Bricks and Mortality: Campbell & Carter 3 (7 page)

Jess took another look at Hamlet, who returned her gaze with a low growl.

‘See?’ said his owner triumphantly. ‘Hamlet knows you’re a copper, not a friend or a normal visitor.’

‘Can I do anything else for you, Inspector Campbell?’ Poppy asked politely.

‘No, no, not at the moment. Thank you for giving me your time, Mrs Trenton. Good bye, Mrs Pickering.’

As she drove away, Jess found herself thinking: Hamlet didn’t like me, I don’t think Muriel Pickering likes me much and I’m pretty sure Poppy Trenton wasn’t delighted by my visit. Is there something, I wonder, they don’t want me to know?

Carter drove out to Weston St Ambrose that evening to collect Millie. He found her ensconced, with the cats and MacTavish, on a battered sofa before a crackling log fire. His child was sorting, magpie-like, through a cardboard box containing old buttons and colourful glass beads from broken necklaces, a treasure trove of shiny objects.

‘Ah, there you are, Ian,’ said Monica Farrow comfortably. ‘Right on time. Millie and I made a quiche this afternoon. We have been waiting for you to come to sample it. I thought we could make it our supper.’

After they’d eaten, Carter carried a pile of dirty dishes into the kitchen and, carefully closing the door, turned to Monica. She raised her eyebrows and waited.

‘Monica, I know I’ve picked your brains before, your local knowledge,’ he began apologetically. ‘I hope you won’t mind if I do it again. Did you know a family called Crown?’

‘The only Crowns around here lived at Key House, the place that’s just gone up in flames. We all heard about a body being found there.’ Monica paused, then asked with a worried note in her voice, ‘The dead man – it’s not young Gervase, is it?’

‘We believe not. Gervase Crown has been living abroad and is, as we speak, preparing to return to this country to deal with the situation regarding his property here. I haven’t met the fellow, but of course we hope to interview him – even if he was in another country when the house caught fire.’ He paused and added, knowing he sounded censorious, ‘He’s thirty-five now.’

Monica pursed her lips and looked reflective. ‘Yes, I suppose he must be. Time flies. Poor little boy – I mean, he was when I knew him. His mother left them, bunked off and never looked back. He was sent off to boarding school even before that, at a very young age. I felt very sorry for him. It couldn’t have been a happy home.’

‘Sebastian Crown, the father, didn’t remarry?’

‘No, never. Threw himself into his business and made a fortune, I believe.’

‘Oh, he did that all right,’ said Carter.

‘Has Gervase married?’ asked Monica suddenly.

Carter realised that he’d never asked Foscott whether Gervase Crown had a girlfriend of any sort, let alone a wife.

‘I don’t know, Monica. All I know is that he plays golf, surfs and rides horses.’

‘Horses?’ Monica sounded surprised. ‘It used to be cars when he was young.’

Carter felt his mental antennae twitch. ‘Smashed up a couple, I’m told.’

‘Oh, yes …’ Monica turned aside, suddenly unwilling to talk.

‘A young girl was badly injured, do you remember that?’

‘Petra Stapleton, she still lives locally.’ Monica pressed her lips tightly. This was not up for discussion.

The kitchen door creaked open and Millie, clutching MacTavish, appeared framed in it, suspicion writ large on her face.

‘What are you talking about?’ She looked from one to the other of them accusingly.

‘Nothing of interest to you, young lady!’ Monica told her. ‘Have you put the lid back on the box?’ Millie nodded. ‘And got all your belongings? Because Daddy wants to be off.’

Millie disappeared to collect her other baggage. Even going somewhere just for the day, Carter had discovered, involved packing a rucksack of necessities for his daughter, just as if she were going on a journey.

‘When I come tomorrow night for her,’ he said to Monica. ‘I might have Jess Campbell with me. You remember Jess?’

‘Indeed I do! I’d like to see her again.’ Monica could not hide a note of curiosity.

‘I’d like her to meet Millie,’ Carter said, wondering if he’d done the wrong thing and started some speculation.

‘Good idea!’ said Monica cheerfully, which didn’t allay his fears at all.

As he was checking that her seatbelt was properly fastened, Millie leaned forward and said in his ear, her voice holding a kind of contained ferocity, ‘I’m interested in
everything
!’

So am I, thought Carter, if it has anything to do with Gervase Crown. Then he thought, do I tell her now about Jess coming with me tomorrow? No, I’ll wait.

‘Petra?’ Kit Stapleton called loudly from the middle of the paved area that was in lieu of a front garden. A neat wooden board at the gate announced that the property was called The Barn although the name accounted jointly for two buildings on the site.

This gave Kit a choice. Either her sister would be in the cottage, over on the right, or she would be in the actual former barn directly ahead of Kit, where Petra had her studio. She knew her sister was around the place somewhere because her invalid-driver adapted car stood in its usual parking spot.

‘In here …’ called a faint voice.

Kit made her way towards it and peered through the door. Most barns are shadowy places, but this one had a whole section of roof replaced with glass to give her sister the necessary light for her work. She was an accomplished painter of animal subjects and made a fair living out of painting portraits of people’s pets and, when lucky, won a commission to illustrate children’s books on animal themes or occasionally a jacket for an adult book. Not surprisingly the barn was cluttered not only with stacks of canvas and general artist’s necessities, but with a variety of ‘props’. Her sister was currently working on the jacket of a new edition of the Victorian classic,
Black Beauty
. There was reference material in a side-saddle hanging on a peg and an antique dressmaker’s model clothed in a red velvet lady’s riding habit, itself almost a hundred years old. Kit paused by the door, as she always did, to pat the head of the venerable rocking horse. This noble steed had once amused Kit and Petra as children, and various other family members before that. Now, in his old age, he had cantered his way across a variety of infant tales. Petra sat with her back to her visitor, before an easel. She didn’t turn her head. She was concentrating.

Kit walked slowly across to stand beside her and waited until Petra set down her brush and swivelled round to face her. She was wearing one of her painting smocks. It wasn’t a flattering garment but Kit thought sadly that Petra was still a lovely woman. Lovely, yes, that was the word. Her dark blond hair was thick, long and held in place by an Alice band. Her skin was unblemished and relatively unlined. Considering the pain she had known, the several operations, and the grinding discipline of the physiotherapy designed to force limited response back into her muscles, Kit thought that amazing. Only her sister’s eyes held the legacy of suffering. But she smiled now in welcome