by Diane Janes
‘Why are you telling me?’ she asked quietly.
‘Because you have a right to know. Or perhaps that’s too strong. I’m telling you because I made that suggestion to you, in Hawes, and although that is completely behind us now, I suppose I wanted you to know that I would not have made such a suggestion if I had been a party in a normal marriage. I am very fond of Veronica and she is of me, but we have essentially lived as brother and sister. The one thing we have in common – perhaps the only thing really – is that we both loved my brother, Will. Veronica told me a long time ago that if I should ever wish to stray, she would have no objection, providing that I was discreet.’
‘And how many times have you strayed?’
‘Never. Until now.’
‘The pressures of one’s family are a terrible thing,’ Fran said. ‘My husband, Michael, has asked me to release him, but the scandal of a divorce would kill my mother, so I have little choice but to cling to some vestiges of respectability by refusing to cooperate with him. In the event that he got the slightest whiff of my having an affair, he would of course be able to divorce me, for my infidelity.’
‘I understand. Perhaps it’s better to keep the gate bolted on both sides?’ He took her hand and squeezed it. She wanted the moment to last, but he released the hand again immediately. She felt tears of regret rising in her eyes. She had always known, deep down, that nothing could ever come of it.
‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that we can still remain good friends?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Very good friends.’ She must not cry. She really must not cry, but there, he was reaching a big, sensible white handkerchief out of his pocket and pushing it across at her while mumbling something about slipping out for a breath of fresh air.
When he returned a few minutes later, she had managed to repair her face and comb her hair, and she saw that he was the normal, friendly Tom of old.
‘Let’s go and have our tea now,’ he said, holding the car door open in readiness for her to climb out. ‘I’ve got some very exciting news to tell you, hot off the press, as it were. Though of course this is actually the sort of news that will never find its way into the press at all.’
‘Well, come on, don’t leave me in suspense.’
‘Hurry up, then,’ he said. ‘Leave your jacket where it is for now. Come on, I’m dying of thirst.’
‘All right, I’m coming. So what’s this exciting news?’
‘Last night I got a telephone call from none other than Hugh Allonby. The old boy was in a regular tizzy, I can tell you. It looks as if Stephen-with-a-ph-Latchford has finally overstepped the mark.’
‘Has he been bothering someone else? Do you mean the committee is going to do something about him at last?’
‘Not the committee, no. Matters have already been taken out of their hands.’
‘By the police?’
‘My dear Mrs Black, if you would only stop interrupting with questions, I might be able to get to the gist of the tale.’
‘Of course. Sorry. And there is really no need to call me Mrs Black.’
‘Well,’ said Tom as they set off up the road, ‘it transpires that Latchford had been annoying yet another member of the Barnaby Society, Miss Julia Spencely. Miss Spencely asked him to desist and he took no notice, so she mentioned the matter to a friend – a close friend. It seems that Miss Spencely has become romantically involved with our magazine editor, Mr Finney.’
‘Gosh! I always thought him a confirmed bachelor.’
‘Still waters run deep, as they say. Anyway, it seems that Miss Spencely had originally complained to old Allonby about Latchford’s activities, but as you might expect, she got nowhere, so Mr Finney decided to take matters into his own hands, waited at Miss Spencely’s flat for Latchford to turn up and gave the fellow a damned good thrashing. When Latchford bleated to Allonby and started waffling on about solicitors, good old Finney stuck to his guns: better yet, he said, that unless Allonby demanded Latchford’s resignation, he would see to it that the whole scandal was published in the next society mag.’
‘Good heavens! He couldn’t do that, surely?’
‘I don’t honestly know, but anyway, Allonby caved. Latchford has been given his marching orders and he’s accepted defeat.’
‘What about his solicitors?’
‘It was all a bluff, just as we always supposed that it would be. And as for Finney and Miss Spencely, rumour has it that there will be an announcement shortly.’
‘A happy ending.’ Fran tried to keep the wistful note out of her voice.
