The thrumming in my head I put down to too much driving. The skin across my forehead seemed hot and tight. I cleared my throat. ‘You’ll have your own theory, no doubt?’

  He smiled sourly. ‘A small idea. The way I see it, he received this cutting…’ He slapped his hand on it. ‘…and I think his first thought wouldn’t be to blame somebody else. It’d be to blame himself. He’d brought it about. I believe he committed suicide. The open window was there…’ He shrugged. ‘It fits. It’s simple and uncomplex. Reject it, though, if you want to.’

  ‘Suicide.’ Even to me it didn’t sound like my own voice. ‘That was something also mentioned at the inquest.’

  ‘It was only an idea, but after all, he had been hiding himself away for a couple of months, so he couldn’t have been completely sane. I kept quiet about it. The relatives don’t like to hear verdicts like that, it makes them feel guilty. And the thought did occur to me that my friend, Mr Richard Patton, wouldn’t want suggestions of insanity being tossed around in a court of law.’ He grinned in a ghastly way. ‘They could lead to all sorts of unpleasant legal squabbles over the will.’

  ‘I’ll remember you in mine,’ I said sourly. ‘So…now?’

  ‘Now I’m convinced that Tolchard’s death was an accident.’

  ‘But can’t prove it?’

  ‘No. I believe Walter Mann’s was suicide, and that only Nancy Rafton’s was murder. As I can’t offer one scrap of proof on that, I’ve been recalled to Wales. I go home tomorrow. So it’s over, Richard. Finished, for you and for me.’

  There was a short period of silence, broken by the barman calling time. Very apt. There was nothing left in my glass, nothing left in my mind. I didn’t look up when Melrose got to his feet and walked away.

  I drove back to The Beeches, handling the car from instinct. Everything I’d worked out was destroyed. Unless Walter had been killed, nothing made sense. My brain was wearied with it, tossing the same old facts around, and coming back to the same point. I was at a dead end.

  My headlights flicked over a motorcycle parked in the drive. I very nearly backed up and drove away again. I didn’t think I could face Heather. She was waiting by the garages. There was no dodging it.

  I walked up to her. She said: ‘You haven’t been in touch. We were wondering…’ There was no life in her voice. Her stance was awkward, a stiffness that arose from her uncertainty.

  ‘Would you like to come inside?’

  She shook her head. ‘If there’s nothing to say, what’s the point?’

  My theory had included Tolchard’s death. Without the rest, I could offer nothing. ‘There’s nothing to say,’ I admitted.

  She scuffed her boot in the gravel. ‘It’s going to sound terrible in court.’

  ‘If you’ve decided to tell the truth.’

  I caught her minimal nod. ‘Yes, we’ve decided that.’

  ‘You’ve told your brother?’

  ‘I couldn’t face him. I’ve got to have time.’

  I had to offer her something. ‘I think I know why Tolchard was hanging round that night, and it wasn’t just to lock up.’

  I cursed myself. There’d been a sudden, optimistic toss of her head.

  ‘He’d guessed something about Mr Leyton’s activities, and Chad helping him,’ I explained. ‘He was hoping to catch him out and expose his…his inadequacy.’ Might as well face it. ‘I believe he wanted to force Mr Leyton out, and hoped to buy his shares.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not much use, I know. But it would explain why he might have been lurking at the top of that staircase.’

  ‘But that makes it worse!’ she burst out. ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘Yes, I see. I thought you ought to know, though. I’m sorry, Heather, there’s nothing else.’

  She made an attempt. Give her that. She even managed a half smile. ‘Well…you’ve tried. Thanks for that.’

  But I hadn’t been trying, had I? I hadn’t been thinking about Tolchard all day, but about Walter Mann. And look where that had got me!

  I watched her walk away. I said goodnight to her back, and she flicked her hand in acknowledgement. Then I turned off the Volvo’s lights and went inside.

  20

  I do not remember going to bed but clearly I had, because there I was in it when I awoke. I couldn’t even remember getting to sleep, and had the impression I’d tossed and turned all night. Mary said nothing about my condition when I went down to breakfast. Probably I didn’t exchange a word with her.

