A Medal For Murder (40 page)

‘I guessed,’ Dan said, not very convincingly.

Neither of them moved from their positions.

‘Tell her how you really found out, Dan. I expect you listened in while she and Dylan were upstairs from you, plotting this grand adventure.’

Dan shrugged, obviously not willing to admit to Lucy that he had eavesdropped. I wondered how I could ever have thought him attractive. He looked sulky, like some boy caught with his fingers in the sugar. He was not going to own up to his sneaky ways. I turned to Lucy.

‘Inspector Charles of Scotland Yard wants to talk to you, Lucy . . .’

Lucy groaned. ‘Why is everything going wrong?’

‘And the inspector knows I’m here,’ I added for good measure, and self-protection.

Dan glared at me. ‘If that is supposed to be a threat, then I am quaking in my boots.’

‘It means you better not try anything silly.’

‘I hate that word,’ Dan said. ‘Silly. It is overused by schoolteachers and people who like to make you feel small. Tell Mrs Shackleton what I was saying, Lucy. I don’t mind.’

‘Oh shut up for heaven’s sake,’ Lucy said. She looked like someone suffering from shipwreck. ‘I think I’ve broken my ankle.’ She licked her lips. ‘I probably won’t hold out till Monday. That’s when I told him I’d collect the money, give him time to go to the bank or round with the begging bowl somewhere or other.’ She sighed. ‘Do you have any sweets on you, Mrs Shackleton?’

‘You’re throwing in the towel pretty quickly,’ Dan said. ‘You won’t earn any medals.’ He stood up.

I did not like the way Dan Root edged to the door. It looked as if he intended to stop any attempts to leave. If he had confessed to murder, perhaps Lucy would not get a new life, or any life at all. Neither would I.

In my most confident manner, I said, ‘You have a choice, Lucy. Come home now and get tidied up. Let’s bandage that ankle.’

‘What is the other choice?’

‘The alternative is to wait for the police to come and find you.’

‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ Lucy wailed. ‘And it was such a good plan.’

‘My plan isn’t going very well either.’ I seized the moment. ‘Time to go.’ I stood up, and held out my hands. ‘Take the weight on your good ankle. Put an arm around my shoulder.’

Dan watched us for a moment as Lucy struggled to her feet. Then he stepped across, picked her up as though she were an infant and carried her down the stairs.

I hurried after them with a sudden fear of being left behind, locked in the tower.

A strange trio, we trod across the meadow to the hedge. ‘There’s a gap somewhere,’ Lucy said. ‘It will save you lifting me over the gate.’

‘I know,’ Dan said. He found the gap and made straight for my car. ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Slide Lucy in first. You can get in the back, Dan.’

But Dan turned away. By the time I started the motor, he had climbed on his bike and sped off down the hill towards Harrogate.

Had he murdered Milner? I glanced at Lucy, as she
grimaced in pain. She looked a mess, and she was still beautiful.

There was a mark on the bodice of her dress. It looked like blood. ‘Lucy, what was Dan saying to you before I arrived?’

 
 

My sense of direction had deserted me. I found myself on the far side of The Stray, behind a chauffeur-driven family who had instructed their driver to go at two miles an hour.

If at a disadvantage, pretend that you know what you are doing. ‘I’m driving you to the infirmary, Lucy. They can take a look at your ankle.’

‘No! I just want to go home! Look at the state of me. I’d be embarrassed to go in the infirmary.’

She had refused to say what Dan had been talking about earlier. All that I could get out of her was that he was just trying to make her feel better about things. When I asked what things, she simply said, ‘Oh Mr Milner and everything, and me wanting to get away.’

I would take her home, and let her and Dan Root explain themselves to Inspector Charles.

She waved her arm. ‘It was left, Mrs Shackleton! You should have turned left there.’

‘All right. Don’t yell. I’ll turn left at the next corner.’

She glared at the meandering visitors. ‘Look at them gawping at everything and everyone.’

‘That’s what people do on a Sunday.’

‘Stupid idiots. I used to like to give visitors the wrong directions, if one of them asked me the way.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘It amused me. That’s why people come here, to shop and to be amused. Well, some of them can amuse me.’

‘I thought visitors came here for their health.’

‘That’s the old ones who always want everything to be “like before”.’

‘Before what?’

‘Oh, you know.’ She put on a shaky voice, full of regret, imitating some old person. ‘If we still had King Edward and we hadn’t had that war, everything would have been all right.’ In her own voice, she said, ‘Now it’s left. Now!’

Dan had made quick progress on his bike. I did not overtake him until we reached Leeds Road. I sounded the horn and waved, acting as if I had not heard him confessing to murder in the tower. What had he been telling Lucy that she was so cagey about? Why had he stayed at the top of the tower with her, instead of helping her down straight away?

‘Good,’ Lucy said. ‘We’ll be there before him. I don’t want to be shown up by him thinking he has to carry me in, having the neighbours staring.’

‘Seeing how much trouble you’ve caused, you are just a little too full of yourself, Lucy Wolfendale.’

She let out an angry growl. ‘I’m fed up to the back teeth. Everything’s gone wrong.’

I refrained from saying that the weekend had not gone according to plan for Lawrence Milner either. We
drove back to St Clement’s Road in silence.

I stopped the car outside number 29.

Captain Wolfendale stood in the window, next to the suit of armour. A second later, he was gone. The front door flew open. He hurried down the steps.

‘Lucy!’ The captain helped her from the car. ‘What’s happened to you?’

He thanked me over and over, while trying to support Lucy up the front steps.

‘I’m all right. Don’t make such a fuss, Granddad. Just let me lean on your arm.’

