by Ann Granger
‘If someone did,’ Tom told him, ‘I hope, for his sake and yours, you find him before I do.’
‘Don’t make threats, Tom . . .’ Markby warned. ‘Not even just in front of me. I have to take note of them.’
Tom grinned unpleasantly. ‘When my old granny was buried, it wasn’t in Westerfield churchyard, that was just the church service. It was out there on the common. No one knows where the grave is except those who laid her in it. Gorse and brambles grown over now, most likely. Born on the common, died on the common, laid to rest on the common. Plenty of room up there for another one. You’d never find him, Alan.’
Markby drove them both to Bamford, returned Tom his car keys and watched him drive off in his Mercedes with a flourish. The station was busy but none of it was directly his business, so he slipped out quietly before anyone realised he was available and went home.
It was two o’clock. At the Master’s they would be finishing lunch. A decent lunch with a decent wine and a bottle of decent port. Markby rummaged in his larder and opened a tin of baked beans and pushed two slices of bread in the toaster. He ate this frugal meal, made a pot of tea and went into his living room and switched on the television. Sport. He was not a TV sports fan. The relentless chatter of the commentators got him down and the boring pontifications of innumerable experts and inarticulate ‘stars’ unburdening themselves of their opinions to pally interviewers. He changed channels. More sport. Horse racing. He’d had enough of horses for one day, thank you. He switched the set off.
As he did so, his front-door bell rang. He made his cautious way towards it, mug of tea in hand, and opened it.
‘Hi!’ said Fran Needham-Burrell. ‘Tracked you to your lair. Are you busy?’
‘No,’ he replied foolishly.
‘Can I come in, then?’
‘Yes – yes, of course.’ Markby pulled himself together and stood back to let her into the hall. He put down his mug and asked hurriedly, ‘Can I take your coat? Sorry to look so surprised. I thought it might have been Laura – my sister.’
She was divesting herself of a cream-coloured wool coat. He took it from her to hang it up and noticed the continental label in it. It weighed a ton. Probably cost a month of his salary. ‘In here,’ he opened the living-room door. ‘I was just having a cup of tea—’
‘Not for me, thanks. I’m awash with food and drink. I just had lunch with Bungy and Charlotte.’
Bungy? The Master? Lord.
‘So I understand. I called by to wish them Happy New Year this morning.’
‘They told me. You turned down an invitation to join us at lunch – was that because I was going to be there?’
‘No!’ he said too vehemently. ‘It was because I’d already arranged to see someone else this morning and I couldn’t guarantee to be able to turn up on time at lunch. It was work-connected.’
‘I see.’ She settled herself on his sofa, crossing her legs and tapping one tan-booted foot. She wore some kind of peasanty skirt which went well with the boots and her com-blonde hair was twisted into a long rope and secured with an orange silk scarf tied in a bow. ‘I thought you might be lunching à deux elsewhere.’
‘I had beans on toast here in my kitchen, as it happens.’
She gave her throaty chuckle which was singularly effective. ‘We had roast pork and apple sauce, lovely crispy roast potatoes and Queen of Puddings which I hadn’t had since I was a kid.’
‘Have you,’ Markby asked her, ‘come here to gloat?’
She shook her head. ‘I thought we ought to have a word. Bungy’s had one of those anonymous letters you were asking me if Harriet received, hasn’t he? I mean, he’s had another one.’
‘Did he tell you that?’ Markby asked cautiously.
‘No, of course he didn’t. Charlotte did. Don’t look so surprised. I know she isn’t supposed to know but he’s hopeless at keeping anything secret. He acts so furtively that she always knows at once something is going on and she’s got her own methods of finding out what. She knew about the previous one, too.’
Markby, remembering the Master’s cloak-and-dagger manner on the phone, sighed. Most wives were natural detectives. ‘Yes, but he doesn’t want it discussed openly. He thinks, rightly I’m sure, that if it gets about someone else will get the idea to write a few letters. We’ll be snowed under with the things.’
‘Is this,’ Fran asked coolly, ‘connected with Harriet’s death?’
