The Dying of the Light

by Robert Richardson

  “Sit down you stupid cow or I’ll break your fucking neck!”

  He nodded slightly as she obeyed with a little whimper. “That’s better. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. Unless you give me no choice.”

  “What do you want?” False courage of seconds earlier had been instantly suffocated by Charlton’s explosion of viciousness and the whispered question was consumed with dread.

  “I want you to tell me things. About Martha and the rest of you.”

  “What do you mean? What things?”

  “About what you were all on about in the Steamer. January it was. I was with you and Martha was going on about becoming a Catholic and then everyone started rowing, but I couldn’t follow it.”

  Ruth Harvey suddenly understood a great deal. “I don’t remember it. Was I there?”

  “Of course you bloody were. Sitting with your orange juice. Didn’t say anything, but you were there all right.”

  “Well I can’t remember it. Why does it matter?”

  “You remember well enough. And you know why it mattered.”

  “If it did matter, why is it so important to you?”

  “That’s my business.”

  Ruth picked up the estimate, folding it into its envelope before putting it back in her handbag. She had forgotten Charlton had been there on that horrible night when the others had been so awful to Martha. She had tried to defend her, but had been swept aside, ignored as usual. She had been relieved when Jack Bocastle had sternly told them that unless they stopped it he would throw them out. They had quietened down, but the resentment and anger had simmered on until she and Martha had left. It was an evening she had tried to forget, until Martha’s death had brought its rage swarming back.

  “Well?” Charlton demanded.

  “I’m not going to tell you. It was nothing to do with you. I don’t care if you hurt me.”

  Spoken with timid but determined courage, the last sentence threw Charlton for a moment. He could break her arms as easily as thin twigs. She ought to be terrified, begging him not to touch her. Dimly he began to realise that whatever it was he was chasing seemed to matter much more than he had guessed. The threat — perhaps even the actuality — of violence might not be the way.

  “Suppose I told the police about it?”

  “You’ve got nothing to tell them.” The reply was too quick, too defensive.

  “Oh, I don’t know. There was more to it than just her becoming a Catholic. I gathered that much. The police might want more details. You’d have to talk to them.”

  He was fishing and he knew it, but there had to be something there. Then Ruth asked a question which shook him.

  “Did you kill Martha?”

  “Did I what?” He sounded disbelieving. “Of course I bloody didn’t! Why should I?”

  “Because …” Ruth hesitated. Did it make sense that Charlton would have killed her? It certainly would not have helped him discover anything. But perhaps he had threatened her as well. Perhaps he had gone into the studio that afternoon and challenged her the same way he was doing it now. Perhaps Martha had defied him — Martha had been afraid of nobody — and he had lost his temper. He was frighteningly strong.

  “You’d deny it anyway,” she argued defiantly.

  Charlton leaned forward. “Just get this into your stupid head. I didn’t kill Martha. I heard the crash from the top of the garden and saw you run from the cottage and followed you.”

  “But if it wasn’t you and it wasn’t me, then who was it?”

  “It wasn’t anybody! It was an accident.”

  He was saying the same thing. An accident. An accident that someone had almost wanted to happen. Ruth needed time to think.

  “I don’t want to talk about it now. Come back this evening. I’ll be here.”

  Charlton’s eyes narrowed. Instinctively he knew she would not go to the police; she had been too obviously scared when he said that he might do so. For a moment he considered bullying her again, but decided it would achieve nothing, at least not for the moment. She might talk to the others, but he had once seen off half a dozen drunken skinheads causing trouble at the fair. A bunch of old age pensioners would present no problems.

  “But you’ll tell me,” he prompted. “This evening.”

  “Perhaps. I need time to think.”

  “You do that. I don’t know everything, but I know enough. The police would be very interested if I told them I’d heard you telling Dorothy that Martha had been murdered. Because you haven’t said that to them have you?”

