Sweet Sorrow (30 page)

Verity watched them walk away and then turned back to Heron. ‘What do you mean? How are you dying?’

‘I was diagnosed with cancer of the throat a month ago. They gave me just three months to live so I knew I had to hurry if I was to take my revenge before I became too weak.’ He coughed – a rasping, cruel explosion of breath. ‘I told Gates at the fête that I had something important to tell him and – rather reluctantly, I must say – he agreed to meet me on the green after it was over.’

‘Did he know who you were?’

‘He knew who I was all right. He knew I was Marion’s brother. We had never met before he moved to Rodmell but he knew she had a brother in India and that she and I had the same surname.’

And you threatened him in the pub . . .?’

‘I warned him that I would exact vengeance for what he had done.’

‘Why didn’t he go to the police or leave Rodmell?’

‘I didn’t want that. I wanted him to stay until I was ready, so I went and saw him the next day and apologized. We agreed to keep the whole thing a secret. He didn’t want me telling everyone that he had seduced his sister-in-law as his wife lay dying. He didn’t want Ada to know.’

‘Oh my God – Ada is your
niece
. How could you have done what you did to her?’ Verity was appalled. ‘Is that what your sister would have wanted? You are a monster.’

‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Heron mumbled. ‘I did not mean to hurt Ada . . . I did not think . . . but I
had
to do it, don’t you see? I had to . . .’

‘So you lured Byron to the green after the fête?’

‘Yes, he came. He did not dare not to. He needed to know what I was planning to do but he never guessed I was going to kill him – not until I told him. He blustered and then blubbed – it was disgusting. He pleaded with me and I enjoyed that most of all. I made him kneel and then I bound his hands. When he understood what I was going to do to him, he wet his pants. I told him it was only justice and I didn’t know why he was making such a fuss. I dragged him over to the block I had erected. I felt that I was his executioner and that this was Tower Green. He was a traitor and deserved to die. He had betrayed two women who were very dear to me and no doubt many more I did not know. I can die happy now. I have done what I set out to do.’

‘And you will hang for it,’ Verity said grimly.

‘The hangman will never loop the rope round
my
neck.’ A throaty chuckle turned into a cough that shook his whole body. ‘Another of his kind is squeezing the life out of me.’ He coughed again and almost fell.

‘The police will be here shortly, Colonel Heron,’ Verity said, ‘and it’s no good appealing to our sympathy. You have caused terrible suffering to Ada. Byron may not have been the best of men,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘but he did not deserve to die – certainly not in the way you made him die. You drove Paul Fisher mad and yet you both had something in common, had you but known it. He, too, had a sister who suffered and died because of Byron Gates. And now you are trying to kill someone who has only done you kindness. You deserve to be hanged and if the cancer kills you first, I hope it will be a painful death.’

He lunged at her and she stepped back. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Colonel Heron.’

At that moment, Edward stumbled into the garden. He looked like death and Verity started to go over to him but he raised his hand to stop her. His expression was adamantine.

‘I have been in your infernal laboratory, Heron . . .’

‘He was trying to poison Virginia with that . . .’ Verity pointed to the gas mask lying at their feet. Edward bent over and picked it up.

‘He was, was he?’ he snarled. ‘Well then, I think it is his turn now. Try this on, Heron, why don’t you?’ He spoke with the gentle insistence of a knife at the throat. ‘I think it’s your size.’

Heron looked at him and smiled calmly. ‘You know, Corinth, it was Gates who gave me the idea – that ridiculous detective story of his in which a worthless creature has his head cut off. I don’t remember what he called it but at the beginning he quoted a line or two from Shelley – his detective was named Shelley, if you remember – “I met Murder on the way – he had a mask like Castlereagh – very smooth he looked, yet grim; seven bloodhounds followed him . . .”’

He took the gas mask from Edward and pressed it to his face, not bothering with the straps. Then he pulled a little catch and a horrible smell made them all step back a pace. Heron started to choke and, as he did so, he stumbled and fell to the ground still holding the mask to his face.

Edward and Verity stared down at him and watched him die.

At last, when he was quite dead, Edward took Verity’s hand and said, ‘You are safe – that is all that matters.’

