Bricks and Mortality: Campbell & Carter 3 (27 page)

‘I don’t doubt I’m the target, not for a moment,’ Gervase said snappily. ‘But I’m not talking about doing anything rash. It’s more a case of what I’m not intending to do. I’m not going running back to Portugal and I’m not going into hiding.’

‘I think he ought to come and stay here,’ Serena told Jess.

Gervase shook his head. ‘No, I’ve already told you. That could endanger you, Reggie and Charlie.’

As if on cue, a car drew up before the house and the sound of childish voices yelling farewells became audible. Serena went to the window where she waved at someone. The car roared away again.

‘Charlie’s home from school,’ Serena said, turning back to them. ‘Not my week for the school run, I’m pleased to say.’

There was further commotion at the rear of the house, a slamming of doors, clatter of feet. The drawing-room door opened and a girl of about Millie’s age, with straggling fair hair and large pale blue eyes in a pointed face, appeared and surveyed the assembled company dispassionately.

‘Hello, Charlie,’ Gervase lifted a hand in salute. ‘I see St Trinian’s is out.’

The newcomer’s school uniform was not the gymslip and black stockings associated with that famous educational establishment. It was a skirt with a drooping hem, a shirt escaping from the waistband and a blazer that had clearly been bought with a view that the wearer ‘would grow into it’.

Charlie Foscott turned her gaze to him. ‘Hi, Gerry.’ Her voice lacked enthusiasm. She showed no interest in either of the visitors. Jess was ignored altogether. Instead, Charlie turned to her mother and asked, ‘Is there any cake left?’

‘You don’t want any, do you, Inspector?’ Serena asked Jess.

After an offer like that, there was little Jess could do but decline the cake. She did so without regret. It was of the sponge variety and there appeared little outward sign of any jam or other filling in it.

‘Take it into the kitchen,’ Serena ordered her daughter. ‘Have a glass of milk with it.’

Charlie made off with the cake. Gervase caught Jess’s eye and pulled a wry expression.

‘She’s starting to go through an awkward age,’ explained Serena. ‘Reggie says she spends too much time with horses and she’s not learning to get on with people. He reckons she ought to have dancing lessons.’

Gervase uttered a strangled sound that ended in a cough.

‘“We can’t afford dancing lessons,” I told him. “Sell the pony,” he said. I told him, “Charlie dotes on that pony. Besides, better she’s out in the fresh air than cooped up in some hall waving her arms around and bending her knees.”’

‘I admit I can’t see it,’ Gervase said, still in a muffled voice, and clearly able to visualise the scene only too well.

‘Of course not. Besides, I’ve already spent a fortune on jodhpurs and boots and all the other kit. I can’t start all over again buying leotards and tutus and ballet pumps. Reggie gets these potty notions from time to time. Anyhow, to get back to this threat you’ve had.’

It was time for Jess to step in again. ‘Mrs Foscott has made a good point,’ she said. ‘You should consider moving from The Royal Oak. Actually, I wouldn’t suggest this house.’ Not least because Ian Carter had Reggie and Serena on his list of people with motives! Jess added silently.

‘Plenty of room,’ said Serena.

Jess tried to be tactful. ‘But a little too shielded, such a big garden and so many trees. Also, as Mr Crown pointed out, it could expose your family to some degree of risk. I do advise you to change your hotel, Mr Crown. The Royal Oak has no security to speak of. Don’t waste time. Go back there now, settle up your account and move elsewhere tonight. Let us know at once when you’ve done that. My advice is that you move into Cheltenham. We don’t know where the assailant is based but it’s likely it’s locally around Weston St Ambrose.’

‘And then what?’ asked Gervase mulishly.

‘It helps us. If we have to worry about your safety, even put a police guard on you, it uses up manpower and distracts us from finding out who and what is behind all this. We are particularly keen not to have any distractions at the moment. We’ve had a breakthrough. We have Matthew Pietrangelo’s car.’

‘Where was it?’ demanded Gervase and his cousin together.

‘It turned up in an unexpected place away from Weston St Ambrose, and there is an investigation underway. I do believe we are getting close and the killer may realise it, too. Time is not on the killer’s side. Will you move out of The Royal Oak tonight?’

‘Please, Gerry,’ his cousin said firmly. ‘For once in your life do the sensible thing.’