The captain shook his head despairingly as he helped Lucy into the house. ‘You look as if you slept in a hedge. Where have you been?’ He led her into the flat.

Slowly, she crossed the room, holding onto furniture and her grandfather. She dropped heavily into the velvet chair.

He found a footstool for her. ‘Better raise that leg.’

She smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you, Granddad. I’ve had a terrible time. And I’m so hungry.’

The captain jumped to it. He disappeared into the kitchen.

I perched on the arm of the leather chair. As soon as he returned, I would go. A few moments later, he reappeared, with a glass of water and a hunk of bread spread with dripping. His initial relief at seeing Lucy safe and sound had evaporated. He was frowning, and short of breath.

‘Thanks.’ Lucy bit into the bread. With her mouth full, she said, ‘Mrs Shackleton, you were a nurse.’

‘Yes.’ This was not a moment for disclaimers or provisos.

‘I know I’ve been a bit rude to you, but do you think
you could tell me, have I broken my ankle?’

‘It looks like a sprain.’ I turned to the captain. ‘Do you have a crepe bandage?’

The pleasure and relief at seeing Lucy safely home now turned to anger. ‘Ankle? Crepe bandage?’ He did something approaching a mad Morris man dance. ‘Two ransom notes. Written by you, sending me half mad. What’s your explanation?’

Lucy spoke to me. ‘First aid box is on the shelf in the hall.’

The old man had aged since I saw him first on Friday night. He had helped Lucy into the house with a small burst of energy. Now, his breathing was heavy and he could not keep still. ‘Have you nothing to say, Lucy?’

Lucy stared at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever done anything wrong in your life. I don’t suppose you ever needed to get money to do something you desperately wanted to do.’

The captain stared at her, his mouth open. Suddenly he seemed to shrink from her, as from a monster.

‘You told me, you always told me I’d have a legacy.’

They no longer noticed me.

When I came back with the bandage, dripping from the bread had dribbled onto Lucy’s chin. She wiped at it but only succeeded in smearing it across her face. ‘I asked you nicely, Granddad. I asked you for my inheritance, but no. You wouldn’t give me a penny. You forced me into this.’

For two pins I would have left them to claw at each other but the nurse in me could not leave the ankle untended.

The captain watched as I applied the bandage. He said gruffly, ‘The police want to talk to you, Lucy. There
was a nasty incident after the theatre on Friday night, concerning Mr Milner.’

Lucy gulped. ‘I’ve nothing to say to them. I don’t care that Mr Milner’s dead. But I didn’t stab him.’

The captain stared at me. I refused to catch his eye. In a low voice, he said, ‘How do you know he is dead?’

Her eyes darted from the captain to me, and back to him. ‘Dan told me he was murdered, and I’m not sorry about it. He disgusted me.’

For a moment no one spoke. If the souls of the dead hover to watch the effect of their departure on the living, Milner would be in torment. His son, his housekeeper, the girl he dreamed of possessing, none mourned his passing.

The captain sat down on the chair arm beside Lucy. His voice came out in a whisper. ‘Did Mr Root tell you that Milner was stabbed?’

‘I don’t know.’ She bit into her bread, chewed and swallowed. ‘Well, he would be wouldn’t he, or shot or something?’

This time I did catch the captain’s look. He stood up and walked into the kitchen. I followed him along the dim hallway. He held onto the kitchen table for a moment, before sitting down heavily. I took the seat opposite him.

‘I talked to the police earlier,’ he said. ‘They came to find me because Milner and I were comrades in the Boer War.’

‘Did they tell you the cause of death?’

The captain shook his head.

I waited for him to ask me whether Milner had been stabbed. He did not. He knew without my having to say.

He folded his hands and looked down at them, as though he had never seen hands before. ‘What will happen now?’

‘She will be interviewed.’

My mind was racing. Either Lucy had murdered Milner, or someone had told her that he was stabbed. That was possible. Dylan might have told her, if he got as far as seeing her yesterday, or it could have been Dan. The police wanted to keep information back, but they were not always successful in doing so. All it would take would be an early-morning cleaner with sharp ears and a wagging tongue and the information would be out.

The overheard conversation from the tower came back to me. Dan Root, saying to Lucy, ‘I hated him’, and ‘I decided to kill him because of what he did’.

‘What are you thinking?’ the captain asked.

‘When I found Lucy, Mr Root was already there. I wonder exactly what he said to her.’

‘We can ask her again,’ the captain said eagerly, making as if to leave the kitchen.

‘No. If we go back into your living room, Dan Root will listen in. He has a device that he uses to eavesdrop on the conversations you have.’

The captain stopped in his tracks. He looked at me in amazement, and then sat down again. ‘The sneaky blighter. Why would he do that?’

‘Captain, does the name Bindeman mean anything to you?’

‘Bindeman? I don’t think so.’

It was the name I had seen in Dan Root’s bible. A person who travels light would not normally carry a bible that belonged to a family other than his own. ‘I think Dan Root is not his real name. I believe he is
Afrikaans.Try and recall. Is there anyone of that name, Bindeman, who might bear you, or Mr Milner, a grudge?’

At first, the captain shook his head, and then a flicker of remembrance changed his expression. ‘Yes. It comes back to me now. During the Boer War we had to herd the civilians into camps. Nasty but no choice about it. They gave succour to the enemy you see. We had to burn them out of their farms. There was someone of that name. She was an English woman married to a Boer. Rebellious type. You had to admire them in some ways. Brother Boer came all the way to the camp. We suspected her of passing them food – not that there was much to pass. And sabotage. She had a hand in that. The captain . . . The thing is, she died under detention. But I don’t see what . . .’