Fair Game

by Sheila Radley

  ‘She mustn’t blame herself in any way,’ said Lewis Glaven. ‘Thank God she wasn’t caught by the shot, too.’

  ‘We’re all thankful for that,’ said Hilary. She had been checking through her notes, and now she came up with another question.

  ‘Did you change the placing of the Guns for that last drive, Mr Glaven? Chief Inspector Tait said that Mr Barclay Dodd should have been at the peg on his left, but your son arrived instead. Did you arrange that for Hope’s benefit?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Didn’t think she’d enjoy the shooting, d’you see. By putting Will on the peg next to Tait, I ensured that the two young women would at least be neighbours. Moral support, and so forth.’

  Hilary smiled at him with apparent appreciation. ‘That was very considerate. Obviously you did all you could to make the shoot less unpleasant for her.

  ‘But what I don’t understand,’ she added, losing the smile, ‘is why you thought it necessary to take Hope Meynell to the shoot at all. You say you “didn’t think she’d enjoy” it. Our information is that she was dreading the shoot. Wouldn’t it have been even more considerate of you to let her stay away?’

  Lewis Glaven stared at the sergeant for a moment, his jaw tightening, his moustache bristling with annoyance. Then he turned to Quantrill. ‘That,’ he said stiffly, ‘is something more easily explained by one father to another.’

  Hilary closed her notebook and stood up. ‘I have to talk to Mrs Harbord,’ she said. ‘Excuse me.’ She walked quickly to the door of the room, but Glaven reached it first and held it open for her with a distant courtesy.

  Quantrill eased the tension by helping himself to one of the housekeeper’s sandwiches, and found that they were as delicious as they looked. Molly’s cold roast beef was cardboard-brown and in desperate need of pickled onions; Mrs Harbord’s rare pink beef was a revelation, tender and juicy and full of flavour. The sandwiches almost tasted of loving care, as though she expended on her employer all the emotional energy she failed to give her daughter.

  Lewis Glaven poured coffee for both of them. ‘Tricky young woman, your sergeant,’ he commented with disapproval.

  ‘She’s very good at her job,’ said Quantrill. ‘And her question is mine, too. Tradition’s all very well – I’m in favour of it myself – but neither of us can understand why you wanted Hope Meynell to go to the shoot when you knew she would hate it. As one father to another …?’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Lewis Glaven looked keenly at Quantrill. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘are you entirely happy about the relationship between your daughter and young Tait?’

  Quantrill hesitated for a moment. They were sitting on either side of the table, and he decided to put his cards on it.

  ‘Professionally,’ he said, ‘I respect Martin Tait. But does a father ever feel that any man is good enough for his daughter?’

  ‘My own feelings exactly. Wouldn’t have chosen either of my sons-in-law. Different with a son, of course. No question of Hope Meynell not being “good enough” for Will – charming girl. But not right for Chalcot, d’you see. It wouldn’t suit her. Will needs a wife who understands country living, a young woman who can handle dogs and horses, and doesn’t mind a bit of muck.’

  ‘So what were you trying to do? Frighten Hope Meynell off?’

  ‘Not “frighten” her, good God no. That would be indefensible. Didn’t want Will to persuade her to marry him under false pretences, though. Unfair to the girl, to let her think that life at Chalcot was going to be all country walks and cosiness.’

  Quantrill nodded, half-convinced. ‘Even so, a shoot was bound to be a horrifying experience for her. Wasn’t it a cruel way of making your point?’

  ‘Possibly,’ conceded Lewis Glaven. ‘Being cruel in order to be kind, perhaps …’

  He stood up and walked restlessly about the room, a frown of distress on his face. ‘Wish to God it hadn’t ended like this, of course. Can’t tell you how bitterly I regret it. But that’s all hindsight. At the time, it seemed an ideal way of showing the girl that she wouldn’t enjoy living at Chalcot.’

  He stopped pacing and looked straight at Quantrill, his frown replaced by a challenging look.

  ‘Now then. As one father to another, if you had an equally effective way of sorting out your daughter’s boyfriend, wouldn’t you take it? Eh?’

  ‘Like a shot,’ Quantrill admitted.

