by Susan Lewis
Banging down the phone she went after John, who was already in the hall, putting on his coat. ‘I hope to God she is going to Cannock and nowhere else,’ he said, handing her hers. ‘Even so, we’re going to be heading straight into the rush-hour traffic now …’
‘I think I should come with you,’ Richard said.
Chrissie looked at him anxiously. ‘Why?’ she demanded.
‘I just think I should,’ he answered. ‘Elinor’s here, and I’ll be back before you know it.’
Then to John, ‘I’ll take my own car, and follow you.’
As they ran outside Avril’s heart did an almighty flip when Richard stopped at a silver BMW and started to get in. She’d forgotten all about the car, but wasn’t it a silver BMW that had been spotted outside Carla’s? Turning to grab John’s arm she was about to tell him, when she remembered it was Graham’s apparently bogus wife who’d claimed she’d seen the car. Shaking her head, she ran on to John’s Range Rover.
‘So what I want to know is how come you and Richard seemed to hit on Graham at the same time?’ she said, as they sped off towards Knightsbridge.
John glanced at her, then hit the brakes hard, as they approached a red light. ‘There was no coincidence in the timing,’ he answered. ‘I had my suspicions before we went in, and it didn’t take me long to realize that Richard was speaking the truth.’
‘So how did Graham get into your frame?’
‘When there’s a woman who matters, you’re always aware of the other men in her life, no matter who they are, or what role they might play, and in Graham’s case, the role was never quite clear. At least not to me. It would seem not to Richard either.’
‘Mmm,’ Avril grunted. ‘Well, despite your bit of male bonding back there I just want to warn you that Richard Mere’s a damn sight cleverer than most, and though you might have let him off your hook, he’s definitely still on mine. So just you keep making sure he’s behind us, and not whizzing off along some back roads trying to get there first.’
Chapter 23
THE LIGHT FROM the computer screen was casting a soft blue-grey glow over Betty’s face, making her skin seem coldly waxen and her eyes unnaturally bright. The room around her was in darkness, the curtains pulled, the door closed. She steered the cursor carefully to its positions, opening each of the email addresses that was set up with a literary title, checking to see if there were any last-minute messages from Carla, either cancelling her date with Richard, changing the venue, or saying something to confuse the plans.
Finally, satisfied that everything was going ahead, she shut down the computer, then, closing the study door behind her, she walked along the hall to the kitchen. Outside the wind was howling, making the old house creak and rumble, though no rain spattered the windows yet, and the moon was still a clear round ball in the night-black sky.
Placing a fresh sheet of paper on the table, she went to a drawer for a pen, then glanced at the clock. Six thirty. Pulling up a chair she sat down to write, her aging features registering no emotion as she penned the few necessary words before folding the sheet neatly into quarters, then going into the laundry-cum-cloakroom for her coat, boots and headscarf.
With no-one else at home to call goodbye to, she let herself quietly out the back door, and trudged in her small zip-top boots past the rows of onions and potatoes, carrots and parsnips, beneath the bamboo frame laden with fat runner beans, and on along the path to the gate. Once in the lane, she belted her coat more tightly around her, and knotted the scarf under her chin. It was so bitterly cold it was unlikely she’d pass any neighbours, but even if she did, no-one would expect her to stop, or even to speak. Unless something extraordinary happened she’d be there in a couple of minutes, earlier than planned, but she knew Carla was home, because she’d seen her and the dog arrive a short while ago.
Carla was still wearing her coat and gloves as she touched a match to a firelighter, piled some sticks and lumps of coal around it, then, after making sure it was catching, she went back to the kitchen to carry on unloading the groceries she’d brought in. Hiring a car and driving down from London had shown her just how much she missed the convenience of being able to stop off at the supermarket, or chemist, or outrageously expensive lingerie shop where she’d picked out something very special for tomorrow night, without having to put someone else to the trouble of taking her.
‘Yes, we definitely need to get a car of our own,’ she told Eddie, slotting a pack of chicken breasts into the freezer, then closing the door quickly before she frosted up along with everything inside. ‘We’re not rich enough to go for anything fancy, at least not yet, but we should be able to stretch ourselves to something that’ll get us up and down the M4. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said, peeling off her gloves and passing him a salt and vinegar crisp.
