Jigsaw

by Anthea Fraser

  Suddenly, she slammed on the brake, sending Rona hurtling forward, restrained only by her seat-belt from hitting the windscreen.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ she demanded, struggling upright.

  Helena was staring at a large grey Daimler parked in one of the slots. ‘That’s Richard’s car,’ she said, and before Rona had processed the thought they shot forward again, gravel flying under their wheels as they screeched up the aisle, down the next one, and straight out onto the village street. An approaching car screamed to a halt with inches to spare and a barrage of furious honking, and, with the way home temporarily blocked, Helena veered instead to the left and went speeding through the village and up the hill on the other side.

  ‘We’ll look at the gibbet first,’ she said jerkily, as though that explained everything.

  ‘But – why do you want to avoid your husband?’ Rona asked in bewilderment and growing unease.

  ‘He thinks you know something,’ Helena said, and then, before Rona could question her further, ‘I’m not entirely sure where this road leads. There’s an Ordnance Survey in the glove compartment – could you get it out for me?’

  Rona leant forward and as she extracted the map, something rolled out of the compartment on to the floor at her feet. It was a red ballpoint pen.

  Sixteen

  ‘Well, don’t just sit there staring at it!’ Helena said impatiently, and Rona’s heart jerked. Then she realized she was referring to the map and as Helena, after a quick check in the mirror, drew in to the side of the road, she numbly handed it over. There must be millions of red ballpoints in circulation, she was telling herself, and yet . . .

  She heard herself say, ‘Did you write to Barry Pollard in prison?’

  Helena’s hands stilled on the map. Then she gave a forced little laugh. ‘Talk about non sequiturs!’ she said. ‘Whatever brought that up?’

  Rona released her belt and bent down to retrieve the pen. ‘This; someone wrote to him regularly in red ink.’

  ‘You really are the most amazing woman! How in hell do you know that?’

  ‘He said so.’

  ‘He—?’ Helena removed her sunglasses and turned to stare at her.

  ‘Not to me, of course, but to some friends at the pub. Hate mail, he called it.’

  ‘Oh, it was certainly that,’ Helena said slowly. ‘I’ll never stop hating him, even though he’s dead. May he rot in hell.’

  The words rang incongruously in the still, hot afternoon and Rona shivered. In front and behind them stretched the deserted country road, glinting in the sunlight, and on either side featureless expanses of scrub and low bushes stretched to the horizon. Oh Dave, Rona thought suddenly, where are you?

  Helena was still speaking, and Rona felt inside her handbag and surreptitiously switched on her recorder. ‘I told you how much I loved Charlotte. She was the little daughter I never had; I was able to see her regularly, spend time with her, watch her grow, and that more than made up for all the disappointments and failures. Then, suddenly, her life was snuffed out, extinguished like a candle, all because that bastard not only couldn’t hold his drink, but had the criminal insanity to get behind a wheel. And the really incredible part –’ her breath was coming in great, tearing rasps – ‘was that no one seemed to take it seriously. He was sentenced to eighteen months – eighteen months – for murder – because that’s what it was. And not satisfied with that, they let him out in nine! Can you believe it? So I vowed that for every week of those months, he’d be reminded of what he’d done.’

  She turned to face Rona defiantly. ‘So yes, the answer to your question is that I did write to Barry Pollard in prison. Making him suffer was the only comfort I had.’

  Rona swallowed drily. ‘Did Alan know about it?’

  She shook her head. ‘That was something I never told him. It was my own, private revenge.’ She swung the car door open. ‘Let’s go for a walk. I’m tired of being cooped up in here.’

  Rona was also glad to stretch her legs. ‘Is it safe to leave the car with the top down?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re not going far, and there’s no one within miles.’ Helena looked about her at the empty landscape. ‘The gibbet’s not on this road; we must have taken a wrong turning. According to the Survey this is a dead-end, and only leads to a farm. Bring your bag, though, just in case.’

  Rona, aware of the almost inaudible humming of the recorder, had every intention of doing so. She accepted she was being unethical, but assured herself she’d own up later, and obtain Helena’s permission before making use of it.

  They set off, walking parallel to the road on the springy turf. It was easier on their feet than the hard surface which, in any case, was starting to melt in the heat. Bees hovered overhead and far away over the hill a dog could be heard barking incessantly. They might have been the only two people left on earth. Then, mingling with the hum of the insects, another noise impinged on them, and with one accord they turned. Away in the distance the sun glinted off glass – a windscreen – that was rapidly approaching, growing larger even as they watched.

  ‘Run!’ Helena shouted. She seized Rona’s arm and began pulling her away from the road towards the stunted bushes, stumbling and tripping in her high-heeled sandals. Rona tried to hold back, but the pressure was insistent.

  ‘It’s probably someone going to the farm,’ she protested, as the brambles scratched her ankles. ‘And there’s no point in running – there isn’t anywhere we can hide.’

  ‘He mustn’t catch up with us,’ Helena gasped, dragging on her arm. ‘Come on! Can’t you go faster?’

  Down on the road a car skidded to a halt – presumably behind theirs. A door slammed, and a man’s voice called, ‘Helena! For God’s sake, darling, come back!’

