Beneath the Soil (14 page)

The professional smile was back. He was very good at the charm. He certainly had Gina Alford under his spell. She was back at his elbow now, eager for him to turn his attention away from Suzie to her.

‘Clive, do you need a stand for your notes? I'm sure Mrs Fewings could find you one before they get here.' She looked challengingly at Suzie, evidently wishing her away.

‘No, Gina, everything's fine.'

Again, that wide white smile. And again, the abrasive Gina softened visibly.

Under its influence, it would be so easy for Suzie to tell herself that she had been imagining things, that this was not the man in the graveyard, only someone who looked rather like him. She had woven a web of fear around him for no good reason. He was just a well-meaning, even rather attractive, MP, giving up his Saturday afternoon for the sake of her charity and, of course, to show his face to a considerable number of voters.

But she had seen that momentary narrowing of his eyes. Every instinct was telling her that this man was a danger to anyone who stood in his way. And that he saw her, bafflingly, as a threat to him.

There was no time to worry about that now. The noise of cheering was growing. People were crowding forward, eager for a first glimpse of the approaching tractor and its energetic team. Stewards were trying to marshal the throng back to clear the route across the square.

Suzie cast round a harassed eye, wondering if she had remembered everything she needed to in the confusion of what had happened. On the public relations side at least, she need not have worried about Clive Stroud. The broad smile was firmly in place. He tweaked his tweed jacket into place and ran a hand over his balding head. He stood waiting on the top step of the market hall, ready. His agent hovered in the shadows just behind him, clipboard clutched to her. It hardly needed Suzie to pilot the MP towards what he should do. Gina Alford obviously devoted her life to that.

Suzie allowed herself a moment to look behind her. The crowd on the other side of the square was thinning, as people jostled around the sides of the market hall for a better view. She could see the brightly coloured stalls in that direction more clearly now. Her eyes raked the few customers left around them, hoping for a sight of Nick's tall form and wavy black hair. She could not see him.

She fought down an indignation that was tinged with fear. Didn't he realize how badly she needed him at this moment?

Her attention was snatched back as the biggest cheer of all heralded the arrival of the tractor in the square. First came the red-faced and perspiring team of Young Farmers, hauling the ropes over their shoulders. More of them walked alongside, some darting into the crowd with buckets of money rattling. They all wore bright red tee-shirts emblazoned with the words: ‘
AGE OF SILVER.
Help those who once helped you
.'

The tractor was red too, festooned with flags. A young woman in khaki trousers and the same red tee-shirt stood aloft, punching her fist in the air, while with the other hand she held the tractor's course steady as it rolled across the square.

The tow team stopped at the foot of the market hall steps. They let the ropes fall from their shoulders with whoops of triumph. Eyes were already going longingly to the beer kegs ready on the dais.

Clive Stroud came down the steps and shook them all by the hand. Then he mounted to the table in the shade of the market hall roof and took the microphone.

‘Young Farmers, ladies and gentlemen. What can I say? Tremendous effort! I can't tell you what a thrill it is to see the generation of the future putting themselves out so far for the generation that all of us look back to with gratitude and respect …'

Suzie felt an obscure sense of disappointment as the words of his speech rolled over her. She had put so much effort into this. It was the biggest fund-raising effort she had been involved in. Because of her, hundreds of people had turned out this afternoon. She could already see the giant cheque being brought forward, reporting the four-figure sum the Young Farmers had miraculously raised by their heroic pull across the moor. And she could see the money was still coming in. She ought to be delighted, revelling in the success. Even the weather had turned out fine for her.

Instead, she felt like a rabbit caught in the glare of a fox's eyes, knowing that she was in entirely the wrong place, but unable to run.

She wanted more than anything to feel Nick beside her.

It was over. The speech had been made, the cheque received. The crowd of ravenous Young Farmers around the refreshment tables was beginning to thin. Suzie was longing for the moment when Clive Stroud and Gina Alford would signal that their business was over and they were ready to go.

