Memory and Desire (39 page)

Saying something about women sometimes being more ovaries than brains wouldn't help, either. “So—ah—you and Elliot broke up because of Melinda?"

“She sent him off me, she did. Then she died and he saw the error of his ways, like, and we had another go. But I gave him the elbow the same day you came here. He had a spot of bother rising to me standards, if you get me drift."

A spot of bother rising to my standards.
That was in Elliot's suicide note, straight, without the double meaning. Again Claire would've felt sympathy for Diana. She thought her affair with Elliot meant she was desirable when what it meant was that she was available. But what Claire felt was the horror of the scene, Diana holding Elliot's own gun to his head and he ... Had he pleaded with her? Or had he assumed she was too stupid to pull the trigger? Knowing Elliot, he'd said so. Bad mistake.

Diana obviously intended the black eyeliner and false lashes to make her eyes look bigger. Instead the cosmetics made them into small slits. She might not want anything here and now beyond a chance to unburden herself. To confess ...
Yeah, right.
Claire took another step backward. Was that a door opening? No, that was her own heart thumping in her ears.

She had to keep Diana talking. Over and beyond satisfying her own morbid curiosity at last, maybe Trevor would come in. Maybe Richard would come looking for her, or Rob for Diana, somebody, anybody. “You and Elliot were sending the blackmail letters."

“Yeh. It was me own idea. There was Richard reading over his post in the pub, so narked at one letter he squashed it up then smoothed it out again, quick smart. And me just behind him with me tray. He never saw me. No one ever sees me, I'm just a bit of furniture, aren't I, not worth a notice."

“You realized it was Melinda who sent the letter."

“Thought she was right clever, Melinda did, with all her little hints and lit'ry quotes. But I knew what she was on about. And I saw me chance to make me own back."

“Making money by blackmailing people with what you'd overheard in the pub.” Again Claire stepped backward, this time into the rack of prayer books. Its corner gouged her right thigh. Wincing, she eased away.

“Yeh. That little tart Janet and her brother in nick back home, thought no one knew about that. And Fred well, not much to say about Fred, is there? And less about Alec. He's worse than looney, isn't he? I even sent letters to meself and Elliot, too. Wasn't that clever? Mine was true, I had me admirers once. Don't know about Elliot's story, the rock star's wife and all, he thought it'd be good for a giggle."

“Richard wasn't laughing."

“Richard's a Lacey, all prim and proper. Not a bad sort, even so, though why he bothers with the likes of Alec I don't know. No accounting for tastes."

No, Claire thought tartly, there isn't.

“That first letter, that was just a game to Melinda. She could afford to play games. I can't. I asked for pretty things from the Hall—I have a right to them, don't I? Then Elliot said Richard was posting fakes. Said we'd kill the goose that laid the golden egg if we got Richard in wrong with the Trust. Said we should ask for cash, from him and everyone else.

“Elliot thought it was all a game, too. Said we'd save the lolly and have us a party and tell everyone it was us sent the letters. But even seeing Miss Melinda's face at that wasn't worth giving away me money. Every time I went to the shops in Bakewell I'd put it in me own account. Rob never knew he was paying me off to keep quiet about the duty-free beer, did he? The greedy sod and his, ‘Where's the receipts, Diana? Why didn't you get the sale price, Diana? So you're a Cranbourne, well la de dah! I am a Cranbourne, mind you, better than the likes of a Jackman any day!” Her lips curved down, hard, like a sickle. “Then Melinda died and I couldn't send any more letters, could I? Just like her, to take me money away from me."

Claire tried to exude calm. “You sent Richard a letter just a couple of weeks ago."

“He thought you sent it, didn't he? Would've given you the elbow and paid up, too, except for that sod Alec—he's hand in glove with the devil himself, that one is.” Diana leaned forward. “You and Melinda both, you're nothing more than troublemakers. Everything would've gone down a treat, except for her and for you."

Claire inched backward another half step. Diana was seriously disturbed. If you had to be crazy to kill yourself, you had to be even crazier to kill someone else. “You put that letter beneath Melinda's door, right? Because Elliot picked her to play Elizabeth?"

“Like in The Play, when Cecil finds a doll with thorns in it and accuses Elizabeth. I mean, if Alec can do witchery, why not me? I'm smarter than he is and a Cranbourne to boot. But no, I haven't got the lolly, I'm not good enough. And here comes Melinda, young Melinda, pretty Melinda, perfect Melinda—a foreigner, for God's sakes! A foreigner playing Elizabeth!"

