by Fay Sampson
‘What’s this about the chapel?’ George demanded as David left.
Hilary led him away from Gavin and Theresa towards the door to the courtyard. ‘Hush. I’m not sure this is something we should make public knowledge. The police know about it, but I doubt if other people do.’
‘Come on, now! You can’t hold out on the rest of us. Something happened at the Lady Chapel last night?’
‘Something and nothing. My lips are sealed.’
‘Bollocks!’ George stared at the two of them angrily, then he strode ahead of them out of the Chapter House.
TWENTY-FIVE
Hilary and Veronica came out on to the courtyard which looked more disconsolate than before. A few fallen petals were all that remained to show where the laughing wedding party had posed on the steps to the Great Barn. The first fat drops of rain flattened them against the cobbles.
There were lights on in the Great Barn, though it was only early afternoon.
‘Hmmph!’ said Hilary. ‘We were lucky to get a good Sunday lunch, if they’ve got all those to feed as well.’
‘I’m sure the kitchen are used to it. And what a romantic setting to get married!’
‘In the midst of life we are in death, didn’t you say? It’s a good job they don’t know what else has been going on here this weekend. It would rather have taken the shine off the happy couple’s day.’
‘They must have wondered, though.’ Veronica nodded across the lawn to the entrance arch, where two uniformed police officers stood under its shelter. ‘I don’t fancy they’re just standing there to keep out of the rain. We’re under guard.’
‘I hope you’re not suggesting there’s going to be another attempted murder. And talking of rain, we’d better get a move on, or we’ll be soaked before we get to the Gatehouse.’ As she spoke, Hilary set off for the archway at a brisk pace.
‘I see David’s remembered where to find the loos.’
On the far side of the entrance, David’s tall form was visible going up the short side path between the lavender bushes on the left. To the right, steps led down to the Gatehouse Café.
‘Did you know this used to be a roundhouse? They don’t have to be round. It’s where a horse walked round in a circle, turning a wheel.’
‘Yes, Hilary.’ Something in Veronica’s voice made Hilary turn to examine her friend’s face. Veronica’s expression was studiously blank. She reminded Hilary of one of her too-innocent pupils.
‘I like to know things,’ Hilary burst out in self-defence. ‘I know you think I’m an incurable school-marm. I can’t help it.’
‘Just like you have to know who put the overdose in Dinah Halsgrove’s food or drink. Who murdered Melissa. And now who has had a go at killing Jo. And why. George was right about you. However much you pour scorn on the brainstorming group, you want to find the answer as much as they do.’
‘Did you expect me to switch off my brain, just because the local constabulary shows up? Talking of which, who’s that under the arch with the representatives of the law?’
‘It’s Harry!’
Hilary quickened her pace. Veronica kept up with her. Now she could see that there were, not two figures, but three in the shadow of the entrance arch. Two tall and uniformed. The other shorter, rounder. Clouds were darkening the early afternoon and the rain was falling harder. It was with relief that the two women reached shelter.
There were no tears on Harry Walters’ cheeks now. He had reached refuge before the rain could wet his face. But he seemed to be responding monosyllabically to the policemen questioning him. Sorrow had pulled down the lines of his usually cheerful countenance.
It occurred to Hilary suddenly that Harry could have come back to Morland from Totnes in all innocence, the only one of them not to know that his wife was lying in hospital, very possibly with a brain injury.
Jo. That bright, sharp intelligence. The determined would-be crime writer, who had struck Hilary as the one among them most likely to succeed. How life-changing might that attack be?
‘Have you told him? Can we be of help?’
The larger of the officers, whose chevrons pronounced him a sergeant, swung round. ‘I’m afraid this gentleman seems a bit knocked out by the news. We didn’t know he was the husband until he showed up, or we’d have handled things a bit more delicately. I think he could do with a good strong cuppa.’
‘Leave it to us. This way, Harry.’
