And then she knew. Not quite as a revelation, more a cascade—one fragment of comprehension triggering another bumping off a third and fourth. She stood in front of the smeared glass, the brush snared in her thick hair, and watched understanding grow in her own face. Then she dived for the phone.
Paddy and Howard came through the living-room on their way to the kitchen. “Mummy’s got no clothes on,” Paddy remarked disapprovingly, and Howard averted his gaze.
The nurses were reluctant to put Nicky Speers on the phone. He’d had a good night, they said, but was still very weak, and anyway they were in the middle of breakfasts. Brodie appreciated that it was a bad time but offered them a straight choice. If she could talk to Nicky she’d be done in a couple of minutes. If not she’d have to talk to the police, and Detective Superintendent Deacon would turn up in the middle of doctors’ rounds and take a great deal longer than two minutes.
There was a muttered discussion in the background. Then someone asked her to hold, and the next voice she heard was Nicky’s.
She reminded him who she was. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Sore,” he said briefly.
“I bet. How’s the head?”
“Not bad. Why?”
“I want to ask you about what you saw. Unless thinking hurts too much.”
“No,” he said wearily, “I think about it all the time. I cant do much else but think about it.”
“All right,” said Brodie. “So you were coming round the bend on Poole Lane, about quarter of a mile from your cottage, heading for home—yes? And as you came round the bend there was a vehicle heading straight for you, on your side of the road. Is that right?”
“That’s right.” He grunted in discomfort. All he had to do was hold the phone to his ear and it was causing him pain. She was sorry, but not enough to absolve him of helping resolve a situation he’d been instrumental in bringing about.
“And you didn’t see what kind of a vehicle for the glare of the headlights.”
“No.”
“Could it have been another motorbike?”
He was silent. She could almost hear him thinking. “Maybe. Yes, could have been. There was a lot of glare—if there were two headlights they were pretty close together. It could have been a bike. And then…”
“What?”
“The way it moved. Cut across the road the same time I did. A car would have trouble doing that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t run over me on the ground—he was narrow enough to get past. I wondered about that. It’s only a minor road: with me sprawled across half of it I couldn’t see how he’d managed to avoid me. But if he was a bike … ” She heard him frown. “How did you know it was another bike?”
“I didn’t think it was,” she said cryptically. “And I still don’t.” She rang off, unkindly leaving him puzzled.
As soon as she’d taken Paddy to school Brodie drove to Poole Lane. She knew what she was looking for, recognised it as soon as she found it. Three quarters of a mile past Sparrow Hill the lane made a sweeping bend to the right. There were high stone walls on either side, the boughs of trees overhanging them. She slowed to a crawl, and then she could see the bright scars along the right-hand wall where something had impacted hard and sent stone-chips flying in a killing hail.
Leaving the car in a gateway she walked back. The girls were right: there was no blood, and now even the bits of bike were gone. Only the scarred wall told where Nicky Speers hit it at fifty miles an hour. It could have killed him. It was meant to kill him.
She kept walking, past the scene of the crash, back to the bend where Nicky first saw the on-coming vehicle. The only skid-marks were his: the other party hadn’t tried to stop or even swerve. But when Nicky in desperation crossed to the wrong side of the road the other followed. Then Nicky lost control and hit the wall, and knew no more. He assumed the other rider had threaded the wreckage and vanished into the night.
And to this extent Brodie thought he was right: that when Nicky lost consciousness his Nemesis did indeed disappear.
She combed the road and both verges without finding what she was looking for. So perhaps she was looking for the wrong thing. She headed back to Poole Farm.
Philip Poole was still having breakfast. He insisted that she join him for toast and marmalade, and since she hadn’t eaten she was glad to. Only when she had a cup of coffee in her hand and a plate in front of her was he willing to answer more questions.
Twenty-five years is a lot of time, though, and some of the details eluded him. And he was puzzled why, with Serena dead, Robert missing and Nicky Speers in hospital, Brodie was concerning herself with an ancient practical joke.
