Brought to Book

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘How do you think she’ll take it?’

  ‘She’ll probably refuse to believe it. Thank God she let me take the diaries; if I’d had to struggle through them there, it would have been months before we came up with anything.’

  ‘We?’ queried Max sardonically.

  ‘You!’ she conceded with a smile. ‘I didn’t know I was married to a decryptologist – if there is such a word!’

  ‘If there isn’t, there should be!’ he said.

  It was an hour later, as she was driving along the main road, that Rona properly registered the Toyota. It had been behind her at two sets of traffic lights, and stayed on her tail through two roundabouts.

  Remembering the Honda, she felt a twinge of alarm. Realistically, though, since it was unlikely that every motorist in the area was following her, he must simply be travelling in the same direction.

  Ten miles farther on, she was no longer sure. She had now turned off the main road on to the country one, and still he was behind her. If he really was intending to accost her, it would be easier behind these high, screening hedges.

  Her mouth went dry. At least she couldn’t blame Rob this time. Who was in the car behind her? Deliberately she slowed, forcing it to come closer as she tried to distinguish the driver’s face in the mirror. And, with a jerk of her heart, recognized him: it was the young man she’d seen on the plane to Edinburgh, and again in the hotel foyer. So it wasn’t a coincidence after all.

  She slipped on her earphones, speed-dialled Max’s number and, to her helpless frustration, was answered by the voice mail.

  ‘Max,’ she said, trying to speak calmly, ‘I’m being followed along a country road by a man who was on the plane to Edinburgh and staying at the same hotel. Damn it, where are you?’

  She glanced back into the mirror, met the driver’s eyes, and saw his face flush. He knew she’d spotted him. Was that a good or a bad thing? As she waited tensely for his reaction, her car began to stutter.

  Instantly her attention switched to the dashboard. Please don’t let it break down, now, of all times!

  The country road ahead of them straightened, and with a roar of acceleration the Toyota overtook her, dwindled to a red dot in the distance, and disappeared round a bend. She could only hope she’d frightened him off, but he might be lying in wait for her, and she was a sitting duck in her suddenly limping car. And Cricklehurst was still ten miles away.

  Painfully she juddered along, inching her way forward mile by tortuous mile, with each bend in the road a potential threat. After what seemed hours but must in fact have been about thirty minutes, she reached the outskirts of Cricklehurst, and with heartfelt relief, saw a filling station just ahead. Thankfully she turned into it, unsure, as she switched off the ignition. whether it would start again.

  ‘Is there anyone who could look at my car?’ she asked the attendant who bent down to her window. ‘It’s started to play up and I don’t know what’s wrong.’

  ‘We have some mechanics on hand, yes. Drive past the pumps to the shed down there, and they’ll have a look at it for you.’

  ‘If I can get it to start,’ Rona muttered.

  With what appeared to be its last gasp, the car lurched forward, and she managed to reach the shed before, with alarming suddenness, it came to a halt.

  She climbed out, relieved beyond measure to have reached civilization and to have friendly and competent faces around her. She explained her predicament to the man who came forward, adding that she had an appointment with Mrs Harvey at The Grange, for which she was already late.

  ‘I’ll run you along, Miss, and if you give me a contact number, I’ll let you know what we find.’

  ‘I’ve come from Marsborough,’ Rona said anxiously, as they turned out on to the road. ‘I hope you can fix it in time for me to drive back.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ he said.

  ‘I was wondering what had happened to you,’ Meriel said tartly as she opened the door. Then, her eyes going past Rona, ‘Where’s the car?’

  ‘That’s why I’m late,’ Rona explained. ‘It broke down on the way here. I managed to get as far as the garage, and they kindly dropped me off.’

  ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘I hope not, too. They’re going to let me know.’

  ‘You’ll be in need of coffee, no doubt. Come into the kitchen while I make it. Cecile’s having an extended holiday; no point in forking out for her when Seb’s at school and I’m with Justin and Vivian.’