‘Who would have thought that the Barnaby Society was such a hotbed of romance?’
‘In the meantime,’ she intervened briskly, ‘I have been giving a lot more thought to the Linda Dexter mystery and I’ve also got some exciting new information.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it, because I have been so tied up with a delegation of peach growers from Italy that I’ve scarcely had a minute to think about it at all.’ He held the tea-shop door open for her, then followed her inside, pausing on the threshold to remove his hat.
Over a pot of tea and some rather indifferent tea cakes, she brought him completely up to date on the theory that she had developed with Mo, saving the revelation about Miss Leonard’s sighting of the Black Shadow until the end. When she reached the part about the figure climbing in through the window, Tom pursed his lips and whistled: an activity from which he immediately desisted on catching sight of the horrified glares from their fellow customers.
‘He must have been climbing back into his own room,’ Fran said casually. ‘Because that’s the only room where he could guarantee that no one would have come and closed the window while he was away.’
‘That narrows the field considerably,’ Tom said. ‘Because I was in the room on one side of them. All we have to do is find out who was next door on the other side. Thinking about it, that room would have been right next door to Linda Dexter’s. You could have watched through the keyhole for her to pass, or even just listened for the sound of her bedroom door.’
A wave of relief rushed through her. Of course, she thought. There would have been a room to either side of Miss Leonard and Miss Coward. How stupid of her not to think of that.
‘We’ve nearly done it, haven’t we?’ she said in disbelief. ‘We’re just one step away from finding out who it was. Do you think we’re ready to talk to the police?’
‘Suppose it turns out that there was a woman occupying the room next door to Linda’s?’
‘What on earth do you mean? Are you suggesting that the murderer could have been a woman after all?’
‘No. I’m just suggesting that we might still be bowled a googly. Before we go to the police, we have to find out who was staying in that room. Once we’ve got a name, we can see whether it’s possible to tie that person to the Halfpenny Landing murders.’
‘Because you think that we still might have got it all wrong?’
‘Not necessarily. But let’s take it one step at a time. If I get my skates on I can be at Furnival Towers in just over an hour, providing you don’t mind taking the bus back home.’
‘What will you do at Furnival Towers?’
‘I’m going to see if I can find out from Marcus Dryden who was staying in that room.’
‘Suppose he won’t tell you?’
‘Then I’ll steal the blasted register if I have to. Of course, I really ought to offer you a lift home …’
‘No, no,’ she said eagerly. ‘You get off to Furnival Towers. Taking me home will only delay you.’
THIRTY-FIVE
It was not until she was climbing into the bus that Fran remembered her discarded summer jacket still lying on the back seat of Tom’s car. It was warm enough not to need it, but a nuisance all the same, as there was no saying when she might get it back from him and it went with everything in her wardrobe, whereas her green one was more problematical to match and the black one only came out for funerals. She found herself wondering w
hat the unseen Veronica would make of discovering a garment belonging to another woman in the back seat of Tom’s car and whether she would be so understanding, as he expected, if he ever breached his marriage vows. Well, it did not matter because whatever Mrs Dod surmised, there was nothing going on, and there never would be. They would content themselves with being good friends.
Now that summer had finally arrived, the unaccustomed heat had turned the walk down the lane from the bus stop into rather a trudge, despite her sensible shoes, and she was grateful to kick them off as soon as she got into the sitting room.
It was well after Ada’s going home time, but at least Mrs Snegglington was there to greet her, fussing around her ankles and emitting squeaky demands for food. As she dealt with the cat, she noted that Ada had left a dish of macaroni cheese, ready to be heated up for her own supper. The only decision now was whether to put the kettle on or reach for the gin bottle and mix a celebratory cocktail – for after all, she and Tom had nearly cracked the case. Or had they? A part of her still hankered after the idea that Stephen Latchford was responsible, for while he had not occupied the bedroom next door to Linda Dexter’s and could not possibly be Eddie Traynor, his behaviour towards various women in the society argued in favour of his guilt. Could it be mere coincidence that he had a habit of harassing female members of the society? She supposed that it must be. After all, wasn’t it her who had said that coincidences happened all the time? Tom was right: the answer lay in the hotel register. They only had to identify who had stayed in that room next door to Linda and everything would fall into place. Then she remembered that once the mystery of Linda Dexter’s death had finally been resolved, there would be far less excuse to meet up with Tom, good friends or not – and a mantle of loneliness suddenly descended. She thought of ringing Mo, but remembered just in time that Mo had driven south that morning to spend the weekend with a cousin in Shrewsbury. Never mind, at least she had their Wimbledon trip to look forward to next week.
