Die Like a Dog (20 page)

Alerted by the sound of their tyres, Ellen appeared in the hall and Gladys sighed.

‘Do you think you might –? You've been so kind, I hate to ask more of you.'

‘You want me to stay? To get rid of them for you?'

‘Well, the reporter. You're so confident. I don't mind Lucy, of course, but Ellen
and
a reporter ... Can you imagine?'

‘I can't; it's beyond imagination – but I'll see what I can do. A firm hand is what that gentleman needs; I think I can manage him.'

‘You've got visitors,' Ellen said superfluously as they came up the steps. ‘I've put them in the drawing room. That one has been here half an hour and the man came soon afterwards. They'll be leaving together. What can you expect?' She gave a thin smile.

‘And them two boys have disappeared.'

‘Which boys?' Gladys asked wearily, with a glance at the drawing room door that was pushed to but not closed.

‘That one's lad, and Dewi Post.
She's
not bothered.'

The woman jerked her head towards the drawing room and grinned. Tudor Davies appeared in the doorway.

‘Seeing you is a load off my mind,' he announced by way of greeting. ‘The two boys gone, and then you two ladies: it was incredible; we've been imagining all kinds of horrors, particularly Mrs Evans here.' He leered. ‘I'm delighted to see both of you. Aren't you going to introduce me?'

‘If you would allow' Mrs Judson into her own drawing room –'

Miss Pink was ironical. She hung back, expecting Davies to step out and join her in the hall but he turned and preceded Gladys into the room. Miss Pink followed, trying to control her anger. Lucy was standing in front of the open french windows, looking more awkward than relieved.

‘Ellen rang the hotel,' she said, and halted in embarrassment. Ellen had joined the party.

‘And said we'd disappeared?' Miss Pink asked.

Lucy shrugged, her plump face curiously sullen. Ellen said tonelessly: ‘We'll all be murdered in our beds.'

Everyone began to speak at once but the women stopped first, leaving Davies saying: ‘– should tell us what you know, Mrs Evans, otherwise you could be in danger.'

‘Go and make some tea, Ellen,' Gladys ordered. ‘Who
are
you, young man?'

He wasn't young but he preened himself. Miss Pink introduced him grudgingly. They all sat down. She glowered at him.

Gladys said: ‘How can we help you, Mr Davies?'

‘Help me?' He glanced uncertainly at Miss Pink. There was an expectant hush.

‘The police have ironed out a few creases,' he told them. ‘As I read it, Pryce will have the case wound up by this time tomorrow.'

Miss Pink said grimly: ‘That goes for you, too. I'm going to enjoy speaking to your editor – and to your proprietor.'

Lucy licked her lips, Gladys looked faintly puzzled.

Davies said: ‘I don't understand.' No one responded and he went on, speaking directly to Gladys: ‘You do want to see your husband's murderer brought to justice, don't you? And a double killer, don't forget. Someone who's killed twice can kill again.'

Ellen said from the doorway: ‘I always said there were too many guns in this village.'

‘Is that all you have to say?' Miss Pink's tone was menacing as she confronted Davies. She was about to get up, not knowing quite how she would effect his ejection, reflecting that the situation might have been eased had she, too, been in possession of a weapon.

‘No,' he said, ‘that's not quite all.'

‘We don't want to hear any more –'

‘Why not?' Gladys was smiling, politely amused at the behaviour of her guests. ‘I'm interested.' She turned to Lucy. ‘I was bored and rather miserable when Miss Pink came along and carried me off. We've had a lovely drive and a superb dinner at The Brigantine – not as good as yours, of course, but well done all the same. I've had a few drinks and suddenly I realise that I
am
interested. Possibly –' her voice dropped, ‘– it's a stage between shock and delayed shock.' She shrugged and said flatly: ‘I want to hear what the man has to say. I can hear the kettle whistling, Ellen.'

Ellen turned woodenly and went back to the kitchen.

Davies looked like a small child who has been seeking attention from the grown-ups for too long. Acquiring it suddenly he was excited but a little in awe of them, or of the situation.

‘This may not be pleasant for you, Mrs Judson,' he said hopefully, as if he were angling for an escape route.

Gladys smiled. Miss Pink thought: she's too much relaxed, like a drugged woman. Perhaps she'd taken a tranquilliser – which wouldn't mix well with the half-bottle of hock she'd had at dinner.