As he spoke, they heard the bell of a police car. Inspector Trewen came round the house at a brisk trot but stopped when he saw Heron’s body.

‘I’m afraid you are too late, Inspector,’ Edward said coolly. ‘Your murderer has just taken his own life. Before he died, he quoted the poet Shelley and so shall I. “Last came Anarchy: he rode on a white horse, splashed with blood; he was pale even to the lips, like Death in the Apocalypse.” I don’t know about you, Inspector, but I have always preferred Shakespeare to either Byron or Shelley.’

19

Tommie came down from London to take Paul’s funeral. The whole village turned out and there were several reporters standing at the back making notes. Paul had not been a popular vicar – he was too austere for that – but he had been respected, and his death had been so unexpected and dramatic there was a fascination about it which Edward considered morbid if understandable.

The night before the funeral, Edward and Verity had invited Jean and Ada to the Old Vicarage to meet their new sister. They had decided that Ada should never know that her father’s murderer was her uncle. It was too much for anyone to have to deal with. Heron was dead and it could be assumed that Inspector Trewen would not waste time looking for stronger motives for his hatred of Byron than the reason he had provided at the time of his arrest. If Trewen ever did find out that Byron’s first wife had been Heron’s sister, Ada would be thousands miles away.

Mary Brand had explained that she was planning to take Jean and Ada back to America.

‘I have a five-year contract with a new film company called Mayflower Pictures. I wasn’t looking forward to having to tell Byron that I was moving to Hollywood with or without him. Now I don’t have to.’

Edward and Verity had explained to both girls that Catherine was Paul Fisher’s niece and Byron’s unacknowledged daughter. It had been touching to see the three of them get to know one another.

‘Perhaps, Catherine, when you have finished with Cambridge, you might like to come and visit us?’ Mary suggested.

‘Yes, please do,’ the girls echoed her. ‘We could be a proper family at last.’

‘I’d like that very much,’ Catherine said, ‘but, of course, it all depends on the war.’

There had been one difficult moment when Ada had attempted to defend her father but Catherine had begged her to say nothing more.

‘Let’s leave the past to bury the past,’ she implored her. ‘Our father was not a good man – it would be stupid to pretend that he was – but, like it or not, he
was
our father. It’s up to us now to make the best of our lives. We can’t alter the past but we can make something worthwhile of our future. I am very happy to know that I have sisters like you and I hope we can be friends. I’ve always wanted a family and now I have one. It makes me very happy.’

What with the visit to Cambridge and Heron’s death, Edward had not had time to get to know Mary Brand but, sitting next to her at dinner, he discovered that she was an intelligent and imaginative woman, surprisingly unshocked to find another of her late husband’s progeny suddenly thrust upon her. She was very different from the silly, selfish actress he had expected. He had vaguely imagined she would be a brassy, red-haired, green-eyed Irish temptress like Maureen O’Hara, the star of
Jamaica Inn
, and was at first rather disappointed to find her ‘ordinary’. Though her hair was auburn and her eyes green, she turned out to be a demure, soberly dressed woman who would hardly turn heads in the streets. Verity suggested later, when they were discussing her, that she must have one of those faces which the camera loved and a personality which came alive on the screen.

By the end of the evening, Edward had got to like her and was relieved to find that he had no misgivings about leaving Ada in her care. He saw the girl frequently look towards her stepmother for approval and reassurance and sensed that, with Byron gone, the three might develop a new relationship uncomplicated by his need always to take centre stage and play off one of his women against the other.

When the party broke up, Verity kissed Jean and Ada and said how much she hoped they would keep in touch.

‘If you don’t become an actress, Jean, I think you could make a very good journalist. And, Ada, promise not to undervalue yourself. Remember, I had no qualifications and was only half as clever as you but I never let it stand in my way. Most people will take you at your own estimation so make sure it’s always that much higher than, in your heart of hearts, you think it should be. Then, one day, you’ll wake up and find you are the person you’d like to be. Oh dear, am I making sense?’

Ada kissed her and said, ‘You have been so kind to us. May we write to you? It would be so thrilling to hear about your adventures.’

‘Yes, please!’ Jean added. ‘I’m not sure we could have survived without you and Edward.’

