by Fay Sampson
Lorna herself looked grave. She did not turn to smile at him. Had Jenny been wrong about the relationship between them?
What hope had Euan? she thought with sympathy. A boy probably earning not much more than the minimum wage, and a young woman who might now be the heiress of a business empire…
Only the ebullient Mair was missing. She would be at college. And anyway, she hadn’t been here on the afternoon of the murder.
Who else had?
Her mind flew to the two men in the Jaguar. What part did they play in Thaddaeus’s enterprises? Could there possibly be any connection between their visits and the entrepreneur’s death?
Sian would have told the police about them. Some officer would have been assigned to track them down and question them. And what were the chances that either of them was an archer competent enough to shoot a man through the eye?
But I am, the cold thought came. She glanced at Aidan, beside her. His morning face betrayed nothing.
The chief inspector cleared his throat. “We seem to have two people missing. Where are the youngsters who found the body? Mr Townsend and Miss French?” The question was addressed to Sian.
She looked uncomfortable. “They’ve left, I’m afraid. First thing this morning. They only meant to stay two nights. We’re rather more expensive than they wanted. I let them stay on one more night. But they gave me this for you.” She handed him a slip of paper. “It’s the YHA at Dolgellau. They should be there in a couple of days. And they’ve left a mobile number.”
“That’s disgraceful,” burst out Colin Ewart. “I wanted to leave and was told to stay put.”
“Forgive me if I’m wrong, Mr Ewart,” came Denbigh’s steely voice, “but I understood that you were booked till the end of the week.”
“And I’m not allowed to change my mind?”
“I’m conducting a murder investigation. I should expect you to cooperate with the police. Do you have an objection to that? Any reason why you would obstruct the police in their enquiries?”
For once Colin Ewart looked cowed.
Chief Inspector Denbigh addressed them all. “I’m sorry to intrude on you again. I know some of you came here for a holiday. But fresh information has come to light. Two days ago we were looking for an archer who shot Mr Brown. There were very few possibilities.”
His eyes swung round, not to Lorna, but to Jenny. She had a cold sensation that her heart was sinking into her feet. She dared not look at Aidan, though she badly needed his support.
“However, late yesterday I received the report of the post-mortem. It appears that the penetration of the arrow was not consistent with the velocity of an expert shot. It could have been a low-powered effort from close range, or…” his eyes roved over the gathering, “he was simply stabbed through the brain with the arrow. It would have required some force, but no expertise in archery. You will appreciate that this widens the scope of our enquiry considerably. We will undoubtedly have more questions to ask.”
Jenny felt momentarily dizzy. He had not fallen into the trap she had foolishly set for him. Instead, everyone in the room was now not merely a witness, but a potential suspect.
Everyone except… She looked down at Melangell. The girl sat on the rug at her parents’ feet, her thin arms clasped round her knees. She was watching the chief inspector intently.
Aidan felt the difference in the questioning. Two days before, he had been a witness. Someone who had potentially seen Thaddaeus’s murderer in the moments before or after the crime. DCI Denbigh had evidently discounted Aidan’s own ability to fire the fatal shot. Rightly so: Aidan had never taken up Jenny’s sport.
Now the Senior Investigating Officer sat across Sian’s desk from him with that relentless air of a schoolmaster who could make his pupils quake in their shoes in his pursuit of the latest culprit. Aidan felt that now. He wasn’t guilty, yet Denbigh made him feel that he was. The mournful furrows dragged the chief inspector’s cheeks down like a bloodhound’s. Yet there was nothing canine about his eyes today. His gaze was steely, impersonal.
Could he see into Aidan’s soul? Could he probe the worst horrors that had haunted him in the small dark hours of the night? That Jenny, his Jenny, might have let an arrow fly astray from her expert grasp to kill Thaddaeus.
With a shudder, he tried to shake the nightmare thought away.
“Melangell was with me the whole time. She can vouch for the fact that we came straight up the drive to the front door. I didn’t go anywhere near the butts until Harry came dashing across the lawn saying they’d found a body.”