Melinda had worked hard to maintain her façade of perfection, trying to protect herself. She'd done too good a job, it seemed. It wasn't fair. Which was Diana's complaint, that life wasn't fair.

“Melinda wouldn't leave, acted like she never even saw me letter. I thought then she was winding me up, didn't know about the bleeding carpet ‘til now, did I? Just as well. The bitch got what she deserved."

“Why?” Claire demanded. “How?"

Diana's red-veined eyes were hot and dry. “Well now, there's a story. As good a story as The Play, except mine's got a happy ending. Started like Elizabeth's, when I went to work for Maud just to see the Hall, just to see Somerstowe. Then I met Rob—well, we all make mistakes, don't we?"

Oh yeah, Claire told herself. We do.

“I sewed and tidied up like Elizabeth did do. I know me way round the Hall better than Richard. Better than Alec with that naff little room in the attics. What he gets up to in there, thinks he's having it off with Elizabeth, doesn't he, but we all know that ghost is a devil. Because that's what witches do, raise devils. Elizabeth was never a witch, she never had any truck with devils. Those rozzers from Derby, Blake and Pakenham, should see Alec off, they should. But no, Alec's a rozzer like them. They all work together, don't they, just like you see in the papers, all bent, every one of them."

Diana's voice was getting louder and shriller. She took a step forward, into the space between the pews. Claire forced herself to stand still, to act—no, she didn't have to act interested. She was interested. And nauseated. And hyperventilating. She tried to breathe normally. Flowers, candlewax, mildew. Sweat and hair spray.

“I did needlework better than anything you Yanks could do. Maud liked me. She was a decent woman, she minded her relatives, said she'd leave the Hall to her brother Vincent's family. Not that she knew I was one of Vincent's grandchildren. A Cranbourne in service? No, I kept that quiet. I told her me maiden name was Cox. I wasn't going to name me true name and have the local turnips slag me off about it, was I? Not ‘til I could walk in with the clothes and the cash and tell Rob to take his bloody beer taps and shove them up his arse.

“Then the Laceys got at her, didn't they? And Maud gave the Hall away. Just gave it away like it was worth no more than an old shoe.” Diana sputtered, trying to clear her throat. “The mantlepieces, the balustrades, the tapestries, the stones themselves, they're worth a packet, aren't they? People buy the old bits and pieces for their posh new houses, no need to keep the grotty old Hall itself standing. What's the point of that, I ask you? Why the bloody hell bother?"

Claire wasn't going to try and answer that. She edged back another step.

“One day this toffee-nosed twit's sitting there in the pub drinking with Trevor after one of his lectures. Says he's a Cranbourne, Vincent's grandson. Posh suit, Rolex, BMW—he was the business and he knew it too. Maurice Applethorpe, his name was. I minded the Applethorpes, gave us poor relations the elbow, they did, donkey's years ago. But there was Maurice, asking Trevor if there was something rum about old Maud's will. What if she'd really left the Hall to us. He had a buyer waiting for it, planned to sell off the pieces and tear it down and build new houses, ever so nice, and a golf course. All he needed was proof the will was a fake. All we needed."

“We?” asked Claire.

“I took him aside when he was coming back from the loo, told him who I was. At first he went all shirty—his own cousin serving beer and sausages in a pub—then when I told him I might could help, oh, he was polite enough then. It was soon after that I saw Melinda's letter.

“She thought it was funny, winding Richard up about the will. But I knew what she was playing at. ‘Willpower,’ she said. ‘The secret behind The Play,’ she said. Because The Play is part of the will, isn't it? She thought she was being clever. I twigged it, though. The song in The Play, ‘We gather together thy will to make known.’ Get it? ‘Thy will to make known?’ The Lacey's will? She knew all about it, Melinda did. You could tell by the way she asked questions, by the way she ponced about so proud of herself."

The hymn? Not the quote from Terence? Claire's mouth fell open and she snapped her teeth back together. Melinda's rock—the original blackmail letter—had hit not only Richard's guilty conscience but Diana's resentment, envy, and greed. Somewhere in her stomach she felt her own laugh welling up. Diana's construction was almost logical. Almost. And yet it was as completely wrong as a dog that meowed.

