Palmer-Jones 04 - A Prey to Murder (4 page)

‘I’ll be in the office for the next hour, Richard,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you could come to see me later so we can complete the arrangements for tomorrow.’

With Eleanor’s departure the mood of the evening changed. They sat uneasily round the table drinking coffee. The rest of the room was dark and quiet. No one seemed willing to pick up the thread of the conversation.

‘What did you mean,’ George asked Veronica abruptly, ‘when you said your mother seemed mad?’

Veronica glanced briefly at her husband. He thought her anxiety about Eleanor was misplaced. Eleanor was a tough old boot, he said. She probably had her own reasons for making such a fuss about the birds. But his long, mild face gave nothing away.

‘She’s obsessed with the peregrines,’ Veronica said. ‘ She wandered about on the hill at night because she says someone’s planning to take the young. No one else believes her: I don’t know what to do.’

‘Why does she think someone’s planning to steal the birds?’ Molly asked. She had been quiet all evening. The dinner had been Eleanor’s show and she had not wanted to spoil the performance. Now she, at least, felt more comfortable.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ Veronica said. ‘There was a blue van parked at the end of the lane by the barn and Mother was convinced that it belonged to people who were looking for the nest. There was no reason at all why it should have done.’

‘Did she get the registration number?’

‘Not in detail. She just recognized that it wasn’t a local one. When she first mentioned the van she didn’t seem too worried by it but it seemed to prey on her mind so that now she’s got the whole thing out of proportion.’

‘She didn’t seem very eager to discuss it tonight,’ Molly said.

‘No,’ Veronica said. ‘That just shows how illogical the whole thing is.’

‘Did anyone else see the van?’ George asked.

Veronica shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The second time Mother saw it she came in and told me. She said there was a man sitting in the passenger seat. I was going to find out who he was and ask what he was doing there, take down the registration number, but when I got out no one was there. The van must have driven away.’

Throughout this conversation Richard Mead was silent. He gave the impression of scepticism, as if he wanted to reassure his wife that Eleanor was as strong as she had always been.

‘I shouldn’t worry about Eleanor,’ he said. ‘She’s never struck me as the sentimental sort and I’m sure she’s perfectly sane.’

He stood up, gave them his lopsided smile. ‘ I’d better go,’ he said. ‘She’ll be expecting me.’

Veronica watched him leave the room with a kind of desperation, as if he too were deserting her. She sat for a few minutes longer, then she left them too.

That night George went to bed with the unsettling, unreasonable depression which troubled him occasionally. He felt that Eleanor did not trust him. His pride was hurt because he had driven all the way to Herefordshire to help her and she had treated him like one of the paying guests. The promise of the evening was unfulfilled.

When she left the dining room Veronica Mead went straight upstairs by the back staircase from the kitchen. She was confused and unhappy and did not want to meet any of the guests. She would go in to the girls, she thought, and settle them for the night as she had when they were babies. The idea gave her some comfort. The Meads had a series of rooms on the top floor. Once they had been used as a nursery and servants’ quarters, but that had been long before Veronica had been born. Now they were airy and attractive and formed a retreat from Eleanor and the hotel.

Helen was still up, dressed in night clothes, sitting at her desk writing.

‘Oh darling,’ Veronica said, impressed by her elder daughter’s academic dedication. ‘It’s too late for homework.’

‘It’s not homework,’ Helen said, ‘but I’m going to bed now.’

She’s changed, Veronica thought. She’s grown up. She takes after her grandmother, not me. Everything’s changing.

Fanny was asleep on a crumpled bed, surrounded by soft toys and pop posters. Veronica straightened the duvet and stroked her forehead. She felt a routine easy guilt. It was their fault Fanny was so difficult. Eleanor was right. She was too muddled and incapable to organize time for her family. We’re alike, Fanny and me, she thought. We’re both failures. Then she shut the bedroom door and forgot the girl, as if she had done duty enough by feeling guilt.