  I took Sheba out for a walk. We roamed the garden and the river bank. She took me to show me the otters, who seemed to recognise her and invited her in to play. She declined. Otters have sharp teeth. The general idea of all this was to let some fresh air into my brain, but subconsciously I realised I was saying goodbye to it all.

  You can appreciate my reasoning. I had promised to help Chad in respect of the death of Tolchard. I could do this in only one way, the chance of showing accidental death now being remote. And as Chad had the only decent motive so far, I’d have to prove a better one. Which I had. I’d explained it to Amelia. I might be able to prove that Clare stood to gain by her husband’s death, when she could well have turned out to be a loser if he’d been contemplating divorce. This he might have done, if he’d been aware of her sexual activities. A proud man. He’d not want to be shown as inadequate. Thus, she might have killed him.

  But, having done so, she’d soon realise that this action had prompted her father into paranoiac fears for his own safety. This had eventually led to Walter’s new will, or the threat of it, which had warned Clare that she was about to lose more than the death of her husband had gained her. So Walter had to die before he messed things up for her.

  And there was Walter claiming he’d traced his niece. There was urgent action to be taken, and it went wrong. Amelia did not die—but would Clare know that? She would believe that Amelia was dead. She had believed that. So now there was even more urgency to kill her father, before he discovered that the will he’d just drawn was invalid.

  It was at this point, when days, hours even, were important, when Walter was still locking himself away, invulnerable, that he’d settled it all for her by killing himself! It could not be so. The whole pattern had been broken by chance, by coincidence. Another few minutes, and Clare might have been informed that Amelia was still alive, and that it was then too late to kill him.

  And just then he’d killed himself?

  No, I would not accept it. Yet, if I did not…then what? I’d be opposing police opinion, and my actions and theories would be challenged, and they would be forced to show that Walter had a reason, however remote, for having committed suicide. From that there would be queries of mental stability, challenges to the will, and, whatever Amelia’s decisions as to fairness, it would all be snatched away from us.

  Didn’t I tell you about fate? A tricky lady.

  I went back to the house and had lunch, then out to the back and to the conservatory. The scaffolding was there, but still the glaziers had not come to finish the job. I’d have to phone somebody about that. No I wouldn’t; I’d have no authority. Very soon, all authority might be snatched away. I might not be able to bring Amelia here, not even be allowed to park the caravan in the drive.

  Hell, I thought, get on with it Richard. ‘It’ being an attempt to discover how someone might get out of a locked room, and lock the door behind them, when Walter had taken the key with him.

  I stood inside the conservatory, imagining it as it would have been then, without the scaffolding. Would it, for instance, have been possible to climb down by rope, and in through the hole in the roof? Walter had left a sizeable gap, but who would have dared to do it? One slip, one slightest swing, and you’d be cut to pieces. Then, how to explain the resulting wounds? No. Eliminate that.

  I went outside and stood back, examining the facing wall. This side there was no convenient ivy or wisteria. The walls were bare beneath the windows. The nearest down pipe was at the corner of the house, a good ten feet away. No way down. Just no way.

  Up? I considered that. The eaves above the window could not have been reached.

  No one, without a key, could have left that room, with a locked door behind them.

  Without a key! I prowled the drive. The only person with a key had been—was—Mary Pinson. Mary Pinson, who’d gained that greatest prize of all, security, from Walter’s death. But she had possessed it before. You’re mad, Richard, insane!

  So, being insane, and desperate if you must know, I got into the Volvo and went to see Clare again.

  There was a futile idea that I might be able to break her down by sheer force of personality, or entice an admission from her with my subtlety. It was unfortunate that I went there feeling like a whipped dog.

  ‘Well!’ she said. ‘Look who we’ve got here.’

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘I see no reason why.’

  ‘A few questions…’

  ‘If you’re from the Mormons…’ Then she gave a bark of dead laughter and said: ‘Oh, come in, you big fool.’

