For Death Comes Softly

by Hilary Bonner

  He lifted me slightly off the floor and pushed my legs apart. I heard the sound of his flies being unzipped and in the next second he was somehow inside me. I had been in the flat about thirty seconds and we were already fucking, standing up in the hallway. Robin liked to display that kind of animal eagerness. And I liked it too. By God I did. More than I had ever liked anything in my life. The man was a bull. My back was wedged against the wall and my legs were wrapped around him when I climaxed, and his thrusts became increasingly urgent as he reached a climax too. Sometimes it felt as if our lovemaking became more and more erotic each time. I was overwhelmed by Robin and my passion for him.

  When it was over and he pulled away from me I simply sank to the ground and sat there panting. He was also out of breath, leaning against a chair watching me. My skirt was around my waist and my tights and knickers remained wound around one ankle.

  ‘I must look totally ridiculous,’ I said.

  ‘Not to me you don’t,’ he said. And his voice was deep and husky. ‘To me you just look inviting.’

  He sat down on the floor in front of me, bent his head and buried his face in me and did not stop until I had climaxed again. We still hadn’t moved out of the hall.

  ‘If only Peter Mellor could see me now,’ I said absurdly afterwards.

  ‘There is a part of me that would like the whole world to see you now,’ Robin told me, with a wicked grin. ‘To see the state to which Detective Chief Inspector Piper can be reduced by the right touch . . .’ He ran a fingernail lightly across my upper lip.

  ‘Beast,’ I said.

  He grinned again. ‘I do love you,’ he told me, as he did with reassuring frequency nowadays.

  ‘I know,’ I responded.

  ‘Don’t be smug,’ he said, tapping me lightly on the nose with one finger.

  Abruptly he stood up, just as I was telling him I loved him too.

  ‘Come on,’ he instructed. ‘Put your clothes back on and I’ll take you out to dinner.’

  ‘Don’t you think perhaps I should have a shower?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he said.

  At the restaurant I was distinctly aware that we both still smelt of sex, which I suspected had been Robin’s intention.

  The meal was somehow almost as erotic as the lovemaking which had proceeded it. We laughed a lot. I could think of nothing except my passion for him. The waiters caught our joy, and they warmed to Robin. He had an easy jovial manner and a lot of charm. It was not difficult to warm to him.

  At the end of the dinner Robin passed me a small black box.

  ‘Open it,’ he commanded.

  I did so. A door key lay within on a bed of black velvet. I looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘It’s a key to Highpoint House,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it if you accept what else is in the box. Lift up the velvet.’

  By then I suppose I had guessed the second item that the box must contain, but I still could hardly believe it. After all, we had been together for only just over three months – yet I could not imagine my life without Robin Davey, could barely remember even what it had been like before. Already it seemed quite natural that we should be together for ever.

  I turned my attention back to the small black box, lifting up the layer of velvet as Robin had instructed. Beneath it was slotted an exquisite diamond ring.

  I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say.

  Robin leaned across the table so that his face was close to mine and I could smell the sex on him stronger than ever. When he spoke his voice was low and caressing, almost hypnotic.

  ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

  Eleven

  I woke up the next morning half delirious. My body was glowing. We had made love through most of the night. And the man I was so passionate about had asked me to marry him.

  Of course I had said yes. It was a dream come true, wasn’t it? I should have been ecstatically happy. And so I was – almost. I knew that all I had to do was to put the past resolutely behind me, and my future was assured.

  Robin’s arms were wrapped around me as usual. It was only just after six, but I still had a job to do, a job of such gravity that even this wonderful moment in my life could not entirely overshadow it. I extricated myself as carefully as possible, but he woke at once as I had known that he would. I had already learned that he was a light sleeper.

  He smiled at me lazily. ‘Leaving me already, are you?’ he enquired.

  I felt that now familiar heart-leaping sensation. I was head over heels in love, there was no doubt about it.

  ‘Only temporarily,’ I said. ‘You pledged yourself to a lifelong contract last night. Remember?’

  ‘Oh yes. I remember. I’m just glad you do.’

