Take No Farewell - Retail (49 page)

Rodrigo glared at me in amazement. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ll explain later. Concentrate on finding the will.’ With that, I flashed the torch-beam down to the lower shelves.
Rodrigo
shrugged his shoulders and stretched out his hands towards the sheaves of documents.

Suddenly, there was a noise to our right. As I swung round, I realized it was a key being turned in the lock of the door leading to the bedroom. In the same instant, the door was framed in yellow and a glimmer of light appeared behind us in the bathroom. ‘
Porcaria!
’ murmured Rodrigo, snapping off his torch. But it was too late for such precautions. The door was already opening. Light flooded in, blinding me for a moment. I heard a voice shout, ‘Stay where you are!’ and recognized it with a jolt of incredulity. It could not be. We were not merely discovered, but—

‘Victor!’ exclaimed Rodrigo.

Victor Caswell was standing in the doorway, clad in slippers, pyjamas and a dressing-gown. With the light behind him it was difficult to tell what expression was on his face. But there was no doubt about the double-barrelled shot-gun he was holding. It was aimed straight at us. ‘Don’t move, either of you,’ he said in a controlled voice. ‘This is loaded and I’ll use it if I have to.’ Imogen Roebuck appeared behind him. She too wore a dressing-gown, as if she had just been roused from bed. But something was wrong about the sequence of events, something false in the circumstances that confronted me. Why was Victor not in London? And why, since he was here, had we not found him in his bedroom? ‘Miss Roebuck,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘go downstairs and call the police station in Hereford. Tell them we’ve discovered some burglars and will hold them pending their arrival.’ Without a word, she slipped away. I heard the bedroom door close behind her.

‘What do you mean to do with us?’ I heard myself ask in a hoarse parody of my normal voice.

‘Hand you over to the authorities. What else should I do with a pair of housebreakers?’

‘You must realize that’s not what we are.’

‘I realize nothing of the kind.’

‘We came for your will. We came to find out who would
have
inherited in the event of your death last September.’ Rodrigo was screened from Victor to some extent by the door of the safe. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see he had slipped his right hand into his jacket. I guessed his intention in the same moment that I guessed Victor’s. He was here because he knew we would be here. He was here to spring the trap we had blundered into. ‘Who’s your heir, Victor? That’s all we want to know.’

‘Really? Well, it’s not going to convince the police any more than it convinces me.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘If it is, you’re bigger fools than I thought.’

‘Your fools, you mean. The fools you’ve made of us.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Gleasure put us up to this. But you know that, don’t you? You know because you told him to.’

‘I’ve heard enough! Close the safe and step out here.’ He moved back a pace.

‘You want us out of the way, don’t you? In prison, where neither of us can do you any harm – or Consuela any good.’

‘I won’t tell you again. Move away from the safe.’

‘Do as he says, Staddon,’ said Rodrigo in a resigned tone, reaching up with his left hand to swing the door shut. ‘We have no—’ Suddenly, he launched himself at Victor, the knife clasped in his right hand and raised behind his head. He shouted as he lunged, some cry of hatred and anger. And, as he shouted, there was a roar that swallowed every other noise, an explosion from the doorway that caught Rodrigo in its path and threw him past me against the wall. The whole room seemed to be vibrating. Blood was spattered across the mirror and dripping onto the floor. And Rodrigo was coughing, choking, clutching at his chest. I heard the knife fall at his feet, then, as slowly as a tree falling, he toppled sideways, struck the door-frame and subsided onto his face.

Sound subsided with him, fading rapidly till only the dripping remained, growing less frequent all the time. The twitching of his limbs stopped, the pool of blood around
him
ceased to spread. Then, and only then, I nerved myself to look at Victor. He was leaning back against the bedroom door, breathing hard, the shot-gun broken and pointing down, smoke rising from its barrels.

‘You’ve … You’ve killed him.’

‘I had no choice. It was him or me.’

I dropped to my knees. Rodrigo’s face was half-turned towards me, squashed and distorted by his fall, his moustache clotted with blood, one of his eyes open and staring blankly in my direction. ‘You planned it this way,’ I murmured. ‘You wanted this to happen.’

‘Nobody but you will believe that.’

‘He threatened to kill you if Consuela hanged. That’s why, wasn’t it? Because you were afraid he’d be as good as his word.’

