Shroud of Silence (14 page)

I cajoled him, to make it easier. “Come on, Bill. You’ll have to tell me in the end.”

He was aggressive and defensive at once. “If you must know, I reckoned that Drew might have had something to do with Brian’s accident.”

“You suspected that
Drew
... ?”

Cold shock waves were washing through me. Great battering waves of icy horror.

“You’ve got to look at it my way, Kim. Brian gets drowned and his jacket has obviously been in the water too. Yet I find it a hundred yards away. I came to the only possible conclusion—that it had been taken off him and searched. Not for money, but for something incriminating. The whole thing’s still mighty peculiar, but at least we know now that Drew didn’t ... well, didn’t push Brian into the pond.”

My mind was on a single track. “But why did you suspect Drew? Why
Drew?”

Bill looked at me steadily for a good half minute. Then he said slowly, “Because Brian was having an affair with Corinne.”

“Oh no,” I gasped.

In a way, though, I wasn’t all that surprised. I’d already decided that Corinne was the type to bed around. But to pick on Drew’s own cousin! A man younger than herself by several years, and living right here at Mildenhall!

I said in a low whisper, “And Drew knew this was going on?”

“You’re darned right he knew. Corinne doesn’t make a virtue of discretion, either.”

I felt a surge of compassion for Drew. Who could possibly have blamed him if he
had
killed Brian—except the law, that is. Thank God that Gwen’s story put Drew absolutely in the clear.

Bill sighed. “I wish to God I’d never found the thing!”

“It doesn’t help to keep saying that,” I retorted rather sharply. “I suppose we’ll have to tell Drew before we’re done.”

“And what’s he going to say about me keeping it dark now? I can hardly tell him why.”

“Who else do you suggest we go to? Tansy?” I was scornful. “Or the police?”

“No! Not the police.”

“They may have to be brought in before we’re through. But that’s a matter for Drew to decide.”

He chewed over what I’d said for quite a while. In the end he nodded unhappily. “I suppose you’re right, Kim. But don’t tell him just yet. We might find there’s a perfectly innocent answer to the whole ghastly business.”

I agreed to go along with him. In theory I was all for telling Drew. In practice I was every bit as reluctant as Bill.

Trying my hardest to be objective, I said, “Could we sort out what happened that evening? I mean, the other things that happened. What everybody was doing at the time.”

“You’re suggesting that somebody at Mildenhall must have been responsible?”

“Not necessarily that,” I said hurriedly, and stumbled on, “We might dig out something that will give us a clue. You know what I mean—a person sees something they thought nothing of at the time, but in the light of what we now know, it could be significant.”

Bewildered by this cloud of words, Bill shook his head. “To get anywhere at all we’d have to put everyone through a full-scale interrogation. And don’t forget all this business happened a couple of years ago.”

“Well then, what else do you suggest?”

We tossed around a few vague ideas, kidding ourselves that we were being practical and down to earth. But in the end we had to admit that we were still adrift.

“Perhaps we’d better bring Gwen in on this,” I ventured. “She ought to be able to put us more in the picture about that evening.”

Bill didn’t much like the suggestion.

“You mustn’t tell Gwen about me finding that jacket,” he said with a desperate sort of emphasis. “You know what she’s like when … well, she does drink rather heavily, doesn’t she?”

“I don’t think you need worry yourself on that score. She’s hardly likely to blurt anything out.”

He looked skeptical, and I made a suitable amendment. “Well, she must feel pretty guilty about not raising the alarm when she saw Brian fall in.”

“Mmmm!”

He still sounded doubtful, but in the end he agreed I’d
better talk to Gwen. After all, there was really nothing else that either of us could suggest.

* * * *

On Saturday morning, first thing, I went to see Gwen in her bedroom. She was already awake and seemed remarkably calm.

“How are you feeling, Gwen?”

I think she was a bit ashamed to be looking so well, so comparatively free of care.

She gave me a diffident smile. “I slept fairly well, thank you, Kim dear.”

“That’s good,” I snapped in swiftly, “because I want to
have a serious talk with you.”

“Oh!” Apprehension swept her features as she groped on the bedside table for her spectacles. “What is it you want to talk about, dear?”