The light of recognition lit Harry’s mournful features for a moment. ‘I want to go to the hospital. But this officer phoned through for me. They won’t let me see her yet. They say she’s in surgery.’ He sounded desolate.
All sorts of thoughts raced through Hilary’s mind. When Jo came round – if she did come round – would she remember who had struck her down? Had she even seen her assailant? She thought of David’s theory, that someone could have stood behind a tree, down there by the river, armed with a heavy branch. Even someone as slight as the diminutive Lin Bell.
They led Harry through a side door under the arch and down the steps to the Gatehouse Café. A massive beam spanned the room, from one white-painted stone wall to the other. The building projected into the garden. Rain darkened the wood of the outside tables.
‘You’re right,’ Veronica observed, looking around. ‘It’s not round at all. It’s a hexagon.’
But Hilary stopped short on the point of lowering herself on to a sofa. She was suddenly aware that Tania and Rob were coming forward, their faces creased with sympathy.
Hastily Hilary tried to rearrange her face to hide her surprise that Rob was not under arrest. She was aware of Tania’s hostile stare. She evidently hadn’t been successful.
It occurred to her that the police might have released Rob, but that didn’t necessarily mean they’d cleared him.
‘Harry! We’re so sorry!’ Tania gushed. ‘What a terrible thing to happen. And on top of everything else.’
‘How is she?’ asked Rob.
Harry shook his head. He looked bewildered. ‘She’s in surgery. That’s all they’ll tell me. They even told me to stay away from the hospital. Said there was nothing I could do until she comes round.’
The tears had started to roll down his plump cheeks again.
Veronica guided him to the settee facing Tania and Rob. ‘Sit down. Tea or coffee?’
He shook his head once more, as though the choice was too overwhelming for him.
‘Tea, then. With plenty of sugar.’ She went to the counter and ordered tea for Harry and coffee for themselves.
Hilary subsided into the seat next to Harry. ‘I used to love the old sagging sofas here, knee-deep in newspapers. Hmm. I suppose these are tolerably comfortable,’ she admitted, then felt a spasm of conscience for the inappropriateness of the thought.
A silence fell over the group. Hilary found it difficult to know what to say to Harry. She studied Rob’s bespectacled face instead, but could read nothing there.
Once the first rush of sympathy had subsided, Tania and Rob seemed to have run out of words too. They were the ones, Hilary remembered, who had begun by treating the events of the weekend as a source of hilarity. They had joked that Dinah Halsgrove’s sudden illness was all part of a deliberate hoax, dreamed up by Gavin for publicity purposes. The unfolding tragedies had gone far beyond that, and left them stranded in isolation where the tide of violence had cut them off.
Where could Rob fit into this? And was Tania involved? Or was she taken as much by surprise as the rest of them?
Other people, not all of them associated with the course, looked across at the group around Harry with open curiosity. Hilary thought she recognized three from Gavin’s Slowworm group. They were evidently listening to Harry’s replies, yet they made no move to offer condolences. Veronica came to join them, carefully carrying a loaded tray.
‘I got a coffee for David. He takes it black, doesn’t he? He should be here in a moment.’
She poured three spoonfuls of sugar into Harry’s cup. �
��I don’t know how you usually like it, but you need it good and sweet now.’
Harry gulped at it, spluttered, and set the cup down shakily. ‘Hot,’ he mumbled, by way of excuse.
‘So it should be.’
Veronica pulled up one of the wooden chairs for herself. The rain continued to fall outside the windows, closing them in.
There were footsteps on the stairs down from the gateway. Hilary brightened, anticipating David’s return.
She was wrong. A pair of long grey-clad legs appeared, then the rest of the rangy Detective Inspector Foulks. He stood for a moment, surveying the scene. Behind him, Hilary saw DS Blunt and a uniformed policewoman. This was the way it had begun. These same three officers in Lady Jane’s Chamber on Saturday morning. Her fears and surmises had been growing. All the same, she was surprised by the reaction of shock as she thought, ‘They’re going to arrest Harry!’