‘Bart and Dewi are safe,' Davies said on a note of anti-climax, then: ‘Lucy sent them away deliberately. I suppose everyone knows by now that it was them who stole Mr Judson's Volvo?' Miss Pink raised her eyebrows at Lucy. ‘No,' Davies went on, ‘Lucy hasn't admitted it – and the boys can't because they can't be found. Don't you think it remarkable that everyone should be so bothered by such a trivial offence?'

He addressed the question to Miss Pink who was watching Lucy's clenched hands.

‘Of course,' he said, not waiting for an answer, becoming expansive as no threat materialised: ‘No one
is
bothered about the Volvo, least of all, Pryce – in fact he'd probably drop the charge in exchange –' and he stopped talking. No one asked what the exchange might be.

After a while he said politely: ‘I wonder if I might trouble you for a drink. Not the tea that Ellen's not making.'

They looked round and saw she had returned and was standing in the doorway. At his words she retreated again.

‘Would someone else like a drink?' Gladys asked.

Miss Pink and Lucy declined. Ellen returned with a bottle and glasses on a tray. She put the tray on a table beside Davies, poured a generous measure and stood back, watching him. He didn't like being the only person drinking but he found it difficult to resist, and after tasting the Scotch he started to bloom: unfolding like a cankered flower.

‘In exchange?' Miss Pink prompted.

‘Pryce would trade the taking and driving away charge in exchange for their going into the witness box and naming the person who visited Mr Judson that night.'

Lucy gasped and shook her head vehemently.

‘You're daft. You're making it up as you go along. Besides, taking a car without the owner's consent would only be a warning and a fine. It's his first offence.'

He flicked a smile at her.

‘Given up at last, Lucy? Admitted it's no good holding out when the boys have given themselves away?' The tone was provocative, now it turned oily: ‘You can't blame them; they're only boys. They never had a chance against an experienced questioner –' he gestured towards Miss Pink, ‘– they had no more hope of hiding the truth about the car than about the Alsatian. Come to that, they might have stood a chance without Dewi's dad. Where the Volvo was concerned they had a story ready, but when it came to a bit of probing the two of them didn't agree on the details. Not that any of it mattered much, not until Pryce saw that they'd been at Mr Judson's cottage on the Saturday night. And then someone else realised that what those boys knew was a lot more important than a stolen car. So they had to be sent away.'

‘Are you saying that they saw a second car approach the cottage that night?' Miss Pink asked.

‘No. They heard its engine.'

‘Who's told you this story?'

He smiled at Lucy. They all looked at her but she wouldn't meet their eyes. Her hands were still now; her whole body was still. She appeared to be waiting.

Miss Pink asked: ‘Did they recognise the sound of the engine?'

Lucy raised her eyes – and then she screamed.

They hadn't noticed the dusk creep into the room and now, silhouetted in the open french windows they saw a figure whom they took for a man, and he was holding a gun. But it was Seale's voice.

‘Let's have some light,' she said as she stepped over the sill.

Ellen moved and the room was flooded with light. Seale stood so that she had them all in view. It was Lucy who spoke first.

‘What the hell are you doing with that shotgun?'

‘Rabbits?' she said, questioning it as if she weren't sure whether she should be shooting rabbits.

‘And do you normally come into a stranger's drawing room armed and demanding lights?' Miss Pink asked tartly. They'd all had a fright.

‘Not normally,' Seale said. ‘But Mrs Judson isn't a stranger.'

‘Is that thing loaded?' Davies asked.

‘Of course it's loaded.'

‘Well, you might take the cartridges out.'

Seale said nothing.

‘Would you care for some whisky?' Gladys asked.

Seale watched Davies fill his glass from the bottle with a shaking hand.

‘Not yet,' she said. ‘What's the party about?'

Miss Pink said: ‘For God's sake, sit down, and put that gun down. You're giving everyone the jitters.'

‘Am I? I'm sorry.' She sat on the sofa across the empty hearth from Lucy and laid the shotgun against the fender. ‘It's funny,' she said, ‘I'd like a party too.'

Lucy said: ‘We were talking about a car engine Bart is supposed to have heard last Saturday night.'

‘Yes. They told me.'

