‘I expect Laura gave her the idea. She had a lot of success upsetting you, back then, suggesting unnatural intimacy, didn’t she?
Forget it. You don’t value Charlotte’s opinion about anything else, do you? Well then. The woman’s a bitch.’
‘Which one?’
‘Both, but one’s a dead bitch, thank God. Go on, explain. When I first met you, what did you have in mind to reveal about the murder? I know you wanted to finagle me into finding Toad, but apart from that, what were your intentions?’
‘I think I intended to expose Lord Sherwin’s behaviour with Rosalind; perhaps even to accuse Laura. Charlotte would have found the resultant publicity most irksome.’
‘Particularly if she wants to be Mrs Prime Minister.’
Miss Potter was taken aback. ‘Are you speaking in general terms of her ambition, or is that a possibility?’
‘Some people seem to think Ludo’s in the running for leadership of the party, yes.’
‘But it is dreadful! Dreadful! Charlotte Sherwin in Downing Street!’
‘I don’t think it’s very likely,’ I said. I wanted to get back to the point.‘You couldn’t have accused Laura falsely, surely? You couldn’t have told a direct lie?’
She smiled at me.‘Perhaps you are right. I must confess, however, I did consider it, albeit not for long. Latterly I have been inclined to simple confession.’
‘Because it’s every citizen’s duty to co-operate with the police?’
‘No. The inefficiency of the police investigation was a great sadness to me. Prior to Lord Sherwin’s (death I had always had a profound respect for the English police. Regrettably, I must say that I was motivated solely by a desire to annoy Charlotte. She has inflated notions of her own importance. She behaved as if I was of no account. I was also tempted by an even more unworthy motive, Alex.’
‘Which was?’
‘I wanted to talk about Rollo. I have spoken to no one about the matter for thirty-two years. I never called him Rollo. I wanted to say his name.’
‘I wish I’d met him.’
‘He would not, I fear, have seemed remarkable to you.’
She blew her nose on a small, embroidered cotton handkerchief. I’d run out of Kleenex. There was nothing to be said.
I poured her another cup of tea and waited. Eventually I said, ‘Did you have any doubt about the relationship between Rollo and Rosalind?’
‘No. What I wanted to obtain from Rosalind was permission to make it public. I knew you would speak to her, and that you are persuasive and shrewd. If she discussed the matter with you, that would have been enough.’
‘She’s a grown woman. You haven’t seen her for years. After all this time, what she wanted still mattered to you?’
‘Is it so strange?’ Miss Potter looked determined and almost defiant. ‘I had failed in my duty towards Rosalind, not entirely through my own fault, admittedly. I had not taken proper care of her. If Laura had not frightened and annoyed me, and failed in her own duty, the child would have had appropriate protection and guidance.’
‘Plus, you care what she thinks because you love her.’ I didn’t think Miss P. would like the word. Laura had poisoned it all those years ago. It seemed to, me Laura had had a nice line in poison, all round.
‘I don’t think, exactly – she was my responsibility—’
‘You loved her.’
‘Very well. If you insist. I loved her.’
‘And you loved Rollo?’
Miss P. went pink. ‘I fancied Rollo.’
‘And you threw your knickers on stage.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Miss R, with a bright blue-eyed smile. ‘Unfortunately Rollo threw them back.’
After that, I couldn’t delay the Toad project any longer. Back in the BMW, I drove the dreary, featureless, country road towards Kate’s and the Sherwins’ village. By now it was well and truly dark: still raining. Miss Potter sat beside me, more jumpy every mile, until she finally said, ‘I have deceived you, Alex.’
‘What now? Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You killed Lord Lucan’s nanny.’
She sighed. ‘I suppose, given time, I could become accustomed to your flippancy. What I want to say, is that I deceived you about Kate. She and her family are away for the weekend, staying with her mother.’
Then, of course, I remembered. The silence of Kate’s house. No dog: no loyal Joss, guarding the house while the family were out. No old dog left indoors on a wet cold day to snooze in front of the fire while the (family went shopping. I should have worked it out. I was too busy thinking about Miss Potter’s wonderful, money-spinning revelations about the Sherwin murder – (hint of incest, lust, romance, suppressed spinster, English high life: surely a mini-series? with Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts as the young Miss Potter, hauntingly, bankably, inexplicably American?) – to use my wits.
