The Evil that Men Do (6 page)

‘Indeed,' said Jo Carter drily. ‘You haven't heard, then, about yesterday's murder?'

‘I  . . . we  . . .' Alan's grasp became almost painful and effectively shut me up.

‘Would that be the man found in the quarry?' Alan asked, allowing the tiniest tremor of unease into his voice.

‘Yes.' Jo Carter was watching him carefully.

‘Oh, dear. Murder, you say?'

‘Yes.' The single monosyllable again.

‘But that's most  . . . distressing. You see, I was actually the one who found the poor man.'

‘Really.' The woman's voice was drier than ever. ‘I understood that discovery was made by a police officer.'

Alan took a deep breath and released my hand. I rubbed it to restore the circulation.

‘I
am
a police officer, Ms Carter. Or I was. Alan Nesbitt, Chief Constable of Belleshire, retired. This is my wife, Dorothy Martin. As I see you know something of the matter, we can stop playing games. Do you work with the police here in Cheltenham?'

‘How do you do, Mr Nesbitt, Ms Martin. I do in fact work with the police, quite closely, but I am not employed by them. I work with social services. And I would very much like to know more about your connection with Paul Jones.'

I finally stood up and spoke. ‘Why?' I asked bluntly.

‘Excuse me?'

‘Why do you want to know about Paul?'

She looked me up and down, a searching look that made me feel as if I were being X-rayed. I stood my ground, giving her much the same look, the look I used, years ago, to quell a roomful of fourth-graders.

‘Why do you object to telling me?' she finally asked, in a much milder tone.

‘Because I like the boy. Oh, young man, I suppose, but he's a boy to me. I think he's in some sort of trouble, and I'd like to help him. But if telling you anything at all about him is going to  . . . to betray him in some way, I have nothing to say.'

Slowly she smiled. You know, sometimes the clichés are true. It really was like watching the sun come out after a storm. Her face, which had been stern, almost sullen, relaxed into kindness and good humour. ‘You speak your mind, Ms Martin.'

‘It's Mrs Martin, please. And yes, I suppose I do, at least when I feel strongly about something. Or someone.'

The choir began to practise. I wondered why on earth they were working on Handel's
Messiah
in May. It was beautiful, but the organ was extremely loud.

‘It looks,' said Alan, ‘as though we're going to continue this conversation. Might I suggest we repair to someplace where we will not have to conduct it in competition with “Hallelujah”?'

‘You sound exactly like Peter Wimsey,' I said. ‘Or Jeeves. Come off it.'

‘As you wish, madam. To put it another way, shall we go down the pub?'

‘Now you're talkin'!'

Ms Carter (who told me that was her preferred form of address) knew a nice quiet pub just around the corner. When we were seated with our pints, and Alan had ordered sandwiches for the two of us by way of a very belated lunch, she began to tell us a little of her story, choosing her words carefully.

‘I've been a friend of Paul's family for a very long time,' she said. ‘I've watched him grow up. His path  . . . has not always been smooth.'

‘That could be said of most people, I suspect,' said Alan. ‘Especially young people today. There are so many pitfalls.'

‘Some of their own choosing, of course,' Ms Carter agreed. ‘At any rate, Paul has settled down quite nicely of recent years, quite nicely indeed. He has a good job.' She smiled, glanced at both of us, and went on. ‘He's doing very well for himself. I'm pleased.'

I looked at Alan. He shrugged. ‘That wasn't quite the impression we'd formed. In fact, we  . . . well, we treated him to lunch yesterday because we thought he looked hard up.'

‘He does dress casually,' said Ms Carter, ‘but I assure you he can buy his own meals.'

‘He's driving a borrowed motorcycle,' I said. ‘And he damaged it pretty badly yesterday, and looked worried about it.'

‘I see.' She looked thoughtful. ‘How did he do that?'

‘Nearly running my wife down,' said Alan calmly.

‘Oh, dear!'

So we explained. ‘And he was really a bit of a mess, mud and blood everywhere. We took him into the pub to clean him up, and then gave him lunch, although he didn't eat much of it,' I concluded. ‘He did give Alan a little money for it. A few pounds. We thought it was all he had.'

