David Webb 7 - The April Rainers

by Anthea Fraser

  “There was something on the tape about precious manuscripts.”

  “That’s right. I locked them away and haven’t got round to looking at them yet.”

  “Is it possible any old letters could have got caught up with them? I realize I’m grasping at straws.”

  “Well, let’s see, shall we?”

  Mark took out his keyring and, going over to one of the units, extracted a battered-looking file. He put it on the dining table and Webb went over to join him. The outside of the file was filmed with dust. Inside were stuffed music sheets, exercise books, a few photographs, and a large envelope inscribed “Felicity Harwood’s First Composition!”

  Webb straightened, watching as Mark picked up the envelope and withdrew the sheets inside it. “We’re not likely to find any April Rainers here,” he commented. And froze. Printed in childish capitals at the top of the music sheet was the title of the piece — APRIL RAIN.

  Mark was the first to speak, and his voice shook. “Of all the abominable coincidences!”

  “If it is a coincidence.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  Webb said slowly, “I have a feeling she didn’t receive a death threat after all.”

  “Then why did she faint, for Pete’s sake?”

  “I can hazard a guess.” He reached for the manuscript, but Mark backed away.

  “Oh no, you’re not having this. I only lent you the tapes because the woman detective said they might hold a clue to the plane crash. If you think I’m going to stand by while you look for something sinister in a child’s piece of music — God, it’s unbelievable! Whatever theories you’re hatching, you get no more help from me.”

  “I know how you feel,” Webb said gently. “I’m very sorry.”

  “You’ve no conception of how I feel,” Mark contradicted hotly. “Felicity Harwood is one of the world’s great composers, and I’m not going to have aspersions cast at her when she can no longer defend herself. And there’s something else: I’m in love with her niece. How do you think the family will feel about my part in all this?”

  Webb was saved from answering by his bleeper. “May I use your phone? The station is trying to contact me.”

  In silence, Mark led him into the hall and indicated the instrument.

  “Guy?” It was Jackson’s voice, vibrating with excitement. “You’re not going to believe this!”

  “Try me,” Webb invited grimly.

  “Ted’s been tailing this blue Renault. It was parked for over an hour outside a hairdresser’s, so he was able to get a good look at it. And it’s got scratches on it, in all the right places!”

  “He hasn’t lost it?” Webb asked sharply.

  “No. The girl finally came out and drove it home. I’ll give you three guesses where that is.”

  “Fauconberg House,” said Webb flatly.

  14

  THEY HAD ARRIVED at Fauconberg House in convoy; Webb and Jackson, Nina and Sally — it being sensible to have woman officers on hand — and Mark Templeton, who’d insisted on accompanying them. They found the household in the drawing-room with their pre-dinner drinks: Sir Julian and Lady Harwood, their daughter, and Miss Matthews, whose injured foot was supported with cushions.

  Seeing Templeton with the police, Camilla paled and rose to her feet. “Mark?” she faltered, and with set face he went to her and took her hand.

  Sir Julian said quietly, “Do you wish to see all of us, Chief Inspector?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.” Looking round the circle of anxious faces, Webb was irresistibly reminded of the golden age denouements of Agatha Christie, when the exuberant little Belgian would gather the assembled suspects together in just such a room. Life imitates art, he thought.

  He cleared his throat. “Miss Harwood, you were observed this afternoon driving a blue Renault 9. Can you confirm this?”

  Camilla, startled to find herself the centre of attention, nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Is it your car?”

  “No,” said Hattie Matthews in her deep voice, “it’s mine.”

  Webb let his breath out in a long sigh, studying the older woman, whom he’d not met before. Large and ungainly, she seemed an odd companion for the pretty and petite Felicity. Her face, bare of make-up, was blotchily pale, the eyes puffy and red-rimmed, and her thin lank hair looked in need of washing.

  He turned back to Camilla. “Have you borrowed it before?”