Wolfing it down, he sat waiting for another, which he got when a wave of nerves stole Carla’s appetite and made her look at the clock. All day she’d been trying to imagine what it was going to be like seeing Richard again, especially here, where he’d once been as at home as she was. It was disconcerting to think of how relaxed he had been with her mother, and Eddie, and the neighbours, when she now knew that, at the end at least, it had all been a sham. It annoyed and dismayed her to know that his betrayal still hurt, though fortunately much less than it once had. Nevertheless, she regretted not putting her foot down about meeting somewhere more public, for she was unsettled by the prospect of him returning to the intimacy of her home, even though he’d said they could go out when he got there. Apparently he was staying with some friends at Bradford-on-Avon, who must be new, because she didn’t remember him knowing anyone there before.
Going into the sitting room to check that the fire was still flickering, she shovelled on more coal, gave it some help with the bellows, then banged her hands together as she thought of all the planning, and perfection, she’d be pouring into tomorrow night. By then it would hopefully be much warmer in here, and romantically cosy with lots of candles, wine and soft music. She gave a quirky sort of smile at the strangeness, yet joy, of knowing the effort was going to be for another man, and how startling, yet wonderful it was to know that the other man was John. However, Richard was yet to be dealt with, and though she might be reserving all the real effort for tomorrow night, she had intended at least to shower and change before he arrived. But with it being so cold upstairs there was just no way she could bring herself to peel off even one layer of clothing, never mind the lot. Besides, time was running out, so giving up on the idea of looking so fantastic he’d torment himself for years for ever letting her go, she was about to get out a hairbrush and some lipstick when Eddie suddenly started to bark, and her heart leapt to her throat.
‘Damn you, Richard,’ she muttered, not only because he was early, but because now he was here she no longer wanted to see him. What was the point of putting herself through it, when all she really wanted was to forget and move on?
‘Eddie, stop!’ she shouted, as his excitement seemed to grow more frenzied. ‘Stop!’ she repeated as he bounded into the hall, then back into the kitchen. She hadn’t heard anyone knock yet, so he must have heard the car, though it was unlike him to get this worked up over someone driving up and getting out.
‘Eddie! What is it?’ she cried, as he bounced up and down, and kept running over to the back door. ‘No, you’re not going out there. It’s dark and it’s too cold.’ As she finished speaking she was looking curiously at the slip of paper Eddie was pouncing on, as though trying to attract her attention towards it.
‘What is it?’ she said, going towards him.
Tail wagging furiously, he stared fixedly down at the note, waiting for her to pick it up, then followed her movements as she unfolded it and started to read. ‘Dear Carla, I’m sorry to approach you like this, but it’s very important that I speak to you. I’m outside in the back garden, and can’t come to the door because I’m afraid of the dog. Yours, Betty Foster.’
Carla’s
heartbeat gave a skip of surprise. Frowning, she looked at the door and imagined Betty out there in the cold, a lone figure in the darkness, watching the cottage, and sending a shiver down Carla’s spine with the very strangeness of her actions. Looking at Eddie’s crooked little ears and eager face, she said, ‘How can she be afraid of you?’
His head tilted to one side, then began scratching at the door.
‘No.’ She pulled him back, then, realizing Betty was asking for him to be shut away before she came in, she found herself feeling slightly uneasy. This was such peculiar behaviour from a woman who never spoke to anyone, much less asked to be let in through the back door on a cold wintry night, that she couldn’t think what to do. And in a complete turnabout from a few moments ago she found herself willing Richard to turn up right now. Then she started as Betty’s voice called out softly, ‘Carla, please don’t be afraid. I only …’
Eddie’s barking drowned whatever else she said, so taking him into the office and closing the door, Carla returned to the kitchen, and said, ‘Betty, can you hear me?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Betty, I don’t understand why you’re doing this. What’s the matter with coming to the front door?’
‘I don’t want anyone to see me come in,’ Betty answered.
Carla stared at the back door in amazement. Had she heard that correctly?