I swallowed. ‘And you knew that all along? You never intended to borrow Kate’s keys?’
‘She might have got into serious trouble.’
‘What about me?’
‘You are audacious, resourceful and self-employed. I cannot imagine that Charlotte Mayfleld’s displeasure will significantly affect your career.’
‘Ludovic Mayfield could.’
‘I do not imagine that Mr Mayfield would welcome any disclosure or allegation I might make, whether concerning his motherin-law’s murderous attack on her husband, or his wife’s treatment of their afflicted daughter.’
‘Blackmail,’ I said once more.
This time she didn’t pause to consider. ‘Yes,’ she said.
I was still puzzled. ‘If you knew Kate was away, why on earth were you so shattered when we got there and she was out?’
‘Guilt,’ said Miss Potter. When I turned to look at her, she was smiling.
What could I do? She’d manipulated me again. ‘I wasn’t taken in by your touching little present,’ I said.
‘The coffee mug? What can you mean?’
I now remembered something else. That letter of application, the heroic, pathetically deluded letter of application that had so touched me, though I’d tried not to admit it to myself at the time – it hadn’t been dated. Miss Potter would ALWAYS date a letter. Unless, that is, she had written it as a device to create precisely the effect it had, and left it waiting for me in the study, waiting on the off-chance that one day I’d go in.
I didn’t want her to think she’d got away with it. ‘Or the letter of application you left for me to read. I didn’t feel in the least sorry for you.’
‘Yes, you did,’ she said simply. ‘And now we’re going straight to Ashtons Hall.’
‘Oh no we’re not. I’m going to Ashtons Hall. You’re going to the vicar’s.’
‘The vicar’s?’
‘I’m not religious myself, but don’t vicars supply tea and succour on demand? Isn’t that item number one on the job description? But if you’re not keen, it doesn’t have to be the vicar. Any friend’s place. Anywhere I can leave you safe and warm while I scramble round on scaffolding peering in through windows and scoping the place out. I’ll be able to look in through the windows, you know. I’ll soon see iflbad’s there, which I’m sure she isn’t.’
‘I’m not sure you fully understand, Alex. Looking through windows isn’t enough. You are searching for you may be searching for – a body, or signs of Toad’s recent presence. That is why I am coming with you, to help. I know the house. We can ignore the ground and first floors, I should think, since the cleaners have been allowed to work there. We must direct our attention to the top floor, especially the old nursery wing.’
I did drop her at the vicar’s. She was still protesting, but in practice she had accepted that if she insisted on joining me, I wouldn’t go. A middle-aged woman wife? housekeeper? – answered the rectory door I waited in the car at the foot of the drive until Miss Potter went inside and the door closed behind her, then set off on my mission.
The reader may have guessed that I wanted to go alone not m
erely, or even chiefly, to protect Miss Potter. Without her at my elbow, I could get away with doing much less. I wasn’t looking for a body. I was still convinced Toad was tucked away in a hospital somewhere. I meant to give the place a once-over, maybe go up the scaffolding and look in, then take Miss Potter back to London. We could always tackle Charlotte head-on about Toad’s whereabouts.
The rain was steady. Not great drops, but insistent, dense, soaking rain. I hesitated just before turning in through the gates to the drive. If I had taken the enterprise seriously I’d have parked up the road and walked. But it was wet and I was excited, and the drive was inordinately long, so I drove up to the house. I didn’t even turn off Barty’s multi-adjustable headlights with their powerful, efficient, Teutonic beam.
It served me right. The ancient, heritage oaks screened the house from me until the last curve of the potholed drive. By then I was only fifty yards away and it was too late to cut the lights and kill the engine when I saw, with a shock out of all proportion to the circumstances, that Charlotte Sherwin Mayfield was standing in the porch, waiting for me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She couldn’t have been waiting for me, of course. She didn’t know I was coming. She must have heard the car. Or perhaps she had been at a window and seen the headlights through the trees. Or perhaps she was waiting for someone else. I parked the car as far away from the door as I could, to give myself time to prepare a story, and sat for a moment in the driving seat for deep relaxation breathing.
