Memory and Desire (45 page)

“None whatsoever,” Claire returned with a smile of her own. Even though working out the practicalities of staying on depended on what happened now.

A block of sunlight lay in a glowing square on the floor. The odors of roses and baking scones filtered through the open window, along with a symphony of birdsong that suddenly had a mocking edge to it. Richard sat with his knees and elbows close to his body, under siege. “It all goes back to the letter Melinda wrote me. Diana got the wrong end of the stick, thinking Melinda was going on about Maud Cranbourne's will when she was actually going on about me and about The Play."

Claire's sideways glance met Alec's coming the other way. So Richard was going to force the issue. Well, better a quick execution than a long lingering death of a thousand cuts.

“Diana,” Pakenham said, “is the only person in the UK who doesn't know The Play's a fake. Aren't I right, Killigrew?"

“I say,” murmured Nigel. “One has one's professional ethics."

“Everyone in this room knows the truth,” Kate told him.

“Well then—ah—yes, I'm quite aware The Play is...” Nigel coughed discreetly “...not what it appears. If Maud had consulted with me before she published it, I should have attempted to dissuade her. However, she did not. I assure you I never told Melinda. If she knew, she found out from Moncrief. He did quite a bit of business with theatrical publishers."

“The Play has a genuinely old pedigree,” suggested Alec. “Now that it's an accomplished fact, so to speak, maybe the specific details no longer matter."

“I quite agree. I see no reason for anything about it to come out at the trial. If Mrs. Jackman doesn't know the full story, well then...” Nigel spread his hands, inviting Blake and Pakenham to join the conspiracy.

Blake's moustache crumpled and his eyes crossed. He was no doubt visualizing robbery, murder, illegal weapons, and drugs infiltrating the public schools. “Play? We saw a couple of performances. Not the kind of thing that would give Andrew Lloyd Webber a sleepless night, now is it?"

“Not at all,” Kate said brightly.

Pakenham shrugged. “Forget the bleeding Play, then."

“How odd,” added Nigel, “that you'd mention Sir Andrew. Among Moncrief's letters was one from Sir Andrew's secretary saying thank you but he has no interest in buying rights to The Play. I always thought Moncrief was reaching a bit with that. Nothing ventured, I suppose.” He reached into the inside pocket of his expensive but understated suit—no hope Pakenham was taking notes on style—and produced a leather-bound memo pad. “I'll see to organizing new representation for ‘An Historie,’ shall I? And perhaps a new edition citing Julian and Dierdre Lacey as editors."

“Please,” Blake said with a shooing motion.

Claire considered Nigel's affable anteater face. She could see why Melinda had been attracted to him—and why it had all gone wrong. Whatever, she gave him a grateful half-smile. But The Play wasn't the major issue. Blake had only nibbled at Richard's bait.

The block of sunshine stretched across the floor almost to her feet. She could sense its intimation of warmth. Back home this time of year she'd be gasping in the sun-blasted heat, huddling beneath a ceiling fan during the day and only emerging vampire-like after dark. Here, though, warmth and sunlight were a blessing to be savored immediately or lost. Like love, she thought, glancing at Richard.

His eye flickered, aware of her thought, probably even agreeing with it. For him, though, the day was cold and dark. He was standing on his balustrade, guarding his post, even though raindrops were trickling down the back of his neck. Beyond him Alec's profile was less sharp but just as cold and damp.

“So that's that then,” Pakenham said, slamming shut his notebook and capping his pen. “Nothing left but the paperwork and the trial. A job well done, wouldn't you say, Chief Inspector?"

“Hang on,” began Kate. “What about Al..."

“No.” Richard's voice cut through hers. “That does not wrap everything up. You've not put Alec back to work. And there's the matter of Maud Cranbourne's will, which may be a minor point of order to you but is a whacking great spear point to me."

Blake inhaled. It was Nigel who answered. “Richard, why should the matter of Maud Cranbourne's last will and testament figure in Mrs. Jackman's trial? I realize she and Applethorpe wanted to challenge it, but there are no grounds whatsoever for a suit. Maud's will is in perfect order, dated two days before she passed on and witnessed by Trevor and Priscilla Digby."

