Memory and Desire (37 page)

A central passage with a staircase extended toward the back of the house. On Claire's left was a dining room, on her right a sitting room. The latter was crowded with people, half of them stooping over and mercifully concealing a human form sprawled next to an antique desk. Muddy footprints smudged the pattern of a no doubt hideously expensive oriental carpet. The script lay on a coffee table next to a silver ashtray and lighter.

Every bit of furniture and every objet d'art in the two rooms and the hall was as tidy and as isolated as though in a stage set. The only items Claire could see that indicated someone actually lived in the house were a row of pictures on the desk. Autographed publicity photos, maybe. She was too far away to make out the names and faces.

“A Du Jardin landscape,” Richard said reverently. He was inspecting a painting on a wall above a narrow table filled with small enamel boxes.

“You haven't been here since Elliot moved in?” Claire asked.

“Once, to see the new kitchen he had fitted. He'd rather have guests of the female persuasion."

“I can't remember the last time I was inside,” said Alec, “although Elliot and I had a natter or two over the fence."

Richard looked down at the table. “Sheraton. Might be a reproduction. Those snuff boxes are genuine, though.” He stepped into the dining room. “Hepplewhite—very fine. The chairs are Charles II. The table carpet is probably sixteenth century."

“Petit point,” added Claire, squinting. “A hundred stitches to the inch. Several restored patches. Diana's work, maybe? Or Melinda's....” They were standing there calmly talking about inert objects when the remains of a human life lay in the other room. Again her stomach squirmed.

Richard's jawline was white as the knuckles on a clenched fist. He dodged around the dining table to inspect a cabinet against the far wall. “Well, that's put the boot in, right enough. I posted that eighteenth century oak veneer knife box to London as a blackmail payment. And the Ming porcelain jug with the English silver-gilt mounts."

“So Moncrief asked for specific objects from the Hall?” asked Pakenham's nasal voice.

Claire, Richard, and Alec turned around to see Blake and Pakenham in the doorway. While the dapper, soulless Pakenham fit right into the rarified atmosphere of the house, Blake looked more than ever like a clerk after a bad day behind the complaints desk, corrugated with fatigue.

“No,” Richard replied, “he asked for ‘antiques from the Hall.’ The jug is a copy, I did well to find it as the original is worth a packet. The knife box is original but worthless, some villain replaced the partitions inside on the cheap. That's neck, to bring the both of them back here."

“Maybe he started asking for money because he realized you weren't sending him anything of value,” Blake mused aloud. “He had posh tastes, no doubt about it. Sergeant, the note."

With a flourish Pakenham placed on the table a plastic bag containing a piece of what looked to Claire like good-quality rag notepaper. In spidery handwriting were the words, “My dear Chief Inspector. Little did I realize that when Melinda and I set about teasing the good citizens of Somerstowe it would all come to this. The dear girl let it go to her head, you see. She became a threat. I had no choice but to make her lovely body into compost for the flowers. I meant for it all to end there. It didn't. My plot has unraveled like the Bard's sleeve of care. I'm afraid the tailors and the chefs at Her Majesty's prisons would have a spot of bother rising to my standards. So, farewell. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Elliot Moncrief."

“We compared the handwriting with the notes in that script,” said Blake.

“Yes,” Richard said dully, “it's his, but it's gone all wobbly."

“There was a glass on the desk,” Pakenham pointed out, “and an empty bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. Sucking it down to give himself courage, I reckon. Not that he was of sound mind to begin with."

“You'd have to be round the bend to kill yourself,” Alec said, his voice rough, his eyes bleak.

Claire wondered what her own face looked like. Fish-belly white, probably, with bulging eyes to match. The air in the house seemed too thick to breathe, the uneasily mingled odors congealing in her throat. She managed to say, “No. Melinda couldn't have been working with Elliot. He saw that first letter was all."

“Maybe she showed it him as part of the joke,” Blake suggested. “Then when the other letters arrived she knew who was sending them and confronted him."

“But why kill her?” asked Claire. “Even if she'd stood up in the pub and announced Elliot was the blackmailer, people would've been mad, yes, but he could've blown it off as a joke. Would anyone even have bothered to press charges?"

