The Pull of the Moon (33 page)

The discovery made my heart lurch. I thought I had managed everything so cleverly and yet here was a dangerous telltale of Trudie’s tenancy that I had all but missed. Nor could I decide
what to do with the pen. Neither bonfire nor dustbin seemed appropriate.

Several silly distracting thoughts crept into my head before I could stop them. Perhaps Trudie – or was it Agnes – had made the book fall to the floor, just so that I would find the
pen. Or maybe finding the pen was entirely incidental and something meant me to read the chapter about Agnes Payne. The rational side of me wasn’t having any of this. I had brushed the book
off the window sill myself. Naturally it had fallen open at that particular place, because it had been left face down in that position for the best part of three days. If you dropped the book a
hundred times it would probably fall open at the Agnes Payne story for no other reason than that.

As I lifted the book my attention was caught by the opening line –
Although the murder of Agnes Payne remains officially unsolved
. . . Although? Why although? In spite of myself I
was intrigued. I couldn’t really spare the time but I started to read it anyway.

Although the murder of Agnes Payne remains officially unsolved, local historian Maisy Gregson is widely believed to have uncovered the true culprit, more than half a century after the
event.
So much for the magazine article, I thought. The author of that couldn’t have done his homework very thoroughly. I scanned through the rest of the piece at top speed. It was mostly
repetition of the stuff we already knew – until I reached the last couple of paragraphs.

A note at the bottom of the chapter said
See Plate viii
, so I obediently flicked to the glossy central pages expecting to see a picture of Maisy Gregson. The caption below Plate viii,
however, identified it as Agnes Payne. It was a rather grainy reproduction of an old photograph, which showed a plain woman in a severe high-necked blouse. Although Agnes was wearing a hat, I could
see she had light-coloured hair. She looked nothing like Trudie at all.

I shut the book feeling oddly disappointed. Although I couldn’t hear a thing, I felt as if Trudie and Agnes were both screaming at me, trying to tell me what I’d missed.

I left the book and pen lying on the bed while I had a last look round the room. The discovery of the pen made me so nervous that I opened and shut all the drawers again, looked down the back of
the dressing table and chest of drawers, even investigated the top of the wardrobe, almost choking myself in an enveloping cloud of dust in the process; but I made no further discoveries.

When I was finally satisfied, I took the pen and book back to my own room. I extracted the money from inside the back cover, putting twenty pounds in my purse and the remainder in the inner
pocket of my anorak, which had been hanging unworn in the wardrobe ever since we arrived. Then I set about gathering all my things together, piling them on the bed so that it would only take a
matter of minutes to pack them in my rucksack.

I couldn’t quite shake off the idea that I should have learned something from Trudie’s library book, but the voice of reason reminded me that it only proved how daft and far-fetched
Trudie’s ideas had been. Murdered Agnes had clearly not been in touch with Trudie. She had no need to be – her mystery had been put to bed by Maisy Wotsername. Moreover she had
ultimately received justice in its acutest form. The murderous vicar had been executed for his crimes.

I kept the book to one side ready to take it downstairs with me, but I hesitated over the pen. It would be very difficult to destroy it but binning it might be too dangerous. Not many people had
four initials. Maybe no one but Trudie had that particular combination. I didn’t trust the guys to come up with a safe solution; so I decided to keep the discovery to myself and hid the pen
in my anorak pocket with the balance of Trudie’s money.

The hall was so gloomy that before descending the stairs I switched on the lights, but this only served to increase the sense of depression, highlighting the long wisps of cobweb floating from
the ceiling and the film of dust which lay over everything. It was as if the house manufactured dust, I thought; breathing in stale air overnight, then exhaling it as dust the following morning, so
that I could never hope to keep pace with it. For some reason this reminded me about the hose pipe, slowly filling the pond. The moment I allowed my guard to slip far enough to allow in one image
associated with the pond, it was followed by a host of others that I didn’t want to see. I couldn’t stand much more of this. I had to get away.

As I entered the kitchen through one door, Simon came in at the other.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Have you worked out how long it is until your uncle gets here?’ (It occurred to me – too late – that I might have been able to use
Trudie’s diary to work this out, if only I hadn’t been so busy snooping.)

‘No, I haven’t thought about it.’

That seemed a bit weird. Surely Simon must be wondering how his uncle would take the fact that so much of the projected garden development was still unfinished. He must have sensed what I was
thinking, because he added, ‘I can’t think of anything – I can’t think straight at all.’

A brisk barrage of knocking interrupted us. There was someone at the front door – someone who favoured the traditional rat-a-tat-tat approach to making themselves heard. Simon’s eyes
widened and he gripped the back of the nearest chair, as if he needed its support. I too must have been on the verge of hysteria because for some reason this latest development struck me as
extremely funny. ‘It’ll be the Avon Lady,’ I said. ‘Shall I go?’

Simon evidently didn’t get the joke. After gaping at me for a few seconds, he said, ‘You see who it is. I’ll wait here.’

I almost skipped along the hall, positively lightheaded. We’d already had the builders, the police and the news brought by the postman. What more could Fate throw at us?

The man waiting on the step was tall and thin. He was wearing an old-fashioned tweedy suit and grey sideburns on a scale which outdid Noddy Holder’s. In his hands he held a hat which he
had presumably just removed. It looked for all the world like a deerstalker. I suppressed a wild urge to laugh. Having run out of other tricks the gods had sent us Sherlock Holmes.

The man regarded me as someone might look at a slug who has invaded their greenhouse. He wasted no time on preliminaries. ‘Is Trudie in?’

