Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel) (15 page)

It
is
odd, thought Max. Nether Monkslip wasn’t immune from crime—God knew—but pilfering and petty theft were mercifully rare.

“Kids,” said Tara. “We do get them in here, attracted to all the sparkly stuff. I suppose when my back was turned … Anyway, Father Max, when you talk with Awena next, tell her I miss her.”

Max retraced his steps of Sunday morning, walking out of the village proper and past the train station, on his way to ask Melinda about the architect’s place in the scheme of things.

But as it turned out, he didn’t have to ask.

When he’d talked with Melinda early Sunday, Max had promised he would again stop by the house with information regarding services for Thaddeus at St. Edwold’s, once he had checked his calendar. Again walking up the graveled path to her door, this time in broad daylight and at a leisurely pace, Max was met by the sight of a flashy red sports car parked askew in the circular driveway, as if the driver had been in a great hurry. Max stopped to admire the sleek red lines, the chrome, the shiny hubcaps. It was the same car he had seen around the village—it would be impossible to miss—and of course the women at Goddessspell had just reminded him of its existence. The architect to whom it belonged seemed to have wasted no time in calling on the grieving widow.

Max knocked on the door rather more loudly than was necessary: He felt the pair might need a little time to sort themselves out before anyone could make it to the front of the house. The Melinda Bottle who answered the door was looking flushed and disorganized and—no question about it—happier than when Max last had seen her. She had changed from her yoga togs into a jumper over a tank top and jeans, and her feet were bare aside from the bright pink polish on her toes. From somewhere deep in the house, the dog, Jean, barked.

Melinda pushed back the heavy dark hair that fell in messy ringlets over one eye. “Oh,” she said.

Max explained his mission with regard to services for her husband. He added gently and with an Oscar-worthy subtlety, “I see Farley is here.”

“Hello, Father.” The brash male voice reached him from around the corner, coming from the direction of the front sitting room. The voice was followed into the extravagant hallway by a man of middle years—he was perhaps in his early forties, but on first meeting he looked younger, having the physique and the sun-kissed glow of an athlete, perhaps a rower. He first shook Max’s hand, then smoothed back his own shiny dark hair, nearly a match for Melinda’s shade. He straightened the handkerchief in his jacket pocket, pulled his matching tie into line, and smiled.

“I see the village grapevine has alerted you to the situation,” said Farley. “Or are you honestly here on other business?”

“A bit of both,” admitted Max.

Farley smiled, not in the least bit embarrassed or put out. “I would say, ‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ but in fact, it
is
what it looks like. Actually, unless you are wholly lacking in imagination, what you see before you is exactly what it seems.”

“I do see,” said Max. “And I wonder … I wonder if I might have a word, since you’re here?”

Farley looked over at Melinda, who lifted her eyes to his. Farley quietly took Melinda’s hand. She was alight with happiness, her thin frame aquiver like a whippet’s, and she probably would have agreed to any suggestion so long as it came from Farley. Smiling, she threw her left arm wide, gesturing that they should follow her, and then fairly skipped toward that large living area at the back of the house (what Max thought they would call a “family room” in the U.S.).

As they followed her down the wide hall, a hall fit for a coronation, Farley said to Max, “Mel and I have … formed an attachment. Lying about it now would only make us look guilty, given the circumstances—what’s happened with Thaddeus and all. It was Bernadina Steed who introduced us, actually. I was sent over to advise, ended up doing a few minor repairs while I was here, and … well. I’m good with my hands, you see. I mean to say—um. You know. But I hope we can count on you to be discreet, Father?”

Max shook his head. “No, you can’t, actually.”

“I thought vicars had to be, well…”

“Tactful?” said Max, finishing for him. “It’s a murder investigation, and that’s always a game changer. You can count on me not to gossip needlessly, but withholding what I know to be relevant to the investigation isn’t possible. I’m sure you can understand why, when you think about it. Besides, I shouldn’t count on someone else in the village not knowing about this already and telling the police. In your shoes, I would tell the police straightaway, before they find out for themselves.”

