by Granger, Ann
‘We know the presence was human because you were attacked.’
‘All right, all right!’ snapped Gervase and winced, putting a hand to his head. ‘You can’t expect me to have a very clear memory! Something moved – or seemed to be moving. I couldn’t see anyone, or anything, but I did believe I had company. I switched the torch off because it occurred to me it was acting like a marker buoy, guiding whoever was there towards me. I’d got my bearings by then and thought I could manage without the help of the torch. I grew up in that house, for pity’s sake! I didn’t need a map. I thought – wrongly – I’d know if someone was about to jump me and I could deal with it. But then someone whacked me over the nut. All I saw was stars. I was stunned but I wasn’t laid out. I’ve got a hard head. That’s not a joke. Doctor here told me so. Some people have quite thin skulls. Mine’s the heavy-duty sort.
‘Anyway, I managed to scrabble to my hands and knees. I was expecting to be attacked again. I had it in my mind that I must get up on my feet. I was too vulnerable on the ground. But then I certainly did hear a voice. Someone was calling outside. Calling to know what was going on, I think. It must have frightened off whoever hit me. I heard someone moving across the rubbish on the floor, away from me. I’d got to my feet and I started off towards the sound of the new voice. I nearly reached him. I couldn’t see who it was because he was shining his torch right at me. Then I passed out at his feet.’
‘But you know now it was Roger Trenton.’
‘That’s right, operating his one-man neighbourhood watch. Then, as I’ve been told, old Layton turned up coming back from somewhere, and picked up the whole scene in his headlights. He organised the ambulance and followed it here to the hospital. He waited to see what they were going to do, last night. Good of him, I suppose, or just his doctor’s training. Or his conscience. I came to in the ambulance. I saw him briefly before they wheeled me into X-ray. He said Trenton had found me.’
The door opened and a nurse came in. ‘Everything all right?’ she enquired of Gervase, and gave Jess and the tape recorder a hard look.
‘Fine,’ Gervase assured her.
‘You ought not to talk too much.’
‘I’m nearly finished,’ Jess said.
‘Five more minutes!’ warned the nurse and departed.
‘If I’ve only got five minutes, I’ve got to ask you this now,’ Jess said quickly. ‘I’ve asked before but can you think of anyone who might be a particular enemy, bear a grudge? I know you said you weren’t popular. That’s not enough to make someone attack you. Mr Crown, this is no time to keep secrets.’
‘They all keep secrets round here,’ Gervase said drowsily. ‘Sorry, head hurts. Can’t talk any more. I’m going to have a little nap.’
Jess returned downstairs and found the doctor she’d spoken to earlier. ‘When will you discharge him? The police need to know.’
‘We’d like to keep him in another twenty-four hours and carry out a few more tests before we let him go. But he’s been fortunate.’
‘What about the injury itself?’ Jess asked him. ‘Is there anything in particular about it?’
‘Caused by a blow with some hard object? I really can’t tell you more. Perhaps a glancing blow?’ The medical man stopped and looked embarrassed. ‘I’d rather not speculate. It’s not my field of expertise.’
‘Anything that might help us?’ Jess encouraged him.
‘I understand the attack was made in darkness,’ the doctor said reluctantly. ‘I wonder if that’s what saved Mr Crown from more serious injury? The attacker couldn’t see what he was doing, mistimed the blow … It’s only a theory. I really wouldn’t like to say any more about it. I’m not a detective, am I? I just deal with the physical trauma. I leave the whys and wherefores to you lot, but it seems to me that the blow came down like this.’ The doctor brushed his hand across the back of his skull where Gervase had been struck.
Jess thanked him and set off towards the main exit. Before she reached it she saw a familiar figure coming towards her: Poppy Trenton carrying a large paper bag.
‘Hello, Mrs Trenton,’ she said. ‘Have you come to visit Gervase Crown?’
‘If they’ll let me, or you’ll let me?’ Poppy fixed her with an anxious look. ‘Is he allowed any visitors? We don’t know how badly he’s hurt. I do hope it’s not very serious.’