I was annoyed with myself for being so rattled. She was alone, as far as I could see. Only one car was parked by the door, a blue Volvo estate, the classic wife’s car. She was only a woman, for God’s sake. I outweighed her and possibly outbrained her and I’d learnt to take care of myself in situations she would probably find unimaginable. More important still, I wasn’t easily embarrassed by someone I disliked. For women like her, embarrassment was the weapon of choice.
I decided on my story, adjusted my expression to an aggravating, confident liar’s smile, and strode across to the doorway. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Mayfield,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Miss Potter. She isn’t here, by any chance?’ I reached the door and made to keep walking in, through her. She hesitated until I thought I actually would have to push her aside, then stepped back at the last second to follow me in. Round One to me.
‘Miss Potter?’ she said. ‘Why should she be here?’
I watched her eyes. They swivelled till she was looking up the stairs: up the stairs towards the old schoolroom, Toad’s room, the place she most feared Miss Potter would be. Only people very practised in deception can control the direction of their eyes. Charlotte, the ice queen, could manage the voice and the expression and even the hands, which were still hanging, relaxed, by her side, but she hadn’t managed the eyes. She hadn’t had my advantages. Round Two to me.
I kept talking, in a Polly mode. I wanted to avoid confrontation if I could: fewer bones broken, that way. The less I forced Charlotte into a corner, the easier I made it for her to admit the truth, however glossied up she chose to make it, the more useful it would be for Toad. If the girl really was upstairs (could she be? the house was still freezing cold, unheated), the sooner she was in an ambulance and off to a private clinic, the better.‘Miss Potter was worried about your daughter, Toad, isn’t it? Charming nickname. Miss Potter knew that she was here and that she was ill: she wanted to see her I drove her down to visit Kate and her dog, and she’s slipped away, and I wondered if she might be here because I need to get back to London. You know what old people are like when they get ideas into their heads. Miss Potter’s wonderful, of course. She has a terrific sense of responsibility. I said that you’d be looking after your daughter, naturally, such a tragedy, anorexia, I blame the media. It’s all the pictures of thin models and the emphasis on bodies, little girls don’t have a childhood any more, do they? and naturally you wouldn’t want the poor girl to be bothered by the newspapers, and they might be interested, with Mr Mayfield being so important. I absolutely see your difficulty. I wouldn’t have come here and bothered you, but you know what Miss Potter’s like when she gets an idea into her head, and the old are so unreasonable, aren’t they?’
Her eyes were now fixed on mine: she was thinking. The front doors were still open, both the heavy wooden outer door and the pair of glass porch doors. Rain drifted in, carried on the erratic wind which lifted the thin hall carpet under my sodden boots and her narrow and elegant (Italian?) leather loafers. I rattled on. ‘I’ll close these, shall I? You don’t want wet floors. Lovely wood, this floor Oak, is it? I do admire your house. Wonderful workmanship, in the old days, they really were craftsmen, weren’t they? England led the world.’
‘England still leads the world,’ said Charlotte. ‘Miss – er –’ She groped for my name, once too insignificant to remember, now a potential weapon in her manipulative armoury.
‘Tanner,’ I said. ‘Alex Tanner Please call me Alex. So Miss Potter isn’t here, then? Perhaps we should look.’ I moved towards the stairs.
She blocked me, with a quick movement. Disconcertingly quick. I was certainly stronger than she was, but her physical reaction time left me planted.
‘Miss Tanner, of course, how silly of me to forget. I’ve a lot on my mind just now. I’m glad you’ve come. I think we should talk. Perhaps I can get you a cup of tea? or a drink?’ Arm curved, she swept me towards a green baize door. ‘Let’s just nip along to the kitchen, shall we?’
Her attempts to ingratiate herself were alarming. I wasn’t going to walk ahead of her I needed to watch her. When she was behind me the hackles rose on my neck. ‘Coffee would be lovely,’ I said. ‘Do lead the way, it’s such a big house. I’m not used to big houses. You can’t exactly get lost in my London flat.’ I’m not usually disloyal to my flat, but she’d be less volatile if she felt superior.