“Because I know what ran Nicky off the road,” said Brodie. “He’s right: it was a deliberate attempt on his life. What he saw when he came round that bend at fifty miles an hour, filling his side of a narrow lane lined on both sides by high walls, was the Cheyne Wood Phantom.”
Chapter Eighteen
Philip Poole’s expression turned slowly, defensively, blank, as he considered the possibility he was giving breakfast to a dangerous lunatic. After a moment he moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and said carefully, “I thought you understood. That was a trick we played.”
Brodie gave an impatient flick of her marmalade knife. “Of course I understand. That’s what I mean. That’s what Nicky saw. A mirror. He came round a fast sweeping bend, and as his headlights came back to the road they hit a mirror. It was a dark, narrow lane, and it looked like another vehicle coming at him. He swerved, so did the lights ahead. He hit a stone wall at fifty miles an hour trying to avoid his own reflection.”
Now he’d caught up with her, if anything Poole was looking more worried than before. “You don’t think … You’re not accusing me-1”
She stared at him in amazement. “Whatever makes you think that?”
He cleared his throat, slightly reassured. “Well, three of us were involved. And now one of us is dead, one’s in a psychiatric hospital, and hey, here’s me, living less than a mile from where the crash happened and employing the victim.”
“It never occurred to me it could be you,” Brodie said briskly, and moved on before he could decide if that was a compliment or not. And before she could ask herself if she should at least have wondered. “Other people knew what you’d done. The rest of the hunt, of course, but also anyone any of the three of you had talked to. You told me about it the first day we met. I imagine, in sixteen years of marriage, Serena told Robert.”
“Robert? You think Robert tried to kill Nicky?”
“I can’t think of anyone with a better reason,” Brodie said frankly. “If you hadn’t come along when you did he’d have succeeded—the boy would have died at the scene. Finding no trace of another vehicle, and particularly since Nicky’d been drinking, the police would have assumed that he either lost control on the bend or drove into the wall deliberately. They might have put it down to guilt, inferred that he played a bigger part in Serena’s death than they’d thought. If Robert turns up at a later date it would have been a useful argument in his defence—either man could have stabbed Serena but one of them head-butted a wall when the police started showing an interest in him.”
“You think Robert tried to kill Nicky so he could use him as a scapegoat.” The farmer thought the way God’s mills grind: not swiftly but thoroughly.
Brodie helped herself to more toast. “That’s what I think, yes. Everyone assumed he’d done a runner after the murder. I don’t think he did: I think he’s been here or hereabouts ever since. I think he’s been back to Sparrow Hill. They thought they had an intruder there a few nights ago. Daniel wondered if it was Robert and we all laughed at him. But maybe he was right. About who if not why
“I think he needed something from the house, and between Daniel, Peris and the girls the place was never empty. So he let himself in at four in the morning. It was just rotten luck that Johnny was restless and heard him.”
God’s
mills had got left behind again. “Needed what from the house?”
“The mirror!” exclaimed Brodie. “Oh Philip, do try to keep up. Either the one you used twenty-five years ago, if Serena still had it, or one they had at Sparrow Hill that would do as well. That’s what I came here to ask. Do you know what happened to the mirror after the Phantom’s cover was blown?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Where did it come from?”
He thought back. “The girls found it in an outhouse at their place. It was a cheval mirror, except that it had lost its stand. I know it was a heavy damned thing—it took all three of us to shift it.”
“Victorian? Ornate wooden frame, that kind of thing? About six foot high?”
“Probably. But it was rather the worse for wear then, I doubt if it’s still around today.”
“Possibly not,” agreed Brodie. “But what one big mirror will do another will do. It was the idea that was the clever part.”