Could it really be as simple as that?

She took the agent to one side to ask about expenses.

‘Oh, no need for that. Clive's always happy to help. He's marvellous, isn't he?'

Her eyes glowed behind the spectacles. Then the frostiness returned. ‘I don't imagine you would normally get someone like him.'

Over Gina Alford's shoulder, Suzie was watching the MP. He was talking animatedly to a group of well-wishers. Obviously he was well known in the town.

There must have been many people at the funeral who recognized him. She hadn't seen Clive Stroud talking to anyone in the churchyard, but then, Frances Nosworthy had distracted her attention. Suzie felt her cheeks grow hot as she thought how they had wondered about showing that photograph to the police. It would have seemed foolish to them that the Fewings hadn't known who he was. The cathedral city where they lived had a different MP.

Now he was in plain sight, pressing the flesh, smoothly affable. MP for Moortown and the surrounding area. He looked untouchable.

She was the one who was vulnerable. She felt that now as he swung round to face her.

Again that large hand reached out and enclosed her unwilling one.

‘Ah, Mrs Fewings! May I call you Suzie? Thank you so much for inviting me. A truly splendid occasion, don't you think? It's so wonderful to see the young folks in a positive light. You really have done an admirable job in organizing this. You must be very pleased with the sum they raised. And there'll be a lot more to come from your other activities here this afternoon.'

All the time, his hand was gripping hers. Again, that feeling of imprisonment. His broad face was smiling. She could not read his eyes.

‘Yes, thank you,' she said a little breathlessly. ‘Yes, they did magnificently.'

She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held on to it. The look in his dark eyes was keener now.

‘So sorry your husband couldn't be here.' He dropped her hand abruptly. His voice was clear. ‘I don't expect we shall be meeting again. I shouldn't imagine you will have any further business in Moortown when this is over.'

With a peremptory signal to his agent, he turned his back on her and strode down the steps to his waiting car.

Suzie was left with his words of unmistakable warning ringing in her ears.

S
he had underestimated how long it would take before everything was packed up and she was free to go. She accepted a cup of tea from the Women's Institute but she found she was now too nervous to eat the cake.

Where
was
Nick?

She tried phoning him, but his mobile was switched off. She scanned her own phone for text messages. Nothing.

She felt a growing resentment. The enigmatic encounter with Clive Stroud had shaken her. True, it gave him a reason to be at Eileen Caseley's funeral. A shocking murder in his own constituency. A chance to show himself to a large crowd of mourners as a caring MP.

But there had been something more, something personal about that grip on her hand, the warning behind the smile. It was silly to think that Nick's physical presence could have made any difference, but she felt an aching need for him. Here, drifting around the market hall with a teacup in her hand, or touring the square to chat to the stallholders and thank them, she felt unreasonably exposed. To what? Clive Stroud had put no name to the veiled menace behind his words. What could happen to Suzie Fewings if she refused to let the matter drop? It was surely too melodramatic to imagine that Eileen Caseley's might not be the only death to fear.

Still, she longed for Nick's reassurance, for the common sense that would puncture her wilder flights of imagination. Just for somebody to talk to.

‘Great stuff,' she said to the lad packing up the mike and loudspeakers. ‘Thanks!' And to the straggle of Young Farmers still left in the square, ‘Fantastic result!' Someone had driven the red tractor back to whichever farm had loaned it. But the praise and the thanks were sounding mechanical now. She hoped the volunteers did not hear that in her voice. All she wanted was for the afternoon to be over and to be reunited with Nick.

The stalls and their wares were being dismantled and loaded into the boots of cars or the backs of 4×4s. The crowd of spectators had dispersed. Suzie was left with a giant cardboard cheque and the now inescapable knowledge that Nick was nowhere in the square.

Now that the truth was staring her in the face, Suzie realized that she had known it for a long time. She had persuaded herself that he must have found someone interesting to talk to on a craft stall, or that he had run into a friend and they had taken themselves off for tea and a chat somewhere. At every moment she had been expecting that she would turn round, and there he would be, after all, on the other side of the square.

