by Fay Sampson
At last the woman spoke. ‘Do what you like. This room is available. You might as well make use of it. As one of you has said, you’ve paid good money to come here.’
The words echoed in Hilary’s mind. She had heard those words before this evening. With an ominous certainty, she knew who had said them. Dan Truscott had greeted them with this invitation to Lady Jane’s Chamber as he opened the door at the foot of the stairs. The door at the top had been slightly ajar. She remembered the brighter light streaming through the opening on the landing.
Had Theresa heard everything else they said?
SIXTEEN
The meeting was breaking up.
‘I could do with a stiff drink,’ Hilary said with feeling.
‘So we’ll see you in the bar, then?’
She started. Harry Walters was closer than she had realized. Behind him stood his bright-eyed wife.
Sheep and goats, Hilary decided. Half of us are numb with shock at this terrible thing that has happened. Not a little afraid, too, to think that there is probably a murderer among us. These are people who are experiencing a natural human instinct of grief. We none of us know Gavin well, but we can feel for him. I still find it hard to believe that he killed his own wife.
Then there is this other faction, smaller perhaps, but evident. Youngsters like Ben and Jake, not yet, as far as she knew, committed to families. For them this represents the chance of a lifetime. Suddenly, here they are in the midst of a real-life murder case. On a practical level, the chance to study at firsthand how the police go about their work. But more than that, they relish the intellectual challenge of trying to beat the professionals. To identify the villain. To them, it’s like trying to solve an Agatha Christie whodunnit, which does not require you to feel too deeply for the human beings involved. Reality sanitized as detective fiction.
But even crime fiction has moved on, Hilary reflected, as she met Jo Walters’ keen gaze over her husband’s shoulder. We are now into the realms of deeper and darker characterization. Not so much whodunnit as whydunnit. And it’s almost a given that the investigator himself, or herself, is a deeply troubled person, bringing their own dark background into the investigation of the crime. Jo, she remembered, had expressed a desire to write something similar to Scandinavian noir.
And where did Tania and Rob fit into this? Certainly, Rob had revelled in the blackness of his imagination.
And what about me? Am I that conflicted investigator? Hilary smiled wryly at the thought of casting herself as the detective. She knew she should leave this to the CID, but she could already see Veronica’s knowing smile. Veronica understood her friend too well. Whatever she said to the younger ones, Hilary Masters was unlikely to keep her keen intellect out of her own hunt for the culprit.
She shook herself back to the present, with the course members starting to head for the door. Let them hold their brainstorming tomorrow morning if they wanted to. Despite her natural curiosity, she wouldn’t be part of it. She knew how much some of them were longing to question her and Veronica more closely about their shocking find at the Leechwells. For them, this was an unrepeatable opportunity to hear the details of the macabre discovery, what a murdered corpse looked like.
She really needed that whisky.
‘I’ll just pop up to my room first. We’ll see you in the bar.’ She smiled to Harry.
Harry, at least, seemed a genuinely straightforward guy. He wasn’t actually here for the crime writing, just accompanying Jo. What had he done with himself yesterday morning, while the rest of them were selecting their crime scenes and writing them up, imbued with suitable atmosphere? Somehow, she couldn’t imagine him with a pen in his hand and a notepad, letting his imagination loose in or around Morland Abbey. To be honest, she doubted he had much imagination. But she did not despise him for that. A simple, uncomplicated, good-hearted man.
She rather wished now that David had chosen to come along in such a supportive role, even though she had assured him that she and Veronica would be fine on their own.
Veronica was waiting for her.
They made their way along the East Cloister corridor.
As they reached the staircase to the upper floor, Hilary said, ‘It was here I bumped into Melissa. But that’s all water under the bridge now. I’d got it into my head after that that something was afoot. That she was on her way to do something nefarious, perhaps in Dinah Halsgrove’s room. I felt sure she had not expected to see me, or anyone else. But I must have got totally the wrong end of the stick. Far from being the person who very nearly caused Halsgrove’s death, she was the next victim herself. And in a far more final way.’