  I sat down on the bed again, still naked, and gave him one last lingering kiss. He took my hand and put it on his erection.

  ‘You’re insatiable,’ I said.

  ‘Only with you. Come back to bed.’

  I could feel the heat of him, sense the pleasure again. With a great effort of will I backed off and headed for the bathroom.

  ‘Later,’ I said. ‘I’ve still got this nightmare of a case to sort out.’

  I was still wearing the engagement ring, but to my shame I slipped it off my finger and into my pocket just before I arrived at Kingswood. My affair with Robin might be common knowledge by now, but I was determined to keep our engagement secret for as long as possible. I knew that was wrong really, but I could so clearly imagine the banter. ‘Watch out, Rosie, his intendeds don’t last long.’ And somehow, to begin with, I did not want to share the magic with anyone.

  In spite of my work pressure things seemed to get better and better between Robin and I – who knows maybe it was partly because of it, we were not together much. The magic not only seemed to hold, it increased.

  He made few demands on my time but did push for me to take a Sunday off to meet his mother. I must confess it wasn’t only my workload which made me stall. Meeting your future mother-in-law is always going to be a little daunting – when you are a thirty-five-year-old cop and you’re marrying a man like Robin Davey, the prospect is quite overwhelming.

  Robin’s father had died when he was thirteen and his brother James just eleven. Their mother, Maude, remarried two years later – an Exmoor farmer called Roger Croft-Maple – and that frightened the life out of me too. There is something about double-barrelled names which has always thrown me off my guard.

  The Croft-Maples farmed upwards of 1000 acres, much of it the wildest part of the moor between Simonsbath and the sea. Robin wanted to take me there for Sunday lunch where we would be joined by brother James, a painter, who lived in a converted barn on the farm.

  ‘I’ve told Mother all about you and if she doesn’t meet you soon she’ll go potty,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

  ‘No I don’t,’ I said. ‘And I wish you’d tell me – at least I might be better prepared.’

  ‘I have told you, she defies description,’ he said unhelpfully. And that made me all the more nervous.

  Ultimately, just over three weeks after Robin had proposed I caved in. Even though at the time I was going in to the nick every day of the week including weekends, even if only for a few hours, Sunday lunch was duly agreed upon, for the first Sunday in November, which turned out to be a thoroughly awful cold, wet and windy day. We compromised on the arrangements – I got to Kingswood just after seven and spent three hours or so at my desk satisfying myself that the Stephen Jeffries investigation would be able to proceed for the rest of the day without my presence. Robin picked me up in the black BMW he now kept in Bristol just before 10.30, and we ploughed down the motorway through a continuous heavy downpour in terrible visibility which grew even worse when we turned off across the moor, but we still arrived at Northgate Farm in time for lunch – plenty of time as it happened.

  Maude Croft-Maple was not at all what I had expected. I knew that she was seventy-seven years old and that she was Ro
bin’s mother. That was about all I knew – and from it I had conjured up a stereotyped image of a blue-rinsed aristocratic lady with a face like a horse, an accent you could cut yourself on and a penchant for well-tailored tweed suits and sensible shoes.

  My first sight of Maude knocked me sideways. In a sheep pen just off the lane which led to the house a skinny young man, his hair and clothes soaked by the rain which continued to fall relentlessly, appeared to be losing the battle to hoist a reluctant ewe into a sheep dip. As Robin pulled the BMW to a halt, across the yard, determinedly splashing through the puddles, a strapping six-foot-plus farmworker of undetermined age – wearing an Australian bush hat, a full-length riding Barbour and mud-encrusted Wellington boots – waved a disinterested greeting at us and proceeded to berate the skinny young man.

  ‘For God’s sake, Colin lad, get a hold of the bitch, can’t you.’

  The voice was the first surprise – the accent was broad flat Yorkshire, and the speaker was undoubtedly a woman, who with smooth agility half-vaulted half-climbed the fence to the sheep pen, unceremoniously grabbed the ewe at both ends and, with Colin only going through the motions of helping, tossed the struggling beast into the dip.