  In the circumstances, as he realised immediately afterwards, that hadn’t been the most tactful way of putting it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sergeant Lloyd, calling on Mrs Harbord in her kitchen, had found the housekeeper in a strange mood. Her eyes had an exultant shine but her expression, as she stood riffling through the telephone directory, was a mixture of worry and anger.

  ‘No luck with Laura’s friends?’ asked Hilary.

  ‘Not so far. I’ve spoken to one girl I know of, in the village, and she’s given me some other names. But either they haven’t seen Laura, or there’s no reply.’

  ‘What about Darren Jermyn?’

  ‘I rang his lodgings. His landlady says he didn’t sleep there last night – she hasn’t seen him since yesterday morning. She thinks he might have gone to his own home for the weekend, though he hadn’t said anything about it. I’ve been ringing his home, at Brocklesford, but there’s no one there.’

  Hilary’s insides took an apprehensive dip, but she spoke reassuringly. ‘Families often go out for the day on Sundays, don’t they? There’ll be a better chance of catching them this evening. But don’t bother with Darren any more, I’ll contact him.’

  ‘Ooh, will you?’ Ann Harbord, her gypsy ear-rings swinging, turned to Hilary with eager relief. ‘Oh, I shall be so grateful. Look, here’s a list of Laura’s friends’names, with questionmarks where I couldn’t get through. Thank you ever so much for taking over.’

  Hilary stared at the woman in astonishment. Ann Harbord was transformed. Her worried frown had disappeared, her lips were no longer tight with annoyance. It was beyond belief, considering that she had no idea where her daughter was, but she looked almost happy.

  ‘Mrs Harbord,’ said Hilary, trying to get through to her. ‘Laura is only fifteen – you can’t just abandon your concern.’

  Ann Harbord flushed, all the way up from her neck to the sharp-edged fringe of her black-dyed hair. ‘Of course I’m still concerned,’ she protested. ‘I’ve done everything possible to find her – what else can I do?’

  ‘Most mothers,’ said Hilary in a carefully controlled voice, ‘regardless of what the police were doing, would want to go on ringing round their daughters’friends until they’d spoken to all of them.’

  ‘Most mothers’, retorted Mrs Harbord, ‘live in their own houses and are at liberty to use the telephone as much as they like. This is Mr Glaven’s house. My job is to look after his interests, not my own.’

  Hilary looked at her in disbelief. ‘Do you mean that you haven’t even told him your daughter’s missing?’

  ‘I didn’t want to bother him.’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake,’ Hilary protested. ‘The feudal system’s finished, even on an estate like this! When Mr Glaven knows that Laura’s missing, he’ll expect you to drop everything else until she’s found. Haven’t you any transport? Can’t you go and call on her friends?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got transport. Mr Glaven kindly gives me the use of a car. But I can’t just go out, not when he and Major Will are so upset. I don’t yet know whether they’ll want lunch, or whether there’ll be any guests for supper …’

  Her voice was querulous with self-justification. Despairing of getting any action out of her, Hilary spoke more kindly.

  ‘Would it help if I told Mr Glaven about Laura?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Mrs Harbord became agitated. ‘I don’t want him disturbed in any way, not when he’s got Miss Meynell’s accident on his mind. He’s a wonderful employer – I’m so lucky to work for him.’

  ‘I see. So what you’re telling me,’ said Hilary, ‘is t
hat your job is more important to you than your daughter.’

  Ann Harbord considered the matter.

  ‘In the long run,’ she said simply, ‘yes, it is.’

  ‘Laura will be back,’ she explained, ‘I’m sure of it. The fact is, though, she’ll be leaving home in a few years’ time anyway. But with Major Will not getting married after all, he and his father are going to need me. I’ll be able to stay here now, and look after Mr Glaven for the rest of his life!’

  Her eyes were exultant. Even when Hilary made the requests that chill the hearts of most parents – to look at the missing child’s room, to be given last-seen-wearing details, to take away a photograph – Ann Harbord seemed insulated by happiness.

  Lewis Glaven already knew that his housekeeper’s daughter was missing. The chief inspector had told him, at the end of their discussion.

  ‘Good God,’ said Glaven with concern. ‘Hasn’t the child been seen since she tried to stop the shoot?’

