David Webb 10 - Three, Three, the Rivals

by Anthea Fraser

  Typical Stephen, no dissembling.

  ‘It’s early days yet,’ he said evasively, and his eyes returned to Lyn. ‘I believe you took his call on Monday?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Could you tell me exactly what he said?’

  ‘Just, “Is that Mrs Fairchild?” I said no, and who was speaking, and when he gave his name I nearly flipped. I told him Mum was out and could I take a message, but he said it didn’t matter and put down the phone.’

  Which was just as Sheila had reported it. Damn; he’d hoped for an extra something which could have been significant.

  Supper was eaten round the dining table, though Webb suspected that without his presence it might have been partaken of in the kitchen. It seemed to have been tacitly agreed that any questioning should wait till after the meal, and he was happy that this should be so. If her son and daughter were present, Sheila might have even more reservations about retelling her story.

  The evening had clouded over, and grey clouds were banking in the sky. Perhaps there’d be a break in the weather. ‘If only it’d rain,’ Colin said, ‘it would save us setting up the hoses. It’s the devil of a job, I can tell you, seeing everything has enough water.’

  Webb thought fleetingly of Mrs Taverner in the garden at Beechcroft. Doubtless she would also welcome a downpour.

  The meal ended and both young people excused themselves, Lyn to go and study in her room, Stephen, with an anxious eye on the weather, to play tennis.

  ‘You men go through while I tidy away,’ Sheila said briskly. ‘I’ll bring the coffee in a few minutes.’

  Obediently they walked through to the sitting-room, dim in the darkening evening. Again, the room had a different persona from the one Webb was used to, when a Christmas tree stood in the corner and logs blazed in the grate. Now, vases of flowers were dotted about and the chairs and sofa were grouped to face the windows.

  As they seated themselves, Colin said abruptly, ‘It can’t be easy for you, this case.’

  ‘Like probing a sore tooth,’ Webb admitted.

  Colin hesitated, then asked with studied casualness, ‘Have you seen the Vernons yet?’

  Webb’s quickened interest was not apparent in his voice. ‘Yes, I called at the dairy. Their mother was there too.’

  ‘Could they possibly have a hand in this?’

  ‘Colin, at this stage anyone could.’

  ‘I’ve been racking my brains, but I honestly can’t think of anyone who’d gain from old Billy’s death. Nor can I imagine he was a threat to anybody.’

  ‘Obviously someone didn’t agree with you.’

  ‘It wasn’t just a random mugging?’ Colin asked almost hopefully.

  ‘No, nothing was taken.’

  Stephen’s footsteps came running down the stairs. ‘’Bye!’ he called. ‘I should be back about ten.’ The front door slammed behind him, followed a moment later by the sound of a motorbike starting up.

  ‘Sheila hates it when he’s out on that thing,’ Colin said. Webb wished his sister would appear. Conversation was becoming increasingly stilted, both men tacitly acknowledging they were marking time before the point of Webb’s visit was revealed.

  She came at last, bearing a tray of coffee cups which she set down on the low table in front of them. Beyond the window, the sky had darkened still further over the canal and there was a dull yellow heaviness in the air.

  Sheila poured the coffee, handed round the cups, and settled back in her chair, tucking her feet beneath her. ‘Well, David, I gather you’ve some more questions for me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘I went to see Mrs Conway this afternoon.’

  She tensed. ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘Everything in a murder case has to be checked and double-checked. I wanted her impression of how Billy had seemed in the café.’

  ‘And you discovered,’ Sheila said in a low voice, ‘that the film wasn’t the only thing we talked about.’

  Colin frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Webb kept his eyes on his sister. ‘So I’d like the full story this time, please.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve no choice.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘Not that I can see it has the faintest relevance to the case.’

  ‘Makepeace overheard you and later, breaking the habit of a lifetime, he tried to phone you. Doesn’t that strike you as relevant?’

  ‘What did Makepeace overhear, for God’s sake?’ Colin interrupted. ‘Will someone tell me what this is about?’

  ‘Sheila and her friends were discussing ghosts.’

  ‘Ghosts?’ Colin gave a disbelieving laugh.

