An Air That Kills (35 page)

The telephone began to ring. At a glance from his wife, Philip went to answer it. Charlotte placed an arm under Antonia's elbow and steered her towards the stairs. Like many people, Charlotte laboured under the delusion that those who had suffered an emotional shock should be treated as invalids.

On the stairs, Antonia looked over her shoulder at Jill who was still standing in the hall. Antonia said nothing, but it was obvious from her face that she wanted Jill to come with them. Jill smiled at her and went into the drawing room.

She warmed her hands at the fire. She was ruefully aware that in one way Antonia had done her a service: the drama of Major Harcutt's death and Antonia's arrival at Troy House had entirely swamped Charlotte's curiosity about Jill's meeting with Oliver Yateley. Leaving Antonia to Charlotte was a little like leaving an early Christian to a hungry lion. But Jill desperately needed time to think. She was still struggling to work out the implications of what had happened at Chandos Lodge. She knew that she would have to talk to Antonia; she knew, too, that she would have to make up her mind what to do for the best. It would have been a difficult decision at the best of times, and it was even worse now.

The door opened and Philip burst into the room.

‘My God,' he said, striding towards the fireplace. ‘Jill, this is extraordinary. We've had a murder.'

Jill's mind was still on the Harcutts. ‘What? Antonia's father?'

‘No. This really is a murder.' Philip's face became almost sly. ‘That was someone I know at police headquarters. Apparently, some London gangster has been found battered to death in a house in Minching Lane in Templefields. And you'll never guess who the police are looking for. It's actually someone we know, in a manner of speaking. Charlie Meague – he's the son of the charwoman that Charlotte was telling you about. Do you remember? The one she had to sack.'

‘But—' Jill began, and stopped.

Philip changed course and headed for the drinks trolley. Jill had time to think that perhaps it was none of her business that Charlie Meague had once worked for Major Harcutt.

‘I think I'll have a drink.' Philip rubbed his hands together. ‘Can I get you one? And what were you going to say?'

‘Nothing for me, thanks. Just that it seems a coincidence – two deaths in one day.'

‘Thank God for coincidences. Where would we be without them?' As he spoke, Philip poured himself a large whisky and added a squirt of soda. ‘Mind you, we won't be able to make the most of the Harcutt business, not in the
Gazette
. Charlotte and I have already had a chat about that.'

‘Because Charlotte knows the family?'

Philip sipped his whisky. ‘Partly.' He grinned at Jill. ‘There's also the point that Charlotte thinks the
Gazette
should be above stories of raw human emotion – at least in the local news. She thinks our readers want to know the price of sheep and what Lady So-and-So said when she opened the church bazaar. And she may be right, too.'

‘What happens now?'

‘It's anyone's guess. The only certainty is that Superintendent Williamson will call a press conference at some point. If not several.'

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. Philip gulped down half of his whisky. Neither of them spoke: it was not a guilty silence, but to Jill it smacked of collusion. Charlotte swept into the room, her face a little pinker than usual.

‘All serene, darling?' Philip asked. ‘Would you like some sherry?'

Charlotte ignored him. ‘Antonia's in quite a state,' she murmured to Jill. ‘Rather emotional and weepy. I wonder if we should get the doctor.'

‘Did you suggest that to her?' Jill said.

‘Yes – she was really rather rude. Of course, one must make allowances. The poor child can't know what she's saying.'

Charlotte sank into the armchair by the fire. Philip gave her a large glass of sherry.

‘Shall I go up and have a word with her?' Jill asked. ‘Do you think it would help?'

‘Oh – would you?' Charlotte took a cigarette from Philip's case. ‘She seemed to clam up on me. Then there's the question of lunch.'

‘The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned,' Philip said. ‘I'm starving. Church always has that effect on me.'

‘The trouble is, I don't know whether Antonia will want to join us or not. And whatever happens, we'll have to let Susan know. You know what she's like when her arrangements are upset. It's bad enough as it is, telling her there'll be four for lunch instead of three. So if you could find out if Antonia's coming down, that would be an enormous help.'

