A Dangerous Deceit (28 page)

Hamer gave a startled exclamation. ‘
Who
did you say?'

‘Arthur Aston. He was Father's batman at one time. He must have known about all this. Father had been making cheques out to him … that's what the payments to him were all about, they must have been!'

‘Lance Corporal Aston? Oh yes, I remember him. Amateur boxer, saved Ossie from Johnnie Boer once, but I never took to him much. Always one like him in every company. Knows everybody's business, where to get you anything you want, as long as you ask no questions. Threatening, was he? Just let me have a few minutes with him!'

Symon said quietly, ‘Colonel Rees-Talbot, the man is dead. He has been murdered too.'

The silence went on so long it was almost an intrusion when Margaret spoke. ‘But Felix …' she said, through stiff lips. She knew now that the blood could and actually did run cold; she felt icy, to the very pit of her stomach. Images and ideas flashed before her like a series of moving pictures: Aston, murdered … Felix's fight with him the night before he was killed, after Felix had just found out that Aston had been blackmailing their father … But what if he had not
just
found out? What if he had known
before
then? What if he had heard more than he'd told her about that overheard conversation of their father's with Aston? What if he had known about this man, this Mauritz –
and had learnt who he was?
It wasn't difficult to see where that might have taken him.

She didn't know how long she had sat there, frozen into immobility, but suddenly found Symon was pressing a tumbler with brandy in it into her hand, closing her fingers around it, guiding it to her mouth. He must have left the room and brought it in without her noticing. She gulped obediently, swallowed, and the fire of it immediately began to warm her.

At that precise moment, the door was thrown open and, without ceremony, in burst Major Frith.

Red-faced and with his usually smoothly brushed iron-grey hair dishevelled, he took two quick strides into the room. ‘There is no need to panic, my lady, but you must all leave the room. Don't rush, but move as quickly as you can.'

‘What? What is it, Giles?'

‘There's a fire,' he answered, stating what was becoming increasingly obvious, second by second. Acrid smoke was beginning to drift from somewhere further along the corridor outside, unaccustomed noises and shouts, the sounds of panic, were issuing from the back quarters.

‘Where is it?'

‘Never mind that!' ordered Hamer, automatically assuming control and marshalling them out into the corridor behind Frith, at the same time as Frith shouted over his shoulder, ‘Not that way, can't get through the hall! Follow me, this way, out at the back.'

Having left the house by way of the kitchens, the women assembled on the front lawn, along with some of the older servants. Margaret left Lady Maude in the care of old Hanson and the housekeeper, and went to help the rest to carry out what they could, anything that was deemed valuable. The fire was raging in the snug, and by now the hall was alight, the flames licking towards the green baize door that separated it from the kitchen quarters. Anything that would hold water – buckets, bowls, saucepans – was being thrown on to the flames, which barely hissed as they swallowed it up.

‘The fire engine's been sent for, my lady,' Stanton tried to reassure her. ‘And the Colonel's organizing water being drawn from the big pond.'

‘They'll never get here in time,' Lady Maude said, visualizing the miles of winding lanes and rutted roads that lay between here and Folbury.

There was nothing to do but stand helplessly and watch Maxstead as it blazed to the ground.

The town's fire engine passed them, clanging its bell and heading out of the town just as Stringer was drawing the car into the side.

‘Are you sure this is the right address, Gilmour?'

‘It's the one they gave me, sir.'

They left Stringer to find a place to park the car where he could wait for them. ‘Near as possible,' Joe reminded him. Reardon had scarcely spoken since leaving the station, wrapped in his own thoughts.

Castle Street was a busy side street running between Victoria Road and the market, but it was mostly small shops, some of them with premises above. Although it was getting towards the tail end of a bustling market day, the shops were still full: a queue of late shoppers snaked out on to the street from inside a pork butcher's whose pies and faggots were famous beyond Folbury, a mouth-watering smell of hot roast pork issuing from its door, while a few steps further along came the nutty smell of wholesome bread. Joe's stomach growled. It might be some time yet before supper, and he was hungry – even for supper supplied by his aunt.