‘We all run short of cash from time to time,' said Ms Carter. ‘And then what?'

‘Then he left, and we went back to our B-and-B, and then climbed up to the Broadway Tower, and on the way back  . . .'

‘Ah, yes. And when did you next see Paul?'

‘We didn't,' said Alan before I could speak. ‘As you may have gathered, he's staying at the same B-and-B as we are, the Holly Tree. But he left without a word to Mrs Littlewood, and so far as we know, he hasn't been back.'

I kept my mouth shut.

‘I see.' She gave us a thoughtful look, but said only, ‘If you should see him, I'd be grateful it you'd tell him I'm a bit concerned about him. He knows where to find me here in Cheltenham, but I may go back to Broadway tomorrow to see if he's returned.'

With that she sketched a wave and was gone. I turned to Alan. ‘You didn't want to mention we'd seen him here in Cheltenham.'

‘She told us very little about herself, and almost nothing about Paul  . . . did you notice?'

‘Actually, I did. I'm inclined to trust her, Alan.'

‘I suppose I am too, but I often make it a policy to tell a little less than I know. Once a thing is said, it can't be retracted.'

‘Hmmm. The cautious policeman. I guess you're right, though I can't see what it would have hurt. Wherever Paul is now, it isn't at that corner where we nearly ran over him.'

‘What do you think he was doing there in the first place?'

‘Is it too far-fetched to think he was looking for Ms Carter? She mentioned something about social services. Could she be  . . . his parole officer, or something?'

‘That wouldn't come under the heading of social services, unless she was using the term very loosely. Some sort of counsellor, would be my guess. She has that trick of eliciting confidences while saying very little herself.'

‘I noticed,' I said, in a tone almost as dry as hers. ‘I really spilled my guts, didn't I?'

‘What a revolting expression, my dear! You demonstrated that you trusted her, and also that you're firmly in Paul's corner if it comes to a battle. I doubt you told her very much that she didn't already know.'

‘Except about the motorcycle, and almost knocking me down. I don't think she knew that.'

‘You may be right. She didn't seem terribly disturbed about it, though, did you think?'

I pondered. ‘No, not really. Interested, but not alarmed. Now why, do you suppose?'

‘Who knows? Maybe it's exactly as she said, or implied. She's an old family friend, slightly worried about the boy because he's gone missing.'

I yawned. ‘Maybe. Anyway, what are we going to do with the rest of the day? I'm ashamed to admit it, but I need a nap.'

‘I could do with one myself. Why don't we find a good B-and-B and stay the night? If we feel like it, we could take in a play tonight. I think I saw
The Importance of Being Earnest
on a poster somewhere.'

We took an early bus back to Broadway the next morning. It wasn't as much fun as the steam train, but it was faster, even with the several stops it made. We found the village in a ferment of activity. ‘What's going on?' I asked Pam. We had arrived just in time for a late breakfast, to which she had graciously invited us, even though we'd spent the night away.

‘Oh, it's the arts festival,' she said. ‘Hadn't you seen the posters? They're all over town.'

‘Goodness, is this festival heaven? There was a performing arts festival going on in Cheltenham yesterday. We saw a great performance last night at the Everyman Theatre.'

‘Oh,
The Importance of Being Earnest
! I saw it last week. It never palls, does it? I didn't know the Lady Bracknell, but wasn't she superb?'

We discussed the play for a little while. Then I asked, ‘But about this arts festival?'

‘Oh, it's really rather exciting. This is the first time we've tried it, but we hope to make it a biennial event. A great many artists have lived here at one time or another, you know.'

‘I didn't know, actually.'

‘Oh, yes. It was a coaching stop originally – you know about that?'

‘Alan told me.'

‘Well, then. But then the railways came along, and Broadway became a backwater. But the wealth was still here, and the big houses, and all the lovely shops and so on that had sprung up for the coaching trade. So the village was beautiful, and very peaceful. And the artists came, and the writers and composers. Barrie lived here—'

‘The Peter Pan man?'

‘The very same. And Henry James, and Edward Elgar. And you may be surprised to know that John Singer Sargent painted one of his most famous paintings right here in Broadway.'