“Your daughter. Yes, I’m sure she would vouch for you. She is…” he looked down at his notes, “seven years old?”
“Melangell says what she thinks,” Aidan replied, hotly.
Still, something of the chill went from the atmosphere. He was made to recount in elaborate detail what he had seen of the others. Harry had come bursting out of the shrubbery alone. It had been a short while before Debbie followed. She had seemed even more distraught. Before that, Jenny had been alone on the patio outside the lounge, half asleep over a book, when Aidan and Melangell returned. Sian had been nowhere in sight, but Aidan thought he had heard sounds from the kitchen, which he had assumed meant that Josef was at work. He understood that Mair had only returned to the House of the Hare after the murder, to help Sian out in a crisis. No, he hadn’t seen the Ewarts, and didn’t know where they were that afternoon.
“And Lorna Brown?”
Aidan was aware of his too-long hesitation. He answered brusquely. “I told you. We’d met her at the head of the valley, coming away from the waterfall. She was upset. Melangell and I stopped for a picnic, so she should have been back before us, if she came straight here. In fact, I know she was, because Jenny saw her arrive. But you know all this.”
DCI Denbigh steepled his fingers and gazed down at them. “I understand Mr Brown drove to the house of Mr Caradoc Lewis around midday. That’s near this waterfall, I understand.”
“Capel-y-Cwm. Yes. It’s the last house up the valley.”
“And Lorna Brown went with him?”
“I assume so. I didn’t see them leave here, but Lorna was with someone on the path from Capel-y-Cwm.”
“But you did see Mr Brown later.”
“Briefly.”
“Having an argument with Mr Lewis.”
“Yes.”
“About? If your excellent daughter has jogged your memory?”
“I think it had something to do with land. We weren’t close enough to hear all of it. Caradoc Lewis said something about hang-gliding. Then he started shouting at Thaddaeus, and there was a bit of a tussle.”
“So there were three people in the vicinity. All apparently upset.”
“Lorna wasn’t with them then. But I suppose she was before we met her. With one of them, at least.”
“So, whatever the precise means of Mr Brown’s death, Lorna could have been back to play a part in it. All she needed was access to an arrow, not necessarily a bow.”
The corollary sounded in Aidan’s head before the chief inspector voiced it.
“And the same is true of her friend, young Mr Jones.”
“Euan? If we’re talking about stabbing him with an arrow, anyone here could have done it. Well, maybe not Rachel Ewart. She’s only half his size and has trouble with her back.”
“Anyone. Precisely. You told me on Tuesday that you left Caradoc Lewis behind at his house. He couldn’t have overtaken you and been at the House of the Hare before you got back?”
“No. If he’d passed us on the road, we would have seen him.”
Chief Inspector Denbigh looked down at the map spread out beside him.
“Lincoln?”
The unobtrusive detective sergeant leaned his balding head forward from his notepad. He traced a line of green dashes on the map.
The inspector looked up at Aidan. “Are you aware that there is a footpath across the fields which starts not far from Mr Lewis’s hou
se and comes out here, close to the House of the Hare?” His finger jabbed the point on the map where the green line met the yellow ribbon of the road.
Aidan felt startled that he had overlooked this. But then, he had had no reason to associate Caradoc Lewis with archery. The net had suddenly been thrown wider.
“Yes. I mean, I’ve seen the footpath sign. I hadn’t worked out just where it went.”
“I’ll ask you again, Mr Davison. Could Caradoc Lewis have got to the House of the Hare before you and your daughter did?”
Aidan studied the route of the path. It was shorter than the road they had followed. He would have taken it himself if he had realized. He thought of Caradoc Lewis’s long legs, the controlled energy of his movements. “Yes,” he admitted. “We were pretty tired by then. We’d got a bit lost on the mountain before we found a way to the waterfall. So, yes. If he’d waited till we’d gone and then taken off across the fields at a fast lick, it’s possible.”
