The Shortest Journey (14 page)

I was so upset and furious at the hurt to the pony
that, forgetting my fear of Colonel Rossiter, I marched straight
into his study and told him what had happened. He didn’t say a word
but strode past me and sent Alan off to his room. I don’t know what
was said, but quite soon afterwards Marigold was sold and Alan
didn’t ride again.

‘But surely – he was only a child – hasn’t he
outgrown that terrible temper?’

‘Oh, he keeps it under control, mostly. Well, you
know how wet everyone thinks he is, but there have been incidents.
There was one in India, that was why he left that UNESCO project
there. Oh, it was hushed up of course, otherwise they wouldn’t have
taken him on in Africa, but Mummy told me about it. She’d paid a
lot of money in compensation and she was very worried, as you can
imagine.’

‘But even so, what you are suggesting is just too
impossible!’

‘You didn’t hear how utterly obsessed he was with
this woman. Honestly, Sheila, this is the only big thing that has
ever happened to him in his entire life and if he thinks that
Mummy’s money is the only way he can get her, then I don’t think he
would let anything – and I do mean anything – stop him.’

I drank the last of my wine. I felt that I needed
some sort of restorative after Thelma’s extraordinary
suggestion.

‘Is there any way you can find him?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘The world is a big place. He could be
anywhere, just waiting for his inheritance.’

‘What will you do?’

She was silent for a while and then she said,
‘There’s not much I can do. I don’t suppose we will ever be able to
prove it. I might ask Simon what he thinks.’

‘Simon?’

‘Our lawyer.’

‘Oh yes, you told me about him. A charmer, I think
you said.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, he most certainly is that, but
very, very bright as well. He’s done so much for the business, I
honestly don’t believe we would have got where we are without him.
Of course’ – she leaned forward and spoke very confidentially – ‘he
is reckoned to be one of the best contract lawyers on either side
of the Atlantic.’

‘Goodness,’ I replied, somewhat taken aback by
Thelma’s change of tone after the amazing things she had been so
recently discussing. ‘He sounds very high-powered. How old is
he?’

‘In his thirties – his
late
thirties,’ she
said, ‘and very
mature
. Quite an amazing range of
experience. It will be invaluable to me in New York. I’m going over
there soon for a couple of months; we’re taking over the Burkhardt
agency. I’m telling you this in confidence, of course.’ She looked
at me sharply, but then remembered who she was talking to and gave
me her usual condescending smile. ‘It really is the big one and I’m
so excited about it.’

She certainly did look excited, but somehow it didn’t
seem to me like Thelma’s usual animated account of her cleverness
and success.

‘How about Gordon? Is he going with you?’

‘Goodness, no. Someone’s got to stay behind and look
after all the irons we’ve got in the fire over here. Anyway, he’s
no good with the Americans, not together enough!’

I was surprised. Usually everyone connected with
Thelma was never less than perfect in every way, and she had been
telling me for years just how clever Gordon was.

She leaned towards me again and spoke in the same
confidential tone. ‘Actually, Simon thinks that he might be able to
do something about the Trust.’

‘I thought a Trust was inviolate,’ I said,
remembering some of Peter’s cases.

‘Not if you’re really clever. Of course we’ll have to
wait until Aunt Maud is dead, but that should be any day now,
wouldn’t you think? I must ring Marion and see how things are
going. I’d like to get things moving before we go to New York.’

I was so disgusted at her hard and calculating
attitude that I remained silent.

Thelma, of course, didn’t notice my reaction and went
on, ‘If Mummy hasn’t turned up – and I very much doubt now that she
will turn up, don’t you? – after a certain period then I gather
that she can be assumed to be dead. I’m sure Simon can find a way
of speeding things up. I expect it will cost a bit, but it will be
worth it in the end. Actually, I thought that when we’ve wrapped
things up in New York we might go to South Africa and see for
ourselves what the situation is at the store in Pietermaritzburg.
Mummy and Aunt Maud have had reports and things, but old Robertson
and Aunt Maud’s man in Inverness aren’t exactly live wires! Simon
always favours the hands-on approach to any problem...’

She took a lipstick and compact out of her bag,
briskly outlined her mouth in dark red, swept a brushful of coral
powder over her cheekbones and took an American Express Gold Card
from her wallet.

