A Medal For Murder (39 page)

‘I haven’t,’ Alison said.

‘You will be.’

The implications of this made Alison’s lower lip quiver. Rodney reassured her.

My impatience rose. That is the trouble with lovers. They cannot see beyond their own cocoon. ‘Will you two please just think for a moment? Is there anywhere she may have gone to hide?’

‘Hide?’ they said in unison.

‘Yes. I didn’t want to tell you this, and I hope you’ll keep it to yourselves.’ I gave Alison a look. ‘There are some things best not talked about.’

‘You can rely on us,’ Alison said, looking to Rodney for confirmation.

He nodded agreement. ‘Of course. Lucy’s our friend.’

‘I have reason to believe . . .’ Listen to yourself, I thought. You are beginning to sound like a policeman. ‘Lucy sent her grandfather a ransom note, demanding money. She’s pretending to have been kidnapped.’

Unexpectedly, Rodney started to laugh.

‘Rodney!’ Alison rebuked him sharply, a slap of the wrist in her voice.

‘No, but it’s just like her,’ Rodney said. ‘I could just imagine that. And the poor old boy probably doesn’t have a bean. How much is she asking for?’

‘Never mind that now. But Dylan helped her and he
is in the infirmary. So it is important that I find her. Do you have any idea where she may have gone to hide?’

Alison looked at Rodney, willing him to be the one to come up with an answer. He obliged.

‘When we rehearsed, going out as our characters, there was a spot, wasn’t there, Alison?’

Alison blushed. ‘You mean . . .’

‘Yes.’ For a moment they forgot my presence and gazed at each other. Rodney continued. ‘We were supposed to meet Lucy and Dylan, only we were late, and they didn’t wait.’

‘Where was this?’ I took out my notebook.

The wasp returned. Rodney picked up the Sunday paper and swatted it away. ‘Out on Stonehook Road, way past the park, just an open area of ground where visitors don’t go. We didn’t want to make spectacles of ourselves, you see.’

Alison gazed at him dreamily. ‘There’s a stream, a meadow. It was supposed to be the chapel picnic, from the story of
Anna of the Five Towns.
We had a lovely picnic,’ Alison said. ‘Lucy and Dylan missed it because they went off on their own. You tell her, Rodney. You can describe it better.’

‘They went into an old tower, an abandoned windmill, or a folly, I don’t know. They pretended it was the premises of Price and Company . . .’

‘In the play, you know,’ Alison added. ‘Willie Price’s father falls behind with the rent.’

Rodney said, ‘Dylan told me that Lucy took a great fancy to the tower. Dylan planned to tell Mr Croker about the place, so that they could find out who owned it and perhaps Croker & Company would get the business, seeing who might want to buy it, or the land.’

Alison smiled. ‘Lucy said he must do no such thing. She would buy it when she became rich and famous.’

Or, she would use it as a hideaway
. ‘Where is it?’

‘Do you know Stonehook Road?’ Rodney asked.

That was where Dylan had come off his bike. I handed Rodney my notebook. ‘Would you draw me a map?’

‘She won’t be there,’ Alison said. ‘Not in a million years. It’s horrible and smelly. Dylan said so.’

‘Is there anywhere else that you can think of, Alison?’ I asked.

She shook here head.

‘Then this is worth a try.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Rodney asked, looking up from his sketch, showing no great enthusiasm.

‘Of course not. Stay with Alison. You’ve both been through far too much.’

At that moment, Mrs Hart toddled from her front door. ‘Mrs Shackleton! I do hope you’ve come to join us for Sunday dinner.’

I leapt to my feet, ready for the off. ‘No, this is just a flying visit, Mrs Hart. Was your church fete a success?’

‘It was indeed. The fallen women have a lot to be grateful for.’ Her hand flew to her mouth, as she realised her faux pas in mentioning fallen women in the presence of a gentleman. She drew me aside, to the shade of the pergola. Unable to resist, she dead-headed a faded white rose. ‘Poor Rodney. I insisted that Alison telephone and ask him over for Sunday dinner. You’re very welcome to stay yourself, Mrs Shackleton. A roast will always offer another slice.’

‘Thank you but my mother will be coming over and
meeting me at the hotel, otherwise I would have loved to.’

‘Some other time?’

Over her mother’s shoulder, Alison made great eyes at me, demanding silence. That irritated me.

‘Rodney, dear, would you be kind enough to take my chair into the shade of the pergola? This sun is rather too much.’

Mrs Hart was a woman in need of a son-in-law. The alacrity with which Rodney complied showed that she had found one.

Before he obliged her, he returned my notebook. I made my goodbyes. Alison walked me to the gate.

‘When Dylan comes out of the infirmary, I think he’ll be in need of his friends,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget him, will you?’

Alison smiled. ‘Of course not. I think those of us who were in
Anna of the Five Towns
will always have something a little special between us.’

You certainly will, I thought. Murder, blackmail, pregnancy, an engagement, extortion.

‘And just in case I don’t find Lucy in the tower, is there anyone else she might have confided in?’

‘Can’t think of anyone.’ Alison pouted. ‘She didn’t confide in me about her ransom plan. I should have told her not to be so silly.’

Alison closed the gate. As I walked toward my car, she called, ‘Of course there is Dan Root. He walked her home most nights. But I don’t see her confiding in him. He’s a funny chap.’

I took a couple of steps back towards her.

‘Funny in what way?’

