A Fatal Affair

by Faith Martin

  He wanted to shout at her to stop it. But he knew that he couldn’t – he didn’t dare. He must do nothing to draw attention to her. Not when Ray Dewberry was standing there, quiet and calm, watching them all thoughtfully, the shotgun held with comfortable ease in his hand. As a farmer, he’d probably spent years using that gun and was very familiar with it …

  Behind the wall, Duncan Gillingham too watched in growing horror. What the hell was Trudy thinking off? Surely she didn’t think she could take on an armed man? Was she crazy? She’d get herself killed!

  And he didn’t want her to get killed. He couldn’t just crouch here, like a coward, whilst she was killed.

  But what could he do, damn it? What could he do?

  ‘Do you understand now why I really and truly did hate Iris?’ Ronnie said, turning to look at Janet. ‘She had her claws into my best friend and into my father. She was trying to cheat me out of my inheritance, and …’ He faltered to a stop, then took a deep breath. ‘At one point, I even wondered if I might hang, like David did. If the police found out that I hated her and had a motive for killing her, I thought they might arrest me. And if I was found guilty …’

  ‘Enough!’ Ray said, turning to his son, his face finally twisting into a grimacing, angry mask. ‘You think I didn’t hate her too, boy?’ he shouted. ‘You think I didn’t hate myself for wanting her? Needing her?’

  Everyone froze. Trudy a few steps forward, Duncan behind the wall, Janet and Ronnie facing off to each other, and Clement, still balancing on the balls of his feet and praying his limbs didn’t get an attack of the jitters now.

  ‘You think I didn’t know what a fool I was?’ Ray continued, his voice still loud, but at least not shouting anymore. ‘You think I didn’t want to be free of her? But she was like bloody bindweed, twining around me, tightening, tightening, with her beautiful face and her beautiful body, making me go out of my mind …’

  He went silent and shook his head.

  ‘And so you killed her,’ Janet whispered, tears coming into her eyes. ‘But why did you leave her tied to the maypole like that?’

  Ray shrugged. ‘What else was I supposed to do with her?’ he asked harshly. ‘I found out, you see, about those disgusting parties at that London parasite’s place. I knew some other men in the village had been bragging about having her too, but I always thought that was lies. Just men bragging, like they do. Iris swore I was the only one. But then, one night, when I was coming back from the fields, I saw two fancy cars parked up in the lane and some men laughing and joking about how they were going to enjoy the party that night. And what Iris had promised to do for them …’

  Ray shook his head. ‘It turned my stomach. I saw myself then, as I knew she really saw me – as just one more gullible, middle-aged, pathetic man with money. Money that she wanted to get off me. She never cared tuppence for me. Probably even laughed about me, as those men were now laughing about her. I couldn’t sleep for thinking of it. Couldn’t eat. It drove me mad. And still I wanted her – that was the bloody rub of it! The next day, when I saw her I thought that I’d feel disgusted, but I didn’t. I just wanted her all the more … And you were right boy; I had approached a land agent about selling off some land. And I knew I would too, if I couldn’t get myself free. But I knew I’d never be free of her. Not as long as she lived, anyway.’

  For a moment nobody spoke. Nobody knew what to say. But it didn’t matter, because Ray Dewberry had only paused to take a breath. ‘So I decided to kill her. That evening, before May Day, I wrote her a note asking her to dress up in her May Queen outfit, just for me, and meet me by the oak tree on the green just before it started to get light. I promised her a present – something that sparkled, that she could wear that day. Something special. I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist that.’ His lips twisted bitterly. ‘And she didn’t. She came, looking as lovely and fresh as something out of a painting … and inside, she was as black and rotten as flyblown fruit.’ He spat on the ground.

  ‘I didn’t wait. I didn’t even let her say anything – I was scared she’d be able to talk me around if I did. I just put my hands around her throat and squeezed. She looked so surprised. And then scared. She probably fought and kicked and things, but I didn’t notice. There was this loud buzzing sound in my head … And then she started to turn this funny colour and her eyes bulged and she began to look ugly. I couldn’t take that, my beautiful Iris looking anything less than lovely, so I closed my eyes so that I couldn’t see it happening. I didn’t open them for a long time.’