  ‘Your gamekeeper saw her, immediately after the shooting stopped. He told Martin Tait that she was with his assistant, Darren Jermyn.’

  Lewis Glaven’s face cleared. ‘Ah, that’s all right, then. Thought for a moment that you meant she could be lying shot, somewhere up at Belmont. Couldn’t bear a second tragedy.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Sergeant Lloyd, who had quietly re-entered the gun room, ‘we’re concerned to know Laura’s whereabouts. Her mother hasn’t been able to get any telephone information from her friends.’

  ‘Has Mrs Harbord spoken to Darren?’ said Quantrill.

  ‘He seems to have disappeared, too. That may be a good sign, of course. Some of Laura’s clothes are missing, as well as the old bicycle she uses, so she must have planned to go away. Darren might have decided to go with her.’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ said Quantrill, for the benefit of Lewis Glaven. ‘But until we’re sure of that …’

  He had been thinking back to the domestic murder he and Hilary had dealt with earlier that week, when a jealously possessive husband had fired a shotgun at his disaffected wife.

  I loved her so much, the man had said as he wept over her body.

  And Quantrill hadn’t doubted it, because every experienced detective knows that assault and even murder are often powered by love.

  True, they didn’t yet know anything about Darren Jermyn’s character. Perhaps, like Quantrill himself, Darren wasn’t possessive. Perhaps his love for Laura wasn’t strong enough to drive him to desperation when she no longer returned it.

  But there were those other statements to be considered. They were all over each other in the summer, Mrs Harbord had said. Then Laura went off him.

  Yet, according to Tait, the gamekeeper had seen them just after the shoot, messing about with each other behind a tree.

  Was that ‘messing about’voluntary, on Laura’s part? Or was it a preliminary to a second tragedy, more horrific than the accidental shooting that Lewis Glaven had feared?

  Quantrill stood up. There were routine procedures to be gone through, and the sooner the better.

  ‘With your permission, Mr Glaven, we’ll make a search of the area where Laura was last seen. I’ll raise as many police officers as I can, but we’re going to run out of daylight before they’ve finished. Sorry to ask for your help, when you’ve your own tragedy to contend with, but –’

  ‘You’ll need more searchers, eh?’ Lewis Glaven stood too, gladdened by the prospect of useful activity. ‘I’ll tell my gamekeeper to round up yesterday’s beaters. Ideal men for the job. I’ll come as well, of course – only too glad to be able to help.’

  Quantrill had planned, as he drove through Chalcot village first thing that morning, that he would give Hilary a proper Sunday lunch at the Dun Cow. It was an attractive old pub, its grey bricks crimsoned at this time of the year with Virginia creeper. It had as good a reputation for food as any in the area, and he’d been looking forward to sharing a long leisurely meal with her.

  In the event, by the time he had organised the setting up of the search party, and Hilary had interviewed Darren Jermyn’s landlady, all the restaurant tables at the Dun Cow had already been taken. But Hilary said – enigmatic as always – that she’d promised to cook a meal that evening, anyway, and she’d be perfectly happy just to eat a bowl of soup in the bar. It wasn’t Quantrill’s idea of Sunday lunch, with or without her company. But at least it gave him a retrospective justification for having eaten more than one beef sandwich at Chalcot House.

  Hilary found a vacant bar table for two, and Quantrill fetched a glass of wine for her, and a pint of his favourite Adnams bitter. Space under the small round table was cramped. As he fitted his long legs under it, his knee accidentally pressed her thigh, sending his pulse-rate leaping.

  ‘Sorry!’

  He moved immediately, and she gave him a disturbingly complex half-smile. It acknowledged that the contact hadn’t been deliberate, but it also recognised with wry appreciation that he wasn’t sorry in the least. He was sure, too, that he detected a reciprocal spark in her eye. But then she looked away, and wasted the rest of her smile on the assistant barman who brought their soup.

  Quantrill’s knee was still tingling, in imagination anyway, from the contact. But the assistant, an amiable amateur, had omitted to bring any spoons. In the business of signalling to him and being provided with what he seemed to consider a novel requirement – ‘There y’go,’ he said, humouring them. ‘Chiz.’ – Quantrill had time to recover his breath and his wits.

