A Dark and Stormy Night

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘Um . . . good. I came to tell you, Mr Nesbitt, that we’ve had a call from Superintendent Westley.’

  ‘Oh, the mobiles are back in service now?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We told him that Mrs N— Mrs Martin is ill, and he said you may both leave if you wish. I’m afraid it won’t be possible to drive out for some time, but the rail service from Shepherdsford has been restored, and there’s a direct line to Sherebury.’

  There was our dream come true, just like that. Home. Away from this dreadful funhouse with its skeletons and mummies that popped out on every occasion, with its murderer happy in the knowledge of having committed the perfect crime.

  This house with its unhappy host and hostess, facing years, probably, of repairs and rebuilding that would never erase the memories of this weekend. This house with its complement of other guests, all of whom wanted to get home every bit as badly as we did.

  Alan and I have been married only a few years, a second marriage for both of us, but we have achieved in that short time a certain level of wordless communication. I looked at him and he at me, and I made my decision. ‘Please tell the Superintendent that it’s very good of him, and we’re grateful, but I really am feeling much better, and we would just as soon stay until . . . that is, until the drive and the roads are open.’

  Alan squeezed my hand.

  ‘I expect we’ll be back downstairs shortly.’ I smiled at the constable, and she smiled back and left to pass the word.

  ‘I couldn’t, Alan. Not when I’m really fine. It wouldn’t be fair to the others. And besides—’

  ‘And besides, you want to unravel the rest of this tangled web.’

  ‘Do you mind too much?’

  ‘I’d rather have you safe. I’d always rather have you safe, but I can’t cage you up.’

  ‘Anyway, love, with all the police in the house, I feel as safe as the Queen. No one but a fool would try anything with all those minions of the law around.’

  ‘As an American police officer I once knew was fond of saying, however, “most criminals are not rocket scientists”.’

  ‘You’re saying he – she – the murderer might try to strike again, even with all the cops around.’

  ‘You have to consider his – for convenience’ sake, let’s stick to a single gender – his state of mind. If he doesn’t know for certain that we now know Harrison was murdered, he must realize we soon will. He thinks he’s committed the perfect crime, but doubts and fears will keep nagging at him. What if he left something at the riverbank, something incriminating? What if someone saw him? Worst of all, he knows why he committed the crime – and he doesn’t know if we’ve figured it out.’

  ‘We haven’t. Or at least I haven’t, and I’ve been thinking of nothing else all the time we’ve been here.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know that. He may think we’re about to close in. Whoever he is, he’s in a state of extreme nervous tension, the worse since he must conceal it. He’s like one of those rockets we didn’t get to set off Sunday night – just ready to explode. That’s what I meant, Dorothy, when I said you might annoy him. You ask questions, you know. Lots of questions. You might just ask them of the wrong person, and set fire to that fuse, and then . . .’

  ‘Maybe I’d better let you ask the questions.’

  ‘That would certainly be more sensible, but I have no confidence at all that you’ll remain meekly one step behind me. You have too much in common with the cats, and with the Elephant’s Child. Just be very, very careful.

  ‘And now I think your headache must be just about gone, so let’s rejoin the rest, shall we?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  It all looked so peaceful when we got back to the library, so normal. Pat sat reading one of the classics, Ed an art book. Mr Leatherbury, looking rested, had found that book of sermons I had brought back downstairs and was reading it with every appearance of enjoyment. To each his own.

  Tom and Jim sat at a chess game, playing at that glacial speed that characterizes real experts. They were, now that I came to think of it, both extremely successful businessmen, which I suppose requires something of the chess-player’s mind. Joyce and Lynn, in front of the fire, were studying an old piece of needlepoint, apparently with an eye to repairing the frayed bits.

  Just a normal group of people, intelligent, well-to-do, with nice manners and varied interests.

  And one of them – one of us – was a murderer.