  From the moment Ruth had seen him when Dorothy opened the kitchen door, she knew he had been listening. He was cunning enough to have waited with that raised fist, a prepared image of surprised innocence. He must have heard what she said about Martha’s death, but obviously he was already sniffing round before that, a rat chasing the scent of some hidden morsel. She was safe as long as he did not go to the police, and that could not have been his intention or he would have done it by now. She did not want to hear what he was plotting; probably he had not yet decided because he was still ignorant of what he was on to.

  “Come back this evening,” she repeated. “About nine o’clock.”

  He slid off the chair and she glimpsed the arrogant bully inside the stunted frame as he swaggered to the door. He had tasted power over another human being for the first time and it seduced him like a drug.

  “Nine o’clock,” he said without looking back. “I’ll be here.”

  Solid, clumsy footsteps faded away as Ruth became conscious of the radio again. “… thank you, Martin. And now Beryl Jordan is here with her weekly round-up of the best buys at your local greengrocers. I understand that salad vegetables are well worth looking at.”

  “Indeed they are, Julia. There’s lots about and they’re coming down in price. Yesterday I picked up some absolutely marvellous …”

  Ruth turned the set off and her finger lingered on the button, half disbelieving that the world could be so unaware that her entire life had collapsed and she was silently screaming with the agony of it.

  *

  Dorothy Lowe slammed the front door furiously and walked straight to where the whisky stood on its tray in the living-room. She poured the drink with shaking hands, then swallowed it in one heaving gulp. Fortified by neat alcohol, she picked up the telephone.

  “Edith? It’s me. Dorothy. I’ve just been round to see Ruth. She’s got it into her head that Martha was murdered.”

  “Oh, no, not again.” Edith Hallam-West sounded dismayed.

  “Again?” Dorothy demanded. “What do you mean, again?”

  “She’s already talked to Patrick about it. Hasn’t he told you?”

  “No, not a word. When was this?”

  “I’m not sure. The other day sometime. He only mentioned it to me because I happened to run into him.”

  “For God’s sake!” Dorothy shouted frustratedly. “What’s he keeping it to himself for?”

  “He thought she was being hysterical. Told her to forget it.”

  “Well she hasn’t forgotten it.”

  For a few moments both women were silent, then Edith spoke again.

  “But why can’t she just accept it was an accident? That’s what happened.”

  “She doesn’t believe that. We should have realised she wouldn’t.”

  “But it was an accident! The police have told her.”

  “That makes no difference. She thinks it was too convenient.”

  “We’ve got to talk to her,” Edith said urgently. “Make her see sense. I’ll go round.”

  “No,” Dorothy contradicted sharply. “That will only make her start imagining there’s more to it. We’ll all talk to her together tonight. At the beach.”

  “At the beach?” Edith repeated in disbelief. “Is that really the best place?”

  “Yes,” Dorothy told her firmly. “Tell Edward and Patrick so they’re prepared and I’ll talk to Belvedere. If we all stand firm and convince her i
t was an accident, she’ll believe us eventually. You know what she’s like.”

  “I know what she was like when Martha was alive. But I’m not sure about her now.”

  Dorothy hesitated. “All right, she’s different at the moment. But that’s only because of the way she’s thinking. It’s understandable. We should have expected she’d react like this. We’ll talk her out of it.”

  “Will we?” Edith asked uncertainly.

  “We’ve got to.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tobias stretched contentedly in the sun on the front doorstep, slitted yellow eyes murderously watching an unaware black-backed gull perched on the wall ten feet away. Sharp claws flexed instinctively as he idly contemplated the prospect, but he was warm, comfortable, fed and not in the killing vein. His ears pricked at approaching footsteps and the bird squawked and flapped off. Tobias looked with patronising indifference as the gate opened and Maltravers stepped on to the path.

  “O cat.” Maltravers solemnly made a slight bow. “You’ll have to believe I’d raise my hat if I was wearing one.”

  Tobias blinked slowly then rolled on his back, condescendingly offering his belly fur to be stroked. Maltravers dutifully obliged.