‘I understand that I’m probably alarming you,’ Betty said, ‘but I really do have to talk to you.’
‘Where’s Graham?’ Carla asked.
‘Giving a talk at a library in Bath.’
Carla fell silent and stared hard at the door as she tried to decide what to do. On the one hand, it seemed absurd to be unnerved, not to mention mean to keep an old lady out in the cold. However, some instinct, or maybe it was paranoia, seemed to be buzzing an alarm in her head, making her wonder if Betty was some kind of crazy woman that Graham kept under control with drugs, and under lock and key when he wasn’t around? Farfetched maybe, but what about all those trips she made to her sister’s? Maybe they were just a cover for spells she spent in a psychiatric clinic. Maybe she’d escaped and her medication was wearing off …
Realizing she was spooking herself to the point of needing her own psychiatric help, Carla forced her mind into the more rational reminder that she was not only a lot taller than Betty, but a lot younger, and presumably stronger too. So, unless Betty was armed with an intent to kill, which she seriously doubted, where was the harm in letting her in?
Carefully sliding the bolt back, she turned the key in the lock, then moved swiftly over to the knife drawer, just in case, and called out, ‘OK, you can come in.’
The handle made a slow half-turn, then the door swung gently open, and Betty’s meek, wind-mottled face appeared from the darkness.
‘Thank you,’ she said, though her eyes were darting anxiously around the kitchen.
Realizing she was looking for Eddie, Carla said, ‘It’s OK, he wouldn’t hurt you.’
‘I just … I’m afraid I have a bit of a phobia about dogs,’ Betty admitted, her close-set eyes peering out of the oval frame of her headscarf, and making her look no more ominous than an old lady who’d come in the front way collecting for the Salvation Army. Also, the slight hint of a Northern accent was welcome, for it added some credibility to sojourns with a sister rather than weeks in a straitjacket.
‘It’s cold,’ Carla said, nodding towards the door.
Betty quickly closed it, then, making to untie her scarf, asked if Carla minded.
Carla waved her on, watching her fussy little movements that ended with the scarf being tucked into a coat pocket, and betrayed no signs of a manically deranged inner person.
‘You’re very like your mother,’ Betty commented, surprising her.
Carla merely looked at her. Then, seeing the unsettling effect her scrutiny was having, she heard herself saying, ‘Would you like to come in by the fire?’
Betty nodded. ‘That would be nice, thank you.’
As Carla led the way through Eddie started barking again, and Betty instantly drew back. ‘It’s OK, he’s in the office,’ Carla assured her, the strangeness of the situation making her feel slightly out of kilter with herself. Then chattily she added, ‘I’m expecting someone shortly, so I’m afraid I don’t have much time.’
Betty turned as she reached an armchair. ‘Is it all right if I sit here?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Carla answered. ‘I’d offer to take your coat, but the fire hasn’t really got going yet.’
They both looked down at it, watching the flames flying up the chimney, too new to give off much heat, but managing to add a sprightly animation to the small, chilly room. Then, perching on the edge of the chair, Betty said, ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while, but with the dog always here … It was me on the phone on Christmas Day, when you were at the pub. Graham knows it was me, but he wouldn’t tell you that.’
Carla was too taken aback to make any kind of immediate response, but after sitting down on the sofa, while watching Betty’s curious distraction, she said, ‘Why didn’t you just call me here?’
Seeming not, hear the question, Betty said, ‘I’ve come a few times, but I’m always so nervous of the dog … I kept hoping you’d look out and see me.’
When she stopped Carla gave a quick glance at the clock. Richard should be arriving any minute.
Interpreting the glance, Betty said, ‘I’m afraid Richard’s not coming.’
Disbelief widened Carla’s eyes, but before she could fully register that, Betty said, ‘The emails, they’ve all been from Graham.’
Carla stared at her, so unnerved by this astounding statement that she was back to thinking the woman insane, and that she had somehow to get her out of here.
Betty said, ‘Actually, the last email, the one asking you to come here tonight, that was from me. I’m sorry I tricked you, but I was afraid if I told you I wanted to see you, and asked you to keep it secret from Graham, that you’d tell him anyway.’