In the greengrocer's they were headed for, the proprietor was too busy weighing out potatoes and onions to give them more than a cursory glance before calling over his shoulder that the flat above the shop had a side entrance, then straight up the stairs, green door at the top, only one, can't miss it.

It was indeed the only door off a square landing at the top of scuffed, lino-covered steps, with a passionate tenor rendering of ‘
You are my heart's delight
' coming from behind it. A second knock was needed before eventually the door was opened.

For a split second nobody said anything. Mutually taken aback, they all stared. Finding his voice, Joe announced their business.

‘Well,' said Judy Cash. ‘Well, I suppose you'd better come in.'

‘You do get around, Judy, don't you?' Joe remarked, exchanging a look with Reardon as they followed her down a short, narrow passage. She didn't seem to think his comment worthy of a reply. What the devil was she doing here, Miss Christmas Tree Fairy? She appeared quite at home, the skirt of her bright green dress swishing confidently as she danced lightly in front of them.

They reached another door at the end of the passage where she stopped abruptly with her hand on the knob, the glass slave bangle high on her bare arm glinting in the light of the one unshaded electric bulb in the ceiling. Momentarily hesitant, revealing herself more shaken than she had appeared, she murmured, ‘Go carefully, won't you? It's not what you think.'

Reardon digested this enigmatic statement, making no comment. In return, something flashed in the depths of her eyes. Perhaps it was the colour of her dress that made them seem catlike, almost golden green.

She turned the knob. As the door swung open, the woman kneeling on the floor beside a half-packed suitcase looked up and then froze, as if in a tableau, a folded skirt lying across her outstretched palms, like a priestess making an offering to some deity.

The day was beginning to fade and in the uncertain half hour before dusk began, the north-facing room was full of shadows. All the colour seemed concentrated on the rigid figure of Vinnie Henderson, kneeling motionless before the suitcase in a red jumper, with her bright gold hair loose around her face. Slowly and with great care she placed the skirt in the case, shut the lid and stood by the fireplace, her hand resting on the mantel. Behind Reardon, Judy switched on the light and the room was revealed in all its tawdriness, a shabby little bed-sitter that had seen better days, as had the furniture, a gimcrack collection assembled no doubt to make rented accommodation from what had once been a bedroom. Sugary as golden syrup, the throbbing tenor continued to pour his heart out.

‘It's the police, Plum.'

‘Yes. We've met before, haven't we, Inspector … Sergeant?'

‘Leaving us, are you, Miss Henderson?'

Vinnie had quickly recovered from whatever shock their entrance had given her. ‘Actually, yes,' she replied easily. ‘What brings you here?'

As the love song reached louder and more passionate heights, ‘
Your life divine … brings me ho-ope anew …
', he gave the standard formula: ‘We've reason to believe you can assist us with our enquiries and we'd like to have a word with you – if you'll please turn that music off.'

Judy went to the gramophone in the corner and lifted the arm, but not gently enough; the needle screeched across the record and Richard Tauber groaned to a dying fall. ‘Ouch! Sorry.'

‘Have a seat, gentlemen – if you can find one. I'm afraid we're in a bit of a mess.' There was indeed hardly anywhere in the room that wasn't strewn with clothes and other possessions, presumably waiting to be packed. ‘What is it you want? Why are you here?' Vinnie repeated.

‘I'd very much like to know the same thing,' intervened Judy Cash, briskly sweeping books to the floor from a high stool and perching on it.

Joe settled for propping himself against the table while Reardon pushed aside a pile of clothing on the sofa. ‘I think we might well ask the same thing of you, Miss Cash,' he remarked mildly.

‘It's Judy,' she said, slightly irritated. ‘Well, in case it had escaped your notice, this is actually my home.'

‘Yours? The King's School gave this as Miss Henderson's address.'

‘So it is – for the present,' Vinnie said. ‘When I gave in my notice I naturally had to give up my live-in accommodation there. My friend Judy offered to put me up,' she added with the wide, bright smile Reardon had been so taken with.

