bea tried the code …

  The noise died.

  Bea leaned against the wall, breathing hard. She said to the alarm, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’

  Piers said, ‘I thought you weren’t going to set it.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ She addressed the alarm box. ‘You, mate, are for the chop!’ And to Piers, ‘Someone got in downstairs?’

  ‘Looks like it. I can’t see anyone in the agency rooms, but give me a torch and I’ll search the garden for you.’

  ‘No! Don’t!’ The thought of him meeting an intruder in the garden frightened her. ‘Call the police!’

  ‘Don’t be silly! I’m only going to look. The alarm going off like that would have frightened any intruder away, but I’d better check.’

  Suppose the intruder found the diamonds! But no … not at night. Piers had hidden them too well.

  Piers said, ‘I promise to be careful.’

  Against her better judgement she found him a torch and, despite his orders to the contrary, she followed him downstairs. He’d left the lights on. She could see the rooms were empty of all but furniture.

  Looking around, she could also see that someone had been in her office. The grille over the French windows had been wrenched back, and the French doors left open onto the garden. Her chair had been thrust back against the wall as the intruder plunged outside … or perhaps when they fled again on his, or her, return?

  She watched Piers step into the garden and stand still, listening to the tiny sounds of the city at night and adjusting his eyes to the darkness. He said, ‘Whoever it was, has gone.’

  She leaned against the wall by the French windows while Piers probed the shadows outside with the beam of her torch. There was some moonlight; not enough to be really helpful, and something could perhaps be lurking close under the walls … but no, nothing seemed to be moving, and no figure came crashing out of the darkness past her in an effort to escape.

  Piers walked round the pool and shone the torch on the open door of the shed. Yes, someone had definitely gone in there and found … what?

  She drew in a deep breath. They’d been looking for the jewels, right?

  After a moment Piers returned, shaking his head. ‘Whoever it was, has gone. They went straight to the garden shed, pulled everything apart, discovered the jewel cases, opened them, found them empty and left them scattered around. It’s a good thing we took precautions.’

  ‘Come inside.’ Bea drew him in, closed the French windows and pulled the grille across. Thank heaven for small mercies because the grille still latched into place. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was still thumping with dread about what might have happened to Piers if he’d found the intruder in the garden. He was stupidly, criminally rash!

  Piers went straight to the damaged door, which now hung askew again. The hinges were still in place, more or less, but the bolts had been torn away from the door jamb.

  He considered the problem. ‘I can’t mend that. I’ll have to shove it back into place and place a desk against it. Can’t think how else to make it secure. Build a barricade of furniture around it, perhaps?’ He began to do just that.

  Bea said, ‘Was it Shirley, after the jewellery?’

  ‘Dunno. I didn’t actually see anyone. The alarm woke me. I shot down here to find the French windows to the garden ajar, and the door to the area stairs as you see, levered open from the outside. Perhaps they used a tyre iron?’

  ‘They’d been and gone by the time the alarm woke us?’

  ‘I don’t understand it. The alarm didn’t go off when the intruder broke in or I’d have heard it and caught them in the act. When whoever it was found there weren’t any jewels in the boxes, they must have fled and, pushing the door further open in leaving, they must have set the alarm off again.’ He stood back, eyeing his furniture barricade with dissatisfaction. ‘If anyone tries to get in through that, we’ll hear them soon enough.’

  He brushed his hands one against the other. ‘You can go back to bed now.’

  Should she ring the police? And tell them what? That an alarm, which hadn’t been switched on, had repelled boarders? She shook her head. It was all too much. Tomorrow … she’d deal with it tomorrow.

  She climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She was beyond taking any further action. Beyond thought.

  She sank back onto the mattress. That alarm …! It had a mind of its own. Suppose someone came back again tonight? No, they wouldn’t do that, not now they knew the jewels had been taken out of their boxes. Not when the alarm had gone off when they fled.

  Except that it shouldn’t have gone off, because she hadn’t switched it on. The words ‘intermittent fault’ swam into her tired brain and swam away.

  She turned over. It was all too much.

  The light went out downstairs, and she closed her eyes. And soon enough, she slept … lightly … and then, deeply … and woke with the memory of being enclosed in strong arms, lying ‘spoons’ … or had she imagined it?

  She flung out one arm but the bed was empty and cold beside her. Had he ever been there? No, of course not.
>
  Birds were singing outside in the garden. Loudly. Birds had no consideration for people who needed a good eight hours’ sleep.

  She slept again, only to be woken by the chink of china as Piers put a mug of tea on her bedside table. She woke slowly, considering various options.

  He said, ‘I’ve always liked your early morning face.’

  He meant, without makeup.

  He kissed her lightly, first on one eyelid and then on the other.

  Did she kiss him back? Surely not. The years unravelled and they were back in the first few months of their marriage, in the grotty little basement flat which was all they could afford, with her in a dead-end office job and him raging like a tiger with the need to paint and taking odd jobs here and there to make ends meet. Their loving had been oh, so sweet!

  They’d married in church and divorced in a civil court. Once or twice he’d reminded her that they were still married in the eyes of the church. But then … his tom-catting around … their poverty … their child, now grown up and with a family of his own … she had moved on to marry again and although her dear Hamilton had died some years ago yet … no, she couldn’t go back. Too much had happened in the years between.

  She shook herself back to the present. ‘Did the intruder leave any clue as to his identity?’

  He shook his head. One side of his jaw was swollen and yellow under the stubble. He wouldn’t be shaving today. Would he grow a beard? Wouldn’t he look like a pirate of old, if he did grow a beard? She thrust such frivolous thoughts away.

  He said, ‘No. I went outside and down the stairs to the agency entrance this morning. Nothing. The visitor was anonymous. Could have come from anywhere. No fingerprints that I could see. My rough-and-ready repair is holding, and the alarm is still not switched on.’

  She sat up in bed. ‘You said “he?” It was a man?’

  ‘I have no idea, but I can’t see those thin arms of Shirley breaking down the door … although, of course, if she’d used a tyre iron …? No, it still requires more muscle than she’s got. It might have been some opportunist burglar chancing his luck. I may be assuming too much but yes, I’d say it was a man.’