Hand In Glove Part 7

"What did you have in mind?"

"Contact Beatrix Abberley's family. Try to persuade them I'm telling the truth. They must want the real murderer caught as badly as I do. And they must know what his motive was, even if they're unaware of it at the moment."

Derek thought of Charlotte Ladram speeding out of the car park in Hastings. "I don't think they'd welcome such contact."

"You can win them over. I know you can. Diplomacy's always been your forte."

"I'm not so sure. Didn't you have a dispute with them last year over the price of some furniture? The police think that's how you got to hear about the Tunbridge Ware."

"They're wrong. I'd forgotten all about it. I didn't know the woman I bought the furniture from was related to Miss Abberley until the police told me."

"Maybe not. But the family obviously think otherwise. And it's bound to prejudice them against you."

Colin sat back in his chair, stared intently at Derek for a moment, then said: "I don't underestimate the difficulties. I'm only asking you to try."

"All right. I'll see what I can do. But it may not be much."

"Anything's better than nothing. And nothing is what I have to go on at the moment. Apart from this." Colin reached into his pocket, took out a sc.r.a.p of paper and slid it across the table. On it was written, in pencilled capitals, TRISTRAM ABBERLEY: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY, BY E.A. MCKITRICK.

"What's this?"

"Beatrix Abberley was the sister of Tristram Abberley, the poet.

Heard of him?"

"Vaguely."

"I'm reading his collected works at the moment, courtesy of the prison library."

42.

R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

"You? Reading poetry?"

"I've not much else to do, have I? Being accused of aiding and abetting his sister's murder has done wonders for my poetic sensibility. Unfortunately, I can't follow his kind of stuff any better now than when I was at school. But biography's a different matter. The library doesn't hold a copy, but the librarian favoured me with these details."

"You want me to buy a copy for you?"

"No. I want you to buy a copy for both of us. It's bound to say something about his family, isn't it? It'll give you the background you need. Maybe even a clue. Or maybe nothing at all. We won't know until we try, will we?"

"It seems a bit of a long-shot."

"It's the only kind of shot we have."

Derek shook his head doubtfully and reached forward to pick up the piece of paper. As he did so, Colin stretched across the table and pressed his hand over Derek's. "I'm relying on you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I won't say you owe it to me to do this, because it wouldn't be true. But there's no one else I can turn to. Not a soul."

"Is that what I am, then? Your last resort?"

Colin smiled. "I suppose so. But isn't that what brothers are for?"

CHAPTER.

EIGHT.

Beatrix's funeral was conducted with the chilling seemliness reserved for such occasions. On a pluperfect summer's day, a score of mourners gathered at St Mary's Church, Rye, for a short but eloquent service and were then conveyed by a flotilla of gleaming limousines to Hastings Crematorium for the conclusion of the ceremony.

Mrs Mentiply wept openly. One or two of Beatrix's neighbours dabbed at their eyes. Otherwise, the affair pa.s.sed off with a lack of emotional display of which Charlotte was sure Beatrix would have H A N D I N G L O V E.

43.

approved. Lulu Harrington did not attend, having sent Charlotte a brief note explaining that she did not feel equal to the journey. But there was a full turn-out of family members, Samantha having arrived home for the summer from Nottingham University the day before and Uncle Jack having done his best to sober up as well as smarten up for the occasion.

Eyeing her relatives across the crematorium chapel, Charlotte caught herself thinking what a typically English amalgam they were of restraint and indifference. As soon as she had decided to exempt Maurice and herself from this charge, however, she realized how unfair she was being. Why should Ursula and Samantha express more than they felt at the death of an old and not always companionable woman? The manner of her death was not their fault and could not be altered by any amount of conspicuous grieving.

Besides, they played the parts allotted to them with commendable diligence. Ursula a.s.sumed her decorous place beside Maurice in the garden of remembrance, shook hands with all the mourners and thanked them for coming. Jack refrained from cracking a single joke.

And Samantha's distant expression could easily have been taken for pent-up emotion, so winsomely affected did a black dress and hat make her appear.

Afterwards, the family adjourned to Ockham House for tea. At first, it was clear that none of them knew whether to strike a note of sorrow or of celebration. Had Beatrix died in her sleep, her age and mental alertness would have been counted as reasons to take comfort from her pa.s.sing. As it was, one violent moment cast its shadow over a lifetime of serenity. At all events, Charlotte supposed Beatrix's life had been serene, although the truth was that n.o.body had known her well enough to be absolutely certain.

For once, Jack's waggish ways were welcome. He it was who prompted Charlotte to offer the scotches and gins everyone was silently craving and, from that point on, conversation and affectionate reminiscence flowed. The need to function as a group faded as the stilted mood of the funeral ebbed away. Jack began to monopolize Samantha's attention with his lubricated and faintly lecherous wit.

Ursula drifted out on to the lawn to smoke a cigarette. And Maurice sought to rea.s.sure Charlotte about his stewards.h.i.+p of her inheritance.

"I think I can safely claim to have put everything in order, Charlie.

Not that it was difficult. Beatrix ran her affairs very efficiently."

"I'm sure she did."

44.

R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

"A formidable lady, in many ways. I shall miss her."

"We shall all miss her."

A peal of laughter from Samantha floated across to them and Maurice smiled. "Well, you and I will, certainly." He grew more serious.

"I leave for New York tomorrow. Life-and business-must go on."