  Rona smiled ruefully. ‘This business has made us both evacuees; my husband’s insisting I sleep at Farthings, where he has his studio.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. How’s your dog?’

  ‘Much better, thanks.’ She opened her handbag. ‘Here are the keys to the cottage. Thanks so much for letting us stay there.’

  Meriel filled the kettle and spooned coffee in the cafetière. ‘Was it worth going?’

  ‘Yes, we talked to several people at the pub.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think they’d be much help,’ Meriel said dismissively. ‘How did you get on in Scotland?’

  ‘Well, I met Scott Mackintosh, which was the point of the exercise, but I didn’t learn a great deal.’

  ‘Self-contained bastard, isn’t he? To be honest, I didn’t think much of his wife, either. All eyes and hair.’

  Rona held her peace, watching as the boiling water was poured on to the coffee. Meriel placed two mugs on the table, and they sat down.

  ‘So you’ve not got much further?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘As it happens, I have. Meriel, those two last books of Theo’s: did you ever wonder about them?’

  Her brows drew together. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You admit they’re like nothing he wrote before, and you were surprised that when he started writing again, he was still on edge and didn’t seem any happier.’

  Meriel put her mug down. ‘What are you getting at?’

  Rona didn’t meet her eyes. ‘Did you ever, even for a moment, wonder whether he’d – actually written them?’

  There was silence, punctuated by a tap dripping into the sink and the steady ticking of the clock. When Rona dared to look up, Meriel was staring into space, a blank look on her face. She dragged her eyes back to Rona’s.

  ‘Are you saying he didn’t?’ she asked hoarsely.

  Slowly, Rona nodded.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Meriel moistened her lips. ‘Then who did, for God’s sake?’

  ‘One of his students at the writing school.’

  ‘But surely—?’

  ‘He was killed in a road accident, soon after sending the manuscripts. They were in the last batch of mail from the box number, and it was some time before Theo got round to looking at them.’

  Meriel said aridly, ‘But weren’t the family—?’

  ‘He hadn’t any. When Theo finally did read them, he contacted the school, and they told him.’

  ‘My God,’ Meriel said again. Then, sharply, ‘This mustn’t come out, you know! It would – destroy him, ruin his reputation, when he’s not here to put his side of it. All right, it was unforgivable, I’m not denying it, but no one was actually hurt by it. He must have weighed up all the pros and cons at the time.’

  She frowned suddenly. ‘Are you sure about this? What proof have you?’

  ‘It was in the diaries.’

  ‘The coded bits?’

  Rona nodded. ‘Max and I have been working on them.’

  ‘Then you must let me have them back at once, before you find anything else that could be damaging.’

  Too late, Rona thought numbly. ‘Meriel, I’m so sorry. Obviously it was a shock to me, too, but you did say the diaries were to be a basis for his autobiography.’

  She gave a harsh laugh. ‘You don’t imagine he’d have admitted to that, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know; it seems the book he was working on when he died was based on his own life.’

  Meriel looked at her sharply. ‘Was tha
t in the diaries, too?’ she demanded suspiciously.

  Rona drew a deep breath. ‘Yes, but I was also told by the man he was paying to keep quiet, and who broke in here the day of the funeral. He took the manuscript in case it incriminated him.’

  Meriel stared at her whitely as she told of her meeting with Gary Myers.

  ‘Wasn’t he the man with Theo the night he died?’

  ‘Yes, but he was back home in Stokely at the time of his death.’

  Meriel sat back in her chair. ‘You don’t waste much time, do you?’ she commented bitterly. ‘You’ve been working on this barely a month, and you’ve discovered more than the police did in six.’

  ‘When you asked me to write this book, you said you wanted answers to why he’d behaved as he had – his inconsistencies and hang-ups. This at least goes part of the way to explaining them.’

  Meriel was silent for a while. ‘I suppose it’s no use my forbidding you to use this?’