‘We’ve loved getting to know you both, and we’ll certainly keep in touch with Catherine. I’d like to get to know Cambridge properly and Edward always enjoys going back to old haunts, don’t you, Edward?’

Edward agreed and asked Catherine if she would treat him like an honorary godfather and come and stay at the Old Vicarage from time to time.

‘I may be lonely,’ he joked, ‘with Verity careering about the world getting into all sorts of scrapes.’

Hugging Catherine, Verity riposted, ‘Sorry to disappoint you but I’m not going to take unnecessary risks. I’ve decided to play safe. I just want to enjoy a ripe old age without feeling I have let myself down.’

‘I don’t believe that!’ Catherine exclaimed. ‘You promise you won’t forget me, will you?’

‘Of course not! We’ll often see you and, as Edward says, you must come and stay at the Old Vicarage. It will stop him getting middle-aged and pompous.’

Even Catherine’s Aunt Gladys melted to the extent of thanking Edward and Verity for trying to help her brother.

‘He meant to be a good man,’ she said defensively, ‘but the world was too wicked for him.’

Unexpectedly, Mary Brand leant forward and kissed Edward on the cheek before she left and, for a moment, Verity was jealous.

‘When are you going back to Hollywood?’ she inquired, innocently.

‘Next week, I’m afraid, on the
Queen Mary
. I can’t be away from Hollywood too long. One is so quickly forgotten.’

Before going up to bed, Edward and Verity let Basil out in the garden and made a fuss of him as he settled back in his basket. He had still not entirely recovered from the poisoned gas and Edward doubted whether he ever would. He seemed to find it hard to get his breath, particularly on one of his favourite walks on the downs. He would start chasing a rabbit but then give it up and pretend he couldn’t be bothered, coughing almost like a human. It was stupid, Verity knew, possibly even wicked and she would not confess it even to Edward, but she minded much more that Heron had hurt Basil than that he had killed Byron and Frieda.

As they were getting ready for bed, she said, ‘So Trewen was right after all when he arrested Heron at the scene of the crime. Perhaps, by interfering, we merely obstructed the course of justice?’

‘I don’t accept that. It’s a very serious matter, charging someone with murder. They deserve to be properly defended and condemned only when the case against them is proved beyond all reasonable doubt.’

‘But Frieda might still be alive if the police hadn’t released Heron after you told them the sword couldn’t have been the murder weapon.’

‘They would have had to release him anyway because the case against him was so thin. I don’t believe I was wrong to raise the point with Trewen.’

Verity sensed that Edward was on the defensive and changed the subject. ‘I’m still puzzled by what Heron and Lewis Cathcart were doing that day I saw them together at Lyons Corner House.’

‘You think Cathcart was in on the plot to murder Frieda?’

‘I don’t really care, but one thing is certain – by telling Heron about Byron’s affair with Frieda, he gave him the motive to kill her. I hope I never see Cathcart again.’

‘But it seems to have been Colonel Rathbone who showed Heron around Broadcasting House so he knew where the studios were. I wonder whether it was pure chance that he decided to kill Frieda on the evening she had arranged to interview you?’

‘So he would have seen the statuette in the studio?’

‘Yes, he probably picked it up and noted how heavy it was.’

‘But how could he possibly have known that Frieda would be sitting with her back to the door?’

‘I don’t think he did. He saw you leave the studio and go into the control room – perhaps he was watching from the Silence Room or lurking in the passage – and then rushed in and killed her. It made it easier that she had her back to him but, even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have stopped him. He was a strong man and Frieda would have been taken completely by surprise.’

‘But if we had seen him from the control room I would have recognized him and at least been able to try and stop him.’

‘It was a risk, but don’t forget that he was wearing a balaclava.’

‘And what was it Frieda said just before she died which was captured on the recording – “knotty”?’

‘I think she may have cried, “Not me!” but we’ll never know for sure.’

‘I can’t forgive him for that,’ Verity said. ‘Frieda may have been manipulative and sexually unprincipled but she did not deserve to die.’

‘No one deserves to be beaten or gassed to death,’ Edward said grimly. ‘It’s why we cannot ever do a deal with the Nazis. It’s inhuman – the sort of treatment they mete out to their prisoners. It is pure evil and nothing can excuse it.’