Gabby remained focused so completely on her food that at one point she didn’t hear Bernadina asking if she would consider buying a three-bedroom home. Bernadina repeated the question.
“Too much room for me,” Gabby answered briefly, shaking her head. She seemed to take little pleasure from the food; she ate with the focused concentration of a woman eating only because she understood food to be good for her.
Gabby’s intensity was in complete contrast to Melinda Bottle’s. Melinda continued to pick nervously at her food, even the hard-to-resist lemon tart.
* * *
“There is much to be said for the old remedies used by our ancestors,” Gabby was saying, voluble now that dinner was finished. Lucie had given them small tulip-shaped glasses of a rare port to finish the meal. “The homeopathic cure. I was reading the other day that olives are good for preventing seasickness … something about the tannic acid.”
Doc Winship said, “Yes. I suppose that would explain why the average life expectancy in the Middle Ages was about thirty-nine.”
“Bruce is our resident voice of scientific reason,” Max explained to Gabby.
“Someone has to be, around here,” said Bruce Winship. “How’s that sprained ankle of yours doing, Max?”
“Much better,” said Max, smiling. With a nod in Gabby’s direction, he said, “Awena applied a homeopathic remedy—some sort of salve made with sage and other things. It really seems to be working wonders.” Max had walked and even danced on his ankle too soon after he’d injured it on the ice at Chedrow Castle. He had wondered himself, Is it the salve or is it her?
“What’s in this stuff?” Max had asked her.
“Snakes and snails. You know—the usual New Age, Wiccan hocus-pocus.”
“Seriously.”
“Wildcrafted sage. Jojoba oil. Coconut oil. Beeswax. Nothing too exotic.”
Now Bruce was saying, “Nonsense. It’s the painkillers I gave you.”
Max debated whether to tell Bruce he’d stopped taking the painkillers because they made him drowsy. Mrs. Hooser had more than once discovered him, Tom, and the dog, Thea, fast asleep, like creatures fallen under a spell in a Grimms’ fairy tale. Awena’s massaging whatever it was into his ankle had brought the swelling down in a nearly miraculous and drug-free way.
Max said diplomatically, “I’m sure it’s a combination of all the attention my ankle’s been getting.”
This seemed to mollify Bruce, who confidently pronounced, “The placebo effect is undeniably real.”
“Undeniably,” said Max, thinking, No. It was Awena and her salve.
“Speaking of your ankle,” said Bruce, “I’d like to hear more about the trouble up there at the castle.” Bruce, to his disappointment, hadn’t seen Max to talk to about the case for several weeks. The criminal mind was a pet topic with him. “I was amazed to learn who the killer was,” Bruce went on. “It just goes to prove my theory.”
“Which theory is that?” asked Max, smiling, knowing perfectly well.
“That we are all hardwired to kill.” Dr. Winship thoughtfully rubbed his chin between thumb and index finger, fully astride his hobbyhorse, showing off for Bernadina.
“I don’t think we are,” said Max. “Not in the sense you mean.”
“It’s the only thing that explains the phenomenon of the ‘normal’ guy next door who suddenly goes on a rampage,” Bruce insisted. “It only seems sudden, although the signs have been there all along, if only the wife and family had thought to look for them. Extreme displeasure shown over the overcooked broccoli and so forth.”
“You don’t ever suspect loved ones, though, do you?” said Gabby. “If you do suspect, you quickly ignore the warnings.”
“Precisely. Because it’s not in your best interests, or so you may tell yourself, to ask too many questions. You know full well you may not like the answers. That is how these people manage to survive and reproduce, passing along their propensities to the next generation. Unless they kill their wives first, of course.”
“That is such a dark view of mankind,” said Max.
“Oh, you would think so!” said Bruce. “But ask any evolutionary psychologist. We didn’t get where we are by being nice to one another.”
“Perhaps that is true, in the darkest past of mankind. But the message for modern times surely is that if we don’t tame our baser instincts and start pulling together, we won’t survive as a species.”