‘Oh, for instance today, he’ll be at some church or
chapel and nobody will know which. He’s tried them all, from All Saints on Harlow Hill to the Railway Gospel Mission Hall. That’s why he was so good at playing the preacher if you ask me. He’s listened to them by the cartload.’

As I followed Rodney’s perfect map and found my way to Stonehook Road, I thought about Dan Root. No Church of England congregation would suit him, draped with its union flags and banners. Wesleyan hymns would not be to the taste of a Boer boy, a young man, loose in the world with his watchmaker’s case and his family bible. Again I asked myself the question, how and why did he find his way to Harrogate?

 
 

Rodney’s map gave no idea of distance. The landmarks were an abandoned cottage, the brow of a hill, and a clump of trees. I was to look out for a round tower.

Hoping the small copse that came into view was the clump of trees Rodney had mentioned, I slowed down. Soon I had to gather power for a hill. He had not mentioned how the road twisted and turned. Small wonder poor Dylan had been thrown off his bike. More trees then, sure enough, the tower came into view. I pulled in at the roadside.

Someone had walked across the meadow flattening grass and flowers in a straight line between hedgerow and tower. The scent of grass and clover made thoughts of ransoms seem madly melodramatic. The tower gave off such a forbidding silence that surely no one could be in there.

The heavy door creaked open. It smelled damp and stale. The stink of rats’ urine and rotting vegetation rose in a dizzying perfume from the deep drop below broken floorboards. The place was dangerous. It should be razed to the ground or boarded up and padlocked.
Only someone young and romantic would see enchantment here.

I wanted to call Lucy’s name but something about the atmosphere silenced me.

Foot on the first shaky step, I began to climb, as quietly as I could. If I surprised her, she would have no time to gather her thoughts and come up with some cock-and-bull story.

It took a little while to become accustomed to the gloom. Straight stairs, with one tread missing, led to a first floor. An old blanket lay in a crumpled heap in the centre of the circular room.

At the foot of the spiral staircase that must lead to the top of the tower, I paused. A voice broke the silence, a man’s voice. One or two more steps and I could begin to make out the words. Was he talking to himself? No. He must be talking to Lucy, but she was not responding. A feeling of panic tightened my heart. Another step. I could hear his words clearly now. But surely he must hear my breath, and the pounding in my heart, the throbbing in my temples that sounded as loud as a train? I took a few deep breaths. Don’t panic.

Of everyone that might have been an ally of Lucy in her little game, Dan Root had not been near the top of the list. He had at first seemed aloof and self-contained, above the petty concerns of other mortals, until I realised that he listened in to what went on in the Wolfendales’ flat.

Being in the dark about so much made me feel like a mole crawling through an earth tunnel. But when I raised my eyes, the light from the top of the tower urged me on.

First, I listened.

Dan said, ‘I decided to kill him because of what he did.’ His voice was entirely at odds with the words. He spoke with reassurance, a hot water bottle of kindness in his tone.

Silence from Lucy. Was he talking to a corpse? A confession of murder could not safely be made to a living, breathing human being.

Dan said simply, ‘I hated him.’

Still no answering word.

I could tiptoe away. I could hurry back the way I had come and fetch help. But why should I be afraid of a man who had sat on the wall and talked to me in such an ordinary everyday kind of way, who had let me try his eyeglass and who mended clocks and watches with such skill and care, love even?

It occurred to me that I was doing to Dan Root what he had done to the captain, listening with rapt attention. Had he listened because he was obsessed with Lucy? After the performance of
Anna of the Five Towns
he had walked Miss Fell home. A perfect alibi. Then he had gone back and murdered Milner for pestering his true love, for wanting her. And now what?

There was the smallest sound. It could have been the words ‘Help me’.

Sykes, where are you now, I asked. What is the point of having an assistant if when you need him most he is twenty-odd miles away tending an allotment. Nothing for it but to press on.

‘Hello!’ I called as I climbed the last few stairs to the parapet. ‘Is anyone there?’ I asked, hoping to allay the suspicion that I had heard a confession of murder.

‘I hope the view will be worth it,’ I said, trying for a light-hearted tone as I came onto the parapet.

The first sight of Lucy startled me into freezing on the spot. She was seated, facing me, her back to the wall, legs outstretched. She looked exhausted and dishevelled. Her ankle was swollen to tree-trunk size. Her face was hot and red from the sun, yet she had a blanket draped round her shoulders.

Dan Root sat in a similar position. He was to my left which was why I did not see him straight away. The sun played on his broad handsome face and lit his mop of fair hair.

‘Come and join us, Mrs Shackleton.’ He waved me in. ‘Will you sit by Lucy, or near me?’

‘Lucy, what happened? You look terrible.’

She glared at me. ‘Who asked you here? Can’t a person have a little privacy?’

‘Charming.’ I turned to Dan. ‘What’s going on? I heard the two of you talking just now.’ I kept my voice light and even, not wanting to give away that Dan’s words had shaken me. That it had sounded like an admission of murder.

Dan shrugged. ‘You tell her Lucy.’

Lucy made no attempt to speak.

I stood over her. In my schoolteacher’s voice, I said, ‘You owe me an explanation. I was the one who carried the lying message to your grandfather on Friday night.’

‘And she does know all about your ransom notes,’ Dan said. ‘Your grandfather asked her to find you.’

Lucy glared at me. ‘Why did you have to stick your nose in?’

I sat down beside Lucy. ‘That is what I do. I find people who have gone missing.’

‘I’m not missing.’ She turned her attention to Dan. ‘And how do you know about my notes, and where to
find me? I didn’t tell you what I planned to do.’