“About Brian, of course.”

Did she imagine the Brian Hearne drowning case was neatly closed and filed away. I decided it was more than time to put a rocket under Gwen Barrington.

 “The jacket has turned up.”

For a second or two she didn’t react, then shaking hands flew to her face as if to stifle a scream.

“It’s all right, Gwen,” I said quickly. “Not the police. Bill Wayne found it”

That didn’t help soothe her down. In a tumble of terrified words she asked me when and where and how and why?

“Look, Gwen, you don’t have to worry. Bill won’t talk.”

I got her calm enough to listen. I told her how much I’d explained to Bill Wayne, and how much I’d deliberately concealed from him.

“But why did you tell him anything at all?” Gwen cut in with bitter reproach.

“Because he was the one who found the body. I thought he might know something about the missing jacket.”

I damped down Gwen’s fears by giving her the story of my talk with Bill. Or at least, an edited version. I skated over Bill’s reasons for keeping quiet about his discovery, his vague suspicions about Drew. I said merely that as the inquest was over and done with when he found the jacket, he hadn’t wanted to upset anybody by producing it. Especially Tansy.

When I had finished Gwen brooded for a bit and asked a few questions. Then she announced that she wanted to get up.

“I feel so helpless lying here in bed.” Even though it was still before breakfast, I was scared she’d run to bottled courage the minute my back was tinned.

Hesitantly, I began,  “Gwen, you won’t ...”

 “Run away? No, my dear, I won’t run away.”

I wasn’t thinking of her running away; I doubted if she could. But then I realized this was her way of answering the question I hadn’t liked to finish.

It was scarcely ten minutes later when Gwen came into my room. She had pulled herself together. She looked quite spruce and spoke almost briskly. “Well, Kim, what are we going to do?” I explained what Bill and I had in mind. “We ought to be really methodical about it, Gwen. Can you remember what each person at Mildenhall was doing on that evening?”

Like Bill, she was shocked at the inescapable inference. “Surely you don’t suspect one of the family?”

“No, of  course not,” I said uncertainly. “But we’ve got to make a start somewhere. We know too much now just to shut our eyes. Something happened that night Brian died, something neither you nor Bill can explain. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen, Gwen. Don’t you see?”

I couldn’t win her round, not all the way. She was distant, distrustful.

“Very well then,” she said reluctantly, perching herself on the bed. “I’ll do my best to help.”

First of all we tried to establish what everybody had been doing that evening, to get a clear picture in our minds. There was Gwen herself, of course. Bill Wayne I’d not thought to ask. That left Drew and Corinne and Tansy—and Brian,

“No visitors?” I checked.

Gwen shook her head. “Verity and Felix often came down, but not that weekend. It was before they virtually moved themselves in.”

Dinner would have been at eight o’clock—it was as regular as clockwork in those days. There were three of them at table. Gwen, Tansy and Drew. A place, was laid for Brian, but he didn’t come, presumably having gone off
to the pub already.

“But what about Corinne?” I asked.

Gwen grunted. “She was at some party or other. Took Jane with her, I remember.”

“In the
evening?
Jane was only three years old then!”

From the lift of her eyebrows I might almost have imagined Gwen was amused. “That’s right.”

“Did she often take Jane out late like that?”

“Only the once to my knowledge. But she was always out herself in those days, racketing around all over the place and never bothering about the child. From something Drew let slip at dinner, I gathered he’d read her the riot act and Corinne was getting her own back. I bet it amused her no end to flout him like that. She took Jane out with her in the afternoon, which was very unusual for a start. And then, well after the child’s bedtime, Corinne phoned and left a message with Pinky that she was going straight on to a party and was taking Jane with her.”

‘“I see. How did Drew take it when he heard that?”

“He was absolutely furious, though he didn’t say much. Just looked like thunder. He hardly ate a thing at dinner, and suddenly got up halfway through saying he was going to fetch them both home.” Gwen sighed. “Poor Tansy was terribly worried and upset about it.”

There was something about her tone that made me ask quickly, “Tansy? Why so, specially?”

Gwen hesitated, before saying cautiously: “Well you see she had overheard Drew and Corinne having an argument at lunchtime.”