“I’m not sure you aren’t both saying the same thing,” put in Bernadina. “We may be hardwired to kill, but civilization has taught us to keep the urges in check.”
Bruce’s chest swelled a bit more.
“Precisely,” he said. “The only question is, when does the hard wiring kick in? Under what circumstances? What is the trigger—if you will pardon the pun.”
“You don’t have to look far in the past to see where the hard wiring has taken over. Just read the daily headlines,” said Gabby.
Lucie and Frank nodded. “Just look at all the wars,” said Lucie.
Thaddeus seemed to have lost the thread of the conversation as he sat thoughtfully sipping his wine. In true connoisseur fashion, he made little slurping noises to introduce air into the drink.
“So you believe,” said Max, “that there is something adaptive about murder? In the Darwinian sense?”
“I believe there was, and, in the mind of today’s killer, still is. It is all about survival. If someone is in the killer’s way—well then! Murder is the easy way out. For someone of that mind-set,” Bruce added hastily, since this didn’t seem to be going down too well with Bernadina.
“But you can’t justify murder, claiming that it’s something inherent in the nature of mankind,” said Max. “That we can’t help ourselves. And I don’t think you can ever entirely rule out environment as an influence.”
“No, indeed. And in fact, when what I will call the ‘murderers amongst us’ try to justify and explain away what they have done, that is when they get most creative. I am talking of that ordinary neighbor, that ‘normal’ guy, often to be seen cutting his lawn and trimming his privet hedge on the weekend. Their explanations would astonish you, and often boil down to either a sense of entitlement—those are the deeply disturbed ones—or a sense that they are protecting what they hold most dear. Those are the deluded ones.”
Max felt he knew what Bruce was getting at. Most criminals not only cared about their families, thought Max, but used family values as an excuse for the most reprehensible of crimes, justifying atrocities by claiming they were doing it to protect their loved ones—who were more important than anyone else’s loved ones, apparently.
“I’m not sure,” he said, playing devil’s advocate, “that murderers can be neatly stacked into categories like that.”
“Oh, yes, they can!” said Bruce. “The paranoid killer lives in a world of his own, in a class by himself. Do you know, I have read that the paranoid is mesmerized by other people’s eyes. He sees them as mirrors, you see, and is tremendously worried that they can ‘see through him.’”
“All very scientific,” said Max, “but—”
Bruce was not to be deterred. In the flickering candlelight, his own eyes glowed, shining and mysterious. At least he hoped they did: Bernadina was a damnably attractive woman.
“The ecologist or scientist is the new ‘trusted person,’ have you noticed?” he said. “At one time, it would have been the vicar or the village policeman.”
“Or the village doctor,” said Max.
Bruce laughed. “Point taken. And in any mystery of the golden age of mysteries, this trusted person would turn out to be the killer,” added Bruce, not remotely offended by the prospect. “Doctors have access to drugs, making murder easy. And some of them go once too often to the trough.”
“What do you mean?’
“Become addicted to this or that. Poor judgment is the result.”
“I’ve never,” said Max ruminatively, “thought of murder in terms of poor jud
gment, but it’s certainly one interpretation.”
“Oh, to you, murder may be seen as a moral lapse. Which it is. But some people, I do insist, are born to kill.”
Lucie, who seemed to be growing more and more alarmed by this dinner-table conversation, put in firmly, “Cheese and biscuits?” This was said in such a way it carried a world of condemnation, even though she didn’t so much as raise her voice or an eyebrow. Bruce fell into immediate, contrite silence. It was not to last. Once the platter was passed around the table and everyone had marveled over the selection of Brie, blue, and cheddar, Bruce began opining on yet another uncomfortable topic. It was the only way Bruce knew how to impress, Max decided.
“The plague,” Bruce was saying. “A perfect example of the folly of the medical profession. Sometimes one wonders if we’ve traveled very far since those days. The disease that wiped out much of mankind in the Middle Ages was caused by the Yersinia pestis—bacteria—but they blamed the cats. Of course, the cats were the main hope of stopping the spread of the disease by killing the rats.”