  I got out of the car and stood by it staring. I was not wearing a coat but I hardly noticed the rain. The job done the woman turned towards us.

  ‘Sorry ’bout that,’ she said. ‘Half the farm’s down with flu. We’re all behind. Don’t normally do this kind of work on a Sunday.’

  Without apparent effort she propelled herself over the fence once again and walked towards us. Her face broke into a wide smile. I was mesmerised. It was Robin’s smile.

  ‘You must be Rose,’ she said. ‘I’m Maude. Welcome to Northgate. Lunch in an hour. Roger’s not back from church yet. James is on his way. Right. Let’s get a drink, shall we?’

  Without giving either of us chance to speak she headed for the house, gesturing for us to follow. I glanced at Robin in amazement. He had been quietly watching his mother’s performance and my reaction. He came to my side to offer me the protection of the multi-coloured golfing umbrella he always kept in his car. His lips were twitching at the corners and he looked quite smug.

  ‘I thought you said she was seventy-seven,’ I whispered, still getting used to the spectacle of a fence-vaulting future mother-in-law.

  ‘She is,’ he said into my ear. ‘You wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

  Maude took us through the back door into the kitchen. The floor was slate-tiled and higgledy-piggledy – in common I was later to discover, with the whole house, which did not seem to have a straight line anywhere. The smell of roast beef wafted enticingly from a big cream Aga.

  ‘Take a pew,’ invited Maude, waving vaguely at an ill-assorted selection of wooden chairs arranged haphazardly around a huge kitchen table.

  We obediently sat while she threw off her bush hat – flamboyantly tossing it at a hook on the wall in a manner vaguely reminiscent of James Bond. An abundance of blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders. I stared. At her age the colour had to come out of a bottle, surely, but it was pretty damn impressive nonetheless.

  She kicked off her boots and removed the dripping wet waxed coat. Underneath she was wearing a cream cashmere sweater and tan slacks. She slipped her stockinged feet into a pair of black suede loafers and looked every bit ready for lunch at Claridges, let alone in an Exmoor farmhouse. The transformation was remarkable. I studied her face. Her skin was tanned and weathered but remarkably unlined. Age had been kind to her. I could detect no sign of make-up, yet she would have passed for a good fifteen years less than her years. She was a big, big woman, built like a stevedore. She had shoulders like a man, but her waist tapered nicely and her legs were long and slim. In spite of her size she was unmistakably feminine.

  Robin was staring at her with undisguised admiration, and I didn’t blame him. ‘Meet mother,’ he said laconically, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘We’ve met, you fool,’ said Maude, and then to me: ‘You’re a brave woman to marry a Davey.’

  She swiftly produced a bottle of champagne from a fridge in the corner and five crystal glasses from an old pine dresser. To me she said, with Robin’s smile again: ‘Congratulations and welcome.’ Then she turned to Robin. ‘Well done, lad,’ she told him.

  Robin grinned hugely. I didn’t think I had ever seen him look quite so happy.

  As if on cue Roger Croft-Maple arrived just in time to share the champagne. He turned out to be a benign charmer of a man a couple of years younger than his wife, who seemed to be just as unreservedly proud of Maude as was Robin. Minutes later James Davey arrived, and he so strongly resembled his elder brother that he could have been Robin’s twin. But I realised quickly that the resemblance ended with their looks. James, who had never married, was an artist and a dreamer, with none of Robin’s drive, and, I suspected, not a great deal of his energy. Like his brother, he was a charmer though.

  Without ceremony dishes of vegetables, and ultimately a huge sirloin of beef on the bone were loaded onto the table, and as Roger carved the meat into thickly succulent pink slices I glanced appreciatively at Maude. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never stopped eating beef on the bone, even when it’s been banned,’ I remarked.

  ‘Got an arrangement with the butcher,’ she said in reply.

  I bet you have, I thought.

  ‘Apparently the correct phraseology is to ask for a nice sirloin for the dog,’ grinned Roger.

