Dead In The Morning (13 page)

“What happened to the Charlotte Russe?” he asked, as they stacked the plates in the dishwasher.

“Fancy you remembering it! None of us could bear to touch it,” Cathy said. “We threw it away.” She hesitated. “You were at the inquest, weren’t you? Father said so.”

“Yes, I was.”

“You saw Alec Mackenzie. Martin brought him up here. He was absolutely stunned. He couldn’t believe his mother would ever commit suicide. I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes? What have you thought, Cathy?”

“About that pie. The lemon meringue, I mean. It was meant for Gran, wasn’t it? By chance she didn’t eat it, and poor Mrs Mack did.” She looked up at Patrick with enormous, solemn eyes. “It was one of us, wasn’t it, one of the family I mean, who did it?” As she said the words the full implication of them swept over her.

Patrick spoke impulsively.

“Cathy, come down and stay with us till this is over. You’re too young to be mixed up with it,” he said.

She drew herself up and looked at him again, this time with a proud expression; he saw the family resemblance, and he saw his error.

“I’m not a child,” she said. “I have to stay.” Then her face softened, and she added, “But thank you, all the same.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. You must stay. Forget it,” Patrick said. “I just wanted to get you out of the horrors.”

“What frightens me is that whoever it was might try again,” Cathy confessed.

“I don’t think you need be afraid of that,” said Patrick. “Whoever it was will have had a bad fright and won’t risk another attempt”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Patrick firmly.

“The police are bound to find out who it was?”

“I expect so,” Patrick said. “In time.”

“But one of us! Aunt Phyl, or Father, or Uncle Derek! It can’t be true! She’s awful, I know, and very cruel, but to want her dead! I can’t believe it’s true,” said Cathy, and Jane would have looked very ironically on the scene that followed as Cathy wept bitterly and Patrick mopped her up.

To help her, he decided to invent.

“It could have been an outsider, someone from the past,” he said. “You were all out on Saturday night. Someone may have called. Only Mrs Mackenzie would have known if that was so.” As it was, at least three people had been there that night, himself and the two Ludlow boys.

“Oh, could that have happened?” At this new idea Cathy looked more cheerful.

“It’s possible. Your grandmother has lived a long time and she may have made some enemies. It might be someone with a grudge going back for years.”

“Oh, it might, mightn’t it?” Cathy clutched at this. “Gran is a great one for feuds. She wouldn’t talk to Mrs Bligh for twenty years, because the Blighs cut their spinney down and when it was burnt the smoke all blew this way.”

“There you are, then. There must have been other things like that. One of your grandmother’s old enemies has become a nut and sought revenge,” said Patrick.

“If they saw the tray, they’d know it was for Gran,” Cathy said. “But how would they find the pills, or get past Mrs Mack?”

“They might have hidden somewhere. In the lift, perhaps, waiting for their chance,” Patrick invented wildly. She was much too sharp. She’d see through it very soon. It was a red herring and he doubted if it would last her for the night, but it might.

When Phyllis came downstairs they were sitting peaceably together in the drawing-room drinking their coffee, and Patrick had his diary out, planning a date for her to come to lunch next term and be taken round to meet his aunt, the Principal of St Joan’s.

“And then?” demanded Jane. She was sitting on the sofa reading when Patrick arrived back at Reynard’s, with a Rachmaninov record playing, waiting to hear how he had employed the evening.

“Gerald and Helen Ludlow came up after dinner. He seems a decent sort of chap; hidden fires, I’d say - not much visible on the surface but plenty there in fact. She’s rather reserved.”

“You’d be reserved if you’d just got married and found yourself in the midst of a murder,” said Jane. “What’s her history? Cathy doesn’t seem to know much about her.”

“So you’ve been giving way to vulgar curiosity too, have you?” Patrick teased her.

“We had this conversation some time ago, when Cathy first heard about the marriage,” Jane said primly. “It didn’t matter then. We weren’t mixed up with melodrama.”

“She was a widow,” Patrick said. “You knew that. Presumably an impecunious one, since she was companion to some wealthy American woman. But there may have been a particular reason for her to want that sort of job;’ she may have had a yen for travel or something. I can’t see her as a go-getting career girl
per se,
but she might be a scholarly type. Her relationship with her husband intrigues me; he’s badly smitten, there’s no doubt of that, but it’s less easy to observe her feelings.”

