Hand In Glove Part 2

Hyslop grimaced. "Had to study it at school. Not my cup of tea, to be honest. Too obscure for my taste."

"And for many people's."

"I was surprised to find he had a sister still living. Surely he died before the war."

"Yes. But he died young. In Spain. He was a volunteer in the Republican army during the Civil War."

"That's right. Of course he was. A hero's end."

"So I believe. And yet a more peaceful one than his sister's. Isn't that strange?"

CHAPTER.

THREE.

The employment of Avril Mentiply had represented Beatrix's princ.i.p.al concession to old age. It was, as she had often explained to Charlotte, a substantial concession, since Mrs Mentiply's standards of cleanliness were less exacting than her own.

Nevertheless, the relationship had endured, far longer than initial reprimands and threats of resignation had suggested it might. Indeed, it had eventually blossomed into something not far short of friendship. Consequently, upon arrival at Mrs Mentiply's house that evening, Charlotte had not been surprised to find her strained and tearful, with the promised list of missing Tunbridge Ware far from complete.

She lived with her taciturn husband in a strangely sunless pebble-dash bungalow on the Folkestone road-one of the few parts of Rye to which tourists never strayed. It was not a setting in which Charlotte would have wished to linger. Yet linger she had, as Mrs Mentiply offered her cup after cup of stewed tea and poured out her distress at Beatrix's death.

"I know she was old, my dear, and frailer than she'd care to admit, but she always had an . . . indomitable look . . . that made you think she 14 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

was indestructible. But she wasn't, was she? No more indestructible than any of us would be if we were attacked in our own home like she was. What's the world coming to, I should like to know, when that kind of thing can happen to a respectable old lady?"

"Could have been worse," put in Mr Mentiply, whom Charlotte had hoped might take one of several hints and leave the room but who had instead remained slumped in his chair by the flame-effect gas fire. "At least it wasn't one of those s.e.x maniacs. Just a straightforward burglar."

"Have some respect for the dead, Arnold," retorted Mrs Mentiply.

"Miss Ladram doesn't want to hear talk like that."

"Only facing facts."

"Well, facts are that if he'd been a straightforward burglar he wouldn't have murdered Miss Abberley, would he?"

"She should have stayed in bed. Left him to it. Then she'd have come to no harm."

"How do you know?"

"Stands to reason, doesn't it? He was only after her knick-knacks.

You said so yourself."

Seeing that Mrs Mentiply was once more close to tears, Charlotte decided to intervene. "It's certainly the Tunbridge Ware the police want to know about. Let's just read through this list and make sure we've left nothing off, shall we?"

"Very well, my dear."

"A tea-caddy with a view of Bodiam Castle on the lid. Two cake baskets. A cube-patterned tray. Two other marquetry trays. A ther-mometer stand. A solitaire set. Three paper-"

At the first ring of the telephone in the hall, Mrs Mentiply was out of her chair and bustling from the room. Charlotte took a deep breath and set the list aside. Then Mrs Mentiply reappeared. "It's your brother, Miss Ladram. He wants to speak to you."

Charlotte smiled and made her way to the telephone. "h.e.l.lo, Maurice?"

"I'm at Jackdaw Cottage, Charlie. Chief Inspector Hyslop's been putting me in the picture. And a depressing one it is."

"I know. I'm drawing up a list of the missing items now with Mrs Mentiply."

"So I understand. The Chief Inspector wants me to go with him to the mortuary. To identify Beatrix."

H A N D I N G L O V E.

15.

"Really? He never-" Charlotte stopped. Hyslop had probably thought it a kindness not to ask her to perform such a duty. "Will you go straightaway?"

"Yes. But there'll be a sergeant here to take the list when you've finished it. It's probably best to get the identification done as soon as possible."

"Of course."

"Afterwards, well . . . I was wondering if I could spend the night at Ockham House."

"Certainly. You don't need to ask."

"There'll be umpteen formalities to see to tomorrow. Registrar, solicitor and so forth. And I can't say I fancy driving all the way back to Bourne End tonight."

"All right. I'll see you later."

As she put the telephone down, Charlotte realized what a relief it would be to let Maurice take charge of the whole sad affair. Since her father's death, he had become the calm and efficient organizer of family business. He had a.s.sumed control of Ladram Aviation, her father's barely solvent flying school, and turned it into Ladram Avionics, an internationally successful company. He had negotiated the contracts relating to his own father's poetical works from which her mother-and subsequently she-had handsomely benefited.

And he had consistently shown himself able to offer his half-sister a helping hand without trying to run her life. Now, once more, he would come to her rescue. And, as she walked slowly back into the Mentiplys' sitting room, she acknowledged to herself that the sooner he did so the happier she would be.

The list at last completed and delivered, Charlotte drove back to Tunbridge Wells. It was pitch dark by the time she reached Ockham House and cold enough for the warmth of the day to seem a distant memory. At all events it felt cold, though whether the temperature was to blame-or Mrs Mentiply's account of how she had found Beatrix-Charlotte was uncertain.

"He'd hit her with one of those heavy bra.s.s candlesticks. Several times, I should say. I hardly recognized her at first. Her hair all matted with blood. And this terrible wound in the side of her head. They told me it must have been quick and I hope to G.o.d they're right. But it won't 16 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

fade quickly from my mind, I can tell you. I shan't ever forget going up those stairs and finding her huddled in the corner of the landing. Not ever."

Charlotte turned on more lights than she normally would and lit a fire, then poured herself the stiff drink Maurice had recommended earlier. As the fire gained a hold and the chill left her, she went in search of the family photograph alb.u.m and found in it the last picture taken of Beatrix. Longer ago than she would have expected, it dated from a party thrown in honour of her eightieth birthday.