  “Who’s that?” Lacey called from inside.

  “Only me,” Maltravers replied as he straightened up. “I’m paying due respects to your familiar to stop him turning unpleasant.”

  “Pardon?” Lacey appeared in the doorway. “Oh, that’s where he’s got to. I thought he was asleep on my bed. Come in. Coffee?”

  “Thanks.” Maltravers followed Lacey through to the kitchen where he picked up a percolator and a jar.

  “Instant or proper? Both come with fresh cream.”

  “Instant will be fine.”

  Lacey switched on the electric kettle, spooned granules into two cups then bent down to take a carton of cream from the fridge.

  “What are you hiding from me?” he asked quietly.

  “Am I hiding something from you?”

  “Of course you are.” Lacey closed the fridge door. “You’ve got barriers across your mind like a steel safety curtain.”

  “Better ask Tobias.”

  “Oh, I often do. But his communications are not always clear.” Lacey regarded him carefully. “You’re worried that you may have found the answer and you don’t like it, do you?”

  “Frankly, it sickens me,” Maltravers’s acknowledgement was mordant with distaste. “That’s why I don’t want to say anything at the moment, because the more I think about it, the less I like it. It’s a possible connection between Agnes Thorpe’s disappearance and what happened to Martha Shaw which makes a perverted sort of sense. No, not sense. Madness.”

  “An evil madness?”

  Maltravers sighed. “That’s as good a word as any. But I could be wrong, and for the time being I’d rather leave your mind open to other possibilities. You might come up with a less offensive explanation, which would make me a damn sight happier. In the meantime, I want to check something out. If what I’m thinking won’t go away, I’ll let you know.”

  Already half boiled, the kettle gushed steam and turned itself off. Lacey made the coffee and offered Maltravers a bowl of multi-coloured sugar crystals. For a few moments, they sipped their drinks in silence.

  “Evil seems less potent in daylight doesn’t it?” Lacey said finally. “Less easy to believe in. But it’s still there.”

  “I’m afraid it may be,” Maltravers agreed. “Come to sunny Porthennis. Bring the children. Sun, sea, fresh air and murder.”

  “Can you prove that now? Murder?”

  “I don’t know.” Maltravers shook his head and turned away. “Stop mining my brain, Mortimer. I’ve said I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

  “All right. Pax. I’ll be patient. But what have you come to see me for if not to talk?”

  “What was the name of that church you went to in Wenlock the other day and how do I find it?”

  “Wenlock?” Lacey repeated. “I wondered when we’d come back to that. It’s Saint Thomas the Martyr’s, modern building on your right as you drive in on the road from St Austell. You can’t miss it.”

  “You said you talked to the priest. What’s he like?”

  “Father …” Lacey hesitated as he chased a name. “Father Cassell. We only chatted for a few minutes, but he seemed all right. Youngish, but I’ve got to the stage where even the police superintendents are starting to look young, never mind the constables. When are you going?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll telephone first to make sure he’s not on holiday.”

  “Why not today?” Lacey asked.

  “Because there’s something I want to do tonight.” Maltravers finished his coffee. “I’ll see you when I get back from Wenlock.”

  “I’ll be here.” Lacey looked at Maltravers very seriously. “I must warn you of something, Gus. I can’t say what you’re thinking, but right from the start I’ve been convinced you would be the one who solved this. I’ll see if I come up with something else, but however much you dislike whatever it is, I’m afraid it may be true.”

  “If it is, it’s a very … nasty truth.”

  “Well you didn’t have to get mixed up in this,” Lacey said evenly. “You could have told me at the very beginning that I was off my head or just said it was none of your business. Then perhaps it would have all remained a secret. But it’s too late for that now, isn’t it?”