This time, Lucie succeeded in derailing him.
“I think the weather is letting up,” she said.
They turned as one toward the window, where they could see the rain had dwindled from a steady bombardment to a trickle. There was common agreement they should seize their chance now and leave before it started in earnest again. It was nearly ten-thirty.
In the hallway as they were sorting out their coats and umbrellas, Max heard Melinda say to Gabby, “See you Monday. I need a few more highlights around the temples, I think.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea? In this weather? It’s so drying. We don’t want a lot of frizz.” Gabby reached out one hand and touched the hair at the side of Melinda’s head, gently pulling at one lock in an assessing way. She shook her head doubtfully. “Maybe with a conditioner. Anyway, you need a trim. See you Monday.”
“Can you talk about this later?” fussed Thaddeus. “We have to rush. We left Jean inside, and he’ll be wanting his last walk of the day.” Melinda turned anxiously toward her husband, exuding unease.
Max watched the interaction, concern darkening his eyes. “And I should get back to Thea,” Max told Lucie. “Thank you for a wonderful meal.”
Max was walking away as he heard a voice call after him, “Evening, Rev.” He didn’t have to guess who it was, and he pretended he hadn’t heard.
Subject: Social Whirl
From: Gabrielle Crew ([email protected])
To: Claude Chaux ([email protected])
Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012 3:48 P.M.
Dear Claude—I’ve been rushed off my feet today! A visit to the salon in a village like Nether Monkslip is an occasion, for men and women. The exchange of gossip and ideas—well, I perhaps wouldn’t go so far as to call them ideas, but the exchange of information is crucial to the transaction. Everyone is offered a strong cup of tea, or wine in the evenings, and we don’t mind if they stay awhile. It is not much different from a salon in a town or city, but in Nether Monkslip, in this as in all things, making the most of little occasions is their specialty. They have learned the secret to a good life, these villagers.
Small things count for much, but sometimes in a not-good way. There was great excitement in the salon when some hair clips went missing the other day. I think Thaddeus Bottle took them just to cause mischief—dreadful, odious man!—but it hardly seems worth mentioning to anyone, since I didn’t actually see him take anything. This hardly qualifies as news, but Annette was in a state. She is a good soul, but excitable.
I’m quickly gaining clients. In fact, I’m busier now than I was when I was younger, when standing on my feet all day wasn’t such a strain. But being an expert colorist is a slowly acquired skill, much like being a chemist. Get it wrong and you never get a second chance with that customer.
The weather here in the South West has been a welcome relief from what I’ve been used to—climates either too warm or too cold. It’s been wet, yes, but not that freezing wet that creeps into the bone. Orchids will soon appear in Raven’s Wood—quite rare, probably arrived on the wind from France.
Do I miss my dream of owning my own shop like you and grandmother? Not at all. Ownership is just one thing after another. I work only because I enjoy the artistry of it. Let someone else have the business headaches.
I was telling our vicar last night how the nuns encouraged me to go to university, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation. I did try to stay the course, but I quickly knew it wasn’t for me. I wanted to read, not be told how to read.
The nuns did their best, but they didn’t have time for everyone, and besides, they thought it was bad to “coddle” their pupils. It was important that we be strong, that we offer up our suffering. I did absorb much of their philosophy. But oh! How I also longed for tenderness from someone—from anyone, really. Then along came Harold.
The only thing of importance that came out of my time at university was Harold.
That I married a missionary was a legacy of all those years with the nuns, I think now. I wanted to do good. I wanted to feed the hungry and shelter the poor. I like to think I did some good here and there. But after a while, I just wanted to enjoy what was left of my own life. One gets too old for that sort of hardship. And then Harold died.…
Sometimes, I do miss him so. He was always there.
But why do I tell you what you already know? You must forgive my rambling on. I am an old woman now, you see—it’s official! More tomorrow. As always, writing to you brightens my day.