There was a silence. ‘I don’t know,’ Markby said at last.
‘You do think, then, there is something fishy about the way she died? About the pills.’
‘I think there is just a possibility but I have to stress that I have no evidence, certainly nothing I could put before a coroner or my immediate superiors. All I have are verbal statements made by people who knew Harriet, yourself included, which suggest she never took pills of that kind or any kind. Nor can we find the packet or bottle, or trace where she got them from. She wasn’t prescribed any by her regular doctor. You can’t find any in the cottage and my sergeant went through the household rubbish and there was no discarded wrapping or chemist’s bag in that. We even went through her car and didn’t find a thing. It’s a mystery and I don’t like mysteries. As for the letters, they may be totally unconnected. Until I find out something about Harriet’s movements and meetings over Christmas, I shan’t be any the wiser.’
‘You haven’t traced the boyfriend, then? The one who was there on Christmas Day?’
‘No. We have eliminated one possibility, however.’
‘Don’t tell me. The handsome gipsy? But whoever slipped her the pills – supposing someone did and I, for one, am more inclined to believe that than that she took them voluntarily – he must have been there on Boxing Day morning to do it.’
‘Yes, she had a guest at breakfast. We can’t find him, either.’
‘Not the same chap?’
‘Not necessarily. The Christmas Day visitor drove off late at night. He might have come back, of course.’
‘How long,’ Fran asked in her direct way, ‘will you spend going into all this, before you file it away and forget it?’
‘The inquest was put off because of the holiday period. It’s scheduled for Friday. As things are, it’s going to be pretty routine. Medical evidence. Eyewitness account of the accident. A question mark over the pills but well, there’s an open grate in Ivy Cottage. She could have burned the box. As for the incident in the Market Square, given her dodgy medical condition it was only a matter of time before she fell off anyway – and her drinking habits were well known. I’m afraid there’s not enough to bring in a verdict of unlawful killing of any kind. Much less—’ he broke off.
Fran finished for him. ‘Murder by person or persons unknown? We’re talking about murder now, aren’t we?’
‘It’s possible.’
A flash of annoyance showed in her sea-green eyes. ‘You people are always so damn cautious! So as I understand it, if you don’t come up with something concrete by way of evidence by Friday, that’s it. Harry’s buried and forgotten.’
‘I can’t make bricks without straw, Frances.’
‘No, I dare say you can’t.’ She tapped one tan boot sharply on the carpet. ‘It is possible to get away with murder, isn’t it? It does happen, all the time, doesn’t it?’
Markby smiled. ‘No one can say, can they? If foul play isn’t suspected—’
‘Even when it is suspected, as now? And I know of it happening before! Well, that’s got nothing to do with this—’ Fran hunched her shoulders. ‘I’m not driving. I walked from The Crossed Keys to lunch and from there to here. You can offer me a drink.’
Markby blinked. ‘Certainly. My pleasure.’
‘Whisky, if you’ve got it.’
When she had sipped at her drink, she asked with a malicious gleam in her green eyes, ‘Where’s Meredith?’
‘At Rose Cottage, I assume.’
‘All alone? Don’t you worry about Tom Fearon? I would, in
your boots.’
‘I don’t think she’s overly keen on poor Tom. I don’t know what he’s done to upset her. But I don’t, actually, like her being on her own out there. It’s very lonely.’
‘How do you come to be friends? I mean, she’s always been working abroad, as I understand it.’
‘We met on a case – when she was last in England.’
‘And is she going to carry on living out there in Pook’s Common and you here?’ Fran waved a hand at their surroundings. ‘Nothing more permanent?’
He felt himself flush. ‘Things are likely to stay the way they are. We don’t have any plans to change them.’
‘Fine. I like to know where the boundaries are in any situation. Nothing to stop you taking me to dinner, then?’
‘I can’t afford you!’ he said, returning her some of her own coin. ‘On my salary? You must be joking.’
‘Oh, come on. If it’s that bad, I’ll take you out to dinner.’
‘I have already got a dinner date for tonight.’