Hadn’t something inside her known the inevitability of this all along?
Yet she felt suddenly, inexplicably, protective of this tearful man, who had come to the course seemingly in such a genial, relaxed frame of mind, indulging his wife’s ambition to write a successful crime novel.
But DI Foulks merely came across to the sofa where Harry sat and said in a gentler voice than usual, ‘Mr Walters? I’m sorry to have to intrude at a time like this, but we need to ask some questions about your movements and your wife’s.’
Harry looked up, a dazed expression in his wet eyes. ‘I don’t know what I can tell you.’
‘Let’s do this in private, shall we?’
Harry got clumsily to his feet. ‘I told her not to come. I said it would only make her angry all over again. Best to leave it. But she wouldn’t listen.’
‘This way, sir, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Harry mounted the stairs with the two detectives, the policewoman bringing up the rear.
Their departure left an awkward hush.
‘What did he mean by that?’ Rob broke the silence with the question in all their minds.
Hilary paused, wondering whether to speak out. She decided it was too late in the day to keep secrets.
‘We had lunch with George. Long-haired lad from the Snake group. He told us Melissa said she thought she’d met Jo before. Jo vehemently denied it. But it fits in with something I saw for myself. It was when we were dividing into groups, and the leaders were getting ready to join us, I saw Melissa looking over at the Snake group. She seemed really upset. She said something to Gavin and he looked where she was pointing. I couldn’t see who it was they were looking at, but I think it came as a bit of shock to Gavin too. From what George says, I can only imagine that was Jo.’
Tania objected, ‘That doesn’t make sense. If they already knew Jo, they’d have picked up her name on the list of applicants, wouldn’t they?’
A thoughtful pause.
‘Not if Theresa handled the forms,’ Rob suggested.
‘And not if Jo wasn’t married to Harry then,’ Veronica said.
They turned to her. Her cheeks grew pink.
Where mine would have been an uncomfortable red, Hilary told herself.
She rallied. ‘Jo did sound a bit venomous when I drew her attention to Gavin’s bestseller. Maybe there was more behind that than I thought. I assumed it was just jealousy. She really does want to make it big in crime fiction. She was not just passing a pleasant weekend in lovely surroundings, like us.’
‘Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on Ian Rankin’s sort of income myself,’ Rob put in.
They sat in thought. Hilary watched the rain bouncing off the wooden tables outside.
It was Veronica who turned her head to look back at the stairs to the entrance arch.
‘What’s happened to David? His coffee’s getting cold. He should have been with us by now.’
Hilary felt a sudden anger, with herself as much as Veronica. She was David’s wife. It should have been she who had noticed his absence. But her mind had been busy turning over the possibilities of Jo’s previous encounter with the Standforths and how that might be connected with the attack on the eager would-be crime novelist as she ran the riverside path. Could it be, after all, not Harry, but Gavin and Melissa who were responsible?
Not Melissa, she remembered with a start. Melissa was dead.
Veronica’s question pulled her back to the here and now. She looked around the café, as though expecting her husband to materialize. David should have been here now. It was only a short step across from the toilet block to the café entrance.
She turned to look at the stairs again, though she knew there would be nothing to see.
His mug of coffee stood forlornly on the low table in front of her, cooling.
She looked the other way. French windows led out to a picnic area. Beyond that another flight of steps led up to the drive opposite the loos. He might come that way.
The Gatehouse Café was emptying. The rain was easing. Visitors would be setting off to tour the gardens. The course members would be gathering for their final meeting.
‘See you in Lady Jane’s Chamber,’ Tania said, as she and Rob stood up to go.
‘We’ll be right behind you. We’ll just hang on for David.’
In a little while, there was only one couple left besides themselves. The man had a rather lean and distinguished bearing. Hilary felt sure she would have recognized him if he were on the course. Just another of the day visitors, then, here to enjoy a Sunday afternoon at the splendid Morland Abbey. Everybody else on Gavin’s weekend must be in Lady Jane’s Chamber in the cloister by now.