  ‘And Sheila said she’d seen one.’

  Colin stared at his wife in amazement. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘That I said so, or that I saw one? Look, all right—’ as both her husband and brother moved protestingly — ‘I knew this’d come up. But it’s a long story.’

  ‘We’ve got all night,’ Webb said.

  A sudden spatter of rain rattled against the windows, and large drops began to darken the stone patio.

  ‘It’s to do with your nightmares, isn’t it?’ he prompted. Colin looked blankly from one to the other, but they ignored him.

  ‘Yes.’ Sheila finished the coffee in her cup and refilled all three, to the men’s impatience. Then she settled back again. ‘It started on my fifth birthday. We’d had a picnic tea in Piper’s Wood, and at bedtime I realized I’d left my teddy-bear behind. I never went to bed without it and was all set to go back for it, but they wouldn’t let me. I pleaded and cried, but to no avail.’

  She looked at Webb with a half-smile. ‘You didn’t help — you said it would be eaten by foxes. I yelled even louder, but was told I’d have to wait till morning, and that was that. I cried myself to sleep, but later, when it was dark, something woke me. I got out of bed and saw a light under your door.’

  She looked at Webb, who was sitting rigidly staring at her, his coffee forgotten. Of course — it tied in.

  ‘So, since I was awake, I decided to go and rescue my bear. The darkness outside didn’t bother me. I was a bit chary of the bogeyman, which Mum was always saying would get me if I was naughty, but he came in the pleasantly frightening category of witches and dragons, one step from reality. So—’ she drew a deep breath — ‘I pulled a jumper and trews over my pyjamas and crept downstairs with my shoes in my hand. We never used the front door, if you remember.’ Oh, he remembered. ‘The key’d been lost years ago and it was kept permanently bolted. Still, I managed to open it without any difficulty.’

  A low rumble of thunder broke suddenly, making all three jump. ‘Sound effects!’ Sheila said. ‘Well, no one was about. There was a full moon and it was fairly bright. I crossed Lower Road and walked the short distance to Chapel Lane. As you know, Piper’s Wood is about half a mile down it, on the right. And on the left is the cemetery.’ She shuddered suddenly, slopping the coffee in the saucer, and, leaning forward, put it on the table.

  ‘It’s no use saying I imagined this,’ she said jerkily. ‘How could I? I’d never heard of ghosts, and I didn’t know what a cemetery was. But as I walked along, intent on reaching the wood, something the other side of the hedge caught my attention. There were odd gaps between the branches and I stopped and peered through. And — and that was when I saw it — a figure rising up out of a grave.’

  ‘Oh, Sheila, come on!’ Colin protested.

  ‘I swear it!’ Her hand clenched on the arm of her chair. ‘It was so close — just the other side of the hedge. I was convinced it was the bogeyman, after me because I’d disobeyed Mum. I rushed home, bolted the door again — as though that would keep him out! — and fled back to bed.’

  ‘And the next morning,’ Webb said, remembering with painful clarity, ‘you hid under the bedclothes and screamed when Mother tried to drag you out. That was always reckoned to be the start of your nightmares.’

  ‘It was, only that first time it was real. For years I believed it was the bogey
man I’d seen, and that since I’d escaped he’d still be looking for me. And night after night I dreamt he caught me.’

  ‘You never told me about these dreams,’ Colin accused her.

  She barely heard him, still caught up in her memories. ‘I suppose I was twelve or thirteen when it struck me that what I’d seen must have been a ghost. Not that it was any comfort. I tried to tell Mum at that point, but she wouldn’t listen. She said it was wicked to tell lies and God would punish me.’ She laughed tremulously. ‘God instead of the bogeyman; out of the frying-pan—’

  Webb leaned forward. ‘Sheila, you say this figure was just the other side of the hedge. You must have had a pretty good view of it.’

  She shuddered.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted. ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘You honestly expect me to know? Like — like the bogeyman, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Please, Sheila, this could be vital. Try to see the figure again now, through adult eyes. Can you describe it?’

  She concentrated for a moment, and he could see she was trembling. His bossy, efficient sister was still not free from childhood terrors, and the realization softened his feelings for her.