  *

  Ruth Harvey stood in Martha’s studio, weighing the hammer in her hand, smacking the steel head experimentally against her small palm. If she waited behind the back door for him to walk in … ? But suppose she didn’t kill him immediately? How many more blows would it take? Two? Three? Ten? Bile swirled into her throat and she went faint at the thought of Charlton’s defenceless head, blood spurting from crashing wounds. And could she even bring herself to strike the first critical blow with sufficient strength, summoning up enough rage to deny inbred instincts of a lifetime of gentleness? No, of course not. And even if she could, it wouldn’t solve anything. She would then have to kill herself and the police would never stop asking questions. And they might discover the truth.

  Sadly, she put the hammer down and went back across the garden to the cottage. The idea of killing Charlton had been born out of desperation and because she could see no other way out. But there had to be one. Paying him money was out of the question. There was nearly five thousand pounds of her own in the building society, but Martha had left her nothing but the cottage and only that in trust. She could sell some of Martha’s smaller works — her solicitor had discreetly suggested they would fetch good prices — but it was agony to contemplate trading pieces of remembered love in exchange for money. So how was he to be stopped? Because when she had stood in front of Agnes Thorpe’s statue again, she had felt Martha telling her that he had to be.

  But beyond all this lay the shrieking question of who had killed Martha. Had it really been Nick? Suddenly he appeared as likely as anyone. Ruth Harvey had built her entire life around one other human being and death had left her exposed, frightened and angry. The moment she had seen Martha’s broken body, the conviction it had not been an accident had sprung fully formed into her mind and had never left her. Exposing who had done it was more important than any of Charlton’s brutal threats. Concentrate everything on that, she told herself, then decide what you must do.

  *

  “Belvedere! Are you in? It’s me. Dorothy.”

  “Leave me alone.” The crumbling voice from the direction of the studio sounded irritated. “I’m working.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Dorothy muttered as she walked through and opened the studio door, kicking a pile of paint-stained rags aside as she stepped inside. Scott was standing in front of his easel, the canvas it held completely untouched. He scowled at her.

  “What do you want? Sod off.”

  “Busy?” Dorothy nodded at the canvas. “Inspiration isn’t exactly flowing is it?”r />
  Scott suddenly looked very tired, ancient brown gargoyle face losing its bitterness at her arrival and withering like a slowly collapsing balloon.

  “Go away.” It was the nearest Dorothy had ever heard to him pleading. “I can do it if I try hard enough. I just can’t remember what the house looked like.”

  “What house?”

  “Where we lived. In Tarascon-sur-Ariège. The bedroom had a white iron balcony, didn’t it? We used to stand on it and watch the sun set over the mountains. Do you remember?”

  Dorothy stared at him in disbelief. “Tarascon? That was … oh, God, don’t let’s think about how long ago. You can’t bring that back.”

  “But I can paint it.”

  “Why?” Unexpectedly caught by his mood, she felt closer to him than she had for years. “What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know. I showed someone the old pictures. That must have started it.” Scott looked back at the canvas in despair. “I thought I could do it again. I wanted to.”

  “You left that painter behind a long time ago,” Dorothy said softly. “I used to love him.” She turned away, unable to meet the terrible sadness in his eyes.

  “What’s the matter with us?” she said impatiently. “Two boring old fossils getting sentimental. It’s ridiculous.”

  “You’re right.” Scott hurled his palette down with a clatter, as though abruptly consumed with exasperation at attempting something impossible but irrationally desired. “I’m getting senile. I need a drink.”

  Dorothy followed him through to the sitting-room, remaining silent as he poured his rum.

  “What do you want anyway?” he demanded. The cloak of the irascible, eccentric artist had slipped back into place. “Not like you to make social calls. Not here at any rate.”

  “It’s Ruth,” she replied. “She’s convinced someone killed Martha.”

  “Bloody good job if they did.” The glass was raised in a token toast. “Good luck to them.”

  “For God’s sake, be serious! We’ve got to stop her or she’ll be blurting it out to the police.”

  “Let her,” Scott replied indifferently. “They’re satisfied it was an accident. They’ll put it down to hysterics.”