“Thank you.” The chief inspector almost purred.
Aidan tried to readjust his thoughts. Did that mean Lorna was no longer a suspect? Almost certainly not. She had the opportunity and a possible motive. Unlike Sian. But Inspector Denbigh had not questioned him closely on that. How much had Lorna told him about her relationship with her uncle? Was it really what he and Jenny had feared?
Jenny! The thought came like a jolt. A wave of guilt swept over him. He should never have told her abour that nightmare. No wonder she had been outraged. How could he possibly have entertained for a moment the idea that she might have fired the arrow, even by accident?
But someone had done it, while Jenny lay asleep on her bed or sat drowsily in her chair.
Cold fingers walked up his spine. What else might Jenny have seen? Or what might the killer think she had seen?
A splinter of memory pierced his anguished thoughts.
“Those men. Driving away from the house as we got back…”
“Ah, yes. Mr Secker and Mr McCarthy. Precisely.”
The grey eyes regarded him steadily under a wearily creased brow. They gave nothing more away.
“Thank you, Mr Davison.”
Chapter Fifteen
“WHY DID YOU upset Mummy?”
Melangell met Aidan in the foyer with that accusing stare of hers. He realized with a start how like the chief inspector’s it was. The same clear grey eyes. The same certainty that they were right. It was unnerving.
“I said something stupid,” he temporized. “I had a bad dream. I should never have told her about it. She was right to be mad at me.”
“Like she might have shot Mr Brown?” His face must have registered his shock. “Oh, Daddy! I’m not surprised she’s cross. I would be.”
“Yes,” he said, swallowing. “It was just a nightmare. And she didn’t mean to hit him, of course…” He met his daughter’s eyes. “Yes, it was stupid. Very stupid. But now we know that arrow didn’t have to come from a bow, it could have been anyone.”
“Like you.” She looked up at him gravely.
Aidan’s mouth fell open. He stared back at her, trying to gauge how serious she was.
Her elfin face broke into a grin, showing the gaps in her teeth. “See? That’s what it feels like.”
“You little horror!” He rumpled her curls in relief.
All the same, it was an unsettling feeling. Did the inspector have any reason to think it might be him? Had he really believed Aidan’s account of coming back to the house through the front door, and not taking a route through the grounds, where he could have met Thaddaeus? Would Melangell’s testimony be enough?
Was DCI Denbigh shrewd enough to sense the anger Aidan had felt when he thought of Thaddaeus abusing Lorna? He had an uncomfortable suspicion that he was.
“Where’s Mummy now?”
“Talking to Josef.”
A start brought Aidan back to the present. “Josef? Why?”
Melangell gave an exaggerated shrug. “I expect she wants to know why he’s angry.”
“Is he?”
“He sounded angry.”
A new unease was growing. “Where are they?”
He had no idea of the relationship between the Polish chef and his late employer. He hadn’t been able to imagine Josef, in his chequered trousers and black cap, taking a bow and shooting Thaddaeus. But now…
The kitchen was on the opposite side of the house from the archery butts. If Josef had gone from one to the other, he must have passed the back of the house. Most people would have been out of the house then. But not Jenny. She could easily have seen him, from the bedroom or the patio.
But surely she would have said?
On the day of the murder it was at the forefront of everyone’s mind that the police were looking for an archer. A glimpse of someone else might have slipped her mind. And Jenny had yet to have her second interview with DCI Denbigh, now that the field of suspicion had been thrown wide open. Meanwhile, she was alone with Josef.
“Where?”
Melangell looked frightened by his vehemence. “Round the back of the kitchen. There.” She pointed in the opposite direction to Sian’s office.
He was off down the corridor with long strides. He burst into the kitchen. There was no one there. An outer door stood half open. It led out into the grounds at the side of the house. Aidan strode through it.