Every jaw in the room dropped, one after the other, like dominos. Claire spun around to Richard. His eyes gaped as widely as his mouth. What little color had been in his face drained to a flat greenish-white. She closed her hand on his arm. The tension ebbed so abruptly from it she expected him to slide bonelessly under the table. Even his hair seemed to collapse.

“I beg your pardon?” Blake managed to say.

Nigel scooted back a bit, no doubt wondering why everyone looked as though they'd just been goosed. “Maud Cranbourne left Somerstowe Hall to the National Trust. Mr. Lacey—Julian Lacey—well and truly succeeded in convincing her of the value of the Hall as an historical structure. All the legalities are in apple pie order and always have been, if I do say so myself. If Mrs. Jackman thought otherwise—well, she's in a psychiatric ward at this moment."

“The Cranbournes found a will in Maud's desk,” Richard choked out.

“The preliminary draft signed by your parents the week before her death? How very kind of Julian and Dierdre to help Maud prepare it. The conveyancing of a major property such as the Hall can be quite complicated. Being aware of this, Maud sent me the will as soon as the Digbys signed it so it would be on file in my office. And not before time."

Claire closed her mouth. She didn't leap from her chair and turn a cartwheel or leap on Richard and smother him with kisses. She didn't kiss Nigel either, tempted as she was. Did he suspect what Dierdre and Julian had intended with their “preliminary draft?” Maybe so, but his ethics would never let him voice a mere suspicion. How casually the good gray lawyer had slain a fire-quenching dragon. Go figure.

“It's a tragedy, isn't it,” Nigel concluded, “that Diana murdered Melinda for something that didn't even exist."

The will? wondered Claire. Or Melinda's perfection.

Pakenham threw his pen down. “I'll be damned.” Alec and Kate shared quickly suppressed grins.

The color flooded back into Richard's face, which eased from stunned to simply dazed. He put his hand over Claire's and squeezed. “Oh aye, but tragedies eventually come to an end."

“Right.” Blake unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. His arms were meaty, more suited to cleaving logs or pigs or even heads than stitching the subtle shadings of a murder case. But he'd tied this one off, even so. Almost.

He leaned forward. “Whilst I was in Derby this morning I stopped by Chief Constable Figgett's office."

Alec braced himself. If he'd been standing up he'd have clicked his heels together. “Sir."

“I played Figgett the tape of your interview, including the vicar's endorsement at its end. I commented favorably on your conduct yesterday during the fire and the apprehension of the suspect. And I reminded the Chief Constable that the Derbyshire constabulary just lost D.C Khan's religious discrimination case. We don't need another one boiling up on us."

Pakenham snorted. “Khan may be a Paki, but at least Islam is a real religion. Wood here..."

“...is a practitioner of the Native British religion,” said Blake, turning up the volume. “I understand being a practitioner of the Native American religion is no bar to service in the American police."

“It sure isn't,” Claire said.

“What do you expect of Yanks!” said Pakenham scornfully.

Blake's volume went up another notch. “The Chief Constable and I agreed that another scandal would do us much more harm than good."

“The reporters are already on to Wood!” Pakenham shouted. “That jiggery-pokery with the ring and the map..."

Blake turned a bland eye on Pakenham's scowl. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Why Arnold, you wrote in your report that your questioning of PC Wood suggested to you a possible scenario for the night of the murder, and that your superior deductive abilities then turned up the body. Or did I mis-read an official document?"

Pakenham's eyes bulged. He subsided to a low sputter like a teakettle on the boil.

In an impressive display of self-control, Alec kept a straight face. “So I have my job back then, sir?"

“Yes,” Blake told him. “Be discreet, eh? Ask the padre round to do the honors before your party."

“That's not why I have him in,” said Alec, “but yes, sir, I've only ever meant to be discreet. Not secretive, discreet. Not deceptive, private. Thank you, sir."

Blake removed his glasses, pulled out his handkerchief, and started polishing. “Sergeant Pakenham."

“Yes,” said Pakenham truculently, and added a beat later, “Sir?"

“After I played the tape for the Chief Constable, my second matter didn't need discussing at all. Remember, Figgett's an old-fashioned sort of chap. He asked if my sergeant always behaved in such an insufferable and vulgar manner. Like a common little oik, is the way he put it. It doesn't look good, he said. Have to maintain our standards, he said. The public can be troublesome enough as it is, he said. Mind you, he was probably over-reacting just a bit after having to concede the matter of PC Wood."

