The Guilty Secret

by Margaret Pemberton

  For the first time I began to believe that what Jonathan had said was the truth. I tried to catch her eye and failed. She seemed to be avoiding looking at me as studiously as Jonathan was.

  ‘But they’d stopped,’ Tom said bewildered. ‘That’s why she came here. So that the sender wouldn’t know where she was and would be unable to send any more.’

  ‘I don’t think it would take a master mind to find out where she was,’ Jonathan said dryly.

  ‘Perhaps not, but no letters addressed to Rozalinda have been given to her without Harold and Aunt Harriet vetting them first.’

  There was a short silence and then Aunt Harriet said:- ‘There was a letter upstairs. An anonymous one.’

  I remembered that Aunt Harriet had been the last one out of the bedroom.

  ‘Let me have a look at it,’ Jonathan reached out his hand.

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t touch it. I left it where it was for the police to examine.’

  Miles said tensely:- ‘Well, what did it say? Under the circumstances we’ve a right to know. Christ, another ten minutes and the whole lot of us could be arrested for murder.’

  ‘I think the police here are a little more subtle than that. One murderer will be enough for them.’ It was Phil, and there was no hiding the dislike in his voice.

  ‘It said only that the writer knew what was in the other letters.’

  Miles swore crudely. ‘You mean you’ve put us through all that for that superb piece of non-information?’

  ‘I don’t find it non-information at all. I’d say it brings a second person into it, wouldn’t you?’ and as Jonathan looked around at us all I felt indescribably cold.

  Mary had begun to moan softly, her arms wrapped around her body, rocking herself gently to and fro. Tom had his arm around her, pulling her head onto his chest.

  ‘Then it could have been suicide,’ I said. ‘If she knew someone had found out what has held her in fear for so long …’

  ‘That’s what’s so interesting. What did hold her in fear for so long? Who was it that was blackmailing her?’

  ‘No-one was blackmailing her!’ Phil protested. ‘She was receiving poison pen letters. It doesn’t mean she was being blackmailed.’

  ‘I’d lay you a good bet on it,’ Jonathan said sombrely.

  Aunt Harriet raised her head. ‘Jonathan is perfectly right. It had to be blackmail. I knew that a long time ago. But for what I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you, Aunt Harriet?’ I asked, leaning forward beseechingly. ‘Don’t you even have a suspicion?’

  Her jaw was clenched, her eyes refusing to meet mine.

  ‘No.’

  Phil looked for the hundredth time at his watch. ‘The police are taking their time. Are you sure you made them understand what had happened?’

  ‘Positively,’ Jonathan said. ‘This isn’t London. Things will take a little longer.’

  ‘I’ve to be in Barbados in three days,’ Miles said defiantly.

  ‘I shouldn’t bank on making it,’ Jonathan said crushingly. ‘Not unless we get a sudden confession.’

  ‘Confessions …’ I stared round the room. ‘Are you saying one of us killed Rozalinda?’

  ‘You must have been top of the form at school,’ Miles said sarcastically.

  ‘Keep your ill timed witticisms to yourself Sullivan,’ Phil said, his lean body tensed as if he would spring at Miles if he spoke another word.

  ‘A white charger and your outfit would be complete,’ Miles sneered.

  Phil leapt forward and Jonathan, even quicker, sprang between them.

  ‘Let’s just cut out all the bad feeling for the time being. It won’t do any of us any good.’

  Sulkily, Phil went back to his stance by the window, tapping the face of his watch impatiently.

  ‘Jonathan, are you saying one of us was blackmailing her?’

  ‘I don’t know who was blackmailing her,’ he said without looking at me. ‘ But I don’t think she killed herself. I don’t think whoever killed her was some passing maniac who just happened to look in. And the letter Harriet saw upstairs would seem to have certainly originated in the enclave. There wasn’t an envelope with it, was there Harriet?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was too shocked to think … to look …’

  We sat in the softly lit room, the dinner table next door still spread, the food untouched, the wine uncorked. Staring at each other and all wondering. The suspicion breeding in the room was palpable.