As Jill left the room, she heard Philip say, ‘Darling, you'll never guess – we've had a proper murder.'

Jill slowly climbed the stairs. She didn't want to have this conversation with Antonia – she didn't even like the girl – but there was no point in putting it off. She wondered parenthetically what on earth had happened to her life in the last few weeks: getting pregnant, losing the baby, leaving her job, breaking off with Oliver Yateley, and now this.

Antonia had been given the bedroom next to Jill's. She was sitting at the dressing table with her back to the door. Her eyes met Jill's in the mirror. She was smoking, and the little china dish on the dressing table already contained three butts. Jill closed the door.

‘I wish I could go away,' Antonia said slowly. ‘I hate Lydmouth. I never want to come here again in my life. Do you think they'd let me go back to Dampier Hall tomorrow?'

‘I doubt it,' Jill said. ‘I think the police will want you to stay here until they've sorted everything out.'

Antonia's murky brown eyes flickered in the mirror. ‘What do you mean?'

‘There'll have to be an inquest on your father, I imagine. And then there's the question of the burglary.'

‘Yes, I realise that. But it's not as if Newport is the other end of the earth, is it? Besides, there's my job to think about. They need me there.'

Jill sat down on the bed. ‘You know that phone call?'

‘What phone call?'

‘As you and Charlotte were going upstairs. It was the police. Apparently someone's been killed in Templefields.'

Antonia's shoulders rose and fell almost imperceptibly. She stared at herself in the mirror and rubbed her eyes.

‘The victim was someone from London,' Jill went on. ‘The police are looking for a local man. Charlie Meague.'

Antonia's head snapped up. ‘Charlie? Don't be stupid. He wouldn't hurt a fly.'

Jill chose her words with care: ‘They seem to think he's smashed a man's head in.'

‘It's not true. He's not like that at all. I used to know Charlie very well – when he worked for us. Just because he's poor, people think he's capable of anything.'

‘Charlie Meague was one of the men who found the bones at the Rose in Hand. Did you know that?'

Antonia did not reply.

‘That's the thing about Lydmouth,' Jill observed. ‘Everything's connected. Listen, I think you'd better tell me about the brooch.'

Once again, Antonia's eyes met Jill's in the mirror. For a full moment, neither of them spoke. As the sixty seconds stretched towards eternity, Jill imagined the thoughts scurrying like terrified animals around Antonia's mind, looking for a way out that did not exist.

At last, Antonia said, ‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘You do. There was a brooch found with those baby's bones.' Jill watched Antonia wincing. ‘The brooch was in the shape of a true love's knot. It was made of silver and it had a Victorian hallmark. I think we were meant to think that they belonged together, the brooch and the bones. That they were the sort of debris of an affair that went wrong. I think the hallmark and that piece of newspaper were designed to suggest a date for the bones. Nothing too crude or obvious. Just a hint, in case it was needed.'

Jill stopped to give Antonia a chance to speak. Antonia was breathing heavily through her mouth. As Jill watched, she brushed a coil of ash from the dressing table to the carpet.

‘I actaully saw the brooch, you know,' Jill went on. ‘Inspector Thornhill came round here on the evening they were found. He wanted Charlotte and Philip to help him identify the newspaper. And he showed us the brooch, too. He let us hold it. In one of those Kashmir photographs, your mother's wearing an identical brooch. But you already know that, don't you?'

Antonia rummaged in her handbag and took out a fresh cigarette. ‘You can't possibly be sure it's the same. There were probably thousands of brooches like it.'

‘It's a studio photograph, a professional job using a professional camera. You could blow up that brooch to life-size, or larger. Why was the photograph album in your room?'

Antonia lit the cigarette. She stared at the wavering flame on the match. The flame burnt down to her fingers. With a squawk of pain, she dropped it in her makeshift ashtray.

‘Why shouldn't I look at photographs of my parents?'

‘You hated your father, didn't you?'

Another silence filled the room. There was a distant clatter of plates from the dining room: Susan was laying the table for lunch.