  Ray sighed softly.

  ‘And when I did, she was hanging there in my hands, limp as a rag doll. The first blackbirds were beginning to sing, and the horizon was beginning to glow, and I knew I hadn’t got much time before the farm hands were up and about. Where could I take her? What could I do?’

  He paused, looking from one of them to the other, as if expecting them to tell him. But of course, none of them could.

  He shook his head and shrugged. ‘Then I saw the maypole, all set up for the dancing later on, with pretty ribbons and such. And I thought … well, why not? She’d always wanted to be Queen of the May, after all, making such a fuss of it, pleased as punch and preening about it, looking forward to making all her subjects bow before her,’ he choked bitterly. ‘So why not let her have her last wish? So I took her to the maypole and bound her to it with the ribbons. Only she didn’t look so beautiful then, did she? All that golden perfection …’

  Again, for a moment, there was utter silence.

  Janet and Ronnie stared at him, appalled.

  Aware of their distress, Ray scowled at them and shook his head. ‘What? What else could I have done?’ he demanded harshly.

  ‘And David?’ Ronnie finally plucked up the nerve to say. ‘Did you kill David too?’

  At this, Ray’s sighed heavily. ‘I had to do that,’ he admitted grimly. ‘I didn’t want to!’ he added, sounding almost indignant now. ‘But he called me one night, from the phone box in the village. I wish now I’d never had the phone line put in to the old place,’ he added, giving a nod towards the farmhouse. ‘Not that it would have mattered, in the end, I suppose,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He’d have just come in person, wouldn’t he?’ He cocked his head a little to one side, as if actually considering the utterly irrelevant question.

  It was only then that Trudy began to wonder if Ray Dewberry was actually sane.

  Clement risked a quick glance around to see if there was something lying around that he could use as a weapon. This was a farmyard, wasn’t it? Where were all the sharp-pronged things – rakes, plough blades, pitchforks, anything…

  ‘He said on the phone that he needed to speak to me, alone. He was so insistent that Ronnie not be there, that I knew … I just knew …’ For a moment Ray shook his head. ‘I didn’t know how he knew about me and Iris, I just knew that he did. So I said I’d meet him at the barn the next day.’

  ‘How did you do it?’ Ronnie asked, his voice tight with pain. Although he knew, late at night and lying in his bed, that his father had killed Iris, he’d never, ever, let himself even contemplate that he had also killed David. David, he’d convinced himself, had killed himself for love of Iris. But now he could no longer hold on to even that comforting fantasy.

  ‘I crushed up some of your mum’s old pills and melted them in boiling water. Then I put some whisky in that old hip flask of your granddad’s. Took it with me when I went to the barn. It was funny,’ Ray said softly, his face softening as he remembered back to that evening. ‘He came in and found me sitting on a bale of hay. I nodded at him, friendly-like, and took out the hip flask and pretended to drink from it. And he just asked me flat out if I was seeing his Iris.’

  Ray grunted a soft laugh. ‘His Iris. The silly little pup. He was nothing more to her than a cat’s paw! I wanted to rant at him then and there, tell him that she’d been mine, damn it! Mine. But of course, I didn’t. Instead I just looked at him, and said, “Bloody hell boy, that’s a
bit of an accusation,” and I pretended to take another swig. Then I held out the flask to him and said, “If we’re gonna have that sort of a talk, we should do it proper. Have a belt – it’s the best whisky money can buy.” And he took it.’

  Ray again gave a soft laugh. ‘I wasn’t sure if he would or not. If he hadn’t, I’d have just had to do it the hard way … But he took a sip, and then I nodded at the bale of hay I’d set up by mine and told him to take a pew.’

  Trudy could almost picture the scene. The young man, desperate to learn the truth, but still so naïve and trusting and so unaware of the sheer ferocity and danger that could lurk in the hearts of men such as Ray Dewberry. Had he secretly not really been able to believe that a man he’d known all his life – his best friend’s father, for Pete’s sake – had killed the girl he loved? Had he gone to that barn more than half-hoping, maybe even half-expecting, that Ray Dewberry would be able to convince him that he hadn’t?

