Motive for Murder

by Anthea Fraser

  After a while I came to the brow of the hill. Almost directly ahead of me lay the white rectangle of Chapel Farm and its buildings. Over to my left, large splashes of colour indicated the site of the Show and on a gust of wind the sound of a loudspeaker reached me – a man’s voice reading out a list of numbers, followed by music. On my right, over the sea, the storm clouds inched forward like an army gathering for attack.

  Mike would be waiting. I set off quickly down the hill. There must be an underground stream here, because suddenly water oozed from under my shoes. I moved slightly to one side, then the other, but the ground was wet all round me. I hurried on. The wind-blown music, fast and militant, touched me with a sense of urgency, and the ground sucked at my shoes with soft, obscene ploppings, as though thousands of mouths were gasping beneath me. I shuddered at my fancies.

  High above me a curlew called, unbearably sweetly, and on the side of the hill a sheep bleated suddenly. London would be very different from this. Snatches of music tossed through the air beat against my ears. Hurry, hurry! I broke into an uneven run. The farm lay basking, blindingly white, in the sunshine. I could see Mike’s old car at the gate, but there was no other sign of life. The men must still be at the Show.

  I opened the five-barred gate and closed it carefully behind me.

  ‘Mike?’

  My voice echoed back from the facing wall. I hurried to the farm-house and rang the bell, then, not waiting for an answer, pushed open the door and looked into the dark hall. ‘Mike?’

  The kitchen door opposite opened and he stood there. ‘Hello, Emily.’

  I paused, momentarily deflated. In my anxiety to reach him and tell him about Matthew, I’d temporarily forgotten the restraint between us.

  ‘I won’t be a moment,’ he added. ‘Wait in the sitting room, will you.’

  I stood just inside the pretty room, aware of a sense of foreboding. The thick sunshine spilled in a pool on the carpet, but the clouds were almost overhead, giving the light a sinister, pregnant quality.

  Impatient at myself, I walked to the fireplace and stood gazing up at the portrait of Laura Stacey. The painted face had Mike’s eyes, grey and deep-set, fringed with thick lashes. She looked so life-like I almost expected to see her breathe.

  Wondering idly who the artist was, I bent forward to look for a signature. Suddenly my face burned with excitement. Surely – yes, down in the left-hand corner, almost obscured by the folds of her dress, was a tiny thistle. His little affectation, he called it. So Mr Menzies, whose murder inspired Matthew’s novel, had painted Mike’s mother.

  Hearing the door open behind me, I exclaimed excitedly, ‘Mike, did you realise this is by Cameron Menzies? You know, the artist who was murdered. The thistle was his signature.’

  I expected him to hurry over to look, but a strange, ominous silence flowed across the room and pushed almost tangibly against my back. I turned in surprise. Mike was standing very still and there was an expression on his face which jolted my heart into slow, sickening beats.

  ‘Mike,’ I faltered, ‘what is it?’

  ‘How very knowledgeable you are, Emily,’ he said with infinite softness. He started to laugh, almost soundlessly, and the effect was somehow macabre and horrible.

  ‘Mike!’ I said sharply.

  He stopped laughing and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the most amazing thing.’

  ‘What is?’ I stared at the stranger who stood in Mike’s place.

  He settled his shoulders and straightened lazily against the door frame. ‘Why, that I should have a masterpiece in the house. I could never find a signature, but I suppose, since the man was local, it’s not surprising he was the artist.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. Then what had shocked him into this peculiar reaction? The mention of Cameron Menzies? A shutter clicked in my brain. Matthew’s voice said, ‘Mike’s name isn’t Charles – it’s something Scottish, after – his father.’ Then why had Mike lied to me over such a trivial matter? and which Scottish name that began with “C”? Cameron? After his father? But Cameron Menzies was married for thirty years to Sir Joshua Lindley’s daughter.

  My skin prickled with fear. There was a connection somewhere but I daren’t pursue it. Mike was watching me, an almost abnormal smile twitching his mouth.

  ‘It doesn’t pay to be too clever, Emily my sweet.’

