Ann dropped the receiver which swung and clattered against the glass. Her throat constricted suddenly as if a hand had gripped it tight. She stood rigidly, swamped by horror. Her name. How could she possibly give her name? Her mind leapt ahead and saw it printed in large letters across the front page of the local newspaper—maybe even the nationals. She pictured the repercussions. Her husband’s distress and its possible effect on his reputation. His sorrowful disappointment not only at her failure to provide the secure environment that Carlotta had so urgently needed but that she had actually driven the girl from the house. At least that was how it would appear.
Ann slid into a maelstrom of miserable reflection. When she emerged moments later, wretched and on the verge of tears, it was to realise she had put the phone back on the hook.
Fortunately there was no one to see her return home. Ann was horrified at the sight of herself in the hall mirror. Face streaked with dirt. Shoes and stockings soaked through. She was shivering as the sweat generated by her mad dash along the river bank dried coldly on her skin.
She started to run a bath before she had even taken off her coat Bypassing her husband’s Radox which promised to “soothe away aches and pains, easing tension and tiredness,” she reached for Molton Brown’s Sensual Foaming Bath. A Christmas present from Louise Fainlight, ravishingly scented, wonderfully effervescent and surely much more likely to ease tension and soothe pain. Tiredness was not a problem. She had never felt so wide awake. Was inclined to believe she would never sleep again. Unscrewing the cap, she noticed without surprise that the bottle, which she had used only once, was nearly empty.
She dropped her clothes on the floor, put on a robe and went downstairs to pour herself a drink. There wasn’t much choice. Harvey’s Bristol Cream. Some dregs of Dubonnet which her husband would drown in soda and sip rather daringly. Rose’s Lime Juice.
Ann sighed, terribly tempted in her present frame of mind to empty the lot into a giant tumbler and swig herself to oblivion. She opened the huge carved sideboard carved discovered, right at the back, a single bottle of Sainsbury’s claret. Five minutes later, lying in perfumed water and knocking back the fruity stuff, she replayed the dreadful events of the past two hours a frame at a time. She could still hardly believe that the ground could have been so violently snatched from under her. Or that events had whirled out of control at such a speed. Surely there must have been some point at which she could have avoided being sucked into the eye of the storm?
It had all started with the disappearance of her mother’s earrings. Delicate exquisite things: rose diamonds and emeralds on an amethyst clip. They had been given to Ann on her eighteenth birthday, together with a fob watch on a watered silk strap, a garnet and turquoise necklace and several beautiful rings, too small for all but her littlest finger.
She had been looking for a handkerchief when she noticed that the tortoiseshell silk scarf under which she kept her carved jewel box had been moved. She opened the box. The earrings had gone.
Ann rarely used any of the jewellery. The life she led gave little opportunity for wearing such lovely things—or showing them off, as her husband would have put it. We mustn’t flaunt our wealth, he would frequently say in his bland, determinedly non-critical way. And Ann always agreed, never ever pointing out that it was in fact her wealth.
She sifted through the other items in the box, her fingers shaking. She counted the rings, held the necklace briefly to her heart then put everything back. Nothing else was missing. She stared at her pale face in the glass, at her sandy lashes already fluttering and blinking with apprehension. But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t let it pass.
The fact that she knew who had taken the earrings made things worse rather than better. It meant a confrontation. Something from which her very private soul shrank. But the only alternative was telling Lionel and that would mean a deeply embarrassing meeting between the three of them. Herself struggling to appear non-accusatory. Lionel twisting himself into compassionate knots trying to understand and excuse and forgive Carlotta. Carlotta either denying she had taken them, in which case what could they do? Or playing her deprived, unhappy background card, whining that she never meant any harm. All she had wanted was to try them on, having never owned anything worthwhile or beautiful in her whole wretched unloved young life.
Ann was pretty certain that Carlotta occasionally wore some of her clothes. She had noticed a rather sour smell on one or two shirts and dresses. And various items had disappeared before. Some rather expensive diamond-patterned tights. A pair of fur gloves left in her coat pocket in the hall. Small amounts of money from her purse. Pretty much what she had come to expect from Lionel’s succession of lame ducks.
Lifting her head, Ann stared upwards in the general direction of Carlotta’s room from which came the relentless thud, thud, thud of rock music. It was played from the moment the girl got up until eleven at night: a curfew Lionel had imposed as, by then, even his patience was wearing thin.
She would have to tread carefully. Carlotta was supposed to have a history of instability. When she had first arrived, Lionel had urged caution, assuring his wife that the slightest criticism or pressure to embrace petty, bourgeois restrictions could well tip Carlotta over the edge. So far Ann had seen little sign of this. In fact she was starting to think the boot could well be on the other foot.
She felt queasy, as she always did when faced by the compulsion to demonstrate aggression. Feeling it, no problem. Showing it, well, maybe tomorrow. But perhaps—Ann started to backtrack—it might not after all be necessary. For instance, shouldn’t she first make sure the jewellery was really missing?
Relieved at the possibility of postponement, Ann removed the top drawer, tipped the contents out on the bed and started to sort carefully through her tights and underwear. No earrings. She checked the other two drawers. Same result.