  Who, who? Well, it wasn’t Alan, and it wasn’t I. And Tom and Lynn are some of my oldest friends. Scratch them.

  That left our host and hostess, the Bateses, Ed, Pat and the vicar.

  Take the easiest one first. I suppose the saintly old vicar was the least likely suspect, so there ought to be a reason why he was the villain of the piece. But for the life of me I couldn’t find one. He really was the vicar, known to Pat and the Moynihans, and had held the living for years.

  Suppose, though . . . I glanced at Alan, deep in last week’s Times. I wished I could have this conversation with him, instead of just with myself, but the presence of the policeman in the corner of the room, unobtrusive though he was, effectively stopped any open speculation about the crimes.

  Suppose, then, that Mr Leatherbury had known all along about the skeleton – that his predecessor had told him about it. Never mind, for now, how the previous vicar had found out. Suppose the present vicar had known all about it, including who put it there.

  But, the more logical part of my brain insisted, one or the other of them would have gone to the police with the knowledge.

  But maybe not, if . . . if the murderer – the original murderer – had something to do with the church. A curate? A chorister? The churchwarden? A major benefactor?

  That last was the most likely. Let’s see. Mr Upshawe – Laurence’s father – kills his nephew so that he will inherit Branston Abbey one day. The vicar finds out. Mr Upshawe tells him that it was more-or-less an accident, really, and he – Upshawe – will leave the parish a large sum of money to replace the church roof if the vicar tells no one.

  Oh, good grief. That one was as full of holes as the roof of the cloisters. For one thing, that particular Upshawe had little money. Sure, he was going to inherit the Abbey, and the estate, but it would probably take every cent he could put together just to keep the Abbey’s fabric in good repair, never mind the parish church. And he didn’t leave anything much in the way of money to his son, remember. Laurence had to pension off the servants because he couldn’t afford to keep them on.

  If Laurence was telling the truth. Always if Laurence was telling the truth. And Laurence had displayed an ability to lie.

  Well, but there could have been little money left because Laurence père gave a lot of it to the church. And that was easy enough to check. Find out if the church, fifty years or so ago, had a new roof put on – or any other major repairs, I reminded myself; the roof was a figment of my imagination.

  As was the whole of this scenario. Not only that, but even supposing the idea had some basis in fact, why would that give Mr Leatherbury a reason to kill Dave Harrison? I sighed and started off on another tack. Pat Heseltine.

  Pat really was, on the face of it, a possible candidate for the role of Second Murderer. (I had to concede that she was too young to have done in the skeleton and/or the mummy, unless everyone was wrong about when those two unfortunates met their demise.) Pat was intelligent. She was an attorney, with the means and, I thought, the will to find out everything about everybody in Branston. Such people are dangerous, even when they don’t have a face and body Helen of Troy might have envied.

  She could have known about the skeleton. In fact, with the exception of Laurence, she was by far the most likely person to have known about the skeleton. The only thing was, suppose she did. Suppose she knew when and how and at whose hand the owner of the skeleton had perished. Why then would she need to kill Dave?

  As for Ed Walinski – I looked at him and shook my head. Ed was a foreigner who had probably
never heard of Branston Abbey until he met Jim and Joyce. How had they met, by the way? I’d never asked, but it was irrelevant. Ed was a photographer, devoted to his art. I could, just, imagine him taking pictures of the scene by the river as it played out, but I couldn’t imagine him taking part. No, I should have made him the least likely suspect. Even my devious mind could not come up with a reason for Ed to kill Dave Harrison.

  The trouble was, why would anybody kill Dave Harrison, except on the grounds that he was insufferable?

  Well, now, there was actually an idea. I nudged Alan, who gave a start and opened his eyes.

  ‘Aha! I thought you were much too interested in week-old news.’

  He yawned. ‘It’s a fair cop. What’s on your mind, love?’ He gestured with his eyebrows in the direction of the constable.

  I nodded to show I understood his warning. ‘It’s just that I was thinking about Julie. Are any of these stalwarts out looking for her?’