  I closed my eyes. Rozalinda was, had, been my cousin. I had grown up with her and knew her as well as anybody. What would frighten her as the letters had frightened her? What hold could a blackmailer have over her? Not her extramarital affairs. They wouldn’t disturb her to the point of attempted suicide. So what? I could find no answer to the question so I mentally went on to the next one. If the blackmailing letters had been sent by one of the persons present who was the likeliest suspect?

  Instinctively I thought of Miles. Not because he had a reason, but because he wasn’t friend or family. And without helping it I remembered Tom saying gaily that he was thinking of buying a villa in Portugal himself and Aunt Harriet saying how well he was doing and that he was now driving an E-type Jaguar around Templar’s Way. And there was Mary. From what Aunt Harriet had said she had been anxious for some time. Ageing prematurely. Had she known of the affair between her beloved husband and Rozalinda and fought it the only way she knew how? There was Phil. His remarks about Rozalinda had grown more scathing of late. And there was Aunt Harriet. She wasn’t telling all she knew. I wondered if she had confronted Rozalinda as to what she had seen in the car the other night. If Rozalinda had lost control and grabbed the gun dramatically threatening to shoot herself and if Aunt Harriet had tried to wrest it off her and failed … The idea was too horrible to contemplate. That left Jonathan, but it couldn’t possibly be Jonathan. And myself.

  Everyone had fallen silent, occupied with the same grim thoughts. I leant my head back against the chair and closed my eyes, remembering Rozalinda when she had been seven or eight and we had played in the woods around Templar’s Way. I remembered her kindness to me over the last eighteen months. How she had paid for my lawyer, my clinic fees, offering me the villa for as long as I wanted. And I began, at last, to cry.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After what seemed like an eternity the police arrived, grim-faced and speaking hardly any English. It was Jonathan who came to the rescue, talking in Spanish and explaining how the door had been locked and how they had had to break it down. When it came to removing Rozalinda’s body from the villa Harold went to pieces completely, struggling against Jonathan and Tom to clasp her in his arms.

  ‘Is this the husband?’ the officer in charge asked unnecessarily.

  ‘I have some tablets. Sleeping tablets,’ hurriedly Aunt Harriet rifled through her handbag.

  ‘I think not. He will have to be questioned,’ and then, as Harold’s sobs grew to a crescendo, ‘Were you all here at the time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then give the gentleman the tablets. Tomorrow will be time enough to talk to him.’

  A policeman came downstairs, the gun laying on a cloth in one hand, the letter in the other. With Jonathan acting as interpreter, the officer asked Harold.

  ‘Is this your gun?’

  Harold nodded. ‘I have a licence for it … Oh God, I should never have kept it in the villa … If I’d had any idea …’ he began to cry again.

  ‘And this?’ the officer held out the paper and read:-

  ‘I know what was in the letters.’

  He lifted his eyes. ‘What letters? Who wrote this to your wife?’

  Harold was unable to speak coherently. Aunt Harriet said:- ‘My niece had been receiving anonymous letters, they had upset the balance of her mind. I imagine whoever wrote this was obliquely responsible for her taking her life.’

  The officer stared down at her. ‘ You think she took her own life? There was no suicide note.�
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  ‘She had tried before. In London. The balance of her mind had been disturbed by the letters …’

  He looked slowly at us and then back at the gun. Any minute now, I thought. Any minute now he’s going to tell her that she’s wrong. That it was murder. Instead he said. ‘Under the circumstances I must ask you all to remain here for further questioning. Could I have your passports please.’

  Only Miles made a token protest.

  ‘When did you last see your wife?’ the officer asked Harold.

  Harold struggled to collect his wits. ‘Lunchtime. I went to Oporto this afternoon. Didn’t get back till after seven.’

  ‘And you didn’t see your wife then?’

  ‘No … she sleeps a lot. Hasn’t been well …’ tears engulfed him once more.

  ‘I saw her about half past four,’ I said.

  The officer turned. ‘ Where?’

  ‘At the villa. She’d been for a walk. I was on the beach and saw her return.’