In her own room Veronica sat and looked at her reflection in the mirror. I’m weak, she thought. I let things happen to me. I’m not clever enough to stand up for myself. She knew she was too dependent on Eleanor but could do nothing about it. Even after her marriage she had needed her mother. In one sense their life together as a family in the flat over Richard’s studio had been the happiest time of her life, but she had missed her mother’s support and advice. She had persuaded Richard to move back to Gorse Hill and to join in the hotel venture.

‘She’ll dominate you again,’ he had said. ‘She’ll rule your life for you.’

But that, after all, was what Veronica had wanted.

So now Eleanor’s peculiar behaviour was like a threat to her own precarious stability. She needed her mother to be sane and decisive. She would rather be alone than face the mood swings, the uncertainty of her mother’s behaviour, the haunted look on her face, the night-time prowls on the hill. Richard was trying to protect her, to laugh away Eleanor’s irrationality, but she knew something was going on which she could not understand. She could not explain her fears to George Palmer-Jones. He was obviously charmed by her mother, as most men were, and could not contemplate her madness.

There were footsteps on the stairs outside, Richard came into the room and Veronica turned round to face him.

‘How was Mother?’ she asked. ‘She seemed quite well at supper.’ Richard shrugged and Veronica thought: He won’t tell me the

truth. He’s afraid of hurting me.
‘She was well enough,’ he said. ‘She didn’t talk about the birds

at all tonight. She wants the Open Day to be a magnificent success.

Just like old Eleanor.’
He smiled but she knew he was lying.

The next day Helen woke early, but there were already people in the garden, setting up trestle tables, marking out the sites for stalls. She heard her grandmother’s voice and saw Eleanor standing on the lawn, showing vans and cars and people where to go. She was dressed in brown trousers and a shirt and her hair was tied up in a scarf. She was waving her arms and shouting and might have been the director of a film. Helen dressed and ran down into the garden to offer help. She admired her grandmother’s energy and wanted to be part of the proceedings. She thought it would make the time pass quickly before she saw Laurie again.

It would be another fine day, even warmer than the previous one. She felt happy, optimistic. Even when the heavy dew on the grass soaked her shoes she did not care. It was going to be a brilliant day. She stood where her grandmother had instructed under the cedar tree on the front lawn and checked the people who were running stalls against a list. When a dark, insignificant man got out of a blue van and said he was there to work for Mr Fenn, she smiled at the coincidence of the vehicle but took no real notice. There were a lot of blue vans and everyone knew her grandmother was making a fuss about nothing.

Helen was outside all morning and watched with wonder as the scene took shape. This was going to be no glorified jumble sale. Eleanor had planned something more impressive than that. There were to be displays of crafts, a sheepdog trial, morris dancers. There was an inflatable for the children to bounce on and a Punch and Judy for them to watch. There were ice cream vans and hot-dog stands and bands and balloons and a parade of vintage cars. The colour and noise suited Helen’s mood exactly. She was reading
Le Grand Meaulnes
for A level French and the carnival music, the children in fancy dress, the friendliness of the participants reminded her of the party at Augustin’s secret domain.

The event was opened at two o’clock by an actress more famous for her involvement with the Green movement and for her refusal to wear fur coats and leather shoes than for any of the roles she had played. No one knew how Eleanor had persuaded her to come but her presence at the event had generated a lot of publicity and the makeshift car park in the field across the lane was full. The large gardens were heaving with people. Helen listened to the opening speech and waited for Laurie’s arrival in a state of breathless unreality. The scene around her was fiction, art, only a backdrop for their meeting. Soon she would see him and the whole purpose of the day would be realized.

The singers and dancers were performing in a corner of the garden furthest away from the house and Helen made herself wait until the speeches were over and the applause had faded before going to find Laurie. There was no stage. The musicians played on a square grass court and the audience sat on shallow grassy terraces which formed three sides of it. That part of the garden was sheltered and very hot, and not so crowded as the rest of Gorse Hill. At first she could not see Laurie. She looked through the people lazing in the sun and she was quite sure he was not there. A folk group were singing sea shanties and two children, showing off, were dancing barefoot, between the musicians and the audience. They were golden-haired, dressed in white frocks with blue sashes and they stopped every now and then to collapse in a fit of giggles. Helen turned to find somewhere to sit and then she saw him. He was coming back from the beer tent, walking across the grass towards her. He was carrying a drink. It was cider, he said. For her. He had to go now. It was his turn to perform.