  Lunch was a pleasant and relaxed meal, washed down with a thoroughly decent claret. I couldn’t believe how at ease I felt. The conversation was light and unchallenging. It was a wonderful introduction to a new family, and as the meal progressed I learned more about Robin and his driving force than ever before.

  ‘He was just a boy when his father died, but he grew up straight away,’ said Maude. ‘He was only thirteen, yet he ran the place as much as I did from that time on. He was always so intense about Abri. That island is his life, you do know that, Rose, don’t you?’

  Robin shifted uncomfortably in his chair in the way that sons and daughters of all ages invariably do when a parent talks about them. ‘Oh, mother,’ he said.

  I ignored him. ‘Yes Maude, I do know,’ I said.

  She nodded approvingly. ‘It was only a couple of years after Robin’s father died that I met Roger,’ she went on. ‘There’s not many of us get two chances to love, but I didn’t know what to do. I had two young sons and our home was an island in the Bristol Channel, and I didn’t see how I could build a new life with an Exmoor farmer. Robin did. He was sixteen. He insisted on leaving school to run Abri. He said it was all he had ever wanted to do anyway.

  ‘He told me to get on with my life. So I did. I married Roger and brought James here with me to live on Exmoor. James has never cared where he lived as long as he was free to paint – nor about anything much apart from painting. Right, James?’

  Her younger son continued to munch contentedly, quite untroubled. ‘Aren’t you always right, mother?’ he responded through a mouthful of beef.

  She smiled at him warmly. Maude Croft-Maple, I was to learn, possessed the rare gift of being able to love people for what they were, and not what she wanted them to be.

  ‘I still adore Abri, and I go back whenever I can,’ she went on. ‘But it’s Robin’s island. Always has been, always will be.’

  I was fascinated. Robin eventually managed to manoeuvre the conversation on to topics he obviously found considerably less embarrassing – sheep, the state of the nation, movies, almost anything that was not personal in fact – but what Maude had said about his early life did make me fret again about how Robin and I were actually going to manage the mechanics of marriage. Currently he was spending four days a week on Abri Island, and three with me in Bristol. It wasn’t ideal and I sometimes wondered how long Robin would be prepared to carry on like that, or even able to. I knew already that running Abri was a full-time occupation and that before me Robin had devoted all his ene
rgies to it. I also realised, listening to Maude, that I must overcome my reservations about the island and make time to return there with Robin, although I didn’t know when – not with the job I had on at the moment. And for the first time since I had arrived at Northgate my thoughts turned uneasily to missing Stephen Jeffries. But I told myself that I was not going to let any of my worries spoil this day, and made myself concentrate on the conversation around the table which was light, bright and witty, and the food, which was quite delicious.

  After the meal was over Robin excused himself from the table, walked over to the kitchen window and peered out at the sky. The rain had finally stopped.

  ‘Reckon it’s brightening up, Roger,’ he remarked.

  ‘Right,’ said Roger, rising from his chair. ‘Coming, James?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied James, swiftly downing the last of his claret.

  I gave Maude another questioning look.

  ‘Shooting,’ she said. ‘You can always tell a farmer. It’s a lovely day, let’s go out and kill something.’

  I burst out laughing.

  ‘Really mother,’ said Robin, and then to me rather pointedly, ‘You’ll be all right, Rose.’

  It was a statement more than a question. I glowered at him. It seemed fairly clear that he was deliberately leaving me with his mother, and he could not have been much more transparent.

  ‘Glass of port,’ invited Maude. ‘The fire’s lit in the drawing room.’

  The drawing room was another big airy room, and the fireplace turned out to be a beautiful old inglenook. I sank into a battered armchair which reeked of faded luxury and seemed to mould itself to my backside, stretched out my legs, and began to sip what proved to be an excellent port from a glass which most people would have considered to be rather too large for the purpose. Not Maude Croft-Maple, however.

  She stoked up the fire, piling on logs from a basket in the grate, and when she had finally arranged the fire to her satisfaction she lowered her not inconsiderable frame into the armchair next to me.

  ‘You like sex, I suppose,’ she said.