  ‘I can corroborate that,’ Jonathan said. ‘I was with Rozalinda when Miss Harland saw us. We parted at the gate and then I went down to the beach to speak to Miss Harland.’

  ‘And you returned together?’

  ‘No. I left Miss Harland still on the beach.’

  ‘And went where?’

  ‘To the villa I share with Mr Sullivan.’

  ‘And Mr Sullivan was with you from that time to the time you arrived here for dinner?’

  ‘No. Miles didn’t get back to the villa till around six. He had been riding.’

  ‘And you,’ the officer turned to me. ‘Where did you go after Mr Crown left you on the beach?’

  ‘I took a rowing boat out with Mr Farrar.’

  The officer glanced down at his notes. ‘ Where did you meet Mr Farrar?’

  ‘I was on the beach and he saw me and came down to meet me.’

  ‘From which direction?’

  ‘From the villas.’

  ‘Which villa? His own or this one?’

  I felt the heat rising within me. ‘ I’m not sure.’ It had been Rozalinda’s. I was sure of it.

  ‘Then perhaps it is a matter to which you could give some thought. If I remember rightly the weather was not ideal for putting out to sea.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. It got very rough and we had great difficulty in getting back to shore.’

  ‘And got very wet?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘So all the clothes you were both wearing have now been washed?’ he asked smoothly.

  ‘Yes …’

  He turned to Tom. ‘And your clothes, Mr Farrar?’

  Tom looked ill. ‘The sea-water had ruined my jeans and they were pretty old anyway. I threw them away.’

  ‘Where?’ There was no denying the steel in the smooth voice.

  Tom’s face was scarlet. ‘In the incinerator.’

  The officer looked at him thoughtfully for a few minutes and then asked one of his men to go outside and empty the incinerators.

  ‘When the pair of you had come back from your … row. Where did you both go?’

  ‘Tom went to his villa and I went back to mine. I had a bath and changed. Miles called for me and we walked over here together.’

  The officer was temporarily finished with me. Painstakingly Jonathan continued to interpret as he asked everyone else to account for their movements. It was two-o-clock in the morning before they left. The gun and letter were taken away for fingerprinting. No-one had seen Rozalinda after she had said goodbye to Jonathan.

  No-one knew who had written the letter found in her bedroom, or knew what the contents of the anonymous letters had been.

  Tom mopped the sweat off his forehead as the officer and his men finally left. ‘Phew. What time do you think they’ll be back?’

  ‘Three or four hours,’ Jonathan said. ‘By then they’ll have fingerprinted the gun.’

  ‘And will they take ours?’ Mary asked in a whisper.

  ‘Yes. But it will be for the best, Mary. It will soon be over.’ She shuddered, burying her head again on Tom’s shoulder.

  Jonathan poured himself a whisky. ‘And not one mention of murder.’

  ‘No, because she did it herself,’ Aunt Harriet said firmly.

  ‘It wouldn’t have been possible. Not unless someone had moved the gun afterwards.’

  Miles laughed harshly. ‘You mean she killed herself and someone who enjoys seeing the rest of us sweat moved it to make it look like murder?’

  ‘I don’t mean anything. I’m just stating a fact.’

  I said: ‘Did they take the key?’

  Their faces were blank.

  ‘The door was locked and if Rozalinda killed herself it must have been locked from the inside but I don’t remember seeing a key.’

  ‘Not surprising after the sight you’d just seen,’ Phil said.

  For the first time I saw Aunt Harriet begin to lose her steely control. ‘It must be in her room. The police will have taken it. They won’t tell us everything they find or do. If they thought it was murder they would have said so!’ She was shaking. ‘Dear Lord, anyone would think you wanted it to be murder!’

  I put my arms round her. ‘Of course we don’t. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It just struck me as funny that’s all …’

  ‘It might be a good idea if you took a sleeping tablet yourself Harriet,’ Jonathan said. ‘We’ll cover Harold with a coat and perhaps Tom would stay with him.’

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ Mary gasped. ‘ Don’t leave me, Tom!’