‘Oh, I think he would have been, don’t you?’

There was a hollow, sliding sound above me. When I looked up, I realized what it was. Victor had put a cartridge into one of the barrels of the gun. And now, as I watched, he loaded the other barrel as well and closed the breech. Then he licked his lips nervously and turned towards me.

‘Get up!’

He meant to kill me too. One glimpse of his expression told me it was so.

‘Get up, I say!’

‘Why? So you don’t have to explain why you shot a kneeling man? I’m unarmed, remember.’

‘Pick up the knife.’

‘No.’

‘Pick it up, damn you!’

‘It won’t work, Victor. One man shot in self-defence is credible. But they won’t believe two. Not with only one weapon between us.’

Doubt entered his mind. I could see it wriggling behind the trembling mask of his face. Some part of his brain, if not persuaded by what I had said, was at least uncertain enough to hold him back.

‘Victor!’ The door on the far side of the bedroom opened and Imogen Roebuck hurried in. ‘What’s happened?’ As she approached, she saw Rodrigo’s body on the floor, saw me kneeling beside it, saw Victor pointing the gun straight at me. All this she took in and assessed at a glance. There was surprise but no horror in her expression, dismay but not a hint of panic. ‘I heard the shot. I thought …’

‘He came at me with a knife,’ said Victor over his shoulder.

‘Is he dead?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Victor made sure of that.’

For an instant, his eyes widened, his grip on the gun tightened. Then Miss Roebuck was at his elbow, looking straight at me as she spoke. ‘The police will be here as soon as possible. Why don’t we go downstairs and wait for them there?’

A desire to finish what he had started still gnawed at Victor, but he knew now that it was too late. ‘All right,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Let’s do that.’

‘Is the gun still loaded?’

‘He re-loaded after shooting Rodrigo,’ I put in.

‘Victor?’ She laid her hand on his where it grasped the stock, his forefinger no more than half an inch from the trigger. ‘Don’t you think …’ Her gaze met his. I saw him flush with shame at what he must have known I could detect: a willingness to obey her amounting to subservience, an eagerness to let her take charge of events. With a droop of the head, he released the catch and let the breech fall open. Then he pulled out the cartridges, dropped them into his pocket and cast the gun onto the bed.

I stood up. Miss Roebuck was looking at me now, frowning studiously, as if I posed a complex problem which she was nonetheless confident of solving. ‘I think you should know—’ I began, but she cut me short with a raised hand.

‘Let’s speak outside. It’ll be easier to think there.’ She glanced at Victor. ‘Why don’t you go and dress, Victor, before the police arrive?’

He sighed heavily and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Very
well,’
he murmured. Then he walked swiftly from the room. Miss Roebuck gestured for me to follow. Eager in that instant to be out of the sight of Rodrigo’s body and of his blood, splattered all around us, I complied.

When I reached the passage, Victor was nowhere to be seen. I heard Miss Roebuck close and lock the door behind her, then I turned to face her. ‘He meant to kill me as well, you know.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You weren’t there. I shall make sure the police—’

‘Listen to me! The police will be here very soon. We haven’t long, so it’s important we don’t waste the time we do have. What do you propose to tell them?’

‘Why … The truth, of course.’

‘And what is the truth?’

‘That Victor lured Rodrigo and me here tonight. That he knew we were coming. And that he set out to murder us both under the cover of self-defence.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘That won’t do at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You won’t be believed. Not for an instant. Not in the slightest particular.’

‘You’re wrong. I can prove we were led into a trap.’

‘How?’

‘Victor’s own valet was the source of Rodrigo’s information.’

‘Gleasure will deny it.’

‘Why did Victor leave London before the end of the trial, then?’

‘Because he was no longer needed.’

‘And why isn’t he sleeping in his own bedroom?’

‘It hasn’t been properly aired. He arrived back unexpectedly.’ The inadequacy of this explanation required no emphasis by me. We stared at each other in silence for a moment, then she said: ‘It’s important we understand each other. Rodrigo threatened to kill Victor. I think you’ll agree it wasn’t an idle threat.’

‘You admit this was a trap, then?’

‘The intention was to have him arrested and deported.’

‘And me?’

‘He chose to involve you, we didn’t. But I won’t deny we foresaw the possibility. How else could he hope to get into the house and find the safe? But we could only tempt him so far. He would have become suspicious if Gleasure had been any more forthcoming.’