They were sitting on a bench against the wall. Josef, in his chef’s uniform, was drawing hungrily on a cigarette. Jenny, her bald head bound in her favourite pink-and-purple scarf, was leaning back against the wall.
She looked up in surprise as Aidan burst upon the scene, followed by a curious Melangell. Was that a flash of alarm on Josef’s face?
“Oh, there you are!” Aidan said lamely.
“Yes. Is there a problem?” Jenny looked at him coldly.
“No… I just wondered… I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“Josef and I were discussing his future. He’s naturally worried what will happen to his job now. I told him that the House of the Hare was Lorna’s idea, that I’m sure she’ll keep it going, once the will is proved.”
“Yes. I see.”
Melangell had said that Josef had sounded angry. Why? With Jenny?
The young Pole lifted his sallow face. “The police think that Miss Lorna killed her uncle. No?”
“The inspector did. But they couldn’t find enough evidence to keep her under arrest. And now they say it could have been anyone.”
“But she is still a suspect. She gets the money, so she has a reason to do it.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“And if they find she kills him, she cannot have the money. Is right?”
“Well, yes. I guess it would be. They can’t let a murderer profit from the crime. But I can’t believe she did it.”
“No?” Josef gave a sceptical shrug. “And if she did, who gets it then? All this?” He gestured around him. The neat kitchen garden, with rows of young vegetables and clumps of silver-leaved herbs. The fruit trees beyond, leaning long branches over the grass, another survival from the days before the House of the Hare was built. A glimpse of empty tennis courts and the covered pool..
“I don’t know. Sian said Lorna was Thaddaeus’s only family. I’ve no idea if his will made provision for anyone else.”
“You don’t think that other girl… Miss Debbie?”
“Debbie French?” Aidan had a vision of the weeping teenager, her helmet of black hair dishevelled, emerging from the rhododendron bushes after Harry.
“I see them talking the evening before. Over there.” He pointed towards the tennis courts. “This Debbie and Mr Brown. And she is laughing and holding his arm, like she knows him before. And Mr Brown is seeming like he don’t want to be talking to her, and looking round to see if people noticing. They don’t see me in the kitchen.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“This Debbie. She has a look a bit African. Like him. You see it? And I am thinking, what if
she is his daughter? Not by marriage, you understand. A… how do you say this?”
“An illegitimate child?” Jenny suggested.
“Perhaps. I don’t know.”
“But that’s preposterous!” Aidan burst out. “There are millions of people in this country with African blood. That doesn’t make them all next of kin. It’s a daft idea.”
“All the same,” Jenny said, thoughtfully, “I always wondered what that pair were doing staying here. Like they said, it’s outside their normal price range. Do you think she might have had a reason to come here and see Thaddaeus?”
“Cobblers! They were just on a walking holiday. The House of the Hare is the only place you can stay in Pennant Melangell. That’s why Lorna wanted Thaddaeus to build it.”
“They could have stayed in one of the pubs in Llangynog down the road, as we did when we came the first time.”
“Mmm. Have you told the police this?” Aidan demanded of Josef. “Though it’s hardly suspicious for the owner of the house to be talking to one of his guests.”
“No. The inspector, he ask me what I do the day Mr Brown is murdered. Who I see. He didn’t ask anything about the night before.”
Jenny’s thoughts were following his. “If there really is a connection between Debbie and Thaddaeus… Well, Lorna would still be the obvious suspect, wouldn’t she? And if she was convicted, she’d lose the inheritance. If Debbie could prove that Thaddaeus was her father, and there was no provision in the will for anyone else and no other living relatives, then she might claim to be the beneficiary, mightn’t she? Not just the House of the Hare, but everything else Thaddaeus owned.”
“I’m not a lawyer. But it’s all moonshine. One conversation between Debbie and Thaddaeus. A touch of African descent.”
“We won’t know, will we? Unless they bring Lorna to trial and convict her.” Jenny got up. “Try not to worry about it, Josef. I’m sure it wasn’t Lorna. So the House of the Hare is safe with her. And your job.”