  I moistened my lips. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Then why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I made a tremendous effort at self-control. ‘Shall we – are you ready to go to the Show?’ I had to get among people again.

  He said, so softly I hardly caught the words, ‘You’re half-way there, aren’t you? And once you get that far, you’ll soon guess the rest.’

  I shook my head violently. ‘I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t want to. Let’s go to the Show.’

  ‘You didn’t used to mind being alone with me.’

  He started to walk towards me and instinctively I shrank back. He laughed. ‘Oh yes, Emily, you’re on the right lines, so I might as well fill in the gaps.’

  ‘No!’ I put my hands over my ears. ‘I won’t listen!’

  ‘I hear you phoned yesterday; what did you want?’

  The question seemed a tangent and I thankfully seized on it. If I could convince him I still suspected Matthew, all might yet be well. The possible link with Cameron Menzies was still too new for me to assimilate. Stick to Linda and Kate. I swallowed. ‘You know – you know what you said about Matthew, the day we went to Trevanna? You were right, Mike. He as good as admitted it.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’ He reached into his pocket and took out a penknife. Then, absent-mindedly, he picked up a wooden ornament from the low table beside him and began to whittle at it. I watched, fascinated, as the pale shavings fell to the carpet.

  ‘Mike, I must get away! I’m frightened!’ I spoke no more than the truth. I’d thought myself afraid at Touchstone, where I had Mrs Johnson and Sarah and my own room to lock myself in. It was as nothing compared with the paralysis that gripped me now, alone in the farmhouse with Mike.

  He said thoughtfully, ‘So Matthew has been making up more stories, has he? The trouble is, he can’t seem to distinguish between fact and fiction.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He didn’t kill either Linda or Kate, sweetheart, or anyone else as far as I know. Because I did.’

  I stared at him incredulously, his head and shoulders silhouetted against the purple umbrella of cloud. His eyes were veiled, watching for my reaction.

  I thought: This can’t be happening. And then, oh thank God, it wasn’t Matthew at all! And then, with crystal clarity: He’s going to kill me!

  As though he read my mind, Mike smiled, and I felt the breath go out of my body, because it was a terrifying smile, a ghastly caricature of the one I’d seen so often, stripped of its veneer of charm and tenderness; a bleached skeleton of a smile, macabre and unbelievably sinister.

  Outside the window the sky was a dusky purple, like the bloom on a bunch of grapes. Somewhere there must have been a chink in the clouds, for still the false sunshine spilled into the room in an almost solid stream.

  ‘Sit down, Emily,’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell you the whole story.’

  I said without hope, ‘Couldn’t you wait till later? The men will be back soon.’

  ‘They won’t disturb us.’

  He was mad, of course. He must be. And I was alone with him, with no possibility of rescue. The irony of the fact that Mike and Matthew had now switched roles was beyond me at that moment.

  ‘Well, I’m going to sit down, anyway.’ He settled himself on the sofa, one leg carelessly thrown over the other as I’d seen him sit a dozen times. I remained standing, foolishly thinking that if I was on my feet, I might have some fleeting advantage.

  ‘So where shall we start? With your beloved Matthew, I suppose. If you hadn’t
fallen for him, you know, I shouldn’t have to kill you.’ The casual words made no more sense than a swarm of flies buzzing against my eardrums.

  ‘I loved you, Emily, do you know that? Really loved you. But I wasn’t the one you wanted, was I?’

  ‘I told you,’ I said jerkily, ‘there’s nothing between Matthew and me.’

  ‘Oh, I know he can be charming,’ he said bitterly, as though I’d not spoken. ‘I used to see a lot of him, when my mother was alive.’ His eyes flickered to the portrait above my head and his voice hardened. ‘Then she died, and I realised that he’d despised her all along.’

  ‘Oh, surely –’

  ‘Despised her!’ he repeated, his voice rising. ‘And, worse, pitied me! What right had he? Tell me that!’

  ‘But I don’t see –’

  ‘Oh, he was careful never to show it, but I know damn well what he thought!’ More shavings fell to the carpet, and I watched them in hypnotised silence.

