An Air That Kills (26 page)

‘It's the way you work.'

‘It doesn't mean I don't love you.' He swallowed. ‘Jill, I
need
you.'

‘If you want to be a hypocrite, that's your affair. But I don't have to be one as well. Not any more.'

‘Don't be so bloody naïve,' he snapped, his face flushing. He picked up his martini and swallowed the rest of it. ‘I'm sorry, darling. I know you're under a lot of strain.'

Jill stood up, holding her handbag like a shield. ‘I don't think you know the first thing about me.' She was aware that the businessmen had stopped talking. ‘I'm going now. Goodbye.'

She turned and walked towards the door. Oliver scrambled up and followed her.

‘You can't do this to me,' he said in a whisper, his face flushing. ‘I love you.'

‘It's too late.' She reached the hall. The lascivious old man at the desk was watching them.

‘Marry me,' Oliver said.

‘It's too late for that too.' She stopped so sharply that he almost bumped into her. ‘If you don't leave me alone, I shall ask that man to call the police.'

Chapter Nine

In the cocktail bar, the tables had glass tops and the chairs and the bar stools were made of chrome with leather seats – perhaps the result of a half-hearted attempt to modernise the hotel. There was a sprinkling of customers. Thornhill ordered a dry sherry. When the drink came, it was inordinately expensive.

As he turned away from the bar, he was surprised to hear someone calling his name. Fuggle, the elderly journalist who had baited Superintendent Williamson at the press briefing the previous day, was sitting at a corner table with a thickset man in tweeds. Fuggle waved Thornhill over, pointing at an empty chair beside his.

‘Won't you join us? Do you know Giles Newton?'

Newton smiled and offered his hand. He was a man in his fifties, with a square face and a crop of thick, curly grey hair.

‘We've been talking about that Rose in Hand business,' Fuggle said, when Thornhill had sat down. ‘You should have a word with this gentleman, Inspector. He knows all about the place.'

‘Really?'

Newton smiled. ‘That's a slight exaggeration.' He had the sort of accent which Thornhill associated with an expensive and unfairly privileged education. ‘I work for the Ruispidge Estate, you see, and the Estate used to own the site.'

‘Still owns the rest of Templefields,' put in Fuggle, his eyes gleaming. ‘And indeed a good deal of other property in Lydmouth, including this very hotel. Which is of course why we're here.'

Thornhill's confusion must have been obvious in his face, for Fuggle smiled gleefully and Newton rushed to explain.

‘We've been discussing the Conservative Party's Christmas dance, Mr Thornhill. Fuggle's on the committee. I represent the Estate. By tradition it's held at the Bull Hotel.'

‘Shall we be seeing you and your good lady at the dance?' Fuggle enquired.

‘I doubt it,' Thornhill said, wondering how the reporter had discovered that he was married.

Fuggle glanced at the clock behind the bar. ‘Oh, dear me, is that the time? I really must fly. You'll excuse me, gentlemen?'

In the space of a few seconds, he had finished his drink, slipped on his overcoat and left the room.

Newton smiled at Thornhill. ‘Mrs Fuggle is said to be something of a tartar. Let me get you another drink. Same again?'

He beckoned the barman who scurried across to their table. Thornhill reflected sourly that when he tried to summon waiters or barmen with that casual assurance they generally pretended not to see him – unless they knew what he did for a living.

‘Sad business, really,' Newton said a moment later, after ordering the drinks.

‘I beg your pardon?' Thornhill's mind had wandered off to Jill Francis: he was speculating about the reason for her being at the Bull without either of the Wemyss-Browns.

‘The bones at the Rose in Hand. Do you feel pretty sure that Victorian murderess was responsible?'

‘Amelia Rushwick? It seems the most likely solution. What happened to the Rose in Hand after her parents' tenancy ended?'

‘That's what Fuggle was asking me.' Newton began to fill a pipe. ‘I looked up the records yesterday after I'd seen the article in the
Gazette
. The Rushwicks left in 1891. Then there was someone called John Farndale. He was there for three years. After that, the place was taken by a Mr and Mrs Jones who ran it as a temperance hotel. They lasted less than eighteen months and had to be evicted for unpaid rent. Then the Rose more or less gave up the ghost.'