  ‘Well?’

  She drew a breath. ‘All I can say is, it was — black.’

  ‘You said there was a moon.’ As he, too, remembered.

  ‘Then it must have been behind him.’

  ‘You couldn’t distinguish any features?’

  ‘David, I didn’t try! I fled.’

  He sat back, resigned that he wouldn’t get any more out of her.

  She said suddenly, ‘You were out that night, weren’t you? It would have been you coming upstairs that woke me. Where’d you been?’

  It was pointless to deny it. ‘To the old barn.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘To spy on Beth Jones and Trevor Pitt, who did their courting there. Harry Davis had dared me. But they didn’t come and I fell asleep and didn’t wake up till it was dark.’ Almost true, as far as it went. Fortunately it satisfied Sheila, and she accepted his explanation with a smile.

  Colin, breaking into the exclusiveness of their shared memory, said forcefully, ‘I’m damned if I see what this has to do with Billy Makepeace.’

  Webb turned to him. ‘I’ve a feeling his death is only one of our problems. We also need to know what happened to Dick Vernon forty years ago.’

  Sheila frowned. ‘Mr Vernon? But—’

  ‘You do realize, don’t you, when it was that he disappeared?’

  She stared at him. Then she said, just above a whisper, ‘On my fifth birthday.’

  Webb turned to Colin. ‘Overnight, as you’ll have gathered, she turned from a happy, fearless child to a bundle of nerves, crying and screaming at the slightest thing. It was put down to insecurity — fear that her own father might go away too.’

  Sheila said, ‘And this week the dreams have come back. I suppose it was going through it all in the café.’

  ‘That’s why you went downstairs that night?’ Colin asked her. ‘Why ever didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to talk about it, or even tell David, unless I had to. I just wanted to forget it as soon as possible.’

  Webb said, ‘When you told the story in the café, did you put any date on it?’

  ‘I just said forty-odd years ago.’

  ‘But even if Makepeace did overhear it,’ Colin said, ‘why on earth should he want to speak to you?’

  Before his wife could reply, Webb broke in. ‘Do you remember which grave it was?’

  ‘For pity’s sake!’ Colin exploded. ‘Surely you don’t believe in ghosts?’

  ‘I believe Sheila saw something, and I intend to find out what — or who. What do you think, Sheila? Could you pick it out?’

  The room lit suddenly in a weird glow of lightning, plunging back to gloom as thunder crashed directly overhead. Stephen wouldn’t be getting much tennis this evening.

  Sheila considered his question. ‘I don’t know. Possibly, since it was near the hedge.’

  ‘I’d like you to try, first thing in the morning.’

  ‘What is it, David? You’ve an idea, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow, provided I’m right. And if I am, I don’t think the dream will worry you any more. Though my troubles will be just beginning.’

  By mutual consent, the subject wasn’t discussed any further. They sat in silence for a while, watching the rain sheet down on to the parched earth and flinching at the occasional clap of thunder. Then Colin switched on the television, and it was relief to sit back and let something else fill their minds.

  Webb was not sorry when it was bedtime, but he didn’t sleep well. Sheila’s story and its possible significance circled continuously in his head, together with his own experiences on that night, which, for forty years, he had striven to suppress.

  He shouldn’t have taken this case: he should have insisted to the Chief Super that he was too personally involved. But how could he have known it would blow up in his face like this?

  After tossing and turning for several hours he was uncomfortably hot, and got up to go and sit by the window. The summer night was already lightening and the sky fading to duck-egg blue, calm and new-washed from the storm. Already birds were stirring in the trees by the canal. He sat and watched them for some time, soothed by the unchanging cycle of day following night. Then, having no dressing-gown, he began to feel chilly and returned to bed, where he fell at last into a deep sleep, from which Sheila woke him with a cup of tea at seven-thirty.

  He looked up at her blearily. ‘No dreams, I trust?’

  ‘No sleep!’ she replied. ‘Well, not strictly true. I did doze a bit.’

  ‘I was much the same. I didn’t drop off till around dawn.’

  ‘You still want me to go to the cemetery with you?’