  ‘He must have known since he was twenty,’ Mike went on, his knife jabbing at the ornament. ‘I’m damn sure his father told him before he died.’

  ‘Told him what?’ My voice was almost without sound.

  ‘That my entire life was based on a lie; that my mother’d never married, and I was a bastard.’ The brutal words scraped across the room, creating shock waves which vibrated between us.

  ‘Oh yes, Matthew knew all right,’ he went on venomously, ‘but I didn’t, because she never told me. I’ll never forgive her for that. What’s more, he must have been told to keep it from me, because never, in all these years, has he so much as hinted at it. How do you think that makes me feel?’

  I could only shake my head.

  ‘But then she died suddenly, without time to destroy anything, which I’m sure she meant to. So, of course, when I went through her things, I found the letters, hidden away at the back of a drawer.’

  He dug the penknife viciously into the raw wood.

  ‘Love letters,’ he went on, almost unnecessarily, ‘from your friend of the thistle.’

  ‘Cameron Menzies.’

  ‘The same.’ His voice was calmer now. ‘I read them, naturally. Several times, in fact, because I couldn’t take it in; and the entire foundation of my life fell apart. I’d not only lost my mother, I’d lost myself; I wasn’t who I’d thought I was.

  ‘It boiled down, of course, to the old, old story. My grandfather had commissioned Menzies to paint Mother when she was eighteen. He’d have been about forty at the time, already well-known and, naturally, married with a small child. And of course they fell in love. His letters were pretty hot stuff, and reading between the lines, it seemed hers must have been, too.

  ‘Then she discovered she was pregnant, and all hell broke loose. It seems Grandfather went storming over to Mevacombe, where Menzies lived then, and there was an almighty row. Menzies offered to support the child, but Grandfather threw the offer back in his face. Anyway, the long and short of it was that Menzies’ wife stood by him. Mother was sent off to an aunt in Scotland, and in due course the story was put about that she’d married and her husband had been killed in a train crash, which was what I’d always been told. All, as I now know, a pack of lies.’

  ‘This was in the letters?’ I asked. I had some vague idea that if I could keep him talking, help might arrive.

  ‘Yes; believe it or not, they continued writing to each other, though they never met again.’

  ‘They must have been very much in love. But Mike, why should you think Matthew despised your mother? I know he was very fond of her.’

  ‘But he knew about her, didn’t he? All the time, he knew.’

  It was useless trying to argue with him. Instead, I said positively, ‘Well, I’m quite sure he doesn’t know Menzies was your father.’

  He shrugged, conceding the possibility. ‘Anyway, Derek was with me when I found the letters. He’d been very supportive, helping me sort through Mother’s things, and of course when I came across them, I didn’t know what they were. I started to read them, and it was impossible to hide the fact that something was wrong. I was totally shell-shocked.’

  I’d forgotten about Derek, with his hot hands and excitable laugh.

  ‘Mike,’ I said gently, ‘don’t tell me any more, please.’

  He looked so much the same as usual, sitting there on the sofa, a frown of concentration as he notched the wood. I tried to forget that it was a valuable ornament he was mutilating, and wishful thinking momentarily convinced me that I couldn’t really be in danger. If I could keep him calm, it would be all right.

  ‘You should be proud of your father,’ I said rallyingly, ‘he was a great painter.’

  ‘But not such a great man.’

  ‘Human, that’s all.’

  ‘He got the hell of a shock when he saw me, I can tell you!’

  My scalp tingled. This was just what I’d hoped would not happen, the knowledge I’d been fighting to suppress. The odd look was back in his eyes and I realised how foolish my self-deception had been. I was far from safe.

  ‘Derek thought – and I agreed – that he shouldn’t be allowed to get off scot-free. We decided I should go and see what I could get out of him.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  He shrugged, not denying it. ‘So – I found out where he was living and along I went. There were a lot of people milling about. I went in with a crowd of them and up to the second floor. Menzies let me in when I rang; he was alone.’

  His mouth twitched and his fingers, still grasping the little knife, started to tremble. This, I thought irrelevantly, is what Matthew and I had tried so hard to work out – the motive for murder.