The barman brought their drinks over.

‘Cheers,' Thornhill said, sipping his sherry. ‘How do you mean, “gave up the ghost”?'

‘Simply that it was no longer a paying proposition. The Estate couldn't find a tenant for the pub, or not the sort they wanted. Reading between the lines, the whole of Templefields was going downhill – a bit of an albatross – so they decided to let it rot. They did the minimum of maintenance and split up the pub and outbuildings – leased them out for whatever they could get, commercial or residential. That was the situation when they took me on.'

‘When was that?'

‘In 1937. By that time the pub was empty, practically derelict. I remember we tried to let the yards separately. Major Harcutt was quite interested at one stage – you know he had a coal merchant's business in those days?'

Thornhill nodded. His attention was distracted by movement near the door. The man he had seen with Jill Francis came into the room and perched on one of the bar stools.

‘Of course Harcutt's interest may have been historical rather than commercial,' Newton went on. ‘He sold up a few months afterwards.'

The man ordered a dry martini in a carrying voice which, unlike his face, had a familiar quality.

‘Has the Estate any plans for the rest of Templefields?' Thornhill asked.

‘Not really.' Newton grinned, and his face looked ten years younger. ‘Not unless the council make us an offer we can't refuse. Tell me, how are you liking Lydmouth?'

‘It's early days.'

‘Takes a while to settle in, doesn't it? I found that. It's still a very close-knit community. After a while they begin to accept you. But unless you're actually born here, they'll still call you a foreigner until the day you die.'

‘In some ways it seems a very old-fashioned place.'

‘To look at it,' Newton said, ‘you'd think the clock stopped in about 1923 and everything will always be the same. But it's changing. Most people don't realise how much or how fast.'

They talked for another ten minutes. Thornhill offered to buy the next round but Newton glanced at the clock behind the bar and declined.

‘I'd better go. Wouldn't do to be late for dinner, though my wife's not in the same league as Mrs Fuggle.'

Thornhill left as well. To his surprise, he found himself wishing that the conversation with Newton could have lasted longer. On his way out, he noticed Jill Francis's friend ordering another dry martini. In the hall, he paused to have a word with Quale: Carn still hadn't returned. Thornhill said he would call back later in the evening and Quale's eyes gleamed with excitement.

He went outside. It had started to rain again. He lingered in the shelter of the porch to button his coat. Talking to Newton seemed to have cleared his head. It was time to go home to Edith and the children, wave an olive branch and have some supper. He had been behaving like a sulky schoolboy.

He walked quickly back to headquarters and collected his car. The sherry had given him an appetite. He drove up to the High Street and turned right. The rain was growing heavier by the minute, the drops of water bouncing off the roadway and thrumming on the roof of the car.

After fifty yards, he stopped at a zebra crossing: two girls teetered across on their high heels, moving at suicidal speed. He glanced idly through the car's nearside window and saw a woman sheltering from the rain in the doorway of a men's outfitters, her pale face clearly visible in the light from a streetlamp. He recognised her and on impulse rolled down the nearside window.

‘Miss Francis, can I give you a lift?' Suddenly he realised that she might not be able to see who it was. ‘It's Richard Thornhill.'

She hesitated. For a moment, he thought she would refuse. Then she walked quickly across the pavement. He opened the door from the inside. She climbed into the car.

‘You're going back to Troy House?'

‘Yes.'

‘Caught in the rain? Not a night for walking.'

‘No.'

He let out the clutch and the car moved off.

‘It's kind of you to give me a lift,' she said in a rush.

‘Not at all.'

The conversation languished. Thornhill felt mildly aggrieved – after all, he was doing the woman a good turn. Perhaps she reserved her conversation for the favoured few, like the well-heeled gentleman – Yateley? – in the lounge of the Bull Hotel. He drove automatically, his attention focused on his passenger. At one point he glanced at her as they were passing a streetlamp: there was enough light to see that she was staring through the windscreen; she might have been alone.