  She’d got me beaten before we started. Being unpredictable, she could not be manoeuvred. She led the way into her lounge, and indicated the settee.

  ‘Now you’ll take a drink,’ she decided.

  ‘It’s just that I hate spirits.’

  ‘There’s sherry. Or white wine.’

  ‘White wine, please.’

  It seemed that we couldn’t talk without a glass in our hands.

  She brought my glass over and placed it on the table before me. I saw that the third finger of her left hand now bore a ring I hadn’t noticed before. A ruby surrounded by small diamonds. Had she unearthed the engagement ring Aleric had given her, in sentimental memory? Hardly likely, I thought. She’d discarded the wedding ring.

  I looked up. She was smiling down at me. A woman, she knew, could not have missed it. A lump of a man might. I pretended I had.

  ‘Paul’s been showing me over the factory,’ I said. The wine was crisply dry, but not cool. Wasn’t she going to sit down? Did she intend to hold that smile? ‘The general impression,’ I explained, ‘is that I’ll be taking some interest in it. I wonder why people assume my wife will not? Do they think a woman couldn’t do it?’

  ‘She might not want to.’

  ‘True. But if I do—take an active part, I mean—I’d need to know about your position. You’ve never taken an active part, I’ve been told. But now…’

  I was maintaining an admirably impersonal approach, considering that now she was dressed in a slim skirt, slit at one side, and a very chic blouse, with her hair caught back in a ribbon. She was wearing more make-up than the slacks had qualified for, and to emphasise it she popped out a bit of tongue and moistened her lips.

  ‘Aleric always voted my paltry thirteen shares.’

  ‘But he’s no longer with us.’ I’d noted he was now Aleric. ‘Surely you might be persuaded to—now?’

  ‘Such a bore.’

  At last she sat, opposite me as I’d guessed, the skirt obligingly revealing an area of thigh. If I was a good boy, she might allow me to vote her shares.

  ‘But not so paltry now,’ I pointed out. ‘With the thirteen you’ve inherited from your late husband, you’ll have over a quarter.’

  She hid behind her glass. Almost pure gin again. ‘You know—’

  ‘The ones he bought from Donald.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Her eyes slid beyond me. ‘You’ll know about those.’

  ‘I’ve become involved with Donald’s affairs.’ Then, so as not to make a point of this, I added: ‘I’m sure you’d make a most admirable addition to the board.’

  We were coming along fine. I might just as well have been a visiting salesman. But I was dealing with volatile emotions. ‘Why would I want to be on your blasted board?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be mine. My wife’s—’

  ‘She’d give you a proxy, as I did for Aleric.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’

  ‘Then why don’t you bloody-well ask her?’ she demanded, waving to a side table bearing a green phone. It clashed with the carpet.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ I said soothingly. ‘This is only what they call an exploratory conversation.’

  ‘Then don’t explore me, not with your words, not with your eyes, not with anything.’

  She couldn’t keep her mind off sex. In case I was succeeding, she gave an ineffectual jerk at her skirt.

  ‘It would be useful, though, to know your intentions,’ I said smoothly, caught a spark in her eyes, and went on: ‘If you’re not interested in voting them, perhaps you’d be interested in selling.’

  ‘Not to you. Not to anyone,’ she flared.

  ‘You have a very possessive feeling towards them? You surprise me.’

  ‘They’re mine.’

  ‘Hard won, were they?’

  ‘They didn’t come as easy as…’ She stopped, realising I’d gained a point. Her eyes were like the ice in her glass. It tinkled as her fingers moved the glass. ‘You bastard!’

  ‘It’s convenient he died,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ It cracked out.

  ‘Otherwise you might have had to annul the marriage, and…’ I put back my head and laughed. ‘…and claim custody of the shares.’

  By God, how far d’you have to sink, Richard? Do you have to degrade her completely? She was looking at me with her lips a little apart, teeth just visible, and there was pain in her eyes. She glanced down at her glass, which contained too little to be worth throwing at me. Abruptly she got to her feet to replenish it. I turned my head. She was walking with legs not quite under control. It had been a low blow.

