Up To No Good

by Victoria Corby

  Robert sighed in such a bad-tempered fashion when we at last got away, amazingly enough without running anybody over, that I wished I had gone on the train after all. Fortunately his mood seemed to improve with every minute and every mile, until by the time we hit the motorway it was positively sunny. We spent the next couple of hours catching up on our mutual friends. I reckoned he needn’t have looked quite so pleased when I said I’d lost touch with just about everyone as they’d all refused to talk to me, though it was nothing compared to how pleased I looked when he casually threw in that he’d heard Natasha was married, mired in domesticity and had become very boring. We stopped just before the outskirts of Paris to have the picnic Janey had insisted on providing as she said French motorway food was every bit as bad as its English counterpart and sat down with a rather self-satisfied feeling at the good time we’d made so far. This despite the sedate pace I’d insisted on once I took over the driving - Robert called it something much, much ruder.

  Janey’s picnic fodder was as delicious as her normal cooking, so for the first few minutes there was silence apart from rather greedy chewing, until Robert offered me the last piece of pan bagnat. I shook my head regretfully. It was delicious - also very fatten­ing - and I was regaining my lost weight at an alarming rate.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. One little bit isn’t going to make any difference,’ he scoffed, though I noticed he quickly helped himself lest I changed my mind. He, most unfairly, never has to worry about putting on weight. He took a large bite while subjecting me to an unnerving scrutiny which suggested that he was making up his mind whether I was well on the road to qualifying as a female sumo wrestler. He swallowed the last mouthful - he’s always had excellent table manners - before saying, ‘You look less skeletal than you did two weeks ago but, as I said, you’re still on the thin side. You could do with putting on weight.’

  ‘Come on, you only said that to get at George,’ I said, trying hard to conceal my pleased smirk.

  ‘Not true,’ he protested. ‘I’ve got enough problems in my life without adding to them by telling a woman she should put on weight when she shouldn’t. My God, the first time she couldn’t do up her jeans or some revolting urchin in the street yells, “Hey, Tessie! Done the ton yet?” she’d be round at my door holding me entirely responsible for the whole thing and swearing vengeance. Besides,’ he said as I giggled, ‘I didn’t need to get back at George like that. I had other ways of doing it.’ His eyes began to gleam. ‘Talking of which,’ he went on, ‘why does George have it in for you now? Last time I saw him he was all over you like a cheap suit. What provoked the change in attitude?’

  I smothered a laugh. George would be flabbergasted to think someone had even mentioned cheap suits and him in the same breath. Robert looked at me expectantly. ‘He fell in the swimming pool,’ I said woodenly.

  Robert began to grin. ‘Did he now?’ he murmured appreciatively. ‘Big splash?’

  ‘Very,’ I confirmed.

  His grin grew even wider. ‘You alarm me, Nella. Is this the way you deal with all your over-ardent admirers, now?’

  Actually ardent was another word that didn’t come within George’s orbit but I didn’t see any reason why Robert should know that. ‘Only some of them,’ I said evasively. Then, ‘If you must know, he was saying that everything pointed to the burglary being an inside job, and you had to be the prime suspect.’

  ‘Did he say why?’ he enquired with interest.

  ‘Primarily because you cheat at cricket. He’s still upset about that LBW.’ Robert began to smile. ‘Also that you must be fundamentally dishonest because you sell reproductions.’

  ‘Specially commissioned copies, if you don’t mind,’ he corrected me. ‘So you ducked him! I wish I’d been there to see it.’ He stretched out lazily on the grass. ‘I’d give you a big kiss as a thank you only I’m too comfortable to move.’

  What a pity, I thought.

  ‘The police think an intruder broke in,’ Robert went in, ‘presumably they are more qualified than George to make a judgement, though I daresay he might dispute that - but he’s abso­lutely right about one thing. If it was an inside job I’m in pole position to be fingered as ’im what dunnit.’ He smiled at my expression. ‘I’m the only one out of all the guests who had enough time to work out how to disable the burglar alarm.’

  ‘What difference would that have made, since it wasn’t on?’ I objected without thinking.