She recalled clearly the last time she wore them. It was the anniversary of her mother’s death. Ann had taken fresh flowers to the grave. While her grown-up self had poured water into the stone urn and carefully arranged yellow roses with buds like candle flames, her six-year-old self, aching with grief and loss, had longed for her mother to appear, just for a moment. Just long enough to see that she was wearing the earrings. That she had not forgotten. That she would never forget.
The music suddenly became very loud. Whether it was this ugly intrusion into her painful reflections or the renewed conviction that the girl had indeed stolen one of her most precious possessions, Ann suddenly found the courage to move. She strode along the landing, half ran, half stumbled up the attic steps and banged on the door.
The volume increased again, hugely this time. The pounding bass battered her eardrums, burst through, invaded the inside of her head. The wooden panels of the door and the boards beneath her feet danced and shuddered. Consumed by anger—this is my house, my house!—Ann thundered on the door with her fists until the knuckles grazed.
The music stopped. A few moments later Carlotta appeared, standing square in the doorway in her dusty black jeans and T-shirt. Split sneakers on her feet. Long matted dark hair tugged through a purple scrunch band. She wore the expression so frequently present when they were alone together. One of amused contempt. Then she ducked under the Mind Your Head notice, crossed the threshold and stood, blocking Ann’s way.
“Got a problem, Mrs. Lawrence?”
“I’m afraid I have.”
Ann stepped boldly forward and, surprised by the sudden movement, Carlotta stood aside. She did not follow Ann into the room which was very untidy and reeked of cigarette smoke.
“What’s that then?”
“I can’t seem to find my mother’s earrings.”
“So?”
Ann took a deep breath. “I was wondering if you’d . . .”
“Thieved ’em?”
“Borrowed. Perhaps.”
“I don’t wear old lady’s stuff. Thanks all the same.”
“They were in my jewellery box the oth
er day—”
“You calling me a liar?” Spittle flew as the words twisted thin scarlet lips.
“Of course not, Carlotta.”
“Search the place then. Go on.”
She knows I never would, thought Ann. Especially with her standing there watching. She imagined calling Carlotta’s bluff but couldn’t bear the humiliation of not finding the earrings. Or the awful scene that could ensue if she did.
She wondered if the jewellery had already been pawned or sold and felt quite ill at the idea. She pictured her precious things being handled by knowing, dirty fingers. Money, a fraction of what they were worth, changing hands. It was this that prompted her fatally rash next words.
“If you do know anything about this I’d like them returned by tomorrow. Otherwise I shall have to tell my—”
The girl ran forward then, pushing past Ann with so much force she nearly fell backwards. Carlotta hurtled around the room, pulling out drawers and tipping the contents over the bed—makeup, tights, underwear, hair spray. A box of powder burst: tawny dust flew everywhere. She ripped down posters, pulled old clothes out of the wardrobe and cushions from chairs, shook open magazines, tearing savagely at the pages.
“Don’t seem to be here, do they! Or fucking here! Or here neither!”
“No! Carlotta—please.” It was a cry of horror. Ann realised Carlotta was weeping as she stumbled blindly about. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I must have made a mistake.”
“You’ll still tell him though, I know you. Any chance to get rid of me.”
“That’s not true.” Ann, facing the fact, protested too much.
“You don’t know what it’s like out there, do you? You spoiled bitch! You ain’t got a sodding clue.”
Ann hung her head. What could she say? It was true. She didn’t know what it was like out there. She didn’t have a clue. The savage snarling raged on.
“You any idea what it’s meant to me, this place? People want to harm you where I come from, you know?” She dragged her sleeve roughly across her face, grossly swollen with tears. “They want to do you damage. Now he’ll send me back!”
It was then she ran away. One second she was screaming in Ann’s face and throwing books about. The next, gone. Down the stairs. Across the hall. Out into the night.
At this point Ann, by now lying in nearly cold water, struggled to put a clamp on these wretched reminiscences. She wrapped herself in her robe and took the claret and her glass into the bedroom. She drank a little wine but it made her feel sick so she simply lay down on the bed and prayed for oblivion. But it was nearly dawn before she fell asleep.
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In each of these acclaimed mysteries, the brilliant Knight brothers—a detective and a philosophy professor—must scour the Notre Dame campus for a ruthless killer and score a goal for justice.
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The mysterious death of a campus administrator threatens to steal the headlines at the big football game between Catholic Notre Dame and Protestant Baylor University.
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When the body of a female philosophy professor is found in a freezing lake, the suspects include a rejected would-be suitor, a rare-book dealer and a rival for tenure. Who on campus would take academic rivalry to murderous new heights?
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Inspector Alleyn’s beautiful wife Troy is dispatched to the castle of Ancreton to paint the portrait of famed Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Ancred. But when Henry is found dead after dinner, Troy calls upon her husband to help decipher who may have sent the aging actor to take his final bow.
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When a Member of Parliament is found dead, pressed into a bale of wool near her placid country home, Inspector Alleyn steps in to uncover who could have committed such a woolly crime.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter
Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Faithful unto Death Page 42