All my love, your Gabby
CHAPTER 6
Predawn Visitor
Sunday, March 25, 5:00 A.M.
Max learned of the death Sunday, when he was awakened by a rapping on the front door of the vicarage. His alarm clock told him it was 5:00 A.M.—for Max, a normal time of rising—but it felt like 4:00 A.M., for his body had still to adjust to the clocks having been moved forward one hour for spring. Besides, the sun hadn’t read the British Summer Time bulletin and was still asleep.
He’d spent a few moments the night before changing the clocks that he could—the clock on the microwave oven had defeated him. But it was the combined cacophony of the alarm by his bed and the pounding of the door knocker that woke him. Thea began nudging him with her wet nose on the off chance the other two alarms weren’t doing the trick.
“Good girl,” said Max. “Go see who it is.”
Obediently, the dog threw herself headlong down the stairs, barking madly. This is the life! A chance to show what I’m made of! Max had encouraged this behavior in case of the one-in-eight-million chance a crook might approach the vicarage with theft or mayhem in mind. Max’s old habits from MI5 and living-in-London days died hard.
He shrugged his way into a wool Black Watch robe over his pajama bottoms and padded barefoot down the stairs. Calming Thea with a good-girl pat on the head, he opened the door.
To find, to his mystification, a distraught and disheveled-looking Melinda Bottle on the doorstep. The rain had started again during the night, and water had collected on the stoop—shallow puddles bulleted by droplets as water continued to spill over the lip of the roof. Melinda was wearing some sort of negligee and a matching white robe edged with ostrich feathers. Like the porch roof, she dripped with moisture. Devoid of makeup, her face glistening with night cream, she wore a scarf hastily tied around her head. She looked like Jemima Puddleduck in need of rescue from a fast-talking fox.
“Help!” she cried. She stopped for a deep breath, hand against her heart, as if the single word had cost her her last gasp. “Come and see. Please. There’s something wrong with Thaddeus. I think … I’m sure he’s dead.”
* * *
The wet morning was unnaturally still, with a muffled sound track punctuated occasionally by the squawk of something attacking or something being pounced upon. Max was still learning to live with the alarming nonhuman squeaks and squawks
of the village, its hidden dramas played out under a canopy of distant stars. Nether Monkslip, unlike the London of Max’s recent memory, was so isolated that the universe on most nights was revealed in all its glory, a living, moving testament to its creator, a stubborn rebuke to the notion of a universe that “just happened.” But on recent nights, the moon had snaked against a black sky like a sliver of fire.
On the short walk over to the Bottle house, Max—who had stopped only long enough to pull trainers on his own feet, grab a torch, and tuck a mobile phone in his pocket—had pulled what details he could out of a rattled Melinda. She said she had fallen asleep downstairs while watching an old movie, and when she woke up, it was early morning. She had gone upstairs and in the dark had gotten into bed, slipping under the covers on her side. Something, she told Max, wasn’t right.
“For one thing, Thad snores. Really loud. Loud enough to wake the d—” She swallowed hard on the word that still trembled on her lips. In the paleness of the streetlamps on Church Street, her face had been ghostly, a pasty white under the slick of night cream, and devoid of color, her eyes sunken into cadaverous sockets.
He could see that beneath the cream and outside the benefit of Lucie Cuthbert’s flattering candlelight, Melinda had a somewhat thick, roughened complexion. He realized then she was older than she appeared without makeup to mask the little commas at the sides of her mouth and the crinkle of lines at the corners of her eyes. Still, she looked more like a sleep-deprived toddler than a mature woman. The vampy, if undernourished, sex kitten of the evening before had been replaced by a frightened girl.
“I mean loud,” she said. “A beached whale—if they snore.”
She seemed hung up on the memory of Thaddeus’s snoring, as if by repeating this single fact she could come to grips with the new reality of life without Thaddeus, a man who would never disturb her sleep again.
Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel) Page 7