There, on the lawn at Swans' Meadow-Maurice's home beside the Thames at Bourne End-the family had staged a rare and photo-graphically commemorated gathering.

Beatrix was, naturally enough, the centre of the septet. Unusually tall for a woman of her generation, she had also remained resolutely straight-backed with the pa.s.sage of time. Newly coiffured and barely smiling, she projected even greater self-possession in the picture than she had in life. Mary, Charlotte's mother, standing to Beatrix's left, could, indeed, have been the same age rather than twelve years younger. Hunched and peering, contriving somehow to frown and smile simultaneously, her appearance produced in Charlotte a surge of grief and guilt that was so intense she slammed the alb.u.m shut. Then, after a swallow of gin, she reopened it.

Only to confront herself to her mother's left, grinning fixedly at the camera. She had worn her hair too long then and favoured shape-less dresses intended to disguise her weight. Not that she need have worried on that score. Five years later, bereavement had achieved what a dozen different diets never had. Yet this image of herself reminded her why she had always, even as a child, sought to avoid being photographed. Not because of superst.i.tion or shyness, but because the camera could force her to do what she least desired: to see herself as others saw her.

On Charlotte's left, unbalancing the group by standing a foot or so to the rear, was Mary's brother, Jack Brereton. At the sight of him, red-faced and clearly more than slightly drunk, Charlotte chuckled.

Uncle Jack, thirteen years his sister's junior, was the free and infuriating spirit that she was sure every family needed. Witty when sober and offensive when not-which meant at least half the time-he was as unreliable as he was lovable. As a result of their parents' early death, he had lived with Mary even after her marriage to Tristram Abberley. Later, during the war, they had all lived with Beatrix in Rye H A N D I N G L O V E.

17.

and from those crowded years in Jackdaw Cottage Uncle Jack had culled a vast fund of anecdotes with which to entertain those-like Charlotte-who had never had to endure him on a daily basis.

The three figures to Beatrix's right were Maurice, his wife Ursula, and their daughter Samantha. They were a family within the family, the one branch of it where convention and continuity seemed a.s.sured.

Each of them was strikingly good-looking and seemingly happy to proclaim an easy-going affection for the other two. Hence the casual way in which Maurice had put his arm round Ursula's waist. And hence the unthinking readiness with which Samantha held her mother's hand.

Even at fifteen, Samantha's clear-skinned beauty had not been in doubt, although the figure with which she was subsequently to turn many a head had yet to fill out. Ursula and she could just about- Charlotte reluctantly conceded-be taken for sisters, so lightly and elegantly had Ursula coped with motherhood and early middle age.

They both had naturally wavy hair and an instinctive finesse of bearing, although it was an awareness of their own superiority-conveyed by the way they held their chins, the manner in which they met the camera's gaze-that had always set Charlotte's teeth on edge.

As her eyes moved to Maurice-calm, debonair and jauntily grinning-she heard a crunch of car tyres on the gravel of the drive that told her he was about to arrive in the flesh. Suddenly, without understanding why, she knew she did not wish to be found studying an old photograph in which two of the subjects were now dead. Accordingly, she closed the alb.u.m and hurriedly put it away, allowing just enough time to compose her features in the mirror before opening the front door.

"h.e.l.lo, old girl." He greeted her with a hug and a weary smile.

"h.e.l.lo, Maurice." Stepping back from their embrace, Charlotte caught herself comparing him for an instant with his photographed image.

His hair was marginally thinner, perhaps, the smudges of grey at his temples more extensive. Otherwise, he was at fifty what he had been at forty-five: lean and craggily handsome, with a rea.s.suring blend about him of strength and sincerity. He inspired trust even-perhaps especially-in those who did not know him. As for those who did, occasional descents into petulance were easy to forgive when set against his undoubted generosity.

"I could use a drink, Charlie, I really could."

18.

R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

"I'll pour you one. Come in and sit by the fire."

He followed her into the lounge and subsided into an armchair.

By the time she had returned from the drinks cabinet with a large scotch and soda, he had loosened his tie and was ma.s.saging his forehead. "I'm glad you lit this," he said, nodding at the blazing logs.

"Those mortuaries chill your blood, I can tell you."

"I can imagine."

"Be grateful that's all you need to. Do you remember the last time I had to visit one?"

"For Dad." She remembered well enough. She was never likely to forget. One foggy afternoon in November 1963, her father had crashed his light aeroplane in Mereworth Woods, killing himself and his pa.s.senger. It was at that point in their lives that Maurice had emerged from Ronnie Ladram's jovial shadow and imposed his personality upon the family. Charlotte often suspected he had been secretly relieved at his step-father's death, if only because it meant he could bring some order to the chaotic affairs of Ladram Aviation.

Though even now, more than twenty years later, he would never allow himself to admit as much.

"I spoke to Ursula on the car phone. She sends her love-and her sympathy."

"That's kind of her." Charlotte took her gla.s.s back to the drinks cabinet, recharged it, then returned to the fireside. Maurice had lit a small cigar and, when he offered one to Charlotte, she surprised herself by accepting.

"The police were asking about Fairfax-Vane," he said after a moment of silence.

"I know. They think he may be behind the break-in. But I hardly-"

"You didn't meet him, Charlie." It was true. Maurice had been the one delegated to visit Fairfax-Vane's shop and attempt to buy back the furniture Mary had sold him. Without success, as it had turned out.

"Did he strike you as worse than just a con-man, then?"

"He struck me as slippery enough for anything."

"Even murder?"

"I don't imagine he intended it to go that far. I don't even imagine he broke into the cottage himself. Probably some young tearaway he hired who panicked."

"So, Beatrix was killed for a few thousand pounds' worth of Tunbridge Ware?"

H A N D I N G L O V E.

19.

"More than a few thousand. Do you realize what that stuff fetches these days?"

"Not really."