  ‘It has a huge bearing on his life and work, Meriel; I can hardly suppress it.’

  ‘I could at least deny you any further access.’

  ‘I realize that. Are you going to?’

  She put her hands to her face. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ll have to discuss it with Justin.’

  Rona said hesitantly, ‘If you’d rather I left—?’

  Meriel shook her head. ‘No, now you’re here, you might as well do what you came for. It might be your last chance.’

  In silence she led the way to the study. It looked exactly as it had on Rona’s last visit. She said tentatively, ‘I’m sorry if things aren’t turning out as you expected.’

  ‘Don’t be. I said I needed to know, and that hasn’t changed. I just need time to – assimilate it.’ She made a sweeping gesture to encompass the room. ‘So do your worst!’ she finished with a twisted smile, and went out, closing the door behind her.

  All in all, Rona reflected, Meriel had taken it better than she could have expected. It might be a different story when she was confronted with her husband’s affair, but thankfully that could be postponed for the moment. Meanwhile she must put her time to good use, before Justin slammed down the barriers as he undoubtedly would.

  She stood for a moment, looking round the room, then, coming to a decision, took a stack of photograph albums from one of the shelves and carried them to the desk. She had still not met Theo’s brother and sister; it would be interesting at least to see their likenesses.

  She’d expected the albums to date from Theo’s young-manhood, but to her surprise the earliest one was marked 1960, when he’d have been rising fifteen. Though young girls frequently stuck photographs in albums, it was surely more unusual for a boy to do so; an indication, perhaps, that even at that age Theo, with his passion for diary-writing, was intent on keeping a record of his life.

  For the next hour or so, she sat engrossed as that life passed before her in a series of pictures – family holidays, picnics, sports teams, school photographs – seeming to indicate a happier childhood than had allegedly been the case. Reginald Harvey and his wife appeared fairly regularly, looking much as they had in the picture she’d seen at Miss Lethbury’s. The brother and sister, on the other hand, changed gradually from round-faced children to young adults, and though a strong family resemblance marked them as siblings, individual characteristics were also apparent: Phoebe’s eyes looked wary, Tristan’s mouth was always set.

  Perhaps she was reading too much into the photos, Rona reflected; they might simply have resented being continually snapped by their younger brother. Phoebe’s wedding group, professionally taken, had been allotted a page to itself, and she studied it with interest. Here, at least, were smiling faces. The young bride, resplendent in billowing white, stood at the church door with her husband on one side and her two brothers, presumably ushers, on the other. It reminded Rona of the photo she’d seen at Isobel’s, of Theo’s son’s wedding, some forty years later.

  Rona laid the album aside and took up the next, to find a youthful Scott Mackintosh smiling up at her as he lounged with another boy – doubtless Michael Pennington – against a goal post. As she bent to look more closely, she thought for a moment that she heard voices, but when she lifted her head, all was quiet. Someone at the door, she told herself, returning to the album.

  By the time she reached the end of it, it was past one o’clock and she was hungry. Lunch hadn’t been mentioned, but surely Meriel would provide something, even if the excellent Cecile was not on hand to produce it.

  She stretched and stood up, wondering how work was progressing on her car. If she didn’t hear from the garage in the next hour, she’d phone them. Opening the door, she went into the hall. A glance into the sitting-room showed it to be empty.

  ‘Meriel?’ she called.

  Silence.

  Rona pushed open the kitchen door. And came to an instant halt, as disorientated as if she’d somehow wandered on to a film set, where everything was illusion.

  Meriel lay in the middle of the floor, hands flung up on either side of her head, one leg bent under her and her face turned to the door. Though her eyes were open, they were unnervingly sightless, and the red wetness on her blouse had trickled down to form a sticky pool on the floor. Across the room, a jagged hole gaped in the door-pane, and shards of glass littered the tiles.

  Everything else in the room was almost obscenely normal; their coffee mugs were upside down on the draining board, and a wooden bowl filled with salad stood on the table alongside a loaf of French bread. The clock still ticked as it had before, the tap still dripped into the sink. The only thing out of place was a bread knife, that lay, glistening wetly, under a chair.