  ‘I should think so. You remember that I have no role in this investigation.’

  And it’s killing you, I thought but didn’t say. I contented myself with a sympathetic smile. ‘But you told them she was missing, right?’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ he said, in the tone husbands have been using since Eve first asked Adam a silly question.

  I kept my voice very low. ‘It’s just that I wondered – I mean, a spouse is usually—’

  The warning look was more pronounced. ‘I’m sure the detectives are taking all possibilities into account,’ he said rather more loudly than necessary. ‘And isn’t it just about time for tea?’

  It was well past teatime, actually, the police activities having disrupted our normal schedule, and I was hungry, but I couldn’t get Julie out of my mind. It was terribly frustrating not to be able to talk about her to Alan, or anybody else, for that matter. But nobody could stop me thinking about her.

  Where could she be – if she was still alive? Alan’s idea about the tunnel was a good one, but it hadn’t worked out. All the outbuildings had been checked, including the shed where she had hidden the first time. The house had been searched.

  The house. This great, rambling house with thirty or so bedrooms, closets, attics – how thoroughly had they searched? And wasn’t it possible, as Pat had suggested, that Julie could have been playing with us, going from one room to the next to stay hidden? I had pooh-poohed the idea at the time, but I was beginning to like it.

  How could I suggest to the police that they look for her in the house? Request a word with one of them in private? I didn’t want to do that without consulting Alan. Well, why not? If we were free to leave, surely we were free to have a confidential conversation. Except that it would look odd to the others if we just walked out.

  I was glad the police were there, I reminded myself. Very glad indeed. But they were cramping my style something fierce.

  And now more of them were arriving! I heard the whap-whap of helicopter blades drawing near, nearer, deafeningly just outside.

  ‘What the—’ Alan exclaimed, and went to the window along with the rest of us.

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Joyce, and Jim swore.

  ‘It was inevitable,’ said Tom. ‘Are we allowed to talk to them?’ he asked the constable who was minding us at the moment.

  For the media, in force, had arrived. This was pure jam for them. The most exciting seams of the storm story had been mined and played out. They needed something to keep the readers and the viewers titillated and buying their advertisers’ products, and here was a beauty of a new story. It had everything except sex and royalty, and I had no doubt the more creative members of the Fourth Estate would find a way to bring them in somehow.

  The knock sounded at the door.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Joyce to the constable. ‘This is still my house, regardless of what has happened here. I’ll ask them to wait in the library, shall I, until your . . . er . . . your superior can decide what to do with them.’

  There ensued a lovely hullabaloo. DI Bradley, the chief of the officers who had descended upon us, herded the media crowd into the library and began issuing stern instructions about all the places that were off limits to them. The men and women of the press were, by turns, intrusive, rude, noisy and insensitive, but they certainly supplied a grand distraction just when I most welcomed it.

  ‘Alan,’ I said in his ear, ‘I think I know where Julie is.’

  He looked at me sharply.

  ‘I think she’s in the house somewhere, probably on the third floor. I think she’s been there all the time, just skipping from one room to another while we were looking for her.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ he agreed. ‘But, as I recall you saying when she went missing, why would she do such a thing?’

  ‘She’s not particularly logical, you know. She’s frightened of someone or something, and her idea may be to keep everyone guessing so whatever, or whoever, she’s afraid of can’t catch up with her.’

  ‘Childish,’ said Alan.

  ‘Yes, but she is childish in many ways. Oh! That reminds me. Joyce said something, a while back, about her relationship with Julie. The two never got along, and something happened to annoy Julie even more – only Joyce never said what it was. Do you think the Bill would let you ask her what it was?’

  ‘You, my dear, are beginning to display an alarming gift for English slang. Yes, given my position as a retired officer, I imagine Her Majesty’s Constabulary would allow me to interview one of the suspects.’