He threw up his hands. ‘Oh, all right. I’ll make my way back to The Royal Oak and phone round from there to find myself another room, preferably in Cheltenham itself. If I’m successful, I’ll settle my bill and move out tonight. I’ll let the cops know where I end up. I’ll phone you, too, Serena.’

‘Then I’ll be off,’ Jess said in relief. It was the end of a long, busy day and frankly she’d had enough of Gervase Crown and his problems. She’d go home, have a long soak in the tub and … and what? Fry the sausages that were lying around in the fridge? Fall asleep in front of the TV watching fictional coppers perform miracles of detection? Talk about busman’s holidays. This was the sort of evening when, before Tom Palmer met up with Madison and embarked on what appeared to be a rocky romance, she could have rung him and arranged to go out to eat, or even just for a drink. Now, if she did that, she’d have to listen to the latest on Madison and the proposed job in Australia.

But rescue was at hand. As she got back into her car, her mobile rang.

‘Jess?’ Carter’s voice came in her ear. ‘Millie is keen to go out for a pizza. Would you like to join us? If you can, I’m sure Millie would be pleased. I hope you’ll come or I’ll have to make conversation with MacTavish.’

‘Yes, I would!’ Jess told him, cheering as the image of the dubious sausages receded. ‘That sounds like fun.’

‘Good. I’ll drive out to Weston St Ambrose to collect Millie and then call by your place and pick you up. Around six thirty? It has to be on the early side because Millie gets hungry. It doesn’t give you much time to get ready. Where are you?’

‘I’m at the Foscotts’. That’s to say, I’ve just called on Serena Foscott and Gervase Crown who’s there with her at the moment. If it’s OK with you, I won’t come back, I’ll drive straight home from here. By the way, I’ve got Crown to agree to change hotels tonight. I’ll explain later.’

Gervase left his cousin’s house shortly after Jess Campbell. He’d apologised to Serena for changing his mind about the lamb hotpot, pointing out that he now had to get back to The Royal Oak, phone round for a different hotel, pack up and move and would very likely not be settled before late enough as it was. He was not regretting the lamb hotpot but he was regretting having agreed to change hotels. Throwing in the towel was how he thought of it. But he’d promised Serena and he’d told the lady cop with the red hair and he’d do it. Kit and Petra would be happy to learn what he’d done. He’d make everyone happy. That was a first.

His drive back to The Royal Oak took him within a quarter of a mile of Key House. It was getting really dark now, he had his change of lodgings to deal with, and it didn’t make any sense to detour past the house. But nonetheless, that is what he did. The remains of his childhood home drew him as if with a magnetic pull. He drew in nearby, found the flashlight he kept in the car, got out and began to walk towards the building. The beam of the flashlight played over the blackened walls and fallen internal structure, the cracked beams poking up like the spars of a wrecked ship, the heaps of three-hundred-year-old stone tiles. The remaining walls would have to come down. The structural engineer had phoned through a preliminary report. The walls were not safe. They should be dismantled as soon as possible before they fell down on their own. No official body could possibly make any objections. To restore the whole thing would be a major undertaking, a rebuild, and would only be a pale copy. The most interesting features, the late Stuart wood carving and panelling, had gone for good and couldn’t be replaced. ‘You’ll have to flatten the rest,’ the expert had said.

‘Flatten it,’ murmured Gervase as he stepped carefully around a puddle of water and clambered over a fallen beam. Inside the building the walls provided only partial shelter. Cold night air blew in through the open roof and through the holes where windows and doors had been. It ricocheted around the walls and rustled the cinders, snatching up handfuls of ash and tossing them in the air. Gervase put his hand over his mouth and nose to avoid breathing in ash and grit. By treading through it all he was making it worse. His footsteps crunched the burnt debris to more powder. The wind had a voice, too. It whistled through narrow chinks and sighed around him. There was a constant background movement, odd bits falling and wood creaking and snapping. It was, he imagined, like being at sea in one of the great wooden sailing ships, the fabric a living thing, constantly calling for your attention. He was conscious of the cupboard that had fallen when Sarah Gresham had been here. He’d told her it wasn’t safe here and he should take his own advice.

He directed the beam of the torch in his other hand around the floor area and the bright arrow of light targeted Sarah’s flowers, sadly wilted amid the fragments of cupboard. The sight of them reproached him. He wasn’t responsible for the actions of a maniac. But in some way, he was sure, those actions were linked to him, and he was linked to the house like a Victorian jailbird to his ball and chain.