‘Meredith, I suppose. Well, we can make it another night. I shall be at The Crossed Keys until the beginning of next week.’ She tossed back the remains of her drink and stood up.
As he helped her on with her coat, she said seriously, ‘I’m relying on you, you know.’
‘I’m doing my best. But at the moment, there isn’t even a motive. That’s the worst.’
‘I’m Harry’s principal heiress, apart from some bequests she made to animal charities. I stood to gain but I didn’t slip pills to her – and I was skiing in Switzerland at the time.’ Green eyes mocked him.
‘Something tells me,’ Markby said to her, ‘that you like living dangerously.’
She burst into a peal of laughter, ‘You mean I’m a bit of a bitch. Well, thanks for the drink and the words of wisdom. Happy New Year!’ She leaned forwards. A cloud of expensive perfume enveloped him and firm, warm lips planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘Don’t forget me, now. Cheery-bye.’
He closed the door on her With relief. Life was getting altogether too complicated.
Nine
When Markby had left her to drive down to the stables, Meredith went back into the kitchen and made coffee for herself. She took it into the living room, lit the gas fire and picked up the local paper which she had bought the day before in Bamford, but had not yet got round to reading.
She felt unsettled and it was due to more than the unforeseen events which had taken place since she arrived in Pook’s Common. She was sure now, more than she had ever been, that coming back here was a mistake. She had been afraid of this. She should have known on the day she arrived and found the welcome card from Alan on the doormat. Alan was, of course, hoping that one day . . . and it was impossible.
She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want, truthfully, for their friendship to end. But, deep down, she was frightened by the prospect of its progressing into anything more ‘meaningful’ as an agony aunt would have described it. She just couldn’t cope with a further development. But nothing stood still and her friendship with Alan couldn’t stand still for much longer either. She was going to have to do something about it. She was thirty-five years old, she’d always been on her own and looked after herself. It was too late to change and tie herself to someone else. But she knew that was untrue. Of course it could be done. People married or entered into permanent relationships later in life and thrived on them. But it would turn her world upside-down.
What worried her most was how much longer she could put off the fateful moment when he, quite fairly, would try to pin her down, tell her she had to make up her mind. Some people would say she had already made up her mind – hut she hadn’t. Nor could she. But in all fairness neither could she keep the poor man dangling at the end of a rope. With so few close friends and family she was loath to break off any relationship which offered friendship and companionship. She was, to be honest, lonely. He was lonely too, but what he wanted was something all too orthodox – a home, a garden, the traditional setting for a pipe-and-slippers life. He might not realise this himself yet, but Meredith could see it all too clearly. She liked him – very much. She respected him. ‘But I’m not in love with him!’ she said aloud.
Or was all that just a lot of nonsense? Some of the best and most lasting unions were founded on common sense and mutual respect and interests. Love came along later. Some of the most passionate encounters, on the other hand, fizzled out leaving nothing but regrets. And some, like that other one which had dominated her life and thinking for so many years, remained unfulfilled, unfulfillable and in the end, nothing perhaps but a sheer waste of time, emotion and commitment. That one was over and done with, gone and surprisingly seldom thought about now.
That left Alan. She had to get a grip on all of this before it careered out of control. Tonight, he was coming tonight and would probably want to go out and eat somewhere, she’d tell him tonight. She’d make it clear just where she stood. Disabuse him of any lingering hopes. Having made this resolution, far from feeling better, she now felt like a monster. And also as if she was about to do something very rash.
Meredith sighed and opened up the Bamford Gazette. Harriet. Right there in a large photograph in the middle of the page under the heading ‘Local rider dies in tragic accident’. It went on to describe the events in the Market Square and added a potted history of the Bamford Hunt. The hunt’s history had in fact been singularly uneventful. The only previous time it had gained itself headlines in the paper and invoked the word ‘tragedy’ had been when some hounds ran on to the railway line in 1904.
Meredith checked the date on the paper. The Bamford Gazette was a weekly sheet. Normally it appeared on a Wednesday but this year, the two public holidays falling on a Wednesday, the Gazette had appeared early on a Tuesday. The accident had happened the previous Thursday so naturally it was reported in this edition, still quite hot news from the Gazette’s point of view.