  ‘Yes indeed. My sergeant will be collecting me at eight forty-five. We can go straight down, if that’s convenient?’

  ‘It isn’t very, but I suppose police business has to come first. Friday’s my baking day: a dozen cottage loaves, a dozen wholemeal, four dozen scones and six jam sponges.’

  He stared at her, aghast. ‘Every Friday?’

  ‘Every Friday — most are regular orders. Actually I’ve done the first batch, but there’s also the weekend lunches to prepare, roughly three dozen a day. I only do those in the summer.’

  ‘And I thought I worked hard! We won’t keep you long, I promise.’

  ‘You really think it’s significant, what I saw all those years ago?’

  ‘I think it might well be.’

  She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded and turned to leave the room. ‘Breakfast in half an hour?’

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’

  He showered, shaved with the borrowed razor, and felt marginally more human. There was a long day ahead of him, and he wondered uneasily what he would have discovered by the end of it.

  *

  Jackson, arriving at the time stipulated, was surprised to see a woman coming through the gate with the Governor. Webb introduced them briefly. ‘I want you to drive us to the cemetery, Ken. We can get to it along Bridge Street — I’ll direct you.’

  The Governor got into the back of the car with his sister. In the rear-view mirror both of them looked serious, and Jackson forbore from any questions as he turned the car and headed back towards town. The drive took them past the Farmers’ Club and over the canal bridge where Makepeace had descended to the towpath on his last night of life. At the T-junction they turned left into Lower Road, and, after a few hundred yards, right into Chapel Lane. The cemetery bordered the road to the left.

  ‘Want me to drive in, Guv?’

  ‘No, just park here. There’s no need for you to get out, Ken; we’ll be driving my sister back in a few minutes.’

  Sheila was already on the pavement, looking over the hedge at the depressing expanse of gravestones. As David joined her, she said, ‘I’ve been here sev
eral times over the years; it’s hard to remember how it was that night.’

  ‘Close your eyes and try to think back.’ He waited, giving her a few minutes. Then, ‘How far had you come when you heard the noise?’

  She opened her eyes and looked to left and right, shrugging helplessly. ‘I really can’t be sure. It’s all so different.’ She waved a hand, embracing hundreds of graves to the right. ‘For instance, all this was grass.’

  ‘Good, you’ve started to remember. Now, which grave did the figure emerge from? It was in this row alongside the hedge, wasn’t it?’

  She turned again, looking back to the top of the lane to estimate the distance from the corner. Then she took a few tentative steps, first one way and then the other, checking the gravestones as she did so. Webb watched her in silence, aware of Jackson’s curiosity as he witnessed the performance from the car.

  Eventually Sheila stopped and turned to face him. ‘I must have been about here,’ she said. ‘Within a few feet either way.’

  ‘Good. We’ll go in and see whose are the nearest graves. Then we can check with the burial register which were new that day.’

  ‘You think it was a new grave?’

  ‘It would have to be a pretty strong ghost if it wasn’t,’ Webb said with grim humour.

  They went through the cemetery gates and turned to walk along the bottom row of graves. After a moment Webb said, ‘This is just about the place. So who have we got here?’ He read the headstone. ‘In memory of Harold Fuller who died March 30th 1951 aged 79 years. Right year, anyway. We’ll memorize the next half-dozen, then check the burial dates.’

  Together they moved slowly along, noting the names on the next few graves. Mason, Davis, Jones, Wainwright —

  Webb halted so suddenly that Sheila bumped into him. ‘Look at this,’ he said grimly. ‘Joan Wainwright, dearly loved wife of Samuel—’

  He turned to look into Sheila’s wide eyes. ‘You remember who she was?’

  ‘Of course. Dick Vernon’s twin sister.’

  ‘Whose death was supposed to have caused his amnesia. Come on, let’s look in the register.’

  He took her arm and walked her quickly back to the main path which led up the centre of the cemetery. The whole area was beautifully kept; the tombstones were clean and white, nearly every one decorated with flowers, and the newly mown grass glinted with the previous night’s rain. A peaceful resting-place, he thought — at least, it should have been.