‘London is so expensive,’ she said smugly, and let me drop back. I followed her neatly dressed, narrow figure along a gloomy passage. Her blonde hair glimmered in the shadows. She was in green, today. Dark green skirt, lighter green cashmere sweater, white blouse showing at the neck, green tights, black shoes.
The kitchen was enormous and wretchedly designed. She switched on some lights, but the four distant corners were still shadowed as she sat me down at the central massive, rectangular, scrubbed wood table and set out on the cross-floor hikes necessary to assemble two cups of coffee. ‘I’m rather glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking. I was wondering whether I should really help you and Bartholomew O’Neill with your article. Now, I’ve made up my mind. I will help. I’ll tell you all I know about my father’s tragic death.’
That was a slap in the face. I had all I wanted on her father’s tragic death from Miss Potter: up until the moment when I saw Charlotte waiting for me in the doorway, I’d been writing the piece in my head.
The worst of it, though, was that her offer to help signalled, louder than anything else could, how much she had to hide about Toad. Her natural instinct, as far as I was concerned, was to assist me down a bottomless crevasse, not to give me coffee and information. I was alarmed, for Toad. I was frightened.
I don’t like fear I feel it very seldom. I was born with plenty of physical courage: no merit, just luck. I’ve never had to use it, much. My Cretan VC told me that courage is a capital asset and even the bravest person eventually runs out, if they have to suffer enough. I hadn’t had that kind of suffering. I had plenty of resources to face this selfish, pretentious, icy, slender woman in her ridiculous dark green velvet Alice band.
But I was afraid. I was afraid to see what she had done to her daughter I hate deliberate cruelty. Mistakes and madness, I understand. There’s a human warmth about those, even if you end up like a geriatric Ophelia, incontinent in mud-coloured garments.
Afraid or not, training tells. I gave an appreciative nod, then another for good measure, then a grateful smile. ‘That would be wonderful,’ I said. I hadn’t brought my
tape recorder from the car, of course, because I hadn’t thought I’d need it, so I tugged my damp notebook from my biker’s jacket, which I hadn’t been invited to remove. ‘Thank you so much.’
She brought the coffee and sat down opposite me, five feet away. ‘And if I help you, what will you do for me?’ She gave me a ghastly smile. She meant it to be charming, conspiratorial. She knew her usual superior teeth-flash wouldn’t do; she wasn’t stupid. But her facial muscles couldn’t cope with the task. She hadn’t had to be charming enough, often enough. The appropriate muscles had spent forty-odd years doing nearly sod-all and now the best they could manage was a rictus.
I smiled warmly, responsively, a ‘gee-thanks’ smile. ‘I’m not sure ...’
‘You must understand, Alex, that poor Toad is very ill. She’s being supervised by a wonderful doctor. From Harley Street. He treats all the best people. I’m following his advice. Anorexia is a dreadful thing. I know so little about it, I’m merely following doctor’s orders. It isn’t easy for me. I’d do anything for Toad. Anything. I’m keeping her here, with nurses round the clock. Have you any idea how difficult it is getting nurses to stay at a place like this, in the country? I’ve had to import a housekeeper for them. Nurses demand that regular meals are prepared for them. They insist. You’d think they could boil an egg.’
Unreasonable nurses, I thought, wanting to eat. What are the lower classes coming to? But I didn’t waste much time considering them, since they and the housekeeper were fictional. She was selling me a bill of goods and I’d pretend to buy it. ‘I see,’ I said. ‘Gosh, how difficult for you. I am so sorry.’
‘It is a baffling disease,’ she said, looking not so much baffled as remotely, coolly furious. ‘Toad was a very ordinary little girl, a bit podgy, rather clinging, but quite normal. Very fond of her father. You’d think she’d understand the damage it could do to his career, and to her own health . . . I’m only asking her to eat. You’d think that would be easy enough, wouldn’t you? Just a small thing. But she absolutely refuses . . . So you see, ‘we’re managing as best we can, but it would be tragic for Toad if the news got out. That is why I said she was still on her Gap Year trip. You know how despicable the tabloids can be. They make money out of human misery. So if you could persuade Miss Potter that I’m acting for the best – and if I can tell you what you want to know about Daddy’s death—’
An Uncommon Murder Page 19