  ‘Keep going!’ Helena panted. ‘He might give up if we put a fair distance between us.’

  It seemed to Rona that Richard Maddox wasn’t the man to give up on anything, but she’d no breath to argue. Her mouth was dry and her heart hammering, partly from their headlong flight, partly from fear, though of what, she wasn’t sure. The footsteps were gaining on them and behind her, bewilderingly, she heard another car stop, another door slam.

  Helena’s urgency infected her, but as she increased her pace her foot caught in a rabbit hole and she went flying, landing heavily on the uneven ground and temporarily winding herself. The earth beneath her vibrated with running footsteps, and heaving herself on one elbow, Rona turned to see Richard Maddox bearing down on them and, a few yards behind him, Dave Lampeter giving chase. Then, within feet of them, Richard drew up sharply, staring past her, and Dave went cannoning into him.

  Puzzled by their sudden stillness, Rona looked up at Helena’s motionless figure and saw, unbelievingly, that there was a knife in her hand, its blade glinting blindingly in the sunlight.

  For an instant their four figures could have been carved from stone. Richard, suddenly pale, was the first to move, holding out a cautious hand. ‘Darling, please,’ he said, his voice ragged and uneven from his running, ‘let’s be sensible about this.’

  ‘Go away.’ Helena’s voice was shaking. ‘Go back to your cars, both of you.’ Suddenly she bent forward, seized Rona’s hair and forced her head back, holding the tip of the blade against her throat. ‘If you don’t go, I’ll kill her.’

  Frozen, still unbelieving, Rona glimpsed Dave’s horrified face over Richard’s shoulder. At another level, she was aware that her hand was pressing on a nettle, and almost welcomed its vicious sting.

  ‘Darling, give me the knife! It’s all right – no damage has been done. Just give me the knife, and we can talk things over calmly.’

  Helena did not respond, and, seeing the helplessness of the two men, Rona realized the next move must be hers. Very, very slowly, she raised a hand to Helena’s and gently pushed it away. In the same instant Richard sprang forward, wrenched the knife from his wife’s hand, and hurled it into the bracken. Dave came running to Rona and helped her
up, though she could hardly stand and was glad of his supporting arm. Together, they turned to look at the others. Helena was sliding very slowly to the ground, her gaily coloured skirt billowing round her. Richard knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms.

  ‘My poor love,’ he said softly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me things were so desperate? I could have helped.’

  ‘No one can help,’ Helena said in a flat, expressionless voice. ‘I killed—’

  ‘No!’ Richard’s hand went quickly over her mouth. ‘Don’t say anything. We’ll go home and—’

  She shook him away. ‘I killed Barry Pollard,’ she said clearly, ‘and I’m glad I did.’

  For a minute there was total silence as her words echoed and re-echoed in their heads. Then Rona said hesitantly, ‘And – Alan?’

  Helena looked up then, her face anguished. ‘I loved him so much!’ she cried, and Rona saw a spasm of pain cross her husband’s face. ‘But in the end he left me, just as Edgar had. How could he do that to me?’

  She looked wildly from one face to another as though expecting an answer. ‘Gradually,’ she went on quietly, when no one spoke, ‘I came to hate him for deserting me, till in the end I hated him as much as I did Pollard. He had to be punished too, but in his case letters wouldn’t be enough.’ Rona felt Dave glance quickly at her, but her eyes were intent on the beautiful, vengeful face below her.

  ‘I wanted – needed – to hurt him,’ Helena went on in a low voice, ‘to make him suffer as much as he’d made me. Then it came to me, the perfect way to deal with both of them at once, and avenge Lottie at the same time.’

  Richard, his attempt to quieten her having failed, had sunk back on the grass, still holding her hand and with his dark, troubled eyes intent on her face. It was Rona who prompted gently, ‘How did you get hold of the knife?’

  Helena glanced up briefly. ‘I knew his wife went to work and was unlikely to be home when the boys got back from school, so there had to be a key somewhere.’ She was speaking quite calmly now, as though the crisis inside her had been resolved and there was nothing more to worry about.

  ‘So one day I went round and searched for it. It wasn’t in an obvious place, I’ll give her that; it took me nearly an hour to find it, balanced on top of a drain by the garage door. In fact, there were two keys on a ring, one for the back door and one for the side door of the garage – so the boys could get their bikes out, I suppose. That was a bonus; it gave me the idea of leaving the knife there instead of in the house. I took them straight to an ironmonger’s out at Sunningdean, had copies made, and put them back in their hiding place, with no one any the wiser.’

  A plane droned lazily overhead, part of another, more normal, world. The dog had long since stopped barking. The three of them waited, unmoving, until Helena started speaking again.

  ‘All I had to do then was wait for Pollard to be released. I was outside the prison when he came out, saw him get into a friend’s car, and followed them back to his house. After that, I tailed him every day – to the job centre, to the bank – and to the pub. He went there every evening, and caught the ten thirty bus home. His routine never varied in the week I followed him; it was almost too easy.