  ‘He told me that he’d recognised a necklace that Iris had begun to wear as one belonging to my wife,’ Ray went on.

  ‘What? You gave her Mum’s jewellery?’ Ronnie squawked, but his father merely ignored him, too deep in his memories, probably, to have even heard him.

  ‘O’course, I denied it,’ Ray said, almost placidly. ‘Said necklaces sometimes looked alike. I asked him for the flask back, pretended to take another sip, all casual-like, then handed it back to him. Told him that he was letting his imagination run wild. He sort of nodded, like, as if he took my point, then had another swallow and said that wasn’t all. Iris had been seen by several people in the village walking this way.’

  Ray glanced up and around the fields. ‘I told him so what? The girl was free to take a walk in the countryside, wasn’t she? Then I crooked my finger, and he passed the flask back. By now I could see he was beginning to look a bit tired. I took another pass at the flask, then handed it back. He said Iris had teased him about me – saying I was the handsomest man in the village. He was beginning to slur his words now. I laughed, and said I was flattered, but she was just trying to get his goat, and make him jealous. “Young girls are like that,” I said to him. “Don’t you know that, boy? Courting’s a bit of a game see. Don’t mean nothing.” And so it went on. Chatting, all friendly like, both of us drinking from the flask – well, me just pretending, like. And then, when his head began to actually nod, I just, quietly like, got the rope that I’d already tied off to the plough and with noose already made and everything, slipped it over his head and … hauled him up.’

  Ronnie made a gagging sound, turned away and was sick on the cobbles.

  His father ignored him. ‘It didn’t take long – he wasn’t really awake or aware of much of what was going on, which I was glad about. Then I set it all up to look like he’d done it himself – the ladder and what-not, then came home. Washed out the flask, had a bath, changed my clothes and put them in the tub to soak, and went to bed. What else could I do?’ he appealed, looking at his white-faced son, who was now wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then moving on to look at Janet, who couldn’t meet his gaze.

  ‘I didn’t want to kill the boy, you understand?’ he said, sounding aggrieved now, and looking wildly from Trudy to Clement and back again. ‘Known him ever since he was a nipper, didn’t I? He was a nice enough lad, but Iris had got her hooks into him too and … well, I knew he wouldn’t stop digging until he had proof. The son of a copper … What else could I do?’

  He looked at Trudy for approbation or some form of acknowledgement, but she was now literally speechless.

  ‘Did you just attack my mother too?’ Janet asked, her voice cracking a little as she bit back a sob.

  The farmer sighed and shrugged. ‘Now that were just rotten luck,’ he said resentfully. ‘I was looking for the lad’s journal, see. It was all over the village that he kept one. I knew the Finches and the coppers didn’t have it, or we’d’a heard of it long since. So I knew that the lad must’a hid it for safekeeping before he came to see me.’ He paused and considered the thought carefully, then nodded. ‘As a bit of a safeguard, like. He was always smart, that David,’ he added regretfully.

  ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for it, I can tell you!’ he grunted. ‘The village hall, the church, even the bloody phone box. I’ve been in a right state! I even searched the Carmody house from top to bottom, when they were out at the undertakers, although it was hardly likely to be there, was it? And then, finally, I thought of you.’ He nodded at Janet. ‘You were Iris’s best friend after all, and one of the few who must’a been mourning Iris, like. P’rhaps he gave it to you, asking you to keep it safe, like. I didn’t know if you’d read it or not, and if you had, why you hadn’t turned it over to the cops.’ So saying, he looked at his son then back at Janet with an awful, knowing smile. He shrugged, ‘Anyways, it was worth trying, so, I went to search your house this morning, thinking you were still at church.’

  Trudy shook her head sadly. How many times had she told people – especially in small villages, to start locking their doors? But nobody hardly ever did. He’d probably just walked right in through the back door without any trouble at all.

  ‘But your mum must’a heard me. Next thing I knew, she were coming down the stairs, calling out for you, like. I just had time to hide behind the door and when she came past me, I hit her on the head with a saucepan. She never saw me though, so I never had to hit her again. And she were still breathing when I left,’ he added, watching Janet as if expecting her to thank him for his consideration.