‘Well. Do let me know if you have any news; I rely on
you to keep me posted about the Taviscombe end. They’ll let you
have my New York number if you ring the office.’

The waitress, a friendly girl in a long ochre skirt
and a Cobblers T-shirt, brought the bill and Thelma stretched out
her hand for it.

‘No really,’ I said. ‘Let me at least pay my
half.’

‘I wouldn’t
dream
of it.’ Thelma gave me one
of her saccharine smiles. ‘It was so sweet of you to come all this
way to have lunch with me. Anyway, I can charge it to
expenses.’

I rose to my feet and began to gather up all my
parcels.

‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘Whatever did you find
to buy in
Taunton
?’

As we passed the table where the priests had sat, the
girl in the ochre skirt was gathering up all the wine bottles. I
reflected that they’d certainly had a much jollier lunch than I
had.

When I got back from Taunton the phone was ringing
just as I got to the door. I dumped all my parcels in a heap and
fished frantically for my key, wrenched the door open and picked up
the phone quite out of breath and rather annoyed, as one
(unreasonably) is with the caller.

My annoyance evaporated when I heard Rosemary’s
excited voice.

‘Jilly’s had her baby. It’s a girl. Seven and a half
pounds. They’re going to call her Cordelia Rosemary! Isn’t it
marvellous! ’

‘Oh, Rosemary, I’m so glad. Cordelia’s a charming
name and you must be thrilled about the Rosemary bit.’

‘Yes, wasn’t it sweet of them! Cordelia’s a bit of a
mouthful, but I expect she’ll end up as Delia.’

‘How’s Jilly?’

‘Fine. It wasn’t too bad, apparently. Roger rang me
when it started. Luckily Mummy’s still in West Lodge so I just got
into the car and rushed straight off to Taunton. They’ve asked me
to stay with them for a few days, just until Jilly’s got herself
sorted out. They send them home from hospital almost immediately
nowadays, so the poor lamb’s pretty nervous about coping on her own
at first.’

‘I’m not surprised! In our day they kept us in for
ages – at least until we felt reasonably competent.’

‘Jack’s holding the fort at home, looking after the
animals and so on, and Elsie will call in every day at West Lodge
to see what Mummy wants fetching and carrying. But, I wonder, would
you mind being an angel and popping in from time to time, just to
see how she is? It’s no good asking Jack; he always irritates her.
Actually she’ll be more disagreeable to him than ever, poor love,
because he’s got to tell her about the baby and – more important –
that I won’t be around for a week. I didn’t have the nerve to do it
myself. She’s not going to be pleased.’

‘Yes, of course I will. I’d have thought she’d be
thrilled to have a great-granddaughter. Something to boast about to
all her chums.’

‘Oh yes, that’s okay, but she’ll be furious that I
won’t be there to hear her tell me how much better children were
brought up in her day, and various related topics!’

‘I’ll call in tomorrow and she can tell me, instead.
Actually, I want to drop in there and see Mrs Jankiewicz. She
hasn’t been herself since poor Mrs Rossiter disappeared.’

‘Poor soul, I expect she misses her. No news, I
suppose?’

‘No. I saw Thelma yesterday, actually.’

I didn’t feel that this was the moment to tell
Rosemary of Thelma’s extraordinary theory about Alan.

‘How was Horrible Thelma? As elegant as ever?’

‘More so, if anything. A gorgeous purple suit with
practically a mini skirt. Far too young for her, though she can
carry it off, of course, because she’s small and has that
marvellous figure. She looked very Sigourney Weaver, very Wall
Street. She’s just off to New York with her glamorous young lawyer.
Goodness! I’ve just realised.’

‘What?’

‘It’s only just dawned on me. I do believe our Thelma
is having a bit of a fling!’

‘No!’

‘It’s this young lawyer, she just couldn’t stop
talking about him, and it was how she said his name. You know.’

‘Well! Fancy! Thelma, of all people.’

‘Come to think of it, she sounded positively
coy.’

‘Did you say young?’

‘She was a bit defensive about that. She said he was
in his late thirties, which probably means he’s about
thirty-five.’

‘And they’re going to America together? What about
Gordon?’

‘Oh, he’s staying behind to run things here.
Definitely not wanted over there.’