‘It could’ve been worse. I’ve just been talking to him and he was about to drop off to sleep when I came away,’ Jess told her. ‘Perhaps if you left a message for him? We’ve got a police guard on the room at the moment.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Poppy looked distressed. ‘I’ve been worrying about him since Roger came home last night and told me what had happened. To think that someone is roaming about the countryside waiting to attack … I didn’t want Roger to go out last night. But he would visit Key House and check on it. I suppose it was a good thing he did.’ Poppy paused. ‘Roger’s been very quiet today. I think it gave him a terrible shock.’
‘What have you got there?’ Jess indicated the paper bag and smiled.
‘Oh, well, I know one usually takes an invalid a present of grapes. But I didn’t have any grapes and these bananas look very nice, so I brought those. Do you think Gervase will be allowed bananas?’
‘I should ask the nurse.’ Jess casually reached out and opened the top of the bag. Four bananas nestled within. They did look nice. ‘If the nurse says he can, then tell the constable on the door that you’ve spoken to me, Inspector Campbell, and he can deliver the fruit to Crown. I’d rather you just waved at Gervase from the doorway. I think he’s still at risk of concussion.’
‘All right,’ said Poppy amenably.
A thought occurred to Jess. ‘Could we sit down over there and have a short chat? There is something I’d like to ask you.’
They made their way to a nearby waiting area. Poppy sat down and held the bag of bananas on her knees rather as she might have held a small infant. ‘Is it about Roger?’ she asked. ‘I know he shouldn’t have gone poking around Key House last night. But he’s had Key House on the brain for a long time, with it standing empty and all sorts of odd characters turning up there from time to time. He’s most anxious that Gervase should make some decision about it before he goes back to Portugal. But perhaps Gervase won’t be in a position to do that for a while. I know it’s not really Roger’s business. But he’s made it his business and when Roger gets a notion in his head, you really can’t talk him out of it.’
‘I understand. His decision to walk up to Key House last night probably saved Mr Crown’s life,’ Jess said. ‘So I wouldn’t feel too badly about it. But please tell him from me that I really don’t want him – or any other person – wandering around Key House again until we have found out what’s going on. Apart from anything else, the remaining structure has now been declared unsafe.’
‘I’ll tell him he’s got to keep his nose out of it, and it’s official!’ said Poppy with satisfaction.
‘Mrs Trenton, we are still investigating the first attack at Key House, not that on Gervase Crown but on Matthew Pietrangelo. In the light of what’s happened since, there is a strong possibility, even probability, that Gervase Crown was the intended target of the earlier attack. He wasn’t in England at the time; we know that now. But someone might have thought he was.’
Poppy was beginning to look distressed. ‘I told you I thought I saw him a while ago before all this happened, didn’t I? But it wasn’t him. I found that out right after the fire. I worried all night about it, while Roger stood at the bedroom window and kept up a running commentary. So, in the morning, I phoned Serena very early to ask her, because she’s family and Reggie handles Gervase’s business. Didn’t I tell you this? It was the first she’d heard of the fire because, of course, where they live is too far away to see or hear any of the hullabaloo, and no one had contacted them. She said first of all that Gervase – she calls him “Gerry” – absolutely wasn’t in the UK and couldn’t have been at the house when it caught
fire. I heard Reggie asking her whom she was talking to, and she told him. Then Reggie came on the phone. He was upset to hear about the fire. He said he was ninety-nine per cent sure it couldn’t be Gervase, but naturally he would contact Portugal and make sure. He said I shouldn’t worry. He would get in touch with the police and it would all be sorted out.’
‘He did phone us, I took the call,’ Jess told her. But I didn’t ask him where he’d heard the news. I should have done so.
Poppy was talking again. ‘Later Serena rang me back and said Gervase had contacted her husband, so Gervase couldn’t have been caught up in the fire. It was silly of me to imagine I saw him several days earlier, as I told you. Obviously, it was someone a little like him and it wasn’t good light at the time. I was wrong.’ Poppy drew a deep breath. ‘I didn’t know about the other man, when I rang Serena. I didn’t know, then, that they’d found a body.’
‘Just so. My question is: when you thought you’d seen Gervase Crown at the house, did you mention it to anyone else at that time? I’m talking of the period between you believing you’d seen Gervase Crown and the fire, after which you called Serena Foscott. Did you tell anyone at all before the fire? Because a rumour might have got round, you know how a rumour does, that Crown was back. If you could think hard.’ Jess waited.