‘It's no crime to hate your father.'

‘No,' Jill agreed. ‘Not if that's as far as it goes. Why did you hate him so much?'

Antonia had retreated into herself. Her head was wreathed with smoke. Her eyes were closed.

Jill took a deep breath. ‘Was it because of the baby?'

She watched Antonia's face in the mirror. Nothing happened. Smoke curled upwards from the cigarette in the bowl. Antonia swallowed. Two tears slipped out between her reddened eyelids and trickled down her cheeks. Jill got up from the bed and put her arm round Antonia's shoulders.

‘Don't touch me!' Antonia jerked herself away.

Jill recoiled. She looked at Antonia in the mirror: her face was suffused with blood.

‘You had a baby.' Jill pitched her tone midway between a question and a statement. ‘And your father took it away from you.'

Antonia's eyes opened into slits. ‘He said if people found out I'd go to prison.' Her voice rose to a wail. ‘I was only fourteen – how could I know what to do? And he said it would be adopted and properly looked after.
He
would be adopted – it was a boy, I saw it.'

‘But surely people knew what was going on?'

‘As soon as he found out I was going to have a baby, he sent me away – to Aunt Maud. I told you about her, his sister, the nurse. This was just before she emigrated to South Africa – she used to have a house in London. I went there. She looked after me. And as soon as the baby was born, my father took him away. It was just after the war started, in November. Everything was very confused. He said it was a private adoption. But I went through all his papers yesterday – there's no record of anything. He sacked Charlie and his mother, of course, while I was in London. He didn't say why, not to me, he didn't have to.' Antonia's face seemed to crumple inwards. ‘All these years I believed him. I thought my son would be growing up. Each birthday I'd think, today he'll be so many years old. I thought of what he'd be doing, how tall he'd be, what he'd be wearing. I used to look at the children at school and try to work out what he'd be learning. But it was all a lie.' She glanced angrily at Jill in the mirror. ‘But what do you know about it? Why should you care?'

Jill turned away so that Antonia could not see her face. After a moment she said, ‘Did Charlie Meague know what happened?'

‘Charlie? He knew nothing at all. Can't you understand? Why do people have to be so stupid?'

Antonia covered her face with her hands and began to cry. The sobs wrenched her body. Jill reached out a hand towards her, but did not touch her. Suddenly she understood what Antonia had been trying to say. Sadness rose like a tide inside her. She sat down on the bed. Her eyes filled with tears. The tears were not for Antonia, but for the lost babies.

A dull, rolling boom filled the house. Susan was beating the gong in the hall to announce that lunch was ready.

Chapter Eighteen

Kirby was the first inside the Bathurst Arms. He walked swiftly up to the crowded bar with Thornhill at his heels.

Gloria arched her back and smiled at the two policemen. Her actions and her appearance were impersonal, Thornhill thought, like a pornographic photograph: designed to appeal to every man.

‘What can I get you, gentlemen?'

‘This is business, Gloria,' Kirby said, slicking back his greasy yellow hair. ‘Is there somewhere we can have a word?'

Gloria touched her cheek with a bright red fingernail. Her face was perfectly still, a flawless cosmetic mask. But the eyes were restless.

‘You'd better come through.' She opened the flap of the bar for them. ‘I won't be long,' she said to her stepdaughter.

Jane glanced at Kirby and Thornhill. ‘Shall I call Dad to help?'

‘No,' Gloria said quickly. ‘Don't bother.'

With her hips swaying from side to side, she led them down a narrow hallway to a small room next to the kitchen. It was furnished as an office with a battered desk, a steel filing cabinet and four hard chairs. The room looked like a man's and smelt like a woman's. Thornhill noticed that the cigarette butts in the ashtray were rimmed with lipstick.

‘Someone back there was saying there's been a murder in Templefields,' she said, her manner elaborately casual. ‘It's not true, is it?'

‘There has been an incident.' Thornhill said. ‘I am afraid we can't tell you any more than that at present.'