“This has nothing to do with Thaddeus’s death. You have my word,” said Farley. Melinda, who had stopped and turned, waiting for them to catch up, nodded earnestly.

“You have our word,” she said solemnly.

Well, that’s all right, then. Thinking the police might need more than their word, he peered at them both, taking in Farley’s matinee-idol looks and putting to account his flashy lifestyle. Appearances, Max thought, might be deceptive. They so often were. Certainly this pair seemed ideally matched, which Max could not have said of Melinda and her so recently deceased husband. Melinda was close to Farley in age, similar to him in looks, and they seemed to have similar tastes, something Farley confirmed when, gesturing toward the grand hallway, so out of place and proportion, he said, “I’m helping Melinda decide what to do about Bottle Palace here. I think”—and here he shot her a fond look—“I think she’s at last willing to agree with me that the house would be worth more if the modern part were demolished or vastly revised to fit the intention of the original builder, however many centuries ago he set those intentions. I’d plump for demolishing the thing.”

“And I’ve told
him,
” she said sweetly, “the house was completely Thaddeus’s idea. I knew the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the place would be a challenge, to say the least. But as it turned out, interior decorating was the least of my worries. The later addition barely meets code. We’ve had a hundred workmen in and out of here trying to make it habitable.”

“I understand the house had a particular meaning for your husband,” said Max.

“Yes. It’s pathetic, really. He was returning in triumph to the scenes of his childhood. This was basically a ramshackle farmhouse when he lived here as a child—nothing special about it. But with the later addition it became—to him—a most desirable property, because it was
big.
You don’t have to be Freud to figure that one out. He had made it at last, he was rich—at least by the standards of the area—and he wanted to be sure everyone knew it. He was really a city boy at heart, so this rustication didn’t really suit. But Thaddeus was determined and at first, at any rate, he was happy with the decision.” She thought a moment and corrected herself. “With
his
decision. I like it here. I’ve adapted”—and here she tossed a coy look at Farley—“but I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself, by myself.”

“Was there a reason for that, do you think? I mean, had someone treated him badly, that he felt he had to show off his success?”

Melinda shrugged inside her oversized jumper. “He never said, if so. I think it was just his nature. I remember thinking, many times: Big fish, small pond. He liked to impress, Father. Needed desperately to impress. And in London, there were fewer people anymore who even knew who he was or who he had been. Particularly among the younger generation. I’d say his fan base there was approaching zero. So Nether Monkslip fulfilled a long-held fantasy. Please have a seat.”

They had been standing as they talked. Now she pointed to a low sofa ranged before the brick fireplace. The sofa looked like it could easily seat ten people. Max opted instead for the matching side chair, which sat at a ninety-degree angle. The loving couple nestled in the corner of the sofa nearest Max. On the low table before them was a tray holding a teapot and some biscuits and chocolates.

“The tea’s gone cold, I’m afraid. Shall I get some more?” Melinda asked.

Both men shook their heads, but Farley leaned over and picked up the plate of sweets, offering it to Melinda. She gazed longingly at the exquisitely decorated biscuits with their swirls of white and dark chocolate. Those have to have come from the Cavalier, thought Max, recognizing Elka’s yin-and-yang specialty biscuits. He was astonished to hear weight-conscious Melinda say, “Well, maybe just one.” She actually took two.

Wonders never cease, Max thought. Out of the critical gaze of her husband, she was eating again. He half-expected her to look around to make sure Thaddeus wasn’t watching. The transformation was complete. But—what had she been willing to do to throw off that yoke?

“Do you know,” Max said to Farley, “I think I would like some tea after all. And I would like a private word with Melinda about the final arrangements for Thaddeus. Would you mind…?”

Again, Farley proved himself impervious. He smiled and, picking up the teapot, took himself out of the room. Max waited until the sound of his footsteps receded, then said to Melinda, “I can only let you make your own choices, but I don’t think it is particularly wise for Farley to be here. It’s bound to cause talk and raise suspicion, complications you won’t need. You do understand—the police are going to be looking for answers. DCI Cotton is an honorable man and a decent cop, but even good cops make mistakes. Especially when presented with clichés.”