Poole shuddered and pushed away the remains of his breakfast. “Nicky could have died. When I found him I thought he was dead. Because of a stupid practical joke we played as kids quarter of a century ago.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” said Brodie. “If Robert hadn’t heard about the Phantom he’d have found some other way to get at Nicky. Less clever but maybe more certain. Perhaps the Cheyne Wood Phantom is the reason Nicky Speers is alive today”
Poole managed a weak grin. “Thank you. You’re very kind.”
Brodie considered that but dismissed it. “No, I’m not. No one who’s known me long goes on thinking that.”
He chuckled. “So what now?”
“Now we find the mirror.”
His eyes flickered, alternating between hope and alarm. “You don’t think that’s a job for the police?”
“Actually,” she said diplomatically, “I meant me and the police.”
Jack Deacon caught on quicker than Philip Poole. He was shouting instructions to Charlie Voss before Brodie had finished explaining. Twenty minutes later he had search parties combing the woods either side of Poole Lane.
For once he’d been able to describe what they were looking for in some detail. This was a rare luxury—usually all the guidance they got was: “You’ll know it when you see it.”
“It’s a mirror. A big mirror, probably about six foot long. What they call a cheval mirror, which means it’s big enough for someone to see what a prat he looks on his horse. It might be an old one, in which case it could be very battered, or it could be a modern copy. Or it could just be something that would do the same job—a sheet of polished steel, for instance. But it would have to be big to maintain the illusion of another bike coming at him long enough to put the kid off the road.”
While he was briefing the searchers, back up the road Brodie was briefing Daniel.
“So Robert was here?”
“It looks a bit like it,” she nodded. “I know: you said so all along, we should have believed you.”
But told-you-so wasn’t Daniel’s style. “How could he hope to move something that big without waking the house? In fact, if it took three teenagers to shift it, how did he hope to move it at all?”
“He’s a big man,” Brodie reminded him. “Just because he mostly works with his brain doesn’t mean his muscles have atrophied. If he wanted it moved, he’d move it. Though it may not have been the Victorian original he used. Maybe there was another mirror in the house, still big but lighter.”
“If there’s a big mirror missing from here the girls should know. They’re the only ones who will. Neither Peris nor I are familiar enough with the house.”
“Have they said anything?”
“No. But then, I haven’t asked. Maybe I should.”
They were in the school-room, poring over a hefty volume in apparent fascination. They looked up as Daniel returned. “Is it all right if Brodie joins us for a minute?” he asked -because it was their school-room before it was his.
Almost they were trying too hard to mind their manners. Em nodded with an enthusiasm she couldn’t possibly feel, and Johnny said carefully, “Of course. Shall I bring another chair?”
Brodie suspected irony but saw no traces of it. “No, thanks. I won’t stay -1 mustn’t interrupt your work. What are you reading?”
“Henry the Fifth,” said Johnny.
Brodie looked at Daniel in surprise. “I didn’t know anybody still taught Shakespeare.”
He shrugged. “I’m not an English teacher, how would I know what they teach? OK. Brodie has a theory about our intruder. Do you know if there’s a mirror missing from the house?”
The girls regarded their visitor with studious vacancy. Johnny said, “A mirror?”
“Yes. A big one, big enough to see your whole self all at once. It might have been on the wall, it might have been on a stand on the floor, it might have been in a storeroom. And now it isn’t.” She paused, looking from one expressionless young face to the other. “Is this ringing any bells with you?”
Johnny said with restraint, “I don’t think so, Mrs Farrell.”
Daniel hid a grin. “Have a look round, see if anything occurs to you.”
They rose obediently and headed for the stairs. At the door Johnny hesitated and looked back, wanting to be sure she’d got this right. “You want us to look for a mirror that isn’t there any more?”
“Yes, please,” said Daniel.
When they’d gone he chuckled and sat down on the table. “And another theory bites the dust.”
“Not necessarily,” protested Brodie. “It may still be why he came. But he was disturbed, so he fled and found something else he could use.”
“In which case there should be a big mirror in the house here somewhere, since he was disturbed before he could remove it. And if there was the girls would know.”