  Though time stood still as she registered the scene, it could only have been seconds before, fighting down the bile in her throat, self-preservation clicked into gear. Suppose the killer was still in the house?

  Suddenly galvanized, Rona spun round and ran blindly to the front door, which stood slightly ajar. Beyond it the drive stretched emptily, but a deep groove in the gravel, new since her arrival, showed someone had left in a hurry.

  Help, she thought wildly; she must get help. With legs as heavy and unmanageable as lead she staggered down the drive and round the gatepost, cannoning straight into a man on the pavement outside.

  ‘Police!’ she gasped as he steadied her. ‘Call the police!’ Then, as she looked up at him, nightmare suddenly reclaimed her, for the face above her was the one she’d seen in her driving mirror – that of the man who’d been following her.

  She tried to scream but no sound came, and she could only struggle in silent desperation against his tightening hold. The blood drumming in her ears and the gasping breath that tore at her lungs blotted out all other sound, and though she was aware he was shouting at her, she couldn’t make out the words.

  Then, from one moment to the next, he unaccountably released her, and, hardly believing she was free, she turned and fled back into the house, slammed the front door and slid the bolt. By now shaking uncontrollably, she retrieved her handbag from the study, locked herself in the downstairs lavatory and, having extracted her mobile, called 999.

  What with the rattling of her teeth and the hoarseness of her voice, it took a while before the operator at the other end could make out what she was saying. Once he understood, he became briskly efficient, asked her to repeat the address and instructed her to stay in the locked room until help arrived. Rona slid slowly to the floor, leant her head against the wall, and closed her eyes.

  Time passed in a dimension all its own. It seemed to Rona that she’d spent half her life here in Theo’s study, with the photograph albums still piled on the desk and the policewoman sitting beside it. Her own presence here this morning had exempted the room from police attention, but footsteps overhead and the sound of doors opening and closing indicated that the rest of the house was being thoroughly examined.

  It was her fault Meriel was dead, she told herself numbly; if she’d not in
sisted on continuing with the book, despite all the anonymous warnings and Meriel’s own pleadings, she might be alive now. It’s dangerous to go on! she had cried; but neither of them could have guessed how dangerous. And Rona’s mind filled yet again with the horrific scene that, after all the repetitions the police had insisted on, was now permanently seared on her memory.

  Early on in the interview, her mobile had rung, only to be politely but firmly removed from her hand and carried from the room by a uniformed officer.

  ‘Was it my husband?’ she demanded, when he returned. ‘I’ve been trying to contact him.’

  The man bent and spoke quietly to the inspector conducting the interview, who nodded and looked across at her.

  ‘No, Ms Parish, it was Brent’s Garage about your car. They were told you’d be in touch later.’

  She reached to reclaim the phone, but he shook his head. ‘It would be better if you didn’t speak to anyone for the moment. It’ll be returned to you before you leave.’ And as she watched helplessly, he switched it off and slipped it into his pocket.

  So the interview had continued – probing questions about the voices she’d heard, the time lapse before she’d emerged from the study, and exactly what she had and had not touched in her headlong flight from the house and equally headlong return to it.

  They had also elicited the background to today’s events: Meriel’s request for the biography, the note in Gus’s collar and his subsequent poisoning, the wreath, and finally the man who’d been following her, both to Edinburgh and today.

  ‘Why wasn’t this reported?’ Inspector Bullen demanded irritably.

  ‘It was, at the beginning, but we were told you couldn’t spare anyone to look into it.’

  ‘But when it escalated . . .’ He shook his head in frustration, and shot her a keen look. ‘Have you any idea why you’re being subjected to this harassment?’

  ‘Obviously, because someone doesn’t want the book written,’ Rona said impatiently. ‘Which could only mean that something in it might implicate him in Theo Harvey’s death.’