Pakenham's jowls sagged in horror.

“I had no choice but tell him the truth, Arnold, that your behavior to PC Wood and Father Digby was entirely typical. And of course I had to mention how your putting it about that an arrest was imminent led Mrs. Jackman into murdering Elliot Moncrief. The Chief Constable then suggested transferring you to a position as a file clerk, where you needn't be dealing directly with the public."

Pakenham gobbled, but nothing coherent came out of his mouth. A look of utter glee bounced along the line of faces from Claire to Richard to Alec to Kate and back.

Having wiped Pakenham away, Blake replaced his glasses. “WPC Shelton."

“Yes, sir?"

“I need a sergeant to help me clear away this case. Seeing as how you've made a good fist of it all, I've recommended your promotion."

“Yes, sir!” said Kate, with a triumphant look that would've gutted and flayed Pakenham if he hadn't already been slumped deflated in his chair, his suit looking two sizes too big for him. He didn't even glance up when Kate and Alec exchanged a high-five discreetly below the edge of the table.

Now that was a punch line worth waiting for. “You go girl,” Claire told Kate, with a judicious pump of her clenched fist.

“Well played,” Richard said to Blake. Even Nigel smiled.

So it wasn't that Blake didn't have any backbone. He simply didn't want to change horses in mid-stream. Fair enough. Still he'd been looking for an excuse to demote Pakenham and reinstate Alec. Blake, like everyone else, wasn't what he'd first seemed. Everyone in the real-life play, the tragedy of Melinda Varek as visited upon Somerstowe, had been playing a role.

Richard stood up. Claire could almost see the armored carapace he'd left behind sitting ghost-like in his chair. “Thank you, Nigel. Thank you, Chief Inspector, Ser—WP—Kate. Give me a shout when you need me to testify. I'll do what I can as a public-spirited citizen and all. Claire...” She was right behind him. His momentum carried Alec and Kate out the door as well.

Behind them Nigel asked, “By the way, Chief Inspector, why did you ask me in for an interview yesterday afternoon?"

“Just crossing the t's and dotting the i's,” Blake told him.

“Well now, I've made a profession of that,” replied Nigel.

Richard paused in the outer office to take a deep breath. Alec nudged him with his elbow. Even with its fragile edge of regret, his grin stated,
oh ye of little faith.
What he said was, “Tomorrow is Midsummer's Day. I'll be laying on a barbecue as per usual. Claire, Richard, you'll be there?"

“With bells on,” Claire replied for them both.

“A midsummer barbecue would go down a treat,” said Kate plaintively.

Alec stared a moment, then did a classic double-take, “Oh! Yes, Kate, please, by all means, join me. Us."

“My pleasure,” she returned with a demure flutter of her lashes.

Richard and Claire shared a pleased look. Maybe the shadows still lingered in Alec's eyes, but the sun would be rising soon.

From the back room came Pakenham's whining voice. “Killigrew, I'd like to retain you to file a discrimination suit."

“On what grounds?” Nigel asked incredulously.

“Detective Chief Inspector Blake here is discriminating against normal English males of good family background—I attended Winchester, I won't have your treating me like a common..."

Blake's voice fell like the blade of a guillotine. “Leave it, Arnold, or I promise you'll find yourself a litter ranger in Manchester. Wood! Shelton! We have papers to sort! Mr. Killigrew, if you'd be so kind as to leave me your card."

Bumping companionably in the doorway, Alec and Kate went back inside. Richard and Claire went the other way, out the door and into the light.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He shook his head. “If only my mum and dad had asked to see the will, if only they'd sat in at the reading—well, why should they, they knew what it said—the time difference to Canada, my mum needs telling straightaway..."

“Richard,” repeated Claire, “Are you all right?"

“Oh aye,” he stated with a dazed smile. “Gobsmacked, mind you. Limp with relief. But quite all right, thank you."

Claire grinned. “Not too limp, I hope. We need to celebrate, don't we?"

“Oh no, not so limp as all that,” he assured her, his smile spreading into a grin of his own. “You're expecting a dinner, I suppose. Wine, candles, roses ... Well, we should miss out the roses."

“No,” Claire told him. “We have to have roses."

“Roses, then. That's enough for you, is it? Or are you wanting me to get out my sketch book as well?"

“I think we have to have the sketch book, too,” she told him.