At that moment the familiar bangitty-bang of the front-door knocker made her jump. For a horrible moment, she froze, picturing Stephen Latchford on the doorstep, but then she remembered that it would almost certainly be Tom, who, having discovered her jacket, must have belatedly turned back to reunite her with it. She rushed into the hall, where the stone floor felt cold under her stocking feet, and threw open the door. It was not Tom. John James was standing on the step, smiling shyly.
‘I was going to put the list you asked for in the post,’ he said. ‘But then I realized that I had business up in this direction today, so I decided to drop it in by hand. I’m afraid I hadn’t realized quite how far off the beaten track you lived.’
‘Oh.’ Fran had been completely taken aback, but she recovered swiftly. ‘Well, it’s very kind of you to go to the trouble. You must come in for a drink, of course.’ She hesitated, glancing up and down the road in vain for a parked car. ‘You haven’t come by bus, have you?’
‘Oh, no. I made a mistake over the house – missed the name on the gate, so I parked the jalopy further up the lane and walked back to check.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, do come in. Would you care for a cup of tea?’ One should not encourage drivers to drink cocktails. It had said so in the newspaper only the other day.
‘Thank you, that would be very nice.’
He followed her into the sitting room, where he stood on the hearth rug, declining her invitation to take a seat. ‘I’ve been sitting in the car for hours,’ he said. ‘I’m glad of the chance to stretch my legs. You’re a long way out here, aren’t you? Do you live here on your own? But I suppose you have help.’
‘The help goes home to her mother’s for the night,’ Fran said. ‘But I can make tea.’
‘I say, before you go off making tea,’ he said, arresting her progress in the doorway, ‘is there any chance of my getting a look at that volume of Frost’s poetry that you mentioned? I’m pretty keen on the Dymock poets myself.’
Fran felt the colour rising in her face. What had seemed to be a clever invention on the spur of the moment now dangled like a trap before her eyes. ‘I’ll go and fetch it,’ she said.
How? How could she fetch a book which didn’t exist? she thought as she hastened across the hall and into the parlour, then made a noisy show of moving various books and papers about. ‘Now where on earth has it gone?’ she said, overacting for all she was worth. ‘Do you know, I had it in my hand only yesterday.’ She returned to stand in the doorway of the sitting room, shaking her head. ‘I’ll go and make the tea and perhaps it will come back to me.’
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘How is your detective work coming along?’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh, come now, Mrs Black. You didn’t really want that list because of some book you had borrowed. You were wondering which of the men whose names were on it would turn out to have a connection to the Halfpenny Landing murders, weren’t you?’
Fran said nothing, but she knew that her face had given her away. She wanted to move, but her feet seemed to have become rooted to the spot.
‘I take my hat off to you, I really do. I think you have been most frightfully clever.’
No, Fran thought. I have actually been utterly, utterly stupid. The man who had made all the conference arrangements, had handled the room allocations, the new member who had unexpectedly volunteered to become membership secretary, and thereby custodian of all their names and addresses. This longstanding member of the society that Linda Dexter had never seen, because he had arrived too late on Friday night to join them at dinner and had never been to any meetings before. The man who, along with Tom, had had a room on the ground-floor corridor …
‘I suppose it was my slip of the tongue that did it.’
‘What?’ Fran was genuinely bewildered. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Calling her Belinda that first evening, when you and Miss Robertson were fussing around, wondering where your precious speaker had got to.’