  ‘There was a meeting of the Music Society coming up, so I wrote to Alan, pretending to be Pollard and asking him to meet me that evening, at just the time he’d be coming out of the pub. Then, the day before, I went back and helped myself to a knife from the Spencers’ kitchen. I’d left it to the last minute, in case it was missed.’

  In the silence that followed, Rona heard a tiny click as the tape recorder switched itself off. She’d forgotten all about it, and realized with a sense of shock that she’d recorded the entire confession. This was not, she felt, the moment to own up.

  Richard slowly rose to his feet and helped Helena to hers. She stood listlessly, staring down at the ground. All the life seemed drained out of her and she looked like a beautiful doll.

  Richard turned to Rona, and she was shocked by the change in his face; he seemed to have aged ten years in as many minutes.

  ‘Miss Parish, this is a total nightmare and I haven’t even begun to take it in. However, it’s clear I owe you a very sincere apology for what’s just happened. Obviously, I hadn’t the slightest inkling of what was going on – perhaps I should have had. I have, though, been increasingly worried over the last few weeks; Helena’s always been highly strung, but her behaviour has become increasingly erratic. I was afraid she was heading for another breakdown.’

  ‘You tried to stop her coming this afternoon,’ Rona said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because her attitude towards you worried me. She said a couple of times, “That girl knows something.” And once she said, “She has to be stopped.” I’d no idea what she meant. As to this afternoon, I thought I’d dissuaded her, but as luck would have it, I glanced out of a window just as she was driving off. I knew you were going to Lammerden, so I came straight here and, since she went to collect you first, arrived ahead of you. Having searched the centre, I came out just in time to see the car shoot off through the village.’ He turned to Dave. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think—’

  ‘Dave Lampeter,’ Dave supplied. ‘I’ve been – helping Rona.’

  ‘I presume you followed me here?’

  ‘Yes. I was thrown when they drove into the car park and then straight out again, and by the time I reached the exit there was no sign of them. I was hesitating, wondering which way to go, when you drove quickly past me and turned left. I recognized you from the funeral and guessed you must be after them, so I tagged along. Not,’ he added ruefully, ‘that I did much good; Rona diffused the situation herself.’

  Richard nodded. ‘We’d better be getting back,’ he said heavily.

  Throughout these explanations Helena had stood docilely, eyes still downcast. Richard held out his hand to her, she took it as trustingly as a child, and they all retraced their steps to the waiting cars. Richard let Helena into the Daimler, then went to pull up the hood on the red sports car, with the comment that he’d send someone out to collect it. Magda’s catalogue was still on the back seat, but Rona hadn’t the heart to retrieve it.

  She and Dave waited as Richard also got into his car, made a wide, sweeping turn, and, with a lift of his hand, set off back towards Buckford.

  ‘Poor bugger,’ Dave said softly. ‘He really loves her, doesn’t he?’

  Rona nodded. Another part of the jigsaw she’d got wrong. ‘What’ll happen to them, do you think?’

  ‘God knows.’ Dave grinned suddenly. ‘But I sure would like to be a fly on the wall when your friend Barrett hears about all this!’

  It had been a relief, when they arrived at the police station, to find CID too busy dealing with the Maddoxes to have time for them. Rona wrote the DI a brief note, explaining that she’d forgotten the tape was switched on, but if he could make use of it, he was welcome to do so. She doubted, since it had been recorded without Helena’s knowledge, that it would be admissible evidence, but in all likelihood she’d have no objection to going over it again.

  Back in her room, the first thing Rona did was to phone Lew Grayson at the Courier. ‘I have a scoop for you,’ she told him. ‘One good turn deserves another!’

  Barrett would bless her for that, but she’d discharged any duty she might owe him, and Grayson’s reception of the news was worth incurring further displeasure.

  It wasn’t until Will was in bed that she told Nuala and Jack the story. They were completely thunderstruck.

  ‘Mrs Maddox!’ Nuala kept repeating, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe it! She was always so poised and in command of herself.’

  ‘At a cost,’ Rona said soberly.

  ‘So Auntie was right after all. The lovers did have a connection with the murder.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference, though, if she’d gone to the police,’ Rona commented. ‘They’d never have believed her; look at the reception I got.’

  Before going to bed, she
phoned Max. ‘We’ve had quite a dramatic turn of events,’ she told him.

  ‘Why aren’t I surprised?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, but all is well.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it; it seems pointless to tell you to take care.’

  Rona laughed. ‘Oh, I will, I will.’

  She was exhausted, she realized as she switched off the phone and started to undress; but although this was the last night she’d spend in this little room, her work here was far from finished. She’d still not been to St Stephen’s, nor visited the court house, nor the Courier archives. As to what she had achieved, she thought sleepily as she climbed into bed, it was a mixed bag: she’d been wrong about Edna’s death and about Richard Maddox, but at least she’d helped Beth and Alan Spencer, and Richard and Helena were not, thank God, her problem.

  Which was not to say she hadn’t others of her own: her father and Catherine Bishop; Lindsey and Hugh; even, perhaps, the fluttery Adele Yarborough, whose welfare so concerned Max. For the moment, though, all she wanted was to drift into sleep and forget the lot of them. Tomorrow, after all, was another day.