  “A couple of times, yes; my own car’s playing up a bit. I had Hattie’s permission,” she added, when Webb didn’t immediately speak.

  “Was Friday night one of those times?”

  “Friday? I don’t think so.”

  “It was the night before your aunt’s last concert.”

  Camilla bit her lip. “I don’t think so,” she repeated.

  He said to Hattie Matthews, “Then you drove it yourself that evening?”

  She held his gaze. “No, I did not. I went to bed early, and so did Felicity; we made a point of doing, the night before a concert.”

  Webb turned to Lady Harwood. “Can you corroborate that, ma’am?”

  “Yes; my sister-in-law went upstairs about nine, and Miss Matthews wasn’t long after her.”

  Miss Matthews was watching him with a glint of triumph in her eyes. He said, “Had anyone else your permission to borrow the car?”

  “No.”

  Sir Julian moved restlessly. “Chief Inspector, what’s so important about the car?”

  “It was outside Mr. Jessel’s house about the time he was killed.”

  There was a deep, pulsating silence. The sudden tap on the door made them all jump.

  “Come in,” Lady Harwood called, her voice shaking. The maid put her head round the door, a frightened expression on her face.

  “Excuse me, my lady, dinner’s ready. Shall I hold it back a few minutes?”

  “Yes please, Elsa.”

  The door closed. Hattie said stridently, “That’s ridiculous. There must be some mistake.”

  “No mistake, Miss Matthews. It brushed against some thorns, leaving a trace of paint which I’m pretty sure will match the faint scratches along the side. An examination of the tyres should prove conclusive.”

  “Then some boys must have taken it joy-riding.”

  Webb raised an eyebrow. “And returned it afterwards? Where had you left it?”

  “In the drive. There’s no room in the garage.”

  He changed tack. “Miss Matthews, when did you first hear of the April Rainers?”

  “When I saw the card from Felicity’s bouquet.”

  “It meant nothing to you at the time?”

  “On the contrary, it meant someone was threatening her.”

  “Did you show it to anyone?”

  “No, I destroyed it at the first opportunity.”

  “Wasn’t that rather foolish, when your friend’s life might have been in danger?”

  Hattie’s eyes met his like small, muddy stones. “I didn’t think that for a moment. There’d been letters before, and we always ignored them.”

  “So at the time you didn’t take it seriously?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But within a day or two — on Sunday, in fact — the newspapers were full of the April Rainers, and anyone who’d heard of them was asked to contact the police. Wouldn’t that have been the natural thing to do?”

  “All I saw of the Sunday papers were the review pages, and that afternoon I had my accident. What with having to go to the hospital, and my disappointment over the Scottish trip, I didn’t give the card another thought.”

  “Perhaps because it had never existed?” Webb suggested, and felt everyone’s surprise.

  “I’ve no idea what you mean,” Hattie said stolidly.

  “Nor I,” confessed Lady Harwood. “You owe us an explanation, Mr. Webb. Having told us Felicity received a note from these people, are you now saying she didn’t?”

  “I believe, Lady Harwood, that the card
that so affected your sister-in-law was a perfectly harmless one, which wouldn’t have had sinister implications to anyone else other than Miss Matthews.”

  Ignoring their exclamations and questions, Webb drew a piece of paper from his pocket. “Miss Matthews, I understand you arranged all Miss Harwood’s concerts, saw to the bookings, and so on?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Can you confirm, from memory, that she gave a performance in Chichester on the sixteenth of November last year?”

  Hattie stared at him for a long moment. Then she said slowly, “Not from memory, no. It’s possible.”

  “How about Cardiff, in June ‘85? Or Leeds, in March, 83?”

  “Where did you get those dates?” Mark interrupted. “Miss James —”

  “That’s right,” Webb answered steadily. “I knew you’d been to all Miss Harwood’s concerts, and I asked Miss James to check those particular dates with you.”

  “She didn’t say it was for you!”

  “You must blame me for that; I asked her not to.”