She turned back to the picture of Harriet and studied it. It appeared to have been blown up and taken from a larger group, photographed at some horsy event, probably a local gymkhana. In it Harriet was wearing a riding hat and jacket. Her hair was tied back at the nape of her neck and cascaded down between her shoulder-blades in a mane. She was laughing and looked as if she held out her hands to receive something – a cup? That bit of the picture had been chopped off. She looked so happy. In her mind’s eye, Meredith saw the toppling figure fall from the rearing horse and plunge to the ground. She saw the blood, seeping out from beneath the red hair, the pale, frozen face, the eyes open in blank surprise. Obscene. It was obscene. Death was obscene. There had been so much life in Harriet and it had just been snuffed out in an instant, purposelessly. Meredith, still studying the picture, moved on to scrutinise the figures in the background.
Yes, the Gazette had dredged this picture up from their files. A local event and someone must have been presenting some trophy and the other competitors were gathered behind to watch and applaud. All wore riding gear. One – Meredith brought the paper nearly up to her nose to squint at it – was familiar. It was a man, a burly man in a hard hat which cut off the top third of his face and to make things more difficult, the figure of Harriet in the foreground obscured part of the right-hand side of his features. But what remained visible seemed known to her, though Meredith could not, for the life of her, identify him. It wasn’t Tom Fearon, at any rate. Tom’s swarthy, handsome features would mark him out in any crowd instantly.
Meredith threw the paper aside. If she sat here the whole thing taken together with her other worries would just get her down. What she needed to do was get out in the fresh air. She fetched her anorak and pulled on her boots and let herself out of the cottage. At the gate she paused for an instant – which way? The common – dank and forbidding though it had seemed on the brief visit she’d paid to the edge of it – remained to be explored. The common, then.
To get to the common she had to walk past the stables. Alan Markby’s car was s
till parked outside but the yard looked empty. Meredith hesitated and found herself listening for men’s voices, upraised in argument. But all was quiet. They had probably gone to Tom’s ramshackle bungalow behind the stable yard. And men being more inclined to give and take in their relationships with one another than women sometimes were, they had probably forgotten the dispute of the previous evening and Tom’s behaviour at The Bunch of Grapes – to say nothing of a New Year’s Eve ruined for both Markby and Meredith – and were sitting in Tom’s living room, sinking cans of beer. Men! Why, last night Alan had nearly driven off and left her standing outside the pub! He’d been completely taken up with getting Tom home safely and she had been relegated to ‘also ran’.
They take you for granted, that’s what! thought Meredith, irrationally annoyed now though the previous evening she had been quite equable about it. Harriet had been right when saying that it was advisable not to let Tom get the better of you, only she should have said, don’t let men get the better of you. You ended up like Geoffrey Haynes and poor Lucy. Keep your independence, Meredith!
Caught up in this mental diatribe she had reached the edge of the common without realising and now stopped abruptly, hands in pockets, to stare out across it.
What a scene of desolation. Perhaps in summer it was prettier and more inviting. Now it looked like a setting for some Victorian melodrama, such was the indefinably sinister air of it. Yet perhaps the sensations it inspired were much older, reaching down into a heritage of folk subconsciousness. Tales of witches’ sabbaths and hallowe’en nights and cadavers creaking on gibbets in the moonlight.
‘Stop this!’ Meredith admonished herself aloud. If she let herself go on thinking this way, she’d turn tail and run home. She walked on purposefully. The wind with no impediment blew strongly across the flat heath-land. The grass beneath her feet was brownish-green and the shrubs and trees dotted about leafless and ugly. She found she was following a narrow bridle track – a true bridle track at that for in the soft mud the imprint of horseshoes could clearly be seen. Tom Fearon rode out this way and often, from the number of tracks. Harriet, too, must have ridden here, sometimes with Tom and sometimes alone. But Harriet wouldn’t have scared herself with superstitious fancies.