“Melinda was Killigrew's wife, wasn't she? The Laceys handed him a nice little bribe. That trusteeship, like as not, to never notice a fake will. We all know what lawyers get up to, don't we?

“Maurice is all right, though, not like the other toffs—he's me own cousin, isn't he? He said if he had the evidence he'd bring another suit, if he could break the will I'd have me proper share. He'd have thought I was the business, then, if I'd ever had the evidence to give him. I only ever wanted me birthright, mind you. I only ever wanted what I deserve."

It's a good thing most of us don't get what we deserve.
Claire's bitter laugh curdled into a wail of anguish. How could this happen? Why? Again she swallowed fiercely and cast a desperate look around the church. The effigies were silent as stone. The altar cross glowed faintly, like a good deed in a dark world. The cloth swayed.

It happened, Claire answered, because perception is more important than fact.

Diana took another step closer, her hand clutching the back of the pew beside her, her eye-slits like the peepholes into a padded room. “You want to know how your chum died, don't you? Why she deserved to die."

Claire forced her voice to stay low and casual. “Tell me about it."

“There was kiss-me-hand Melinda playing me role. Playing Elizabeth. I kept me mouth shut. Had a few drinks at the cast party. Nothing wrong with that, some rozzers to the contrary. Then Rob went down to the pub and looked like ticking off the extra help—never get anyone who can find their arse with both hands, do we?—and told me to fetch the dishes from the Hall. On me own, mind you. Oh, and take the dog for his walk as well.

“I've felt the back of Rob's hand often enough, I didn't give him any back talk. I was carrying the boxes through the portico and there was Melinda, walking through the gardens like she owned them, still wearing her bleeding dress. Getting up me nose with her bleeding dress, all of a purpose. Slagging me off because she thought she was better than me."

She didn't even know you were there,
Claire wanted to say. To shout. Melinda had been caught in some vision of her own, maybe working out how best to capture the moment in words—Elizabeth walking down through the garden to the stone circle or on her way to a tryst with Walter. Or maybe Melinda, contrite that her jokes had gone too far, had been musing about how best to mend relations with Alec and with Richard.

“So I tied up the dog and followed her,” Diana went hoarsely on. “She was standing atop that pile of rocks, taking in the scene, like—bright moonlit night it was, with the lights from the street making queer patterns on the grass. I said to her, I said, ‘No more clever games, me lady, time to come clean, time to tell me all about it.’”

Diana stared over Claire's head, seeing the moonlit night, the garden, Melinda's no doubt puzzled face. Claire thought, if I turn around I'll see her, too. But no. She wasn't going to turn her back on Diana. Melinda was gone.

“'Tell me about the will, the proper will. Your precious husband knew all about it, didn't he? And so do you. You said so in that letter you wrote to Richard. Thy will to make known. The secret behind The Play.’ She looked at me like I was talking rubbish, playing me up.” Diana's voice rose, scratching hysteria like fingers down a blackboard. “'Tell me the truth! I have to know, damn you, I have to know the truth about the will!’ And she fell about laughing. Laughing at me!"

The wail of anguish roiled in Claire's stomach. Melinda laughed because she suddenly saw the train of events she'd set in motion for what it was, a tangle of supposition, an absurd misunderstanding, an illogical deduction. She laughed because she'd always seen absurdity and appreciated it for what it was. She'd always laughed at her own absurd need to hide her truth, afraid she'd be the one everyone else laughed at.

Diana looked back at Claire. Her left hand clutched the back of the pew, her right hand trembled, clenched at her side. Her voice dropped abruptly into a hoarse growl. “She'd pushed me too far, hadn't she? So I pushed at her, to get her attention, like. And she fell. That bloody rock pile's not too steady, is it? She fell."

Claire had stood on top of that pile of rocks. She would've fallen if Richard hadn't grabbed her hand. It wouldn't have taken much of a push.

“There was that posh camera of hers, broken open, useless. Like her pretty head, smashed right in. The blood looked like ink in the dark. She was out cold, I reckon. I shook her. Oh, she was still breathing, all raspy, like. I could've run back to the pub, told them to come quick and help her. And then she'd wake up and tell everyone what'd happened. The rozzers'd come to get me, wouldn't they? And Maurice, without the evidence I'd promised him Maurice wouldn't give me the time of day, not any more.