  He pushed himself up on one elbow, staring at me. ‘How the bell did you know that?’ Then as I sat in dumb silence cursing my big mouth, his eyebrows rose. ‘I suppose Janey told you.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I thought you two were being a bit OTT with such a pantomime of secrecy over a very mild joke. Now I understand.’ He sighed in exasperation. ‘Is there any­thing else you chose to keep back from the police?’

  I shook my head and tried to look the picture of innocence. Not terribly successfully, if his expression was anything to go by.

  ‘Good,’ he said tersely. ‘So I can be reasonably sure that we won’t be stopped somewhere so you can be hauled back for more questioning. Just what did Janey think she was playing at? I suppose she must have been very well oiled indeed. How much had she drunk?’ he demanded, glaring at me as if all this was my fault.

  ‘Not very much,’ I said quickly. ‘You don’t under­stand...’ I explained how Janey had been drunk more on exultation that her fears that her marriage was over were groundless than a liberal quantity of her husband’s premium cuvée.

  ‘Of course Tom hasn’t been mucking around with Solange,’ he said impatiently. ‘Janey must be mad to even think it. Any fool can see he adores her.’

  ‘I would have thought that too, except where was Tom when Solange was playing hunt the asparagus?’ I asked. Robert looked suspiciously blank and I said, ‘Come on, I remember what you said to Venetia about it. You know where he was, don’t you?’

  He hesitated. ‘All right then. He was at the bank, trying to stop them foreclosing on a mortgage on the vineyard. It dates from ages ago, when he bought a whole lot of extra land, and I don’t know all the details but I think he’s been hoping he could sort it out without letting Janey know what sort of mess he’s got himself into.’

  ‘From what she says about him, that’s right up his street,’ I said resignedly. ‘Is it very serious?’

  Robert pursed his lips. ‘I believe so, but Tom doesn’t normally talk about things like this. It slipped out by chance one evening when he’d had a jar or two under his belt, then he clammed up.’

  ‘Poor Tom, he must be worried sick,’ I said. ‘I wish he’d tell Janey about it. She’d far rather they went bust than have him going off with another woman.’ Robert raised his eyes to heaven with a ‘typical woman’ expres­sion. ‘But presumably this theft really is a blessing in disguise. Now he’ll be able to pay the mortgage off with the insurance money, won’t he?’

  ‘He might be able to,’ he said doubtfully, ‘though the picture was under-insured so they won’t get anything like the full value.’

  ‘Janey’s got a studio flat. Maybe if she sold that and they put the two together they could get enough to keep the bank happy,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘Incidentally, why does Tom appear to blame you for the theft?’

  Robert picked up a cherry tomato and examined it closely before saying, ‘He doesn’t really. He was worried about the canvas deteriorating, and the evening before it was stolen he asked me to examine it. Not that I’m qualified to do restoration but he reckoned I could tell him if he needed to call in an expert. Problem was, Venetia wanted to go out, you lot came back for a drink, and I was knackered so I went to bed. By the time I went to have a look at it next morning it was gone. Of course he knows I’m not the thief, but he said if I’d kept my word and done as he asked when he asked, the picture would have been safely in my room when the thief broke in.’

  ‘It’s not what you’d call a reasonable attitude, is it?’ I said, helping my
self to a plum.

  ‘Losing two or three hundred thousand grand’s worth of picture can make even the most reasonable of men turn illogical. He needs to blame someone, justly or not.’

  ‘I had no idea you’d become this philosophical,’ I said and got a dirty look. ‘I suppose that means that you knew the alarm had been switched off too.’

  ‘Yes, I did, Miss Marple-Bowden,’ he said in an amused voice. ‘And I’m very glad that your George didn’t know about it. He’d certainly have done his all to have me thrown in clink without allowing me to pass Go. How­ever, unlike certain other parties, I didn’t tell anyone else about it.’

  I made a face at him and he grinned and looked at his watch. ‘We’ve been here for over an hour, we’d better get on.’