"Of course." Maurice seemed to spend half his time in the United States these days, which was not surprising in view of Ladram Avionics' steady expansion in the American market. "And how is . . .

business?"

"Is that a polite enquiry or a shareholder speaking?" He grinned.

"Either way, the answer's the same. Never better."

"Then, either way, I'm glad to hear it."

"But it means I shall have to leave you in the lurch where Jackdaw Cottage is concerned."

"You've done more than I could reasonably have expected already, Maurice. It's high time I took a hand."

"What do you think you'll do with the place? Sell?"

"I suppose so. That is . . . What else can I do with it? It's what I should do with this house as well, come to that."

"Yes, it is. I've told you so often enough. It would fetch a good price. And it might help you to . . . start afresh, so to speak."

"You're right. I know. But knowing and doing are two-" She broke off at the sudden realization that her voice was the only sound in the room. Jack's guffaws had ceased. Samantha's giggles had died.

Turning, she saw they were both looking towards the open French windows. Ursula was standing there. With a stranger beside her.

Derek left Fithyan & Co. early that afternoon and toured the bookshops of Tunbridge Wells in search of two copies of Tristram Abberley: A Critical Biography. He found only one and the a.s.sistant looked puzzled by his request to order a second, but she a.s.sured him that it would take no more than a couple of weeks to obtain.

Sitting in his car, he unwrapped the book and gazed at the face that stared up at him from the cover. According to what he had read on the back while standing in the shop, Tristram Abberley had died of wounds incurred while fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

Derek was not surprised therefore by the martial air of the photograph, clearly taken in Spain some time before the poet's death. He was a slim good-looking man of about thirty, with short and already H A N D I N G L O V E.

45.

receding hair above a clear and square-jawed face. His uniform was dusty and ill-fitting, the ruined wall against which he was leaning sun-baked and crumbling. But none of that mattered. The nonchalant angle at which he held a cigarette between the first and second fingers of his left hand; the disdainful arching of his eyebrows; the casual pose he struck against the wall: all these captured and conveyed the personality of one whose self-confidence could survive any adversities.

Derek was about to open the book when he caught sight of one of his clients approaching along the pavement. Instantly, he felt he must not be seen. Not with this book at this time. Hastily, he pushed it out of view beneath the dashboard, started the car and turned into the traffic.

The roads were busy. The afternoon was hot. As he trailed and braked his way up across the Common towards Mount Ephraim, he began to think about Charlotte Ladram and how he might best approach her. He had looked up her address in the telephone directory earlier and had recognized Manor Park as the name of one of Tunbridge Wells'

many quiet residential side-roads lined by tree-screened villas. The directory had listed the subscriber as Mrs M. Ladram. Her mother, perhaps? If so, she must have been the woman Colin bought the furniture from last year. But the police had told Colin she was dead. The discrepancy was easily explained, since the directory was a two-year-old edition, but it left open the possibility that Miss Ladram no longer lived there. In that event, Derek would be reduced to asking Dredge for information, something he had hoped to avoid.

It was the thought of explaining himself to Dredge that finally decided the issue. Much more deliberation, he knew, would undermine his resolve completely. He took the next turning on the right, paused to consult his street-map, then set off again, arriving a few minutes later in Manor Park. There he left his car and began to walk, checking each house name as he went. It was a neighbourhood of such heavy-curtained quietude that he felt reluctant even to clear his throat, but the trees which denied him a view into most of the gardens at least ensured he could not be seen from within.

Ockham House disclosed itself as a glimpse of stolid gabling behind a high thorn hedge. A gravelled drive curved out of sight beyond the entrance and, as he started up it, Derek felt intensely conscious of the crunching noise his shoes made at every step.

Then, rounding a screen of rhododendrons, he came upon a 46 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

flower-bordered lawn, with the house set above it on slightly higher ground. It was a stuccoed villa of modest proportions, bay-fronted and high chimneyed, with little in the way of architectural elaboration.

Derek felt strangely encouraged by its lack of grandeur and quick-ened his pace.

As he approached the front door, he saw that the lawn curved round to the side of the house. There, seated on a wicker chair in a sunny corner, was a woman in a dark dress, smoking a cigarette. He could not tell whether she had seen him, nor whether she was Charlotte Ladram, but he felt it would seem odd to ignore her, so he walked slowly towards her across the lawn.

As he drew nearer, it became apparent that her dress was not merely dark but black, as were her stockings and the shoes she had kicked off in front of her. She was definitely not Charlotte Ladram, being taller and slimmer, with fas.h.i.+onably short blonde hair. And he could be sure she had not seen him, because she had her eyes closed.

She was leaning back in her chair, savouring the sunlight and each lungful of smoke. Beside her, on the gra.s.s, was a narrow-brimmed black hat. It was the hat that removed the last doubt in Derek's mind about why she was dressed as she was. But even as he decided to turn and walk away, she opened one eye, then the other, and looked at him.

"Good afternoon." Her voice was clipped and husky. "And who might you be?"

"I . . . I'm sorry . . . My name . . . That is, I was looking for Miss Charlotte Ladram."

"For Charlie?" She smiled. "She hasn't told us about you. Is this a recent acquaintance?"

"No. She doesn't . . . Is she in?"

"Oh, yes. She's in."

"Well, perhaps this isn't . . . the right time."

"No, no. The more the merrier, you might say. Let me show you the way."

"There's really no-"