  By moving sideways a little I could see her in a mirror across the room, in profile. Her face was stiff. She was fighting to control it.

  When she walked back and took her seat again, she had succeeded. She spoke in a voice I hadn’t heard before, lower-pitched and with a hint of appeal in it, which she couldn’t quite erase.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do. Shame me, I suppose. But I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. I explained that, but perhaps you think that was a joke, too. You’re quite correct, I could’ve annulled the marriage. I went to see a solicitor, and that was his advice. While there was still time, he said. But do you imagine I could have done that? Do you really believe that Aleric would have let it happen? For the thing to have got to court, and for him, the macho-supremo, to be revealed as impotent…’

  ‘But surely the two go together,’ I said softly.

  ‘What does that mean? If you’re going to start being funny again…’

  I held up my hand. ‘Pax. I simply meant that given the impotency, he’d just have to prove to himself his perfection as a man.’

  ‘Oh, you’re cute. A man who can think! Fancy that. Then try thinking of me, brother.’

  The surface hardness was congealing again. I already knew that beneath it—pushed under a long way, perhaps—there was probably a warm, and certainly an emotional woman. She’d had to take on a shell. How else could she have survived?

  ‘I’m thinking,’ I assured her. ‘And wondering how you could continue—’

  ‘Without a man?’

  I shrugged. ‘Too obvious. I doubt you’d need to go that far. Going without,’ I explained. ‘I meant, without leaving him. Running away…’

  ‘As Donald did?’

  ‘He was running towards, you would be running away.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t.’

  ‘Then I’m surprised you didn’t take the other way out. Killing him.’

  ‘Ah!’ She tapped her teeth with the glass. ‘Clever, Mr Patton, very clever. But no, I can be more subtle than that. I could have put belladonna in his food, I suppose, but that damned physique would have shaken it off. D’you know what I did, friend?’

  ‘You consoled yourself with other men.’

  ‘But that he knew, and didn’t care tuppence about. No. I took a regular lover. I let him know that. I let him know a name. Someone who would shock him. He’d see it as an insult. He did see it as an insult. I let him know it was permanent, that I loved this man, and that I was living with Aleric in this house as his wife by name only. As he’d been, with me, for years. And I challenged him to divorce me. I told him I wouldn’t defend it. I told him to go ahead and do it, and his blasted secret wouldn’t come out in court. I taunted him with that, daring him to risk it. But he wouldn’t. I reminded him that this place is mine, in my name. That infuriated him. But he didn’t dare to divorce me. If he did, I’d take away his proxy to vote my shares on the board. I told him that if he didn’t divorce me, I could still take them away. He was furious. He didn’t dare to reveal to everybody that he’d got Donald’s. That was supposed to be for later. So he would lose his seat on the board, and all that precious influence at the factory he’d been building up. I said, go on, divorce me, or sit back and watch me with my lover. I told him I’d bring my lover here, and take him to our bed. But he didn’t dare to divorce me. I told him all that. Over and over. And d’you know what he did?’

  I shook my head. I’d noticed how many sentences in that speech had begun with ‘I’. What he hadn’t done was strangle her, which was surprising. She had deliberately set out to undermine his self-esteem, when it couldn’t have been very strong already.

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He went into his exercise room and increased his press-ups to eighty each morning.’ She gave a little tinkle of brittle laughter.

  I wondered whether Tolchard had been toning-up his biceps. ‘And this other man, the one you mentioned as being in love with? How did he enjoy being used as a threat?’

  ‘You’re a completely cynical bastard, aren’t you!’ She said it kindly, in a considering voice. ‘It’s just that you don’t listen. I told you, I love him.’

  ‘You said you’d told your husband that.’

  ‘Because it’s true. Do you know what it can mean, to find someone—suddenly, not expecting it—who’s gentle and understanding, and…and loving? Can you guess? Yes, I love him. Yes, I’m going to marry him, whatever he says, to have and to bloody hold, and just let some sod come along and try to spoil it, and then you’ll see sparks flying, my friend. Then you’ll know.’

 

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