“If she’s reserved, as you say, she probably saves her demonstrations for when they’re alone, and quite right too,” said Jane austerely.

“She may have married for security,” Patrick said. “It’s been known.” He mused. “She’s not a girl - I’d say she’s about thirty-four.”

“Do you find her attractive?” Jane inquired with interest. She had often wondered what sort of woman appealed to her brother.

“I’m not sure,” Patrick said. “She’d be a challenge - she seems so well controlled. She has potential, shall we say?”

“Hm. Well, who’s your favourite candidate for the role of murderer?” Jane asked.

“I’m still guessing,” Patrick said. “I have an idea, but it needs some facts to back it. I’m still in the dark about the motivation behind all this, and I haven’t yet met Derek Ludlow. I saw him at the inquest, but I haven’t spoken to him.”

“You should tell the police that those two grandsons were at Pantons on Saturday night,” Jane said. “It’s their job to decide what’s relevant, not yours.”

“The boys must have a chance to account for themselves first,” said Patrick. “No one seems to know where Tim is, but Martin’s address is no secret. I shall go and call on him tomorrow.”

“What do you hope to find out from him?”

“The truth about his marital problems. His mother seems to think things are dicey there. He may have money worries, or problems connected with his work. The most obvious thing is that he wanted to touch his grandmother for a loan. I gather from Cathy that she holds the purse- strings pretty tightly. She’s a rich woman, but she controls everything herself. Cathy’s father has done very well in business, but without any help from his mother.”

“So I should hope,” said Jane.

“Yes. But Derek has been through some rough times. It might have been reasonable to expect a little rescue operation, when the children were young and he was finding it hard to get going after the war. However, nothing doing. And Cathy doesn’t think Phyllis has much cash. Of course, she doesn’t need a lot, living free.”

“Free, but not independent,” Jane said. “Cathy seems to have waxed very confidential.”

“She did,” Patrick said happily.

Jane gave him a look.

“I wish you wouldn’t interfere,” she said. “It’s your duty to tell the police all you know, instead of poking about quizzily on the edge of this affair.”

“Ah, but it’s so interesting,” Patrick said. “And I’m managing to work my way into the middle of it. I’m really helping the cause of justice by finding out things they’d never think about.”

“The police would get there in the end,” said Jane. “How do you suppose they manage when you aren’t around? And they’ve got all the equipment - fingerprint kit and so on. You’re only equipped with curiosity.”

“You forget my trained mind,” Patrick said. “This case is a question of character. Personalities are what matter. Is it a crime of passion, or of greed?”

“Hardly passion, surely, with a woman of nearly eighty in the centre of the web?”

“I’m not so sure. There is passion here. Gerald’s for his wife, Betty’s for her son, perhaps even Phyllis is affected by passion of a kind,” said Patrick. “We shall have to wait and see.”

Phyllis Medhurst walked along Fennersham High Street carrying a loaded shopping basket and two library books. She entered the Cobweb Cafe, looked about her for a moment, and then went quickly towards a corner table where a large man with a bald head and spectacles was already seated.

“Phyllis, my dear,” he said, rising to greet her. He took her packages and stowed them out of the way, and held her chair for her. Then he signalled to the waitress and ordered coffee for them both.

“Well, how are you?” he asked.

Phyllis looked at him.

“I can never lie to you, Maurice,” she said. “You see through me straight away. I’m desperate.”

“My dear, why not let me help you?”

“You can’t, Maurice. You must keep out of the way till this is all over. Then we’ll think of something,” she said.

“But it’s ridiculous to go on like this,” said Maurice. “Snatching chances to meet, like a pair of children whose parents aren’t on speaking terms.”

“If you come to church in Winterswick again there’ll soon be talk,” said Phyllis, but she smiled.

“Ah, that’s better,” Maurice said. He pressed her hand for an instant “What’s wrong, my dear? Aren’t the police satisfied?”

Phyllis shook her head.

“Phyllis, I’m completely in the dark. I only have the very confused account of what has happened that you gave me on the telephone.”