Thornhill pulled up outside Troy House, leaving the engine running. She fumbled for the door handle and couldn't find it. Probably she expected him to get out, walk round the car in the pouring rain and open the door from the outside; but he wasn't in the mood for courtly gestures. Muttering an apology, he leant across her and opened the door. For the first time he saw her face clearly.

‘You've been crying,' he said before he could stop himself. He sat up sharply, chilly with embarrassment. ‘Sorry.'

‘Don't be. You're quite right.' She gave a shaky laugh. ‘It's ridiculous, isn't it?'

After a few seconds had passed, he said, ‘Do you want a handkerchief? I've got a clean one.'

‘Thank you. I forgot to take one. So silly of me.'

He gave her the handkerchief and looked away while she blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

‘I'll have it washed and give it back to you,' she said. ‘Thank you again. Good night.'

‘Good night.'

She got out of the car. Thornhill watched her walking up the path to the front door of Troy House. He felt puzzled and also a little flattered that she'd deigned to take not only a lift but a handkerchief from him. She opened the door, half turned to give him a wave and disappeared into the house. A moment later, he drove away.

Chapter Ten

Dr Bayswater stared down at Mrs Meague. Her eyes were closed and she was gasping for air.

‘When did it happen?'

‘She took a turn for the worse around tea time,' the sister murmured.

‘Does the son know?'

‘Unfortunately not. He was in at lunch time and she seemed much better then. We've phoned the pub near their house and left a message.'

‘He'd better hurry,' Bayswater said, ‘or it may be too late.'

The sister was called away. Bayswater grunted angrily and sat down on the chair beside the bed. The old woman's red, work-roughened hand was lying on the blanket. The fingers twitched. The lips were moving. He bent nearer to her.

‘Charlie.'

‘He's coming,' Bayswater said gruffly.

‘Charlie.'

Gingerly, he touched her hand. Her fingers wrapped themselves around his.

‘Charlie,' she said again. ‘Poor Miss Tony. But it wasn't you, was it?'

Bayswater said nothing.

The thin body twitched under the blankets. The head moved a fraction on the pillow and the weak fingers gripped Bayswater's a little more tightly. ‘It wasn't you, Charlie, was it?'

‘No,' Dr Bayswater said firmly. ‘It wasn't.'

The fingers relaxed their grip a little, but they tightened again in a moment when the breathing grew even more laboured. Since he had last seen Mrs Meague, her face had become bluer and more swollen. She disliked him, he thought, and was probably afraid of him.

Dr Bayswater sat beside the bed. There was a crick in his neck and he wanted to empty his bladder and have a smoke. He watched the clock on the wall of sister's office. He was still sitting there when she came back fifteen minutes later.

‘She doesn't know you're there,' the sister said, surprised to see him.

‘I know.' Dr Bayswater scowled at her. ‘I'm not a bloody fool.'

Chapter Eleven

Charlie swaggered through the public bar as if he owned it and leant against the counter. Gloria was serving a customer in the lounge bar; neither her husband Harold nor her stepdaughter was in sight, which suited Charlie very well.

While he waited he examined the back of her, taking his time and dwelling on the curves and hollows with a relish which was both nostalgic and anticipatory. Then and now, she was beautiful and desirable; but freshness had given way to a gorgeous ripeness. He guessed from the way she held herself that she was conscious of his eyes. At last she finished and sauntered across to him.

‘How's your mum?' she asked as she was pulling his pint.

‘She's better. Saw her dinner time – I reckon she's turned the corner.'

‘That's good.'

‘So I'll have a Scotch with that. I'm celebrating, aren't I?'

Avoiding his eyes, Gloria put down the pint glass on the counter and turned away to fetch his whisky. He thought she was angry with him. It was crazy – she kept a pub and she didn't like a man drinking. But when she came back with the whisky, she leant on the counter, her head close to his and her perfume strong in his nostrils. He smiled, delighted by his own power: she couldn't keep away from him.