Aha – the direct approach – trying to catch me off guard. ‘No,’ I said carefully, not least because I was still fighting to subdue my mirth. ‘She doesn’t live
here any more.’

He regarded me with disbelief. ‘Are you sure? She specifically told me this is where I could find her.’

I started to return to my senses. ‘Why? I mean – who are you?’

He reached inside his jacket and extracted a card which he held in my direction. I took it from him and discerned that he was an antiques dealer from Leominster. Having read the card I handed it
back, uncertain what my next move ought to be. He continued to stand on the front step, evidently expecting an invitation to enter. When none was forthcoming he began to speak, his tone somewhat
impatient, his face screwed up as if assailed by a bad smell. ‘Trudie came into my shop last week and showed me something rather valuable. It was outside my speciality but I told her I would
make enquiries with a friend and it turns out that he is interested. I have come to tell her so.’

‘What was it Trudie showed you?’

‘I rather think that is between myself and Trudie.’

‘It might not have been hers, you see. It might have belonged to someone else. Someone who – lives here.’

‘I see. I did explain to the young lady that the question of how she had come by such an item would inevitably arise, before it could be put up for sale. Do you know something about the
item in question?’

Oh God. Now he was starting to wonder if we were a ring of antique thieves or something. ‘I don’t know,’ I hedged. ‘It depends what the item is. It’s not a teapot
with roses on it by any chance?’

He drew himself up as if insulted. ‘It is a stamp. For your information an Hawaiian Missionary stamp. Now is the girl who called herself Trudie here or isn’t she?’

I stared at him. Was it all a joke? What would missionaries be doing with stamps? The sensation that I had stumbled into a Monty Python sketch began to reassert itself. Then I gasped. ‘It
was on an envelope, wasn’t it? It was the thing her grandmother gave her.’

‘So she said, yes. Although my friend would require some sort of proof. But you say she doesn’t live here any more. In which case are you able to get a message to her, or tell me
where she has gone?’ His voice was increasingly tetchy. No doubt he had detected my earlier amusement and suspected me of giving him the run around. His irritation made me nervous, but I
couldn’t pull myself together. I thought about that envelope – that tatty old envelope to which I hadn’t given so much as a second glance. In my mind’s eye I saw it
blackening as the flames crept toward it, then suddenly being engulfed: its precious cargo snatched into instant oblivion.

‘You say she’s not here?’ he repeated. A little white spot had appeared at the end of his nose. I could see he was on the edge of losing his temper.

‘No, she’s gone.’

‘And you don’t know where to?’

‘No. She didn’t say. She hadn’t decided.’

‘Then I’ve wasted my time,’ he said, abruptly turning towards his car, saying something under his breath that I didn’t hear.

The blood pounded in my head. Who else might Trudie have confided her whereabouts to? She had barely been dead a couple of days and already the search for her was narrowing in our direction.
Suppose this man had spotted Trudie’s name in the papers? She was supposed to be a runaway in hiding, but here she was giving out her address to all and sundry. She had even told him her own
name. Her first name anyway. Trudie – that was who he had asked for. Maybe she hadn’t said Finch – maybe she’d only said Trudie or maybe Trudie Eccles, or something equally
daft. Suppose she had been introducing herself in other antique shops, talking to other dealers.

For a wild fanciful moment I wondered if I ought to find a way to prevent him from leaving. Entice him into the house, poison him with my cooking, then have the boys bury him alongside Trudie.
Perhaps that’s how mass murderers got started – one thing leading inexorably to another: because once you have begun there’s no turning back . . . But I had let my quarry escape.
I closed the front door, resigning myself to the fact that I was not successful mass murderer material.

Simon had been listening from the other end of the hall. He retreated into the kitchen at my approach. ‘Who was it?’ he asked, as I entered the room. ‘What did he
want?’

I stared at him. I knew he must have heard every word. I didn’t have a chance to respond, because just then Danny came in from the garden, saying that he’d turned off the hose pipe
and thought the whole thing would look better once there were some plants round the edges. ‘Perhaps we ought to go to the plant nursery tomorrow and buy some.’

This gave me my cue. ‘Is the nursery towards Leominster? Because I was thinking, you know, with Si’s uncle coming back and everything, that the best thing would be for me to go to
Cecile’s family after all – and I can get a train from Leominster.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Danny made no attempt to disguise his annoyance. I realized I had sprung it on him too quickly.

‘I know you said I could stay with you – but I think this would be safer.’

‘No,’ said Danny abruptly. ‘It wouldn’t be. We’ve got to stick together.’

At that moment I felt more certain than I had ever been that ‘together’ was not an option. I had to get completely clear of that house and of Danny. I had to find a way of shutting
this whole horrible mess into a cupboard and never opening the door on it again.

‘Someone’s just been here,’ said Simon. ‘He was looking for Trudie. Katy sent him away.’

Danny turned to me. ‘Who was it?’

‘Just some old guy – an antiques dealer. Trudie had been into his shop, asking about a stamp.’

‘What stamp?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Some stamp her grandmother had given her. What does it matter – we’ve burnt it now anyway. I told him she’d gone away.’

Danny whistled between his teeth. ‘Shit. I wonder how many more people are going to turn up here, looking for her.’

‘That’s just the thing,’ I said. ‘If we weren’t here, we couldn’t be asked anything.’

‘We need to be here, to give the right answers if anyone does ask.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you’re wrong. And can’t you see that all the time we’re here, together, we’re never going to be able to stop thinking about
what’s happened? Simon’s uncle coming back is the best possible thing that could happen. This way none of us has to stay here the whole summer – we can all get away.’