  ‘Of course I won’t leave you. But we can’t leave Harold alone tonight. We’ll take him across to our villa.’

  Aunt Harriet said. ‘ Thank goodness you were here, Jonathan. I don’t know how we would have managed the police without you.’

  ‘I’m glad I was able to help.’

  For a brief second his eyes flickered across to me and I thought he was going to see me safely back to my villa, and then he said brusquely:- ‘You’d better take Jenny back, Phil.’

  Bleakly I turned to the door with Phil and Miles on either side of me. I had been a fool to think even for a fleeting moment that one tragedy could put another right. Rozalinda’s death changed nothing between us.

  Phil kissed me lightly on the forehead, standing outside until I had turned the key.

  I didn’t go to bed. Under the circumstances sleep was impossible. I sat in an armchair, poured myself a stiff whisky and tried to think. Fifteen minutes later there came a knock on the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘A brandy? A whisky?’ I asked.

  ‘A brandy.’ He smiled. ‘When did you find out?’

  I swirled the ice around in my glass, saying carefully:- ‘ When I came here.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Rozalinda told me.’

  He sat opposite me, one leg swinging idly over the arm of the chair. ‘ That I find very hard to believe.’

  I shrugged. ‘Believe what you want. She was half out of her mind with fear. She thought that by telling me I could help.’

  He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Christ! You did that all right!’ Then he leaned forward, his eyes holding mine, a strange light in them. ‘Did you enjoy doing it?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Killing her.’

  ‘She killed herself.’

  ‘And threw the gun three feet across the floor afterwards? She was killed, and you did it, didn’t you? It must have given you great pleasure after what she did to you.’

  I drank the remainder of my whisky. ‘Yes,’ I agreed at last. ‘Great pleasure.’

  ‘You realize you killed the goose laying my golden eggs?’

  ‘I thought you’d done it for revenge, not money.’

  ‘I did. In the beginning. Then I couldn’t care less who she slept with.’

  ‘So as you can’t blackmail me for money, what are you going to blackmail me for?’

  He leaned back. ‘I don’t know. Not yet. But it’s a nice feeli
ng. Having someone in your power.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it,’ I crossed the room and poured myself another drink. ‘Did you know about Rozalinda immediately?’

  ‘Yes. I knew she’d arranged to meet that insignificant bastard somewhere and I followed her. I hadn’t counted on her taking the car though. By the time I reached the lane she was already on her way back, driving like a bat out of hell.’

  My mouth was very dry, the blood pounding in my ears. ‘What did you do? Follow her back in?’

  ‘No. I figured the boyfriend was still out there so I went to meet him. Offer a few words of kindly advice. Both the woman and the kid were dead. She must have lammed into them at about fifty.’

  The room was reeling, my voice seemed to come from a far distance as I struggled to say calmly:-

  ‘And she never knew it was you who was blackmailing her?’

  ‘You know that yourself.’

  ‘Yes … but she must have known it was someone who was at the party that night.’

  ‘Obviously. But she was too pea-brained to work it out.’

  I sipped at the whisky, desperately trying to re-arrange the pieces in the jigsaw.

  ‘I think we can seal our new arrangement now.’

  I stared, uncomprehending. The leg still swung idly, but the expression in his eyes was one that sent chills down my spine.

  ‘Take your skirt off first and then, very slowly, your sweater.’

  ‘No …’

  He laughed softly. ‘Don’t be a fool. Do you want me to tell the police you murdered Rozalinda?’

  ‘If you do I’ll tell them you blackmailed her.’

  ‘Which they won’t believe. I’m completely in the clear. But you’re not. And neither is Crown.’

  ‘What can you do to Jonathan?’ Fear choked my voice to a whisper.

  ‘Thanks to your ill starred love affair, what could be more obvious than on finding out who really killed his wife and child, he helped you murder Rozalinda. Or even did it himself.’

  ‘No …’ I shrank back in the chair. ‘You wouldn’t …’

  ‘Believe me, I would,’ he said softly. ‘Now take off your clothes …’

  ‘No …’ he was coming towards me. ‘You can’t blackmail me. I didn’t do it!’