‘Why didn’t I think of putting a match to the damn place years ago?’ he asked himself aloud.

As if in reply, he heard a new sound, not like the others. He turned his head and swept the immediate area with light. The flickering beam picked up details of the wrecked surroundings but nothing more. Probably the sound had just been yet more debris settling, yet he had the curious feeling he was not alone.

He waited for a repetition that would help him pinpoint whence it came. The strange sound was not repeated. Instead there was a soft wheezing of moving air quite different from the earlier sighing of the wind. He could not immediately identify it; then he did. It was laboured breathing. Someone or something was in here with him. His heart leaped painfully and he fought the instinctive panic.

‘Is somebody there?’ he called sharply, his voice sounding louder than anticipated on the night air. ‘I can hear you, and if you’re trying to frighten me, you’ve failed,’ he added with more confidence than justified. ‘Just come over here and stop prowling around out there in the dark. It’s bloody stupid. The place isn’t safe.’

‘
No
…’ the word drifted through the night air towards him, little more than a moan.

It froze his blood. He shook his head to clear it. He didn’t believe in ghosts. They were stories like the one he’d invented to scare Kit so long ago. But a man had died here very recently, practically on this spot: a nasty, a brutal, cruel death, and something moved out there, something shared this space with him.

‘Stop playing silly buggers!’ snapped Gervase. ‘If you’ve got something to say, speak up!’

This time the voice, barely a whisper, asked, ‘
Gervase?
’ The final sibilant trailed away.

It was still so faint, he couldn’t be sure he was not imagining it. Perhaps it did emanate from somewhere inside his head. It was so difficult to tell from which direction the ghostly voice could have come. The darkness was disorientating. He flashed the beam around again to no avail. Where? And who?

He called again, ‘I know someone’s there! Kit? Is that you?’ He held his breath. No response, not even the laboured breathing.

‘Whoever you are,’ he said more loudly, ‘come out here!’

The darkness itself seemed to be moving, a kind of undulation of shadows. But the torch couldn’t pick up any intruder and by using it, he signalled his exact location to the other person here. He switched the beam off, plunging the area back into darkness. He was alert now, as alert as when taking on the rollers surging towards the shore at Guincho. Something was going to happen. Anything might. It had already begun. He had to judge the moment.

There was a movement at his shoulder. The breathing was close now, hoarse and animal-like. He felt the breath brush his cheek. He fumbled to switch on the torch again. He should not have switched it off. Keyed up to react as he was, so expected, yet so sudden was the attack when it came that he could no more than strike out with the still unlit torch. It made contact with something, someone, but he could be sure of no more than that, before intense pain sheared through his brain accompanied by an explosion of tiny glittering diamonds. He dropped the torch and staggered forward, sinking to his knees in the rubble and dirt.

Roger Trenton stood at the window gazing into the gathering dusk.

‘How long till dinner?’ he asked.

‘What?’ called his wife from the kitchen. ‘Can’t hear you!’

‘Dinner!’ shouted Roger. ‘What time?’

‘Normal time, about seven, it’s spaghetti Bolognese!’ came back the information, followed by a clatter of something falling on to the tiled floor. ‘Damn!’

‘What was it?’ he shouted again.

‘What was what?’

‘What fell down?’

‘Saucepan lid.’

This conversation, thought Roger in irritation, was going nowhere as, increasingly, conversations with his wife of some five and thirty years were inclined to do. Roger was aware this was unsatisfactory, but had anyone ever suggested that his marriage was in any way imperfect he’d have denied it indignantly. They were a model couple, he reflected now. Possibly a trifle unadventurous? Roger would not have considered using the adjective ‘boring’. Even ‘unadventurous’ was not, to his mind and in most circumstances, a bad thing.

Thus he was surprised to find himself wondering now whether his wife was happy. At once he dismissed the notion that she could be anything else. How could she? She had a nice home. He was a considerate husband. She appreciated his reliability, his even temper, his excellent gift for organisation, his financial acumen.
If I died tonight
… he thought and amended that immediately to
if I died tomorrow
… because he didn’t feel like dying tonight. That is to say, he felt perfectly well. So, if he died the next day, due to some unforeseen and unforeseeable event like a meteor strike, Poppy would have no worries. She’d be financially secure, have a roof over her head. She’d miss
him
, of course.