‘It’s dreadful to think of, isn’t it?’ Veronica agreed. ‘That someone should hate her so much they wanted to do that to her.’
‘There was something so theatrical about it. There must have been many ways, and many places, in which whoever wanted to could have bumped her off. But why so spectacularly in the Leechwells? Whoever it was took a huge risk. It’s a public street – well, a back lane. Still, anyone could have come along and seen them. Or even noticed them going to and from the well around that time.’
‘I don’t know. We didn’t meet a soul between the car park and the well. You said yourself how eerily quiet it was.’
‘True. And I only saw three people this morning while I sat there.’
‘The old man with the walking stick?’ suggested Veronica as they reached their own landing on the top floor. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that he turned up twice?’
Hilary gave a short laugh, without much humour. ‘He hardly looked capable of killing an able-bodied woman like Melissa. All the same, he was a bit of a sinister character, didn’t you think? In spite of the folksy Devonshire accent. That stick of his tap-tapping his way along what some people say is the leper path from the old hospital.’
‘Like Blind Pugh in Treasure Island. I started to read that aloud to Robert when he was small, and he was so frightened by Stevenson’s description of Pugh that he wouldn’t let me go any further.’
‘There’s a rather unpleasant literary past of connecting physical disability to a corrupt mind. But our man with the stick isn’t blind. He could have seen something vital.’
‘I’m sure the police will have questioned him.’
They parted outside Veronica’s door.
‘I’ll be with you in five minutes,’ Hilary called as she turned aside towards her own room.
She pushed the door open and put out her hand to the light switch. The movement froze mid-air. She knew instinctively there was someone in the room.
She had drawn the curtains before dinner. But a column of soft light reached through a gap in them from the quadrangle. She sensed a shadow sitting on the wide bed between her and the window.
She gave a gasp that was more like a scream, and then was furious with herself for such an obvious display of fear.
‘It’s all right,’ came a familiar voice from the bed. ‘It’s only me.’
‘David!’
Her senses whirled. It was several moments before her scattered wits made sense of the situation. She snapped the lights on and glared at him, denying to herself how overwhelmingly glad she was to see him, once the shock of finding someone waiting in her room had begun to fade.
David stood up, his receding hair still fairish, even in his sixties, his glasses glinting before his amused eyes.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I should have put the light on to warn you. But I was looking out at the cloisters, just trying to put myself in the picture. I see you’ve attracted the press.’
‘I told you not to come.’
But she was already near enough for him to put his arms out and embrace her.
‘I know you did. You didn’t want to upset Veronica by rubbing it in that you had me at times like this and she doesn’t have Andrew. But to be honest, I’m as much concerned about her as I am about you. Like it or not, the two of you have got
yourselves involved with this rather more deeply than I’m comfortable with. Veronica in particular, by the sound of it. If Melissa’s dead, and Gavin and Theresa find out she heard them plotting something …’
‘That’s the protective alpha male talking.’ She stepped back from the warm circle of his arms and made herself smile. ‘You really think your herd of hinds is in danger?’
‘I’d rather be here than sitting at home worrying about you. I knocked up the admin staff in the West Cloister. Nice woman by the name of Fiona. She told me there was a double bed in your room. No problem.’
‘Veronica and I did wonder whether to share a twin, but we decided to treat ourselves to rooms of our own. I struck gold. They must have run out of singles. You must admit it’s rather splendid.’
‘Never mind the medieval woodwork. What’s happened here since I last talked to you?’
‘Only that I’ve discovered some rather peculiar things about the people on this course. Ghouls, some of them. They really do still want to treat it as though it were just crime fiction, and they’re determined to crack the mystery.’
‘A flight from reality,’ David suggested. ‘Because the truth is too terrible to bear?’
She saw the understanding in his weathered face.