  Mike looked up suddenly and met my eyes. ‘He was a nice old boy – goatee beard and rather long hair. When I said who I was, I thought he’d have a heart attack – his face went all grey.

  ‘He started talking quickly, but his voice was quiet and it was so noisy outside – shouting and laughing – that I could hardly hear him. It was something about always wanting to support me, but Grandfather and later my uncle would take nothing. Then he asked about Mother, and seemed shocked to hear she was dead.’

  Mike paused. His words had come unevenly, in staccato bursts, and he was breathing fast. My nails bit into my palms as my body tensed to take what was coming. I didn’t want to hear it, but I knew I had to. I, Emily Barton, had solved the riddle of Cameron Menzies’ murder, and I wished to God I had not.

  I jumped violently as Mike flung the penknife across the room. It clattered against the wall, nicking out a minute tongue of paper.

  ‘It was making me panicky, all that noise, and he went on and on explaining, trying to justify himself. I began to wonder if he was stalling, if perhaps he was expecting someone. So I cut him short, and told him I wanted ten thousand pounds.

  ‘He stared up at me as though he didn’t understand. Then he reached towards the phone and at the same moment there was an extra loud crash just outside the door. I lost my nerve, seized the ornament and hit him with it – only to stop him, really. But it was heavier than I thought, and it felled him.’

  His voice sank so low that I had to strain to hear him. ‘I just couldn’t believe it – I was rigid with shock. And when I could bring myself to look down, I saw that what he’d been reaching for was his cheque book, which was lying by the phone. He’d have paid up, Emily. If I’d given him the chance, he’d have paid.’

  ‘Instead,’ I whispered, ‘he paid with his life.’

  There was a long silence. Mike sat staring down at his empty hands. I was scarcely breathing, wondering what he’d do next.

  ‘I hadn’t touched anything else. I wiped the vase with my handkerchief and used it to open the door. Fortunately, there was no one in the corridor but the din was still going on across the way. There was a door nearby marked Service stairs, so I went down there and let myself out of the basement.’

  As we’d already deduced. I drew a shuddering breath. ‘It was an accident, Mike; almost –
in a roundabout way – self-defence.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I doubt if a jury would agree with you.’

  ‘And, of course,’ I was speaking half to myself, ‘Derek knew what had happened.’

  ‘Quite so. However –’ He stood up restlessly and went over to the window – ‘there was nothing remotely linking me with it – or so I thought. Till one day Linda Harvey started blabbing about the murder and going to see the old boy’s housekeeper.’

  He turned and gave me that terrible smile. ‘You did that too, didn’t you? But you saved yourself just in time – by explaining it was Matthew’s book you were talking about. That really shook me, I can tell you.’

  I thought back to Mike’s ashen face on the cliff, while I rubbed his ankle. I’d been surprised at the time that a sprain apparently severe enough to drain his colour should have mended so swiftly that we could continue our walk. But it had been shock, not pain, that blanched his face.

  ‘So that was why –’

  ‘Exactly; Linda’s death had nothing to do with any baby. Derek and I used to meet her most days at the Chapel Arms; unlike you, she didn’t stay behind typing when Matthew left her at midday, and one lunch-time she started talking about the murder. We were completely dumbfounded. We thought, naturally, that she’d rumbled us, and was going to put the pressure on.’

  ‘So?’ My mouth felt dry and swollen.

  ‘So that afternoon we positioned ourselves in the bracken on the clifftop and waited for her to go to the beach. Matthew was with her for a while, and as soon as he left, we went down. She was reading a book about drowning. Weird, that was.’

  ‘Drown her Remembrance.’

  ‘That’s it. We thought, of course, that she couldn’t swim, and it – well, it all happened more or less as I said in the car that day.’

  Yes, it had sounded too convincing not to be true; the fooling on the lilo, the tipping off, the realisation that they were expecting her to drown.

  ‘When we saw that she was swimming,’ Mike was saying tightly, ‘Derek panicked – damn nearly drowned himself. Pity he didn’t, really. I had to hold her head under, and she fought like a wild cat.’