  Sir Julian said testily, “Chief Inspector, I haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on. What possible relevance have my sister’s concert dates to the matter in hand?”

  “A great deal, Sir Julian. They correspond very closely with murders committed by the April Rainers in those towns.”

  The three Harwoods were staring at him with complete lack of comprehension, but Mark Templeton had gone white. He said, “Camilla, I swear —” and broke off.

  Sir Julian shook his head helplessly. “You’re going too fast. To go back to that note, you say it was quite innocuous after all?”

  “Yes; I don’t believe anyone tampered with the bouquets. The card which so upset your sister was, I suspect, simply a conventional one bearing good wishes and congratulations.”

  “Then why —?”

  “It was signed by James Jessel.” He looked across at Hattie. “Am I right?”

  She did not reply, but Lady Harwood was frowning in bewilderment. “Whyever should that upset her? I know the poor man was to die soon afterwards, but Felicity couldn’t have known that.”

  “But you see, Lady Harwood,” Webb said softly, “I think she did.”

  Camilla said in a whisper, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Webb saw Mark Templeton’s arm go round her. “Do any of you remember the title of the first piece of music she composed, when she was eight years old?” The Harwoods shook their heads. “Tell them, Miss Matthews.”

  Hattie Matthews held his gaze for two long minutes, during which no one moved. Was she ready to break yet, Webb wondered, or would he have to play cat-and-mouse a little longer? To his relief, he saw her take the decision, and some of the tension left her.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “It was called April Rain,” she said.

  Sir Julian was the first to find his voice. “But you’re surely not insinuating that simply because —?”

  “Not ‘simply because,’ Sir Julian. It’s just one factor out of several that point in that direction.”

  Elizabeth Harwood said unbelievingly, “You’re accusing Felicity of killing all those people?”

  “Either her or Miss Matthews here. Or both of them.” Everyone turned to Hattie Matthews, who sat unmoving on the sofa, her flat face expressionless.

  “And what are your other factors, Chief Inspector?” she challenged him.

  “At first, we’d very little to go on. Two people were seen running out of Rankin Close after Baxter’s death. They were thought to be men — one large and tall, one ‘not more than a lad,’ as the eye-witness put it. That was your first evening in Shillingham; perhaps you’d both retired early then, too.

  “Our first real break was finding the paint fragments near Mr. Jessel’s body. We established the make and year of the car they’d come from, and we knew that once we’d tracked it down we were likely to have the killer, because it was driven up onto the bank specifically to avoid Jessel’s car and body.

  “Later, when reports began to come in from other parts of the country, I remembered going to a concert in Chichester. And it suddenly struck me that all those towns had musical connections of some kind — festivals, or philharmonic orchestras, and so on. Which was why I asked for a list of Miss Harwood’s engagements at the times of the murders. They coincided almost exactly.

  “But it was the card you spoke of, Miss Matthews, that was your main mistake. It didn’t ring true — it was too different from the established MO. But something had caused Miss Harwood to faint — we never bought the ‘heat and excitement’ theory. And looking through the list of those who’d sent flowers, I saw the name of James Jessel.

  “Suppose he was the next intended victim, his death scheduled for only a couple of nights hence? The sudden shock of knowing he was there in the hall, that the flowers she held were from him, could have proved too much for her. She’d already have been in a highly charged emotional state after the concert, and that could have tipped her over the brink.”

  Webb looked round the circle of stunned faces, his eyes stopping at Hattie. “One thing I’d be interested to know, though, is the connection between all these deaths, and what possible motive you could have had.”

  There was another silence, and briefly he wondered if he’d been over-confident, if, after all, he wouldn’t get a confession out of her. But then she began to speak.

  “I remember, years ago, there was an item in the paper about someone who’d been fined for a parking offence. And Flick suddenly said, ‘The whole system’s crazy, Hattie. How can they punish people for parking and ignore the really terrible things — stunting someone’s spiritual growth, crushing ambition, pinning down a lively spirit? Those are far more culpable, because they’re crimes against the soul.’”