‘I’m not sure that’s how I’d put it. There are two young men in our Toad group. Ben and Jake. I really do think it’s just a game to them. They’ve set up a brainstorming group for tomorrow. And there’s another young couple. This morning, Rob came up with a murder scenario uncannily like the real one. Is it too far-fetched to suppose he could have turned that into reality?’ She shook her head. ‘Then there’s Theresa. Just sitting there, as though she really was a toad, and listening to all of us arguing about it. She hardly said a word, except to let us know that she’d heard more of what we were saying to each other than we intended.’
‘And that includes you and Veronica?’ David’s voice became more urgent. There was a sudden concern in his eyes.
‘We were talking to a rather tweedy retired colonel as we came up the stairs. I wish I could remember everything we said.’
‘I’m getting more glad that I came by the minute.’
‘Hilary?’ Veronica’s voice came from the corridor, sharp with questioning. ‘Is everything all right?’
Hilary flung the door open. ‘It’s more than all right. Look who’s here.’
SEVENTEEN
Away from the East Cloister and the brooding presence of Theresa, the Chapter House bar had a more relaxed feel. Bottles twinkled on the shelves set within the sixteenth-century fireplace. Diners still lingered at one end of the room, but most of the tables and chairs were now given over to drinkers. The space was crowded, not only with members of Gavin’s course, but with other guests. Not all of the crime writers who had been in Lady Jane’s Chamber were here, but those who had stayed on were trying to put on some show of normality. True, there was something nervous in the laughter, the conversation was more subdued, heads turned quickly to each new arrival. Yet there was an atmosphere of relief Hilary was happy to sink into.
She introduced David to the others at the bar with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. No other woman had her partner rushing over here to offer her support. She did not usually trade on feminine weakness.
David himself smoothed the matter over. ‘We live less than an hour’s drive from here. When I heard the news, I thought I’d drop over and check what’s going on.’
‘Can’t keep away from the scandal?’ Jake laughed slyly. ‘Your wife’s been giving us a good going over for playing detectives, instead of just lowering the flag to half-mast and letting the Bill get on with it. The word ghouls wasn’t exactly mentioned, but …’
Hilary flushed. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded like a school marm. But you have to remember I still hadn’t got over the shock of finding Melissa’s body. The rest of you only know it as reported fact.’ Gratefully she accepted the whisky David offered her.
‘But you’re not coming clean, are you?’ Ben insisted. ‘There’s loads more you could tell us about the body, but you’ve clammed up.’
‘We just don’t want to think about it,’ Veronica said. ‘We came down to the bar to relax. And the police asked us not to reveal the details.’
Jake leaned forward. ‘They do that, don’t they? They hope the culprit’s going to give himself away by revealing a greater knowledge of the crime scene than he’s supposed to have.’
‘Something like that.’
‘But if you were the ones who found the body, you’d have an excuse, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.’
Ben swilled the last of his beer round his glass thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know why you stay, then. Good old DI Foulks must have milked you dry about what you saw – or didn’t see. I don’t see that you’ve got anything left to keep you here. And here’s Hilary’s old man having kittens because of what you two stumbled on.’
It’s what might still happen to us that’s troubling him, Hilary thought, but she kept quiet. She looked around the tables and bar stools where small groups were trying to find solace in alcohol and conversation. Could she be wrong about Theresa and Gavin? Was it thinkable that Melissa’s murderer might instead be one of them?
But no conceivable motive presented itself.
‘You heard the DI,’ she rallied. ‘He wants us all to stay until tomorrow afternoon when the course was due to end. Dinah Halsgrove’s induced coma was serious enough, but Melissa’s death has put things on a wholly new level.’
‘Message there,’ laughed Ben. ‘Crime fiction is bad for your health.’