Poppy stared down into the bag of bananas as if they might be an inspiration to memory. ‘I might have done. Not to Roger, I definitely didn’t tell Roger.’
‘You’ve told me you didn’t tell your husband.’
‘Absolutely not! But anyone else?’ Poppy frowned. ‘I’m not the sort of person who spreads rumour or gossip, you know. I hadn’t been sure it was Gervase and I wouldn’t have gone telling a lot of people. Anyway, I don’t think I went anywhere about that time, not into Weston St Ambrose or into Cheltenham. So whom would I have seen?’ Poppy brightened. ‘Oh, Muriel. I did see Muriel Pickering and mention it to her.’
‘Miss Pickering? What did she say?’ Jess thought she could make a guess.
‘Oh, something about Gervase being a blot on the landscape. Muriel says potty things like that. She’s a bit, well, curmudgeonly you could call it. She doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s had a difficult life.’
‘Gervase told me Miss Pickering has no time for him, had no time for his father either.’
Poppy seemed to find the bananas very interesting. ‘Sebastian? Well, he wasn’t a very friendly man. One couldn’t warm to him.’
‘Tell me, Mrs Trenton, did you ever hear any rumour that Sebastian Crown mistreated his wife?’ Jess asked. ‘The man is long dead and you can speak freely.’
‘Not about that I can’t!’ said Poppy immediately. ‘There was a rumour, you’re right. I won’t deny it. I even repeated it to Roger and oh, my goodness! You should have heard him! He was furious. He said it was nonsense and slanderous and I must never repeat it again to anyone. Roger played golf with Sebastian and got on very well with him. He thought him an excellent chap. Well, I knew Sebastian when I was young. He was attractive and he could be a charmer. But he could turn the charm on and off, like a tap. I never felt easy around him. I can’t say more than that.’ Poppy’s mouth closed in a determined line.
Gervase is right! thought Jess. Rumour of the way Sebastian Crown treated his wife had gone round the neighbourhood. But they didn’t talk about it then and they’re not willing to talk about it now. Only Muriel, Amanda’s friend, still feels deeply enough about it to tell me.
She asked carefully, ‘Is that the only reason Miss Pickering doesn’t like Gervase? Because of his father? I understand she was friendly with Amanda Crown, his mother.’
‘Oh, yes, she was! After Amanda left, Muriel was quite distraught for a while. She even made some wild—’ Poppy broke off. ‘Speculations,’ she finished.
‘She accused Sebastian of murdering his wife, I believe?’ Poppy was looking at her as though Jess had second sight. ‘Gervase told me,’ Jess explained.
‘Oh, did he? I hadn’t realised he knew about it. He was only a child. Oh dear, that was bad. Of course Sebastian hadn’t murdered her. But it’s an example of how wildly Muriel can talk … and why you shouldn’t pay too much heed to her.’
‘I would have thought,’ Jess suggested, ‘that Muriel might have liked Gervase, when he was young, because of her affection for his mother.’
‘It didn’t work like that,’ Poppy told her frankly. ‘She looked at Gervase and she saw Sebastian. I think she decided Gervase would turn out like his father. When he got older, and got into trouble, it confirmed her worst suspicions. She decided he was a bad lot.’
Jess was still waiting, so Poppy took a deep breath and, apparently addressing the bananas, blurted, ‘See here, the fact is, Muriel will never forgive Gervase for what happened in the accident.’
‘Ah!’ Jess thought she saw where this was leading. ‘The accident that left Petra Stapleton in a wheelchair.’
But she was wrong. Poppy looked up and said, ‘Oh, no, not that accident! The other one.’
‘What other one?’ Jess couldn’t help but look and sound taken aback.
‘The previous one, the first accident, if you like. Of course, Muriel was very upset, as we all were, about the later accident involving poor Petra. But there was an earlier one. Gervase caused a pile-up between his car and two others. Luckily, a miracle really, no one was seriously hurt in that one. At least, no human being was.’