It was five o'clock. Nick was not here.

She tried her phone again. Nothing.

She faced the stark reality.

All this time she had been fearing for herself. She had wanted to share that fear with Nick, to be comforted. Now, for the first time, the truth struck her, that it was Nick she should be afraid for.

Her mind screamed at the unfairness of it. She was the one who had been alarmed by that crack of wood near the ruined cottage, her conviction that they were being watched. It was she who had made that last-minute decision to go back to Saddlers Wood with Tom and Dave. And it had been her choice to go to the funeral, to share her fears with Frances Nosworthy. At every step, Nick had tried to hold her back. He had only reluctantly consented to give way to her judgement and trust her instinct. And now he was the one who was inexplicably missing.

She had read of people feeling a cold sweat break out. She experienced the reality now. Even the solitary cup of tea threatened to come back from her knotted stomach.

What could she do? She knew without being told that there would be little to be gained from reporting him missing to the police. How long would their car have to sit in Moortown car park unclaimed before anyone would take her seriously?

One little memory whispered to her that there was a lifeline. A small piece of pasteboard in her shoulder bag. Frances Nosworthy's business card.

As though reaching for a forbidden fruit, she drew it out. The letters and numbers danced before her eyes. An insistent voice was hammering in her head. Frances had warned her not to contact her again. New information had apparently come to light. The case was closed. Suzie's help was no longer needed.

Now she was the one who needed help.

That very afternoon Clive Stroud had repeated that warning.
‘I shouldn't imagine you will have any further business in Moortown when this is over.'

But she hadn't initiated it this time. Whatever mystery lay behind Eileen Caseley's murder and Frances Nosworthy's phone call, Nick had nothing to do with it. He had come here this afternoon in all innocence, to give her moral support. And, yes, to ‘watch her back'. Had he only been joking?

‘Mrs Fewings!' A voice interrupted her swirling thoughts.

A younger man in a navy-style jumper and jeans was holding a heavy canvas bag out to her. ‘There's a sizeable taking here from the afternoon's activities. Stalls and collections. Do you want to take it away with you? Or shall I put it in the safe until Monday and then send you a cheque?'

She fought to bring her mind back to the fund-raising effort. ‘What? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not sure … Oh, why don't I leave it with you? If that's all right?'

‘Will do. John Nosworthy, by the way.' He shifted the cash bag to the other hand and held out the right one to shake hers.

She stared, confused, at the slip of pasteboard she was holding. The name was sounding in her head. John Nosworthy. Frances's cousin. The solicitor from the other law firm who was representing Eileen Casely's interests.

She looked up in time to see his eyes go to the card still in the hand he was offering to shake. Did she imagine the slightly colder note in his voice?

‘I see you've been in touch with Frances.'

‘I … Yes … We bumped into each other after the funeral.'

It was unnecessary to say which funeral. Why did she feel the necessity to apologize?

‘A terrible tragedy. We all knew Philip. Times are hard, but we never imagined it would come to this. You weren't thinking of contacting Frances, were you? She's not here.'

‘No. I haven't seen her. I did wonder if she'd turn up. Most of the town seems to be here.' She was trying to steady her voice, to sound normal. ‘Just now, I seem to have lost my husband, too.'

‘Can I help? What does he look like?'

‘Tall. Black wavy hair. Vivid blue eyes. Wearing a grey gilet with a short-sleeved check shirt and blue jeans. He said he was going to look at the craft stalls.'

‘But they've all packed up and gone. Except the fossil man's.'

‘Yes.'

There was an awkward pause. Suzie longed to ask where Frances was. Where did she live? The address on the business card must be the solicitors' office in town.

There was something insistent in John Nosworthy's silence. He offered no further help. She was not sure what she was expected to do. Was he someone she could appeal to for help? Or had the advice that Frances wasn't here been meant to warn her off? Whose side was he on?