Hilary shot him a sharp look. Still, she took comfort from the thought that he was right about the usefulness of their remaining at Morland Abbey. After they had found the body, she and Veronica had been questioned rigorously by DI Foulks and DS Blunt. They had nothing left to tell. All they had to do was to sit it out for less than twenty-four hours. Nothing worse could happen, could it? David’s presence at her side, in that rather disreputable tweed jacket, was reassurance. She was more glad than she would tell him that he had ignored her orders and come flying down the A38 to join her – and Veronica.
She looked across the table at her friend. It was hard to tell from Veronica’s still, high-boned face what she was thinking. Did she too welcome the solidity of David making them a threesome? Or was it increasing the pain that it should have been Andrew at her side?
There was another sudden turning of heads. A newcomer was shadowing the doorway. Hilary had to swivel round to see clearly who it was.
A tall, young policeman she did not recognize stood looking rather awkward, his uniform cap under his arm.
‘Mrs Masters?’ He let his gaze travel slowly over the well-populated bar.
Now the heads were turning back to Hilary. It took a second for his meaning to sink in. It was her name he was calling. She had been so sure that her ordeal was over. She would not have to go over that horrifying scene again. The stark, unbelievable reality of turning Melissa over to find that head-wound smearing blood across her wet face. Her own desperate attempts to pump life into that cold sodden corpse. Chillingly, there came back to her the tapping of the old man’s stick echoing off the blank stone walls.
‘That’s me.’
‘DI Foulks would like a word with you.’
She slid off her stool, finding the floor not quite as steady as she would have liked. Every eye was on her. David’s hand clasped warmly over hers, then let her go.
‘Shall I come with you?’ he whispered.
She shook her head.
Almost as though she were sleepwalking, she crossed the floor to the policeman standing just inside the restaurant door. It must be the effect of the whisky, slowing things down, giving the whole scene an air of unreality.
It couldn’t be anything important, could it? Just a detail DI Foulks had forgotten to ask her.
Distant, but clear, she heard Jake’s voice
behind her. ‘Well, that’s one I wasn’t expecting. Do you think they’re going to arrest her?’
She could not hear David’s reply.
DI Foulks and DS Blunt were encamped once again in the small meeting room in the East Cloister where they had interviewed Hilary about Dinah Halsgrove’s collapse. That felt like a lifetime ago. It seemed impossible that it was only this lunchtime. Then, she remembered with a stab of remorse, how she had been all too keen to volunteer her story about bumping into Melissa in this very corridor, the sharp expulsion of breath that had seemed so sinister at the time. Now it was Melissa who was dead. The hiss, which had seemed so snakelike, had been silenced in the Long Crippler pool. CID, and Hilary herself, must look somewhere else for the murderous mind which could intend death to both women. And it seemed more than ever likely that someone had meant to kill Dinah Halsgrove.
‘Good evening, Mrs Masters.’
Her mind was snatched from the interior guilt of her past suspicion to the two men in front of her. Even this morning, DI Foulks’ lean face had had a somewhat weary air. Now he looked positively haggard. That forward-stooped head had deep vertical lines either side of his down-curved mouth. DS Blunt also looked tired.
‘You two look as though you need a good night’s sleep,’ she told them in the voice she would have used for an over-zealous pupil at exam time.
‘We have a murder investigation on our hands.’
‘I’m not likely to forget that.’
‘I’m sorry. It must have been a distressing experience. You needn’t worry. We’re not going to take you over that again. Your evidence this afternoon was admirably clear and helpful. That’s not something I could say about everyone who finds a corpse. No, there’s something else. Did you – either before or after you found Mrs Standforth – see this person?’
Detective Sergeant Blunt pushed across the table an artist’s impression of what seemed to be a young man, or perhaps a boy, in a hooded tracksuit, navy-blue with a white stripe down the side. The hood was pulled forward, shadowing his face. She was clearly not intended to identify his features from the sketch. Only the tracksuit. Even the trainers below it were depicted in a blurred way which showed that the detectives did not have precise information.