  Abruptly, he turned to Clement. ‘You! Stop moving about. You think I don’t know what you’re at? But it’s no use,’ Ray said bitterly. ‘The thing’s got to be done. We both know that – these others, they’re all youngsters, they know nothing about what’s what,’ he said tiredly. ‘But you and me – we know what the world’s like. You were in the war …’

  He started to raise the shotgun, sighting it on Clement. ‘No point drawing it out. Might as well get it over with, quick-like. Nobody will understand, that’s the shame of it,’ he added, almost as an afterthought. ‘Nobody will ever understand that this is all Iris’s fault.’

  ‘You can’t kill all of us,’ Clement shouted, but without much hope. There was nothing in Ray Dewberry’s eyes but matter-of-fact intent.

  ‘No, not Ronnie,’ Ray agreed. ‘But he’ll help me. He’s a good boy. We’ll bury your bodies up in the sedges by Trigger Pond, I reckon …’

  ‘No Dad, I won’t,’ Ronnie shouted, but his father didn’t even react.

  Trudy heard a buzzing in her head and felt her knees go a little weak. Was this really it? Was she going to die, here and now, in this place? Although she’d been advancing in tiny steps towards Iris’s killer, willing and ready to try to do her duty, now that time had come she felt only cold and numb. And frankly, disbelieving.

  Janet gave a low, audible moan. This morning, when she’d thought she would confront Ronnie and make him admit to killing Iris, she had imagined it would make her feel so powerful and finally allow her to come out of Iris’s shadow. She’d seen herself returning to the village the triumphant heroine, admired and respected by all, no longer overlooked or underestimated. And finally she’d have the courage to tell her mother that she wanted to move to a small flat of her own in town, leave the fashionably decorated house and the fish-bowl of a village and begin to live. To finally live!

  And now she was sure that she was going to have to do the opposite. To die. Die, before she’d even known what it was to be alive.

  ‘I’m sorry, really I am,’ Ray Dewberry said to her, but even as he spoke he was sighting down the barrel at the coroner in a business-like manner. ‘But I don’t have any choice, you can see that girl, can’t you? I have my name to think of, and my boy’s future to protect, and the farm. The Dewberrys have worked the land here since the Normans came. It’s not as if I can make people really understand! Nobody would understand about Iris, see …’

  ‘But what if th
ey did?’

  The new voice, shockingly, seemed to come out of nowhere. And instinctively, Ray swung around, seeking the source of that unknown voice, the barrel of the shotgun swinging with him.

  Chapter 35

  Trudy recognised the voice at once, but simply couldn’t understand why she was hearing it. It sounded so out of context that for a moment she had the weird feeling you sometimes got when you found yourself wondering if you were actually dreaming, and not really awake at all.

  She swivelled around to look behind her and saw that she was right, and that Duncan Gillingham was now walking towards them. He carefully had his hands out either side of him, showing that he was carrying nothing more than a notebook and a pencil in one hand.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Ray Dewberry snarled. He looked wild-eyed and seriously put-out.

  Clement took the opportunity of his distraction to quickly move further to one side and towards the farmer, putting him still further away from Trudy but closer than her to the man with the gun. Luckily, Trudy was also looking at the newcomer, and hadn’t seen what he’d done.

  Ronnie gave the coroner a quick, worried look. He shot another worried glance at his father, then back at Clement, clearly torn about whether he should warn his father or not. Loyalty to him had to rank high, but how far could it be stretched? Wordlessly, Clement nodded at Janet, looked pointedly at Ronnie, then jerked his chin towards the house. With his hands, he mimicked the motions of someone dialling a telephone.

  Janet nodded, understanding immediately what he wanted, and grasped Ronnie’s arm and tugged pleadingly. For one awful, heart-stopping moment, Clement thought he’d refuse to move, and he scowled at the younger man, doing his best to radiate outrage. He again looked at Janet, then pointedly at the shotgun in his father’s hand, and then jerked his head imperiously towards the house, his intentions clear enough for even Ronnie to understand.