  I was about to object to the word when I saw the twinkle in his eye. ‘And can I be there?’ I asked, pushing my luck.

  He sighed. ‘I suppose, since you are now free to do as you please and go where you please, you could sit in a corner. I don’t see what Joyce and Julie’s childhood have to do with anything, though.’

  ‘I don’t know that it does,’ I admitted. ‘It’s just a loose end, and I don’t like loose ends.’

  So, when Joyce had freed herself temporarily from the minions of Fleet Street and the Beeb, Alan diverted her to the dining room, and I followed. He closed the door, and we all sat around the table.

  ‘Joyce, I feel a trifle awkward, since I’m here as your guest,’ Alan began, ‘but my wife thinks there may be some use in asking you to finish an anecdote you began earlier.’ He sketched out what I had repeated to him, and then asked, ‘Would you tell us what it was that further estranged your sister?’

  ‘Oh. I can’t imagine that it’s useful in any way, but I’ll tell you. It’s just a little embarrassing, that’s all.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I told you,’ she said, looking at me, ‘that the two of us never got along. Julie was always jealous of me, of the attention I got from our parents, of my appearance – I was always prettier, though what it matters now, at our ages – well. The worst thing happened when I was nineteen. There was a great-aunt, my mother’s aunt, who had quite a lot of money. She never married, and I was her first niece – named after her, as a matter of fact. She was fond of me, and I of her. We did things together, went places. I think I was almost a daughter to her, and when she died, I was really . . . well, it hit me hard. And then I found out she had left me all her money.’

  She fidgeted. ‘Julie was just sixteen then, a bad age for that kind of thing. She’d always felt left out, because Aunt Joyce never paid much attention to her, and she thought it was grossly unfair that I should inherit a fortune and she got nothing.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said from my corner.

  ‘Yes,’ said Joyce, sighing. ‘She got really mad, and even ran away from home for a little while. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t really think it was unfair. I had loved Aunt Joyce, and she me, and my mother – her only other relative – didn’t need or want the money. Julie had never paid Aunt Joyce the slightest attention except to whine when an expedition was planned and Julie wanted to go.’

  ‘That might have been somewhat unfair,’ I ventured.

  ‘You’d think so, but it wasn’t, really. Julie had a
knack for spoiling things. If we went to the county fair, Julie would eat far too much, cotton candy and corn dogs and funnel cakes and all, and get sick and have to go home. Or we’d go to an art gallery and Julie would whine about not having fun and her feet hurt and she was sleepy and . . . well, you get the idea. She didn’t really want to do any of the things Aunt Joyce and I did, she just wanted to tag along. So it wasn’t long before Aunt Joyce and I decided it was easier for everyone to go by ourselves.’

  ‘Yes, I see. A difficult child. But you were saying, about your inheritance . . .’

  ‘In the end I talked to my mother about it, and made arrangements to give part of the money to Julie. You might have thought that would make her happy, but no – she wanted half. And you can call me selfish if you want to,’ she added with some defiance, ‘but I wasn’t prepared to give in to her.’

  ‘I don’t see any reason why you should have,’ I said warmly. ‘You’d already done far more than you had to, legally.’

  ‘Julie never cared a whole lot about what was legal,’ said Joyce, and then covered her face with her hands. ‘And how can I sit here talking about her this way, when she may be lying dead out there somewhere this very minute!’

  ‘That’s another thing—’ I began, when Alan interrupted.

  ‘I think we’ve taken up enough of Joyce’s time,’ he said. ‘The media are probably slavering to talk to her again. Thank you, Joyce, for your candour. It can’t have been easy for you.’

  She simply shook her head, and we left her to whatever trial came next.

  ‘And did that little exercise do any good?’

  ‘I don’t know. It cast more light on Joyce’s character, anyway. But bells keep ringing at the back of my mind, begging to be answered, and when I try, they go away. Pat says those kinds of stray thoughts are like cats, who need to be ignored to appear again.’