‘How fascinating! So you think she’s really
smitten?’

‘The more I think about it, the more sure I become. I
do believe it’s love at last!’

‘Gordon?’

‘Oh, Gordon was a business arrangement, on Thelma’s
part at least. He owned the agency in the first place, I think, and
anyway, he’s quite a bit older than she is. No, I’m sure this is
the real thing for our Thelma.’

‘Well, do try and find out some more. Oh! That’s
Roger back from the hospital. I must dash and get him some tea.
Thanks for coping with Mummy.’

‘Give my love and congratulations to Jilly and Roger
and find out what they’d like for little Cordelia. I never know
what babies need these days.’

‘I should think a large supply of disposable nappies!
Bless you, I’ll ring you soon.’

I put the telephone down, retrieved Foss, who’d
darted out when l opened the door, released the dogs from the
kitchen and let them welcome me. Then I gathered up my parcels and
went upstairs.

As I tried on my various purchases and decided that I
had been over-optimistic about several of them, which would have to
go back to Marks and Spencer, I thought of Thelma in her purple
suit – a new, youthful looking Thelma. Now I had decided that she
was in love, various things fell into place. There was, as I’d told
Rosemary, the tone of her voice as she spoke Simon’s name, and the
sort of happy glow she had when she talked about him. I’d never
seen her like that before. And she had seemed less sure of herself,
more human than I’d ever known her. And then there was the strange
way she had accused Alan of their mother’s murder and then almost
dismissed it, as if she had something even bigger on her mind.
Simon. Or rather, the irresistible combination of Simon and the
possibility that he might be able, somehow, to break the Trust.
Nothing else would have diverted her mind from that monstrous
accusation.

The telephone rang just as I was wriggling out of a
skirt that declared itself to be a size 16 but certainly wasn’t. It
was my friend Anthea to ask how many scones I would be contributing
for the cream tea at the Red Cross Fête the next day. Since I’d
forgotten all about it, I recklessly promised a couple of dozen and
hurried down to the kitchen to make them.

As I too hastily sifted the flour (so that quite a
bit went over the work-top and not into the basin) I began to think
more clearly about what had seemed at first the preposterous
suggestion that Alan might have killed Mrs Rossiter. It was just
possible. He certainly was a strange person, and if Thelma was
right that he was so obsessed by this American, then he probably
would have asked his mother for money for the expedition. But could
he really – even with his terrible temper out of control – could he
really have killed her? I stopped kneading the scone dough and
stood with my floury hands suspended above the basin, considering
this appalling thought. If he had hit out, with some sudden
gesture, an involuntary expression of rage ... Well, she was an old
woman and quite frail; it wouldn’t take a lot to kill her.
Afterwards he would be horrified and frightened at what he had
done, would have hidden the body somewhere.

Had it been Alan whom Mrs Rossiter met in Taunton
that day? He might well have told her to keep their meeting secret,
because he wouldn’t want Thelma to hear about his asking for money.
He knew his sister well enough to know that she would be only too
eager to thwart him. A man and a woman, Ed Cooper thought he had
seen in the car park. Was the American woman with him? Had she been
implicated? Thelma hadn’t told me her name, but she must know it.
Could I find out where she was now and if Alan was with her?

I put one tray of scones into the oven and rolled out
the second lump of dough. It’s possible that Mrs Rossiter might –
left to herself – have given Alan the money, except that she would
have been too frightened of Thelma’s furious reaction. Alan would
have known this and, just as Thelma’s taunts when he was a child
had tipped him over the edge into mindless fury, so this knowledge
might have had the effect of turning his rage on to his mother.

I dipped the pastry brush into the beaten egg and
painted the tops of the scones carefully. It all made a sort of
horrible sense if one allowed oneself to think about it in the
abstract, as it were, not relating it to real people that one
actually knew.

Tris and Tessa came into the kitchen and sat at my
feet, fixing me with that concentrated gaze that usually compels me
to gather up their leads and take them for a walk. I broke in half
one of the scones that had risen lopsidedly in the baking and gave
it to them. Tess ate hers in one gulp, as she always did, but Tris
was not to be diverted and continued to exercise his will upon me,
so that I took off my apron and went to fetch the dog-leads.