‘Sargent! But he was American, surely. I know he painted a portrait of Mrs Astor, and Isabella Gardner  . . .'

‘He was certainly born of American parents, but in Florence, and he lived all over the place. I doubt if there are many beautiful women of his time that he didn't paint  . . . beautiful, wealthy women at least! The point is, he painted
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
here in Broadway, and he and it are the focus of our festival this year. It's at the Tate Britain, of course, but one of the galleries will have a full-scale copy.'

‘That's the one with the little girls, isn't it? And the Japanese lanterns?'

‘Of course. That's why there are Japanese lanterns all over town. You must go to the festival, if you're at all interested in art. It promises to be quite splendid!'

‘Where does it take place?'

‘Almost everywhere. Most of the galleries in town are participating. It doesn't open until tomorrow, but you can get brochures anywhere and plan what you want to see and do.'

She went away to tend to her duties in the kitchen and we sat finishing our coffee. ‘Shall we?' I asked Alan.

‘Might as well. I rather like Sargent, and we haven't visited the galleries yet.'

‘And there's nothing more we can do about Paul unless  . . . no, until he comes back.'

Alan grinned. ‘The eternal optimist! That's the reason I love you.'

‘That and my great beauty,' I said, pushing back my chair with some difficulty. ‘And it's going to be even greater unless I stop eating these incredible breakfasts.'

My tastes in art are rather specialized. I like almost all the Impressionists, French, English, and American. I don't, as I've said before, care for the Pre-Raphaelites. I'm picky about the Old Masters, and I refuse to look at just about anything created after, say, 1910. So Alan and I have never done a lot of gallery-hopping, where much of the work is likely to be either contemporary or amateur, or both. I am, in short, both an old fogy and an art snob, neither trait being attractive.

But I truly do admire Sargent's work, and there was a piquancy to discovering him in an English village. I was happy enough to wander the village on Alan's arm, looking in windows and deciding where we wanted to go when the festival opened the next day.

Most of the galleries were closed in preparation for the festival, but one of the big ones on the High Street had its door standing wide. We sauntered across the street and walked in.

Two women stood in the far corner, in such intense conversation that neither noticed us. Paintings and drawings hung on the walls. There were a good many bare spots, and under them other works stood leaning against the wall, apparently just taken down or ready to be hung. Alan, drawn to a lovely piece of sculpture in one corner, brushed one of the frames on the floor with his foot and stopped immediately with an exclamation.

The two women looked up. One of them hurried towards us, looking worried.

‘Sir! Madam! The gallery is not open. I'm sorry, but I must ask you to leave. Our insurance  . . .'

The other woman fixed us with steady scrutiny. ‘Mr Nesbitt, Mrs Martin, good morning.'

It was Jo Carter.

SEVEN

S
he promptly made introductions. ‘Sarah, this is Alan Nesbitt and his wife Dorothy Martin. Mr Nesbitt is a retired policeman. We met yesterday in Cheltenham.' She turned to us. ‘My friend, Sarah Robinson. I hope I got your names right.'

Everyone made the appropriate noises. ‘I'm so sorry for intruding,' I said, ‘but the door was open. We didn't know  . . .'

‘Of course not.' Ms Robinson had recovered her manners. She was a woman in her forties, not beautiful, but extremely tidy and well-groomed. She pushed her glasses back on her nose. ‘Not your fault in the least. There's another big painting coming in, so we left the door open. But I do have to ask you to leave. The security system isn't  . . . that is, the insurance  . . .'

Alan came to her rescue. ‘We understand. And I'm terribly sorry I stumbled over the painting, but I don't believe I've done any damage. You might want to take a look to be certain  . . .' He stopped speaking. Neither Ms Robinson nor Ms Carter was paying him any attention.

They were staring out the front door of the shop, apparently at a group of people walking down the street. Ms Robinson's face was ashen, and she was gripping Ms Carter's arm so hard I was sure she'd leave bruises.

The group moved past. Ms Carter gently loosed her friend's fingers and moved forward to shut the front door with a solid little click. ‘I think, Sarah, it might be better if the painting came in the back door, don't you? And if our guests wouldn't mind leaving that way  . . .'