“I shouldn’t have thought a tiff between Drew and Corinne was all that unusual. Or was it different in those days?”

I got a feeling that Gwen already regretted saying so much. But then she gave a little shrug, prodded her glasses firmly into place and went on: “Well, actually, it was the very devil of a row. They were at it hammer and tongs. And Tansy felt that she was to blame.”

“Why should it have been Tansy’s fault?”

“She thought it was because of something she’d told Drew.”

“You mean about Corinne neglecting Jane?”

Gwen was still being cautious, and I was having to squeeze out each reluctant word.

“Oh no, it was something quite different,” she said slowly. Then in a sudden burst, she protested: “Of course Tansy didn’t
know
what it was they quarrelled about. She didn’t
listen.”

“Of course not,” I said impatiently. “But she might have got some idea what it was about.”

“Well...” After a last-ditch hesitation, Gwen plunged on, “There wasn’t any doubt, really. You see, Corinne was having an affair with Brian.”

I nodded.  “Yes, I know about that.”

“You know?” Gwen’s jaw dropped. I think she felt cheated of an astonished reaction from me.

“It doesn’t seem to have been a very well-kept secret,” I observed shortly, and returned to the main question. “You still haven’t told me why Tansy felt she was to blame for the quarrel. What was it she had said to Drew?”

Again Gwen prodded the goggle-glasses back into place on her nose.

“Well, you see, it was Tansy herself who told Drew about the affair. Just an hour or so earlier,”

This time I felt the full blast of her bombshell. It seemed to hit me from every direction at once, settling to a confusion of eddies in my mind. Tansy had told Drew that his wife was having an affair with his cousin. On that very same day Brian had met his death. Drew and Corinne had been overheard by Tansy in a terrible quarrel, presumably over Brian, and the next morning he had been found drowned, his jacket mysteriously removed from the body.

Was it just coincidence?

Unwillingly I searched for a connection. My brain tried to turn wild thoughts into rational theories. But the facts were too hard and they just refused to bend.

My voice was a feeble astonished croak. “Tansy actually told Drew that his wife and her son were having an affair?”

Gwen nodded gravely. “You see, she was desperately worried about it. She’d already talked things over with me, and I’d told her to send Brian away from Mildenhall. I thought that would break it up—if they were separated. But Brian wouldn’t go. He had it so damned easy living here. He never had to bother about getting a proper job, but just made a bit on the side buying and selling second-hand cars – and other things for me.”

“And stealing,” I put in.

Gwen reddened. “Tansy doesn’t know about that. I’ve never told her.”

Uncharitably, I reflected it wasn’t sisterly love alone that restrained her tongue. Gwen would be in trouble if her dealings with Brian, and the fatal consequences, ever came out.

I wished I could break through the tangled mystery of Mildenhall. Nobody else could know of Gwen’s part in Brian’s death. Why then were they so extraordinarily touchy at the merest mention of the accident? If they thought it was a plain case of drowning, surely by now it would have fallen into place like any other tragic happening. Time might not heal everything, but it covers over an awful lot.

Here it was, two years later, and Brian’s death was still a fiercely taboo subject at Mildenhall. It just didn’t make sense.

Through the dustcloud of my mind I could see Gwen’s ungainly figure still perched on the edge of my bed. I saw her forming a question, nearly asking it, holding back; and then letting it come out in a little rush.

“Kim, how did you know about Corinne having an affair with Brian?”

I was almost grateful to her for pinning down my attention.

“Bill Wayne told me,” I explained. “Apparently he knew all about it at the time....”

The expression on Gwen’s face checked me. She looked scornful and somehow bitterly amused.

“Bill Wayne! He’s a fine one to talk!”

I should have realized what she meant, but stupidly I asked her to explain.

She eyed me slyly for a moment. If she was regretting what she’d implied, the pleasure of indiscretion soon won.

“What do you think I meant? Bill Wayne himself and Corinne—they had quite a thing before Brian took over.

Every scrap of my professional instinct was welded now into one solid hunch. I was certain that Jane’s stammer rooted from the unhealthy atmosphere at Mildenhall following Brian Hearne’s death.