Jess’s brain was buzzing as she made a rapid review of what she knew of the earlier accident involving Gervase Crown. It was on record, of course. But she hadn’t thought of it as having any bearing on this case and had put it out of her mind. Wrongly, it seemed. ‘Could you explain, Mrs Trenton? How do you mean, no human being?’
‘It was poor Warwick,’ Poppy explained, ‘Muriel’s dog at the time. All Muriel’s dogs have names from Shakespeare’s plays. Moments before Gervase caused the pile-up – and I suppose about a mile or three-quarters of a mile further back down the road – he was driving so erratically that Muriel, who was walking Warwick, had to jump for her life into a hedge. There are no footpaths along our country roads hereabouts. Sadly, Warwick was hit. He had to be destroyed later. The vet couldn’t do anything because he had so many injuries and he wasn’t a young dog.’
Jess said slowly, ‘There’s no mention of this in the file on that accident. Muriel’s name doesn’t come up. She would have been a witness, surely, to his erratic driving just before the crash.’
Poppy looked embarrassed and miserable. ‘I understand that Sebastian went to see Muriel. Look, you’ll really need to talk to Muriel about this. Anything I tell you is just hearsay.’ She got up, cradling the bag of bananas. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll pop along and leave these for Gervase. Roger will be wondering where I’ve got to. I’ll tell the policeman on the door that you said I could wave a greeting if Gervase isn’t asleep.’
‘Yes, he might be – and thank you,’ Jess said.
Outside the hospital, she sat in her car for a few minutes and reviewed her visit. She had to make allowances for Gervase having suffered a head injury and not perhaps being as consistent in his story as he might have been. On the whole, though, he’d been surprisingly coherent. One tiny thing still niggled at her brain. Gervase had denied hearing anyone, although he’d suddenly realised he wasn’t alone in Key House the previous evening. He had called out, he’d said, but no one had replied. His insistence on that was suspicious. Had he, in fact, heard a voice he thought he’d recognised? Or had something else given him the impression he knew who was there? Someone whose name he did not want to give Jess.
She sighed. It wasn’t much of a discrepancy and perhaps she was making too much of it. Not at that moment … It could be no more than a chance expression. After all, later, he had heard Roger Trenton calling, so perhaps that was what he meant. By then Gervase had been struck on the head and must have been very woozy. It was unrealistic to expect him to be one hundred per cent accurate in his recollection of events
.
But another annoying detail had cropped up as a result of Poppy’s story. When Jess had called on Muriel, they’d had a long talk and Muriel had been very forthcoming about Sebastian Crown and his wife. But she hadn’t said a word about the accident resulting in her dog, Warwick, having to be put down. And why hadn’t she been a witness? Because, Poppy had said, Sebastian Crown went to see Muriel. Had he bought her silence?
On reflection, Jess was beginning to find Gervase’s recent account far from the lucid tale she’d thought she was hearing. Muriel had apparently accused Sebastian of murdering his missing wife. ‘I have teased her’, Gervase had said, ‘by saying I know where the body’s buried.’ That would be a literal meaning of his words. But ‘knowing where the body’s buried’ had another meaning: that you are party to a scandalous or embarrassing secret. Such, for example, as Muriel accepting Sebastian’s pay-off, despite Muriel’s antagonism towards him? It now appeared that Muriel, too, had not been as frank during her conversation with Jess as Jess had thought her to be at the time.
And I won’t find out all the missing bits, thought Jess, unless I go and talk to Muriel Pickering again.
She took out her phone and rang through to Ian Carter. ‘I’ve seen Crown. He’s not in too bad a shape. They’re keeping him in for observation for a little longer and I understand Serena Foscott is anxious that he go and stay with them after he leaves the hospital. There are some discrepancies and omissions, both from Gervase’s account and from what Muriel Pickering has been telling me. I’m just driving over to Mullions now. Muriel doesn’t seem to go anywhere much and I’m pretty confident of finding her there. I think all this might have something to do with the earlier car crash Gervase was responsible for, not the one in which Petra Stapleton was injured. In the earlier one, Muriel’s dog at the time was killed. Also, there’s a possibility Sebastian Crown bought her silence.’
‘You carry on,’ Carter’s voice said in her ear. ‘I’ll drive over there and join you.’