  We gathered up the detritus from our picnic, and I saved myself a particularly juicy-looking plum for later, though Robert warned me what he’d do if I dripped juice all over the inside of his car. Mess he didn’t mind - I’d gathered that from the stuff strewn over the floor of the car - but stick he objected to strongly. I hastily set about licking the last remnants of my previous plum off my fingers before I got back into the driving seat and grabbed hold of the wheel.

  CHAPTER 22

  As Robert and I got further into Paris, the traffic began to slow down, until by the time we joined the Périphérique, the massive ring road around the city, the signs warning us of circulation difficile were unnecessary - we could see it for ourselves. Robert was much better-tempered than most men would have been in a similar situation; he refrained from hitting the car, yelling at the people next to us as if they were personally responsible for blocking the road, or even blaming the driver, me, for the state of the traffic. Though he couldn’t resist making a sarky comment about how much further ahead we’d be if I’d been able to resist canoodling with Charlie just as we were supposed to be leaving.

  ‘We might have managed to get to that bridge up there, I suppose,’ I said mildly, pointing to one about fifty yards ahead, ‘but I doubt it. And I wasn’t canoodling either. He offered to take the pictures back for me so I wouldn’t have to lug them up to Kendal and down to London again. It was very nice of him.’

  ‘So it was a little thank you note for his kind thought that you were writing him, was it?’ enquired Robert silkily.

  ‘Don’t be silly. We’re having a drink next week and I was giving him my number.’

  ‘Oh, I see,' he said in a voice heavy with innuendo.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said stiffly, glaring at him and forgetting to move up the necessary three feet as the car ahead inched forward slowly. I got indignantly hooted by the car behind and, jumping back to attention, let the clutch out too quickly so the Saab jerked forward, engine spluttering, Robert smirking at my mortified expression. ‘He’s just a friend,’ I said defensively. ‘I like him, and for your information, I examined him closely at breakfast this morning—’

  ‘Nice for you.’

  I don’t hit people when I’m driving. Sometimes I’m very tempted, though. ‘And he can’t be taking cocaine. He doesn’t sniff.’

  ‘Of course that settles it,’ Robert said in such an infuriating voice that I might have foregone my vow of non-violence in cars if he hadn’t snapped out suddenly, ‘Come on! Pull into the right-hand lane, it’s moving. Quickly, woman, move it! There’s a gap...’

  It was nearly six o’clock before we were on the other side of Paris and heading north; delays with roadworks meant we’d been caught in the rush hour and made us even later. ‘I doubt we’ll get to your parents’ before midnight now,’ Robert said, sounding fed up.

  ‘Doesn’t matter to me. I warned them not to expect me at any specific time and we aren’t leaving until midday tomorrow so I’ll be able to sleep in. But what about you? You won’t get to London until the small hours. Would you like to stay at my parents’? I’m sure there’s room.’

  He shifted position and tried to straighten out his leg a little. ‘What I’d really like, Nella, if it isn’t essential that you get to Chatham tonight, is to break our journey this side of the Channel. To be honest, my knee is beginning to give me real gyp and I’d rather not have to spend another five hours or so in a car this evening.’

  I wouldn’t have been human - or female - if I hadn’t wondered for a fleeting moment if this was just some excuse to get me in what is popularly known as a compromising situation. Then common sense stepped in. For the last hour or so I’d been aware that being stuck in a car without the opportunity to get out and move around hadn’t been doing Robert’s knee any favours, and really the only strange thing was that he hadn’t cried ‘Stop’ before. ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘Where do you want to stay? One of those hotels that cater for travellers?’

  He shuddered. ‘Certainly not. If we’ve got an extra night in France we might as well enjoy ourselves, not turn it into a period of penal servitude. Let’s go on a little further so we don’t have to get up too early in the morning and then we can leave the motorway up here,’ his finger jabbed at the map, ‘and just see what we find.’