“I’m sorry, Maurice. It’s too risky to say more,” said Phyllis. She sighed. “I expect the
Fennersham Gazette
will have something about it on Friday. But the less you know the better.” She looked anxiously around her as she spoke. “Besides, someone might hear us.”

“Well, come back to the bungalow, where we can’t be overheard,” he said.

“I can’t, I must get home. My new sister-in-law and my niece are looking after Mother, and she’ll play them up.”

“You can’t go on like this, my dear,” said Maurice. He looked at her in a concerned way. “I’ll come up and see you this afternoon.”

“No, don’t!” she exclaimed. “How could I explain about you?”

“You could say I am a friend,” he said mildly. “Surely you can have your friends to visit you?”

How could she tell him that she no longer invited anyone to Pantons, because her mother was either offensive to her in front of them, or mocked at them when they had gone? One by one she had lost the few friends of her youth so that apart from her visits to the library and her weekly art classes - a recent venture - she had no outside contacts until now.

“You’ll think me very stupid,” she said. “But Mother wants to know everything that happens to any of us. If you came to the house she’d be dreadfully curious and rude. It wouldn’t be worthwhile. In fact it might be easiest if we never met again,” she added wildly. “I don’t want to involve you in my problems.”

“You don’t mean that,” Maurice told her gravely. “Friendship means helping out with troubles.”

“Oh, I know, but it’s all so difficult,” said Phyllis. How could he understand that if her mother knew she occasionally had tea in Fennersham with a retired, widowed bank manager, sometimes went for walks with him in the park or had a glass of sherry at his bungalow, and met him for coffee every Wednesday morning when she did the shopping, she would be taunted in the crudest way?

“You can’t go on under this strain, my dear,” he now said firmly. “You’ll have to shed some of it.”

“I’ll sort it out when this business about Mrs Mackenzie is all over,” Phyllis said. “I can’t start looking for another housekeeper till then. Who would want to come, knowing what has happened?”

“I wish you’d tell me what it is,” said Maurice. “You make it sound so mysterious.”

“It is mysterious,” Phyllis said. She lowered her voice. “Some of mother’s pills have vanished. No one knows quite whether Mrs Mackenzie meant to kill herself, or if it was even worse than that. I can’t say any more. Don’t ask me to.”

He stared at her, appalled. Then he accepted what she said.

“Promise to ring me up at any hour, day or night, if I can help you,” he said.

She nodded. It was easy to agree.

“We’ll talk about something else now,” she said, and asked about his married daughter.

When they had finished their coffee he carried her shopping to the car, which was parked near the market square. Then he watched her drive away, back to shoulder all her burdens.

And someone else watched both of them, a nondescript man in a shabby raincoat, who followed Maurice home and then walked quickly off towards the nearest telephone kiosk.

“But Tim, what are you going to do about it?” Cathy asked.

They were sitting on the low wall that divided the rose garden from the long lawn; this was a place where they could safely talk without being overheard, for they could see if anyone approached. It had been raining earlier, and the air still held a misty dampness that was typical of autumn.

“You’ll have to get the money,” Cathy went on. “I’ve got twelve pounds in the post office; you can borrow that, and perhaps we could pawn our christening presents or something, silver’s pretty valuable just now.”

“Thanks, Cath, but twelve pounds would be only a drop in the ocean,” said Tim gloomily. He swung his legs to and fro, kicking the moss-covered wall with his rubber heels. “I’ve got to get hold of two hundred and fifty.”

“Couldn’t you pay in instalments?” Cathy said. She sniffed. “Tim, don’t you ever have a bath? You positively stink. What’s come over you? You never used to be like this.” She looked distastefully at her cousin. His hair reached well below his ears, and hung in greasy rats’ tails; he wore a grubby sweater and torn jeans, and canvas shoes through one of which a dirty toe protruded.

“Lay off me, Cathy, can’t you? I’ve been travelling all night. You can’t keep clean when you’re hitching lifts in lorries,” Tim said sulkily.

“It’s not only what you look like. You’ve got so messy altogether. Fancy getting into a scrape like this,” said Cathy. “It’s all so unnecessary. Can’t you pull yourself together? We’ve got enough worry to face without you behaving like a delinquent.”