She had no answer to that. She scowled at him. “That’s how it was done. I know that’s how it was done. He got hold of a mirror, set it up in the road and waited for Nicky to come home/’
“It’s possible,” conceded Daniel. “I don’t know how you’d prove it.”
“If Jack finds a six-foot mirror in the woods, I’ll slap anyone who mentions the word ‘coincidence’!”
The search party found nothing in the woods. Not a six-foot mirror; not the shattered remains of a six-foot mirror that proved unequal to abseiling over a five-foot stone wall; not the drag-marks in the chalky soil where something heavy had been hauled away There was no sign that Robert Daws or anyone else had been in these woods in the recent past.
When the search had expanded to quarter of a mile from where Nicky Speers hit the wall Deacon called a halt. “If he brought it this far it wasn’t in order to leave it—he had something else in mind. But I don’t think he did. If he’d been here, manhandling a large heavy object on his own, I think we’d have found signs of it by now.”
“Mrs Farrell’s going to be disappointed,” said Charlie Voss. “She was convinced she’d cracked the case.” Deacon looked round quickly but his open expression was innocent of mischief. All the same. Deacon was beginning to suspect that there was more to his sergeant than was printed on the label.
“Yes, well,” he growled. “Brodie’s always had the idea she could do my job better than me. It’ll do her good to see that for every ounce of inspiration it takes a pint of perspiration.” Jack Deacon would be the last man in England to go metric.
“Are you going to call her?”
Deacon looked at his watch. Then he did a quick head-count. “That’s eleven of us been down here since ten o’clock. That’s … thirty-three man-hours down the tube thanks to her. I reckon she owes me”—he did mental calculations that twisted his face like wringing out a dish-cloth—“lunch. I’ll see you back at the madhouse at two.”
Brodie wasn’t so much disappointed that he’d failed to find any physical evidence to support her theory as annoyed. She thought he hadn’t looked properly. There had to be some sign that a big man had b
rought a heavy mirror here, from Sparrow Hill or elsewhere, and set it up at a time and place when he confidently expected Nicky Speers to come along on his motorcycle, and after the broken bike and the broken boy had come to rest in the road had lugged the mirror away and disposed of it.
“Did you look at the road surface?” she asked. “It’s a country lane, it doesn’t get a lot of traffic, it doesn’t see a road-sweeper every day—there must have been some marks on it.”
“Oh, there were,” said Deacon sardonically, cutting his steak as if he held a grudge against it. “Tyre-marks: lots of different tyre-marks. One set was yours. One was Philip Poole’s Land Rover. There’s some from a digger, some from a tractor, and two skinny ones from a pair of bicycles. That’s all we could separate. It’s thirty-six hours since Daws was there—if he was there. No marks he left in the road would still be visible.”
Brodie’s eyebrows rose indignantly. “It’s not my fault thirty-six hours passed before someone worked out what happened. You’re the detective: how come you didn’t get there sooner?”
He breathed ominously at her. “Gee, I don’t know, Brodie. Maybe it’s because I never read the Nancy Drew Mysteries and have to rely on twenty-five years as a policeman instead. It slows you up. I keep telling Division, what we need is a more imaginative approach. Never mind evidence and witnesses and all that crap: what we should be looking at is creative dreaming…”
“I didn’t dream it,” Brodie snapped back. “I was mulling it over while I was asleep: it’s not at all the same thing. And if it was such a stupid idea, why did you keep eleven men and women working on it for three hours? It’s not me that has to explain that to the Sub-Divisional Commander, it’s you.”
“Don’t remind me,” he grunted. “Well, I’ll tell him it was a valid theory that explained how Nicky could have been hurt even if we’re not sure it’s how he was hurt. That it was important to look for anything that would cast light on the movements of the prime suspect in a murder case. And that failure to find the mirror thirty-six hours after the event doesn’t prove that it wasn’t there are the critical moment. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Reflections Page 16