‘I didn’t notice – or if I did, I don’t remember.’
‘Really?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah, well. Not so clever, as I thought.’
‘Look here; I really don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Don’t be silly, Mrs Black.’
Fran said nothing. She had never before understood the paralysing effect of fear. Her feet refused to move and, in any case, her thought processes were no longer functioning fast enough for her to decide what to do next. If she tried to make a run for it in just her stocking feet, he would easily outpace her, and in any case, he had once been a champion fell runner and still coached junior athletics – another clue, if only she had managed to spot it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs Snegglington sliding around the edge of the room, heading for the hall and the sanctuary of the spare-room bed, well aware that there was something not right in the air. If only she could send Mrs Snegglington for help. Good God, had she actually entertained such a mad thought? It was then that she heard the faint sound of a car engine. It was growing nearer and must be coming to Bee Hive Cottage … surely it must be? The engine slowed, idled for a moment and was then cut off.
John James moved with astonishing speed, grabbing her around the head and waist and dragging her further into the sitting room, where he wrestled her on to the floor and pinned her down, with one of his hands clamped firmly over her nose and mouth. Not only was she prevented from crying out for help, but she was barely able to breathe. Any lingering doubts about his ability to prevent a victim from screaming were instantly dispelled.
He’s going to kill me, she thought. Then he will arrange it somehow to look like another suicide. That’s why he has parked his car a good distance from the house, so that no one who passes by will connect the vehicle with me. Anyone who sees it will just assume that it belongs to someone who’s gone for a walk.
The door knocker sounded, exactly as it had just a few mi
nutes before. It was far too early to have switched on any lights and too warm to have put a match to the fire, so from outside the cottage, there was nothing at all to say that there was anyone at home. After waiting a moment or two, the door knocker sounded again. It must be someone persistent – someone who expected her to be in there.
She heard the flap of the letterbox raised, a sound familiar from the postman’s twice daily visits. ‘Fran? Are you there? I’ve brought your jacket.’ It was Tom.
In a single, stupendous effort, she flung herself sideways. She knew that she would only have one chance, but she also had the advantage of knowing the positions of her own furniture to the inch. The little table on which Mo invariably placed her drinks was supported by a single twisting stem, which was perfectly balanced on three equidistant feet, but it was a lightweight piece, not designed for a determined onslaught which combined the weight of a pair of human beings locked together, and it toppled to the floor with a gratifying crash, scattering its normal contents, which included a green glass ashtray, the fragments of which skittered in all directions well beyond the rug and across the stone floor.
‘Fran!’ The shout which came through the letterbox this time was laced with anxiety. ‘Fran, is that you? What’s going on in there?’
She tried to respond, but the hand was still clamped firm. One of her own was free, however, and she used it to grab a cast-off shoe which had come within reach and flung it towards the window. She had not generated enough force to break the glass, but the impact evidently suggested a new idea to her latest visitor, whose face she now saw, momentarily pressed against the glass. Was he able to see the writhing figures on the floor? Impossible to tell, but a moment later she heard a sound which could only be indicative of Tom, hurling himself hopelessly at the solid oak front door. As she continued to struggle with her assailant, one of whose hands was suffocating her while the other attempted to close around her neck, she heard another couple of bone-crunching impacts, which preceded a short pause. She could feel herself becoming light-headed; she was losing her grip on everything in a hot, red haze of pain. Next second there was a sound like an explosion, the pressure on her face and neck simultaneously ceased and warm air rushed into her lungs. Thrusting her violently aside, John James had picked himself up from the floor and raced into the kitchen, where she could hear him dragging back the bolt on the kitchen door while she simultaneously turned the other way to see that, lying in the centre of the sofa, surrounded by broken glass, there was now a stone garden urn, spilling out most of its earth and a selection of spring pansies which were well past their best. And there was Tom, heedless of the dangers posed by the jagged remnants of glass, reaching his arm inside to operate the window latch.