“If he saw that first letter then he saw the line about ‘the secret behind The Play,” Pakenham answered. “That was the real threat. The evidence points right at it, said so myself yesterday."

Claire leaned in closer, enunciating. “Even if Melinda knew about The Play, and we'll never know whether she did or not, why would her reasoning be any different from Trevor's? She wouldn't have told."

“No,” Alec agreed, “I don't see her telling. I don't see that at all."

Blake picked up the note and turned it around in his fingertips like a card player considering his next move. “It appears I was wrong. The blackmailer and the murderer are one and the same."

“That's plain as a pikestaff,” Pakenham said, puffing himself up. “I'll tell you what happened. Moncrief met Melinda as she left the Hall after the party. She was still wearing her costume, wasn't she?"

“She probably kept it on so she could get into Elizabeth's head,” Claire said.

“You think so?” asked Pakenham. “Maybe Wood asked her to wear it, intending to get into it himself, act out a bit of his fantasy, eh?"

“I told you,” Alec began, and bit off his sentence, obviously deciding not to waste his breath.

“You're the one said she was plucking roses for you. That's a bit romantic, isn't it?” Pakenham made the word sound obscene. “Or maybe Moncrief lured her to the garden by saying they needed to talk about their blackmail schemes. In any event, there she was. He coshed her, strangled her with a bit of ribbon from the dress, buried her in the garden bed, and was back here in time for a quick shag with Diana. No accounting for tastes, is there?"

“I'll have to review the time table,” said Blake. “That's cutting it a bit fine."

“Well then, he needn't have buried her straightaway. Or driven her car to the reservoir until the next morning—all he had to do just then was move it from the car park by the shop. Diana said she went home at first light. We'll check bus and taxi companies, find who drove Moncrief back home."

“That might work, yes,” Blake admitted reluctantly, as though he was sorry to find Pakenham capable of logical reasoning. “I'll have a look at the timetable and another word with Mrs. Jackman. She could be covering for him, I suppose, although they're hardly on the best of terms, are they?"

Kate stepped into the dining room. “Chief Inspector, the medical examiner would like a word."

Blake, Pakenham at his heels, walked back across the hall. Kate lingered in the doorway. “I'm sorry. I mean, we have our murderer and all, but it's a bloody mess and no mistake. Literally.” She nodded at the other room. “Gunshot wound to the head, fired from less than three inches. Automatic pistol. It was in his hand when Pakenham found him."

“Trust Elliot to make the dramatic gesture,” said Richard faintly.

“He had a gun?” Alec exclaimed. “Smuggled it into the country, I reckon, afraid he'd be burgled. Here in Somerstowe, across the lane from the station. He took me for a fool, right enough."

“We passed him leaving the Hall this afternoon,” Kate said. “He was dead within the hour."

“Within the ... It was Pakenham,” Claire said. “He was in the kitchen before we got there, swaggering around saying he was going to make an arrest."

“Yes,” said Richard, “he was that. And Elliot overheard."

Alec's face was starting to collapse in on itself. “Pakenham was after taking me in charge, not Elliot. Ah, sod it all, I am a fool. All this—blackmail, murder, assault, suicide, illegal weapons—it's happened on my patch!"

“You're not at fault,” Kate told him.

“No one's at fault,” added Richard.

Before Claire could chime in, too, Alec went on, “Kate, give Blake my respects, but I'm not on duty—this house—it's cold and there's no air..."

He edged past Kate and disappeared out the door. Kate turned to watch him. Was he going back to Hall, Claire wondered, to pour his heart out to Elizabeth? Or to the pub, to look for some heart in a glass?

The house was stiflingly cold, trapped in some sort of emotional high pressure-zone. The smell had been bad enough without Pakenham's cologne adding itself to the brew. What is that stuff he wears? Claire wondered. Eau de whorehouse?

“You know where to find me,” she told Kate, her own voice sounding choked, and sidled toward the door. She could tell Richard was right behind her without turning around.

Trevor, his dog collar firmly in place, was just coming up the front steps. He murmured something appropriate and slipped into the house. Taking Claire's hand in his icicle-like fingers, Richard led her past the yellow tape, the flashing lights, and the people who lined the fence like vultures. “Eh, mate,” called a reporter, “How'd he do himself? Rope? Gas?"

Richard's glance was sharp as a battleaxe.