At last Carla found her voice. ‘I’m sorry, Betty,’ she said, ‘but I’m not following any of this. In fact, I’m …’ She jumped as the phone suddenly rang. ‘Totally confused,’ she added weakly, then was about to get up, when Betty’s words stopped her.
‘Please don’t answer it,’ she said.
Carla blinked.
‘In case it’s Graham,’ Betty explained. ‘Or anyone else. I really need to tell you what’s been going on, because I can’t sit by and allow all these lies to continue.’
Hearing the answerphone pick up in the study, Carla sat back and waited for Betty to go on.
‘Perhaps I should begin by telling you that I’m not Graham’s wife,’ Betty said, glancing down at her joined hands. ‘I’m really just a housekeeper, and, I suppose, a friend.’
Though mildly stunned by this revelation Carla quickly realized that, as a truth, it had some merit, considering the almost separate lives the two of them led. ‘So why say you’re his wife?’ she asked.
Betty blinked a couple of times, then said, ‘It was decided, some time ago, that it would be easier that way.’
‘What would?’ Carla said, trying to think of a scenario that would suit this description, but what she came up with was so bizarre, she decided just to let Betty continue.
‘Barry Fellowes,’ Betty said, ‘who you all think of as a detective, is my real husband. We met Graham fifteen years ago when Barry answered an advertisement Graham had put in the local paper. We were all living up north then, and Barry hadn’t worked in a while, so he was keen to get the job Graham was offering. It was just a handyman’s position, with a bit of gardening, and the occasional driving, but it provided a little cottage in the grounds of Graham’s house that was a lot better than the council flat we were in at the time. So he went for the interview, and when he told Graham about me, Graham took me on too, as his cook-housekeeper. He wasn’t all that well known as a writer then, but he comes from a moneyed famil
y, and Barry and me, well, we’d never even set foot in a house like Graham’s before, so we thought ourselves very fortunate to have this chance. And right from the start it all worked out very well. We got along nicely, all of us, and Graham was the best employer we’d ever had. Still is, I suppose, but everything’s very different now to what it was back then …’
She paused, blinking rapidly for a moment, then, after glancing anxiously at Carla, she continued. ‘We’d been with him about a year when he offered Barry a kind of bonus in return for helping him research one of his books. The two of them often used to sit up late into the night talking through plots and motives, and all that sort of thing, still do in fact, but Graham had never offered to pay Barry before, and definitely not the kind of money he was talking about now … At the time I didn’t know anything about it, Barry didn’t tell me because he knew I’d never have let him take the money, never mind get involved. The first I knew about anything was when the police came to tell Graham that someone had been found dead in the woods at the back of his property. Of course, I didn’t have any idea how the poor chap had come to be there, or even who he was, so when the police questioned me it was easy to be ignorant, because at that point I was. They questioned Graham and Barry too, and for a long time I thought they were as baffled as me. But then Barry told me what had really happened.’
She took a breath, and Carla noticed the way her mouth was trembling as she tried to go on. After a few halted attempts, she said, ‘Graham was writing about this character who was a bit of a simple bloke, ordinary like, who gets offered more money than he could ever earn in his life to kill someone. That was the basis of the book, and the bloke being offered the money was the point where the story started, which meant that straight away Graham wanted Barry to tell him how he felt about the offer, you know, all the conflicting emotions, like doubt, greed, fear, excitement, so Graham could write them all down. Then they spent months recording everything Barry was experiencing as they went through the motions of picking out their victim, and hatching out a plot on how to go about it without getting caught. Barry says it all took on a momentum of its own, that it wasn’t really serious when they first got started, but I don’t know. All I know is that when the time came Graham was there, in the woods, when Barry brought the old drunk over from Barnsley, and bashed in his head with a stone. Then he got Barry to tell him everything he’d been feeling, from the time he’d picked the man up to the point when he knew the man was actually dead … The two of them discussed it for months, along with all the details of the investigation. That was an important part of it too, because Graham was now having some first-hand experience of being interrogated by the police, and the chance of being found out, the fear and all the other things he felt, all went into the book. Well, I expect you’ve read it. Tragic Endeavours. It was his first big bestseller.’