‘It’s two o’clock,’ Veronica said.
Hilary rose. ‘I’m going to see where he’s got to.’
Veronica followed her up the stairs to the entrance arch. Now that the rain had stopped, the two policemen on duty were standing further apart. The broad-shouldered sergeant was patrolling the path around the inner lawn, the younger constable surveying the occasional traffic on the drive that swept downhill between the entrance and the car parks.
‘I see they haven’t closed the grounds to search for evidence,’ Hilary observed.
‘They taped off the path down by the river, where Jo was found.’
‘If you’ll excuse me. I’d better check that David hasn’t had a heart attack in the loo.’
‘Hilary! You can’t just go charging into the gents.’
‘Watch me.’
She strode up the narrow path to the public conveniences.
‘David!’
There was that cold echo of plumbing and tiles.
A startled man in a leather jacket burst out of one of the cubicles.
‘Sorry!’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought …’
‘Just looking for my husband.’ She forced herself to smile.
‘Ah. I see … Want me to try the other cubicles?’
‘If you would.’
But none of them was engaged. The leather-jacketed man pushed open the doors, just in case. He shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, and ran the tap to wash his hands.
Hilary stood baffled. Feelings of panic were not yet rising in her gut, but she could feel them beginning to stir. Instead, her busy mind whipped through the other possibilities. David had forgotten he was supposed to be meeting them in the Gatehouse. He had gone straight to Lady Jane’s Chamber. But no. It had been David’s idea to decamp to the sofas in the café. She thought of the cold cup of coffee still standing on the table.
Perhaps he had met someone who had urgent information …
She turned abruptly back to the entrance and marched up to the sergeant. ‘Have you seen my husband? He went into the toilets about …’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Twenty minutes ago. Greying hair. Going bald on top. Slight limp. Might have been talking to someone.’
‘What was he wearing?’
She stared at him. Her mind froze. David was such a familiar figure, it did not occur to her to identify him by his clothes, as she might a stranger. What had he
been wearing this morning?
Her memory jolted into gear. Of course. They’d been to church in Totnes. David was never a man for over-much formality, but he would at least have put on a jacket.
‘A sports jacket, I think. Greenish sort of check. Hairy tweed. You know the sort of thing.’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Seem to remember him. Went to the toilets, didn’t he?’
‘That’s just what I said. But he hasn’t come back. He was supposed to join us in the Gatehouse Café, but he never showed up.’
‘Want me to check the gents for you?’
‘I already have.’
‘Yes,’ said the sergeant, looking her up and down. ‘I imagine you would.’
They stood in unhelpful silence. Raindrops dripped from the guttering. There was a faint waft of music from the wedding party in the Great Barn.
Suddenly the sergeant stiffened. ‘You’re from the writers’ course, aren’t you? I thought you were supposed to be meeting DI Foulks in Lady Jane’s Chamber now. Better get a move on.’
Hilary looked over her shoulder. Veronica, she realized, was having the same sort of conversation with the younger constable on the outer side of the archway. She came towards Hilary now, shaking her head. A frown of worry creased her usually smooth forehead.
‘No luck, I’m afraid. Our friend’s been keeping an eye on the comings and goings along the drive. Though he did admit to taking a break under the arch here when the rain was heaviest. No sign of David, I’m afraid.’
Hilary came near to stamping her foot. ‘This is ridiculous. He can’t just have vanished.’
‘There’s one place he could be. Where we should be now. Though you’d have thought at least one of them would have seen him crossing the courtyard.’
Even as they skirted the wet lawn, Hilary had a sinking certainty that David would not be in Lady Jane’s Chamber waiting for them.
TWENTY-SIX
The sounds of music and laughter from the wedding party in the Great Barn swept across the courtyard towards them. There could not be a greater contrast, Hilary thought, between that joy and hope for the future and the story of murder and hatred that was playing out so close to it.