‘How did you know we’d come tonight?’

‘As soon as Hermione arrived yesterday afternoon, I realized what your plan was. I alerted Victor straightaway.’

‘So, why the guard-dog, the broken glass, the locks?’

‘Because, at first, Victor thought they were all the protection he needed. But Rodrigo wouldn’t stop hounding him. Waiting in the road for him to come and go. Following him round Hereford. Trying to bribe the servants. With the trial imminent, Victor was becoming desperate. Contrary to what you think, he’d done nothing to engineer a guilty verdict. Nevertheless, it seemed then – as it seems now – the likeliest outcome. And Rodrigo had left us in no doubt of what he would do in the event that his sister hanged. So, what were we to do? Wait for him to take the revenge his primitive code of honour made him think was his due? Or bait a harmless trap for him?’

‘You call this
harmless
?’

‘Rodrigo’s death was of his own making. You have my word that all we intended to bring about was his deportation back to Brazil. What’s happened instead changes everything. It’s why I’ve told you as much as I have. So you’ll understand – and agree to do as I suggest.’

‘And what do you suggest?’

‘That you leave. Now. Before the police arrive. There’s still time. And Victor won’t object. He’ll say he surprised a lone intruder who attacked him with a knife and that he shot him in self-defence. I’ll say I saw it happen and that Victor had no choice but to fire. We’ll claim we didn’t recognize Rodrigo until he was lying dead on the floor. As for his reasons for
breaking
in, nobody will be able to offer any explanation. There will be an inquest, of course, and Victor will have to answer a great many awkward questions, but—’

‘Not as many as if I stay and say my piece. Is that what you mean?’

‘It’s in your interests as much as ours. If you
do
stay, you’ll face criminal charges. Breaking and entering at the very least. More to the point, to sustain your version of events you’ll have to expose the parts played in all this by Hermione and Jacinta – and the reason why you’re so anxious to help Consuela. If what I hear about the trial is correct, her best hope lies in clemency, not acquittal. But what clemency is she likely to be shown if the criminal activities of her former lover become public knowledge? Or if, as a result, serious doubts are raised about the paternity of her daughter?’

As much to postpone a response on my part as to provoke one on hers, I said: ‘Did Victor really make a new will after Jacinta’s birth?’

‘If you are going to ask me what the terms of Victor’s will are, I ought to make it clear that I don’t know. Nobody knows – except Victor and his solicitor. Which means that Rodrigo’s fanciful theory, exonerating Consuela, falls at its first hurdle.’

‘But is it—’

‘We don’t have much longer! You must go now – or stay. If you go, the police need never know you had anything to do with this. And I promise Jacinta won’t be punished in any way. We’ll let her believe we have no idea she helped you. But, if you stay …’

Why did nothing seem clear except that I had no choice? Why did flight – as so often in my life – seem the only answer? I swallowed hard and saw, in Imogen Roebuck’s eyes, the glint of victory.

‘The courtyard door is open. So are the main gates. I sent Harris down to open them for the police and told him to come straight back. So, you can walk out without anyone knowing. If you cut down through the orchard, you can be
on
the main road within five minutes. In any case, it would be best to avoid the drive, don’t you think?’ I stared at her, but she did not flinch. Her ironic gaze conveyed her meaning precisely. If I left, I was a coward. If I stayed, I was a fool. But at least a coward can hope to discover bravery before the next battle, whereas to be a fool is to be a fool for ever.

‘You must go now. It’s your last chance.’ As she said it, she almost smiled. In her tone there was not a shred of doubt about what I would do. She knew and so did I.

Chapter Seventeen

‘AND YOU SIMPLY
walked away – leaving Jacinta with no clue as to what had happened?’

The amazement in Hermione Caswell’s expression was rapidly blending with indignation. She was staring at me across the drawing-room of Fern Lodge, looking old and haggard in her night-dress and gown, roused from bed too abruptly for her to have brushed her hair or powdered her face. It was not yet light on the morning following Rodrigo’s death. My account of how he had died – and of what I had subsequently done – sounded as unworthy to me as it did to Hermione. The only mitigation I could claim was that I had resisted the temptation to drive straight back to London that very night. Instead, I had called at Fern Lodge as early as I dared and insisted on seeing her. She had to know and understand what had occurred, because only she could make Jacinta understand as well.