‘So you know whose car it was!' Davies couldn't believe his luck.

‘No one does,' Lucy said quickly. ‘They were too far away; they heard an engine in the distance but they couldn't recognise it.'

Seale said smoothly: ‘They heard it as it went back to the road. They missed hearing it on its way in. They never saw it.'

‘That's
their
story,' Davies said.

‘What are you doing here?' Seale asked.

‘I'm a crime reporter!'

‘Hasn't it dawned on you that you're the odd man out?'

He went white round the nostrils.

‘Don't talk to me like that! You're in someone else's house.'

‘It's time you went.'

Miss Pink stirred. ‘You're being extremely high-handed, Seale. It's time we all went, and left Mrs Judson in peace.' She stood up.

‘We'll all leave together.'

‘Sit down,' Seale said, reaching for the gun. She didn't nurse it, merely placed it closer to her leg. ‘Only Davies is leaving.'

‘You're mad!' He was angry and frightened. ‘That's a threat! I've got four witnesses.'

Miss Pink had sat down stiffly. ‘You'd better go, Mr Davies; you should have gone before but no one had a loaded gun to back them up.'

He glanced wildly at the whisky bottle. His intention was obvious.

‘Don't push it,' Seale warned. ‘See him out, Ellen.'

‘And I'll make sure he drives away.'

‘You don't have to bother; he won't come back.'

Davies's forehead was shining with sweat but he made some attempt at dignity as he got to his feet and moved towards the hall. He paused at the doorway and Ellen, just behind him, put a firm hand on his shoulder. He gasped and shrank away. The women listened to the retreating footsteps and then their eyes returned to Seale. There was an air of intimacy in the room.

‘Why did you come?' Miss Pink asked.

‘Because Pryce has come back to Lloyd; they're up there with him now – -as I would be, except that we heard their car coming up the track and I took his gun and slipped into the trees until I found out who was coming. When I saw who it was I didn't go back.'

‘Why did you take a gun? Why did you come here?'

‘I took the gun because I feel safer with it. Why shouldn't I come here?' She was speaking directly to Miss Pink as if the other women didn't exist. ‘Pryce is picking candidates with a pin: Anna Waring, just because she was one of the women involved and she was absent from the village that night, and she was jealous. Jealous of me. And Lloyd and me, Lloyd being the jealous party there. What Pryce hasn't realised is that there are other women involved.'

She looked at Lucy as if she had tossed the woman a cue but Lucy sat bolt upright with her hands in her lap, staring at her knees.

‘I was with Joss that night,' Seale said quietly. ‘Where were you?'

‘No,' Miss Pink protested. ‘This has gone altogether too far. Seale, it's monstrous! Gladys –' She stopped, remembering the loaded gun, remembering that they were all, except Seale, helpless.

‘She's in charge.' Gladys put the thought into words.

‘It's sadistic.' Miss Pink was squirming mentally. ‘Seale, whatever you suspect, you can't say it in Mrs Judson's presence. Haven't you any feeling left? I thought you had compassion.'

‘You don't know me,' Seale said. ‘And Joss isn't going inside, not if I can help it. He's doing his best to put himself there at the moment; he's raving against Judson – and Evans.'

‘Gladys,' Miss Pink said, ‘I think you should go to bed; you're looking very sleepy.'

‘She's staying,' Seale said, and Miss Pink sank back in her chair in a state of utmost misery. For a time her mind was blank, but only a very short time, she merely had the sensation of a blank mind and time was relative; at some point the vacuum no longer existed, and the thoughts or thought process which came creeping in to fill the void had an air of familiarity although the context was strange. But for all its strangeness she recognised the situation: from reading, from commentators, from high-ranking policemen and psychologists. They were hostages.

She remembered that the first consideration was to establish a relationship with the gunman – or woman. Since there had been a relationship with Seale prior to this shocking development, although of a different order, one might have a base to build on, one might adjust. She'd be ill-advised to discard it altogether because what she knew of Seale might apply now. Or did it? Miss Pink wouldn't have said yesterday that the girl was violent, merely that she had quick reactions and didn't eschew violence when it was a question of survival – as when the dog Brindle attacked her, but yesterday wasn't now; the evidence of potential violence was here: in the gun; the reality of violence lay in her arrogant orders.