The sea shanties were over. The musicians bowed and the little girls ran away still giggling. Laurie sauntered down the grass slope and took his place. She watched him over the rim of her glass and he smiled at her. He bent over his guitar. As he played the introduction to his song she could only see the top of his head with its stiff wiry curls, and his fingers. The nails were bitten so low that the brown stubs of his fingers looked unusually soft and round. Later she would not remember the tunes he had played, though she listened with rapt attention. His voice was light and melodic. She could tell that the rest of the audience enjoyed his songs and she felt proud of him and wanted to tell them that he belonged to her.

When he finished singing he came back to her with more drink – beer for himself and cider again for her. She had hardly tasted the first glass. He sat beside her on the grass. She turned towards him and kissed him. When it was over and she opened her eyes she saw Eleanor standing on one of the terraces opposite, staring at her with steely disapproval. Helen blushed but with an attempt at defiance pretended not to notice. She kissed Laurie again and when she next looked Eleanor had disappeared.

She had thought they would spend the afternoon there, in the sunshine, as they had on the hillside the day before. She wanted to show him round Gorse Hill, to take him to all the favourite places. She thought they might even walk on to the hill again and sit under the boulder so that they could be alone. But after ten minutes Laurie said he had to go. There was someone he had to meet.

‘Who is it?’ she asked. She was confused by the sunshine and the cider. She thought he would come back to be with her for the afternoon.

‘Oh,’ he said with contrived irony. ‘No one important. Only my father.’

She wanted to ask him to explain. She knew his father had left them, that his parents were separated. She wanted to ask if she might go with him. But he got quickly to his feet, kissed the top of her head and ran up the grass slope away from her. She wanted to call after him to ask when she would see him again, where they would meet, when he had seen his father, but there was nothing she could do. He had disappeared into the crowd.

Irrationally she blamed Eleanor for Laurie’s disappearance. She felt foolish, despised, as she had when she had opened her eyes and seen Eleanor staring at her. Her grandmother should not have pried on her. What right had Eleanor to follow her and disturb them in their private moment of pleasure? Miserable and wretched, because Laurie had not confided in her and had run away, she wandered off.

George woke late but still felt tired and edgy. The noise and good humour of the Wildlife Trust members who were setting up the stalls did nothing to improve his temper. Molly in contrast seemed more relaxed and comfortable. She was back in her old trousers and gym shoes and her confidence had returned. She smiled at the other guests.

Mrs Oliver served them breakfast. She looked flushed and angry, and when she brought coffee she spilled it into the tray.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, though she was not sorry at all. ‘I’m not used to this. I belong in the kitchen.’ Her resentment was directed at George and Molly. It might have been their fault.

‘I suppose everything’s disorganized today,’ Molly said gently.

‘Mrs Masefield’s stolen all my staff,’ Mrs Oliver said shortly. ‘I can’t be expected to work properly with all this going on.’

She nodded towards the long windows. They could see the chaos on the lawn, the streamers and the noisy young people. She seemed to view the proceedings with a deep, puritanical suspicion. The participants were feckless, rowdy, and were disrupting her routine.

‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over,’ she said, ‘and everything’s back to normal.’

George was inclined to agree with her. Lunch was a scrappy affair but the other guests seemed to be enjoying the informality and shouted to each other with comradely good humour. He felt priggish and straitlaced. He would have preferred to remain in his room reading a bird book but Molly dragged him out into the crowd.

She began to enjoy herself for the first time that weekend. There was the noise and the smell of a fairground in a small country town. Someone had brought a fairground organ and the grating rhythm of the machine was interspersed with the music of the high school brass band. There was a smell of trampled grass and candy floss and frying onions. Molly thought that Eleanor might be disappointed. Surely she would have wanted the event to be more refined.