“I don’t see why I should pretend,” said Melinda. “I am in love with Farley. And he with me.
And
by the way, I had nothing to do with Thaddeus’s death. That was just … unfortunate timing. I was going to leave him anyway.”

The resemblance to a pouting four-year-old was near perfect. Max, thinking Thaddeus probably found the timing unfortunate also, merely said, “Don’t hand them your head on a platter is all I’m saying. Play it cool.
Be
cool. The spouse is always the main suspect, the first person police look at. Cotton wouldn’t be doing his job unless he looked very closely at you, at what you do, and at what you’ve been doing.” Because he wasn’t certain her instinct for self-preservation was at an all-time high, he added, “If they learn Farley was part of this scenario, which they are nearly certain to do, he could be in trouble also.”

That did the trick. For the first time, in her concern for Farley, Melinda seemed to realize the precariousness of the entire situation. She really was one of the most other-directed people Max had ever met. Max found himself hoping she wasn’t trading one toxic attachment for another—her relationship with Thaddeus had been anything but healthy. If Farley proved likewise to be the sort to take advantage of a pliant nature, well … only time would tell. The best Max could hope for now was to extricate her from suspicion in having anything to do with Thaddeus’s death—assuming she was innocent.

“Now, before Farley gets back,” said Max, “tell me everything you know, or think you know, about what’s been going on here.”

“Since you think it’s so important, I’ll tell you that Farley and I hardly ever—you know—got together, really,” Melinda told Max. “There weren’t that many chances. We met on Saturday nights, when we could. That was the only time we could guarantee any extended time with each other. We stole other opportunities sometimes…” Melinda gave Max a shy teenager smile. “So you see, it wasn’t that big a deal—Inspector Cotton will have to realize it wasn’t like we were meeting up all the time.”

“It’s more likely Cotton will think that the fact you had to ration your time together so strictly was an added motive for murder.”

“Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Start thinking that way, Melinda,” said Max. “Now, Thaddeus had been married before, you said.”

“That’s right. His wife was French—that’s why his accent stayed in such good form. We met not long after she died. I was—well, I was still married, but only just. I fell head over heels when I met Thaddeus. Yes, you can look surprised—he was much older. But that had nothing to do with it. We seemed made for each other. At first.”

“Go on,” Max said.

“I’m not sure what all you want to know. I discovered he was a real actor. And by that, I mean he acted nonstop. He was never ‘off.’ It’s very hard to live with, that is. You never know what you’ve got. A comedian one day, a tragedian the next.”

Max nodded. During his time with MI5, he had had to disappear into a role, sometimes for months on end. It was no wonder he had felt his psyche was fragmented by the time he left the outfit. Did actors, on leaving a play or movie, feel the same way? A more troublesome question was whether that was why they were attracted to role-playing in the first place. Was it a symptom of something in their upbringings that made their characters require some assembly?

“What else can you tell me?” Max prompted.

“Well, he was adopted, and I always thought he was insecure because of that. The people who adopted him already had children of their own—a reversal of the usual process, where childless couples adopt and then find they’re expecting one of their own.

“Insecure,” mused Max. “Passive-aggressive, would you say?”

She considered this diagnosis. “No,” she said at last. “No, he usually skipped right over the passive part and went straight for the jugular.”

“I’m sorry,” said Max. “That must have made things difficult for you.”

She acknowledged the sympathy with a slight shrug. “I can tell you one troubling bit of scandal from his past,” she said. “His first wife was thought to be a suicide. I believe the story was that she was driven to suicide, and absolutely I believe it now. I have often felt the same way. There was no escape from him. And the thing no one tells you is it takes money to leave a marriage.”

Max assumed that meant there had been a prenuptial agreement.

“Yes.” She replied, without embellishment, to his question on this topic. But she was not through talking about Thaddeus’s first wife. “She was rich, you know. I wasn’t, particularly. That must mean he loved me at one time. Don’t you think?”