  For an hour it looked as if we might have to settle for one of the cut-rate boxes that cater for frequent travellers after all. We gave the first hotel we passed a miss on the grounds that we didn’t need to go inside to see that we’d have to hock the car to pay the bill; the next we tried, in a delightful village on the banks of a river, was fully booked with the overflow from a local musical festival and the owner proudly informed us that every hotel room for twenty kilometres around was occupied and suggested we head towards the coast. Despite this being a tourist area, none of the villages we went through had a hotel and we were beginning to wonder if we’d have to go back to the one where we’d got as far as opening the car door before hastily closing it again against the over­powering smell of drains. Then Robert sent us the wrong way at a vital junction and we nearly rejoined the motor­way back to Paris. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked if he’d like me to take over the navigation as well as the driving. For the next fifteen minutes I had the impression that Robert’s plans for the evening involved a bath, a decent dinner and murder, not necessarily in that order.

  Fortunately, soon after that we chanced on Souteil, a one-time seaside town now firmly landlocked in the middle of a flat plain due to the sea retreating several kilometres. As well as narrow winding streets that climbed higgledy-piggledy up a low hill crowned by the crumbling remains of a castle, it had the Auberge du Nord, a venerable former coaching inn in the middle of town, that was so discreetly hidden away behind a high wall that we might have gone straight past it but for the elderly man in blue overalls and Breton beret at the garage where we filled up with petrol. He enthused about it being an establishment trés sympa with a truly welcoming patronne, and gladly gave us directions. As it was, we still nearly missed the small weathered sign with the Auberge’s name to one side of a huge curved arch that must have been easily wide enough for two stagecoaches side by side and I had to reverse the car, much to the loudly expressed annoyance of the driver behind me, back to the entrance.

  Robert got out, stretching stiff legs and flexing his knee, looking around with a sheer smile of pleasure at the cobbled courtyard, weathered brick and the way the roof dipped and swayed with age. ‘I’m not going any further,’ he announced. ‘We stay here.’

  ‘What if they don’t have a room?’ I asked. And what if they did, but didn’t have two rooms?

  ‘Let’s go and see,’ he said cheerfully, limping in through a half-open studded oak door, that looked as if it might date from the time when the sea was still lapping at the town walls, into a foyer decorated with a rose-patterned wallpaper that must have been the dernier cri in about 1950. A large lady with improbably orange hair sat behind a large desk, various important-looking pieces of paper spread out in front of her but in fact concentrating on knitting a cobweb-fine baby’s shawl of incredible intricacy.

  Of course she had room for us, she said. She was so pleased we’d come to her, she
loved having les anglais in her hotel, they were so civilised and never complained. At this we glanced at each other, wondering if this boded well for our stay. She would take us upstairs and show us where we were sleeping so we could be sure we liked it before we registered. She swept up something in her hand before I could see if it was one or two sets of room keys and still talking rapidly, most of it aimed at Robert who was obviously the sort of anglais she par­ticularly liked (male and good-looking), judging by the weightily flirtatious looks she kept on sending him over one well-covered shoulder, led us up a flight of lethally well-polished oak stairs, made even more treacherous by a dip in the centre of each tread.

  The inn went around all four sides of the courtyard and had been added to over the years with a fine dis­regard for logicalities such as having the rooms in a straight line, or even keeping to the same ceiling heights. One bit of passage had a sharp kink for no reason we could work out and we had to mysteriously go down one short flight of stairs then up another longer one before we reached the section where we were sleeping, above the arch to the courtyard. I’d been battling with the strangest sensation ever since we turned the last corner; it seemed that my sense of balance had gone for I felt as if I was listing to port, but Madame seemed quite upright when I looked.

  ‘Voila!’ she declared, throwing a door open to a room decorated with a particularly vivid pink wallpaper. I wasn’t expecting the slight step and went in with a jolt, my steps gaining momentum as I crossed the room as if I was on skates. I was beginning to wonder if Janey had slipped some sort of delayed action Mickey Finn into the iced tea she’d included in our picnic when I noticed that this side of the bed was propped up on little wooden blocks under the legs, presumably to level it so you didn’t fall out in the night. The building must be moving with age, I thought with a mixture of relief that I wasn’t going crazy after all, and slight apprehension at the degree to which my room appeared to be tipping over to one side.