Her friend Judy?

The incurious person at the school who had answered Joe's polite request for her address hadn't thought it necessary to say that leaving her job as the headmaster's secretary had involved Miss Henderson in a change of address – or indeed that she had even left her position there at all.

‘But before living at the school, you lived at number eighteen Henrietta Street.'

‘Henrietta Street? Where's that? No, sorry, I've never lived there.'

Reardon smiled. ‘Well, you know, I don't think that's true, is it? I believe you
did
live there for some time, Mrs Mauritz.'

An odd look crossed her face, to be replaced almost instantly by one of barely controlled amusement as she caught Judy Cash's eye. Reardon had long since acquired immunity to this sort of levity through interviewing countless witnesses who thought it clever to know something the police didn't. But neither of them were to know that, and she sobered instantly when it became clear that neither he nor Gilmour shared their amusement. ‘Mrs Mauritz? What on earth gave you that strange idea? You've surely got the wrong person if that's who you're looking for.'

She had barely uttered two words when they had met her previously, during the interview with Felix at Alma House, when she had come into the room with a vase of spring flowers and been prevailed upon to stay. Now, hearing the clipped vowels as she spoke, he took it to be the South African English that Eva Smith had put down as ‘swanky', though it wasn't all that noticeable and he didn't think he would have remarked on it had he not been looking for it.

‘Tell me, Miss Henderson, why are you leaving?'

‘Oh, I'm afraid I'm a footloose sort of person,' she answered carelessly. ‘I soon get bored with living in one place, you know? Folbury's just hunky dory, I've enjoyed living here, but it's time to make tracks for home.'

‘And home is South Africa?' Another look, secret and complicit, passed between the pair. Their relationship intrigued him. ‘For both of you, I take it?'

‘That's right.'

‘And you've never made it known to anyone that's where you were from? Not even to your friends, the Rees-Talbots?'

She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. ‘They never asked.'

What about Felix, the young man he had previously assumed she was attached to? Weren't young lovers supposed to be desperate to know every last detail about their beloved? She had probably lied to him, inventing an imaginary past to satisfy any curiosity he might have had. Yet he had an odd fancy, despite the flippancy, that she might have regretted the deception, as if she might be sad at the way things were turning out, that she had hoped they might have been different. In fact, neither woman was as casual as they were making out, however much they tried to appear so.

He went back to his previous question. ‘Sergeant Gilmour here has interviewed witnesses who can prove that a man named Wim Mauritz lived at Henrietta Street. The same witnesses will be able to identify the woman who claimed to be his wife. He was from South Africa, too, which seems an unlikely coincidence – unless you can explain what you are doing over here, for instance, and why you're now leaving so suddenly?'

‘You don't have to answer that, Plum.'

‘Let Miss Henderson speak for herself.'

Vinnie Henderson – or Mrs Mauritz – or
Plum
– replied composedly, ‘Well, I don't know where you've got all these ideas from, but I certainly wasn't married to that man, whoever he was. I'm not married to anyone.'

All this time she had remained standing, her elbow propped casually on the mantelpiece of the small black cast-iron fireplace in which a sulky fire smouldered. Presently she lowered herself with apparent nonchalance to the hearthrug where she sat with her feet curled under her. He had noticed an odd thing: each time she spoke, it was preceded by a glance at her friend, almost, you might have thought, as if she were seeking guidance – or even permission. He would not underestimate either of them, but the feeling that it might be little Judy Cash who was the dominant personality in this room didn't altogether surprise him.

In fact it was she, cool as water, who now demanded of Reardon, ‘Is it too much to ask again why you're here? And what gives you the right to interrogate my friend like this? As far as I can see, she's done nothing to warrant it.'

‘Good question.' Reardon slipped a hand into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out the photograph Lady Maude had produced. Both pairs of eyes were drawn to it, but for the moment he kept it turned face downwards in his hand. ‘Before I answer it, we first need to talk about Arthur Aston.'