The man backed off. “No offense, mate."

Across the street the front door of Alec's house slammed shut and a light went on in the sitting room. Yeah, Claire thought, I'd go to ground, too.

The light went off again, replaced by the subtle flicker of a candle.

Richard hesitated, drawn for a step or two toward that flicker, then turning away. His hand squeezed Claire's so tightly she felt her bones creak. Around the corner the main street stretched toward the Hall. Car lights, street lights, lighted windows—they all seemed thin and pale beneath the heavy black lid of the sky

Richard and Claire threaded their way between the knots of people ranged outside the pub. The massive German Shepherd sat by the door like an amiable Cerberus, his leash looped through the handle. At the curb a group of pensioners filed into a van. Inside the shop Roshan was doling out candy bars and soft drinks. A horn honked. Someone shouted. Several of the drinkers laughed.

Richard followed as Claire climbed the steps to her flat. From the landing she could see how all the lights and activity were compressed into a small area in the center of the village. The church steeple on one side and the Hall on the other were barely perceptible shapes against the surrounding darkness ... No. Headlights swept across the façade of the Hall, reflecting in each succeeding window as though Elizabeth walked through the rooms carrying a torch.

Had Somerstowe looked like this the night Melinda died, Claire wondered, one pocket of life and the world around dark and quiet as the grave? And yet she'd died within sight of the stone circle, which, like the church and the Hall, too, for that matter, was evidence of life and light beyond death.

Life, yes. A fine spray of raindrops brushed Claire's face. She breathed deeply of the cold fresh breeze. But when Richard turned toward her he moved like a robot.

Claire kissed him. Her lips were cold. His were stiff. Their hands and arms collided awkwardly. The physical relationship was moving backwards, wasn't it, from a passionate clinch to a tentative first kiss to this hug, as sexual as hugging your grandmother. “Sorry,” he whispered against her cheek.

“There are a lot of people who have something to apologize for, including me. You don't."

He managed a thin smile at that.

Claire pulled away. “Go sit with Alec. Sneak in the back door if you have to. He needs you. You need him. I'll still be here tomorrow."

She thought for a moment Richard would at least try to keep up appearances by arguing with her. But no. That was why she'd fallen for him, after all, because he was honest. “I need you, too. Tomorrow.” He let her go and trudged off down the steps. At the bottom he looked up and called, “Thank you."

She waved, and waited until he'd disappeared into the crowd along the street before unlocking her door and going inside.

Her flat was dark and cold. Out of habit Claire inspected her two rooms, She found nothing except a few souvenirs—Melinda's letters, a script, Trevor's umbrella, the deerskin robe bundled at the end of couch. She'd get it back to Alec eventually.

Rain pattered down on the roof. Claire put on her pajamas, made herself some hot chocolate, and sat for a long time looking at Melinda's wedding ring on its bed of cotton. And yet she didn't have Alec's second sight and it didn't speak to her. “You had some things to apologize for,” she said softly to it. “You didn't have to die for them. But then, you sure didn't mean to, did you?"

Putting the lid back on the box, she tucked it away. She pulled out the bed, climbed into it, and curled up in the fetal position, trying to get warm. Still the cold lingered bone-deep in her limbs. In her heart.

The investigation was over. She'd achieved her purpose in coming to Somerstowe. Melinda's death was explained. It was even, in a grim sort of way, avenged. She should be happy, relieved, and gratified. Her old life was over. Tomorrow she and Richard could start a new one.

But all Claire could think of was Melinda's cold grave, Elliot splattered over his jewel box house, the blue lights of police cars winking in the sleepless windows of the Hall. And Richard watching over an anguished friend even as his own anguish festered in his gut.

Claire stood beneath the taut arch of the umbrella. The Sunday afternoon rain was soft and soothing. The churchyard was meltingly green even in the gloom, its tombstones not objects of fear but assurances of peace. “Little,” she read. “Brandreth. Jackman. Hardinge. Stafford.” And, on a modest stone to one side, “Julian Lacey."

A bedraggled handful of pinkish-purple lupins lay on the step of the Cranbourne mausoleum beneath the eyes of the decorous Victorian angels on the roof. Claire had seen flowers of that peculiar color somewhere else—the beds in front of the Hall, probably.