  ‘Did you get any useful information from Darren’s landlady?’ he asked.

  ‘Not much that Mrs Harbord hadn’t already told us. The boy biked to work yesterday morning, as usual, but he doesn’t seem to have taken any spare clothes so he can’t have planned to stay away. There’s still no reply from his home telephone number. I thought I’d go there this afternoon.’

  ‘I’d like us both to have a word with Will Glaven first,’ said Quantrill. ‘Until we get the forensic report on Hope Meynell, we can’t usefully do much more about the shooting. But though I can understand, now, why Lewis Glaven wanted Hope to go to the shoot, I’m damned if I can understand why Will inflicted it on her.’

  ‘According to Martin, there seemed to be some kind of question mark over their relationship.’

  ‘That’s why I want to talk to Will as soon as possible. He should have finished his ride by the time we get back to the house.’ Quantrill looked at his watch and then – mindful not to slurp – polished off his soup.

  ‘After we’ve seen Will Glaven,’ he said, ‘we’ll concentrate on young Laura. I’ll go over to Belmont wood and check the progress of the search party, while you track down Darren Jermyn. When you find him, bring him in.’

  The original stables at the back of Chalcot House had been replaced in the late nineteenth century by a larger block, built on the far side of the shrubbery downwind of the Glavens’residence.

  That was where Quantrill and Hilary found Will Glaven, mucking out the brick-walled stable yard. For a few moments they stood at its entrance, watching him as he forked up a reeking pile of straw with manic energy.

  He was no longer a laid-back cavalry officer in perfectly cut sporting tweeds, but a dishevelled stable hand in a battered cap, dirty old sweater and breeches. His clothes were dark with sweat, his own and the horse’s. As he worked, head down, steam rose from his body and mingled in the cold air with steam from the heap of muck.

  His black labrador lay outside a half-open loose box, from which came the occasional clop of a hoof as a weary horse shifted on clean straw. The dog, nose on tired paws, was watching Will, who was himself clearly exhausted.

  ‘Once he stops working, he’ll collapse,’ said Hilary.

  ‘I’ll steer him into that tack room over there,’ said Quantrill. ‘He’ll have leathers to clean, but at least he can sit down on the job.’

  He walked across the yard in full view of Will Glaven, but even so he had to touch the man’s arm to gain his at
tention. Looking dazed, Will stood rocking on his feet as the chief inspector introduced himself and his sergeant.

  ‘You have our sincere sympathy,’ said Quantrill. ‘My daughter Alison’s, too. But what I reckon you could do with at the moment,’ he added, holding up a four-pack he’d brought from the pub, ‘is a beer.’

  Will Glaven blinked in surprise, and then muttered his agreement. He sluiced his hands and his handsome sweat-streaked face under an outside tap, wiped his face on the sleeve of his sweater and his hands on the seat of his breeches, and shambled wearily where Quantrill led.

  The tack room was a shadowy, cobwebby place where saddles and bridles and reins belonging to past generations of the Glaven family hung, slowly mouldering, from the roof trusses. Standing on the grimy brick-paved floor were racks that held the tack in current use, as well as saddle cloths and rugs. There was a good smell of hide and saddle soap, overlaid by pungent horse sweat on the tack that Will had just been using.

  He sat down abruptly on a low bench and took the can of beer the chief inspector handed him. Hilary pushed aside a dusty rug to make space for herself on another bench, and Quantrill leaned against a rack. They both watched Will as he emptied the can with long thirsty gulps.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I needed that.’

  He crumpled the empty can in his hands and stared, unseeing, at the brick-paved floor. His labrador, which had padded in after him, put its head on his knee and gazed up at him with concern.

  ‘Most of the time,’ Will went on, absently fondling the dog’s ears, ‘I can’t believe Hope’s dead. It’s as though I’m having a terrible nightmare – but I survive it by clinging to the thought that when I wake up, everything will be all right. Then I realise I am awake, and I know it’s true …’

  The dog whined softly, put its paws on his knee and licked his face. Will seized it in a great hug. ‘Oh, Boris,’ he groaned, burying his face in its ruff, ‘you old fool …’

  Quantrill waited for a few moments while master and dog comforted each other, and then cleared his throat.