  She shifted slightly, easing the pressure on her injured foot. “The family know how passionately she cared about fairness. She couldn’t bear any kind of intimidation. That was how we met in the first place, when she rescued me from bullies on the playing field. We formed a secret society called ‘The April Rainers,’ with the object of sticking up for ourselves and anyone else who needed it. Flick said, ‘There aren’t eight of us, but I wrote April Rain when I was eight, so that’ll have to do.’

  “Years later, when the crusade really began, the number had a different significance. And again, it was Felicity’s idea. We would rid the world of oppressive, cruel or sadistic people whom the law couldn’t or wouldn’t touch but who had made life hell for those around them. And to reinforce our name, we’d give them eight days’ warning and limit our death-list to eight — for the April Rainers. The irony is that James Jessel was the eighth; there wouldn’t have been any more.”

  “According to our calculations,” Webb interrupted, “he was the seventh.”

  Hattie Matthews looked down at her folded hands. “The first,” she said slowly, “was Felicity’s father.”

  Sir Julian rose slowly to his feet, staring at her in horror. “What are you saying? Are you mad?”

  Mark said into the silence, “I was told he died in a train crash.”

  Camilla moistened her lips. “Actually, I said ‘rail accident.’ He fell under a tube train at Oxford Circus during the rush hour.”

  With a sense of disbelief, Mark recalled the understated diary entry: “Spent the day with Hattie. When I got home, Mummy told me Daddy was dead.”

  Lady Harwood had also risen, and now moved to her husband’s side, taking his hand. At that moment she seemed the stronger of the two. She addressed Hattie Matthews coldly. “Have you any proof at all of what you’re saying?”

  “Of course not. How could I have? But he’d refused, time and again, to allow Flick to study music, and kept insisting she should learn shorthand or ‘something useful.’ It was exactly the crushing of the spirit we’d vowed to fight against. Everything came to a head when she had the chance to spend the summer in Rome on a speciali
zed course. She begged and pleaded to be allowed to go — it was during school holidays, after all — but her father refused to consider it. ‘Over my dead body,’ he said. And she realized that if she was to have any chance at all, that was how it had to be. Of course, we didn’t send him a note, and obviously we didn’t strangle him — the idea for all that came much later. But he was still our first — execution.”

  Webb broke the stunned silence. “How did you choose the rest of your victims?” he asked with genuine interest. “You can’t have known them all personally.”

  “They weren’t victims, Chief Inspector, they were perpetrators, people who had inflicted pain on others and for one reason or another got away with it. There was no shortage of candidates, I assure you. Think of all the sickening accounts you read. As to our method, we limited ourselves to areas where Flick was due to play and we’d a legitimate reason to be. I’d visit the location some weeks in advance, ostensibly to check bookings and hotels, meet managers and so on. It gave me the chance to study the target’s movements and learn his or her routine, and since the executions were spread over several years, we never expected any connection to be made. Unfortunately, we didn’t allow for either Mark Templeton’s loyalty or the Chief Inspector’s deductions.”

  She paused, but no one spoke. It occurred to Webb that, though she probably hadn’t formulated the thought, she was pleading her own defence.

  “Mental cruelty was our chief concern,” she went on, “people whose hopes and dreams had been crushed — for example by shady businessmen like Thomas Raymond, who kept just inside the law. There was a link there, incidentally; our ‘daily’s’ brother and his wife had been ruined by him.”

  “And James Jessel?” Webb prompted. “Why was he singled out?”

  “Terence Denbigh, the journalist whose death he caused, was my uncle.”

  Something, Webb reflected bitterly, which had not come up during inquiries.

  Hattie looked round the circle of closed faces. “As it happened, we were glad to have reached eight, because it was becoming an increasing strain. It had always been easier for Flick, who was psyched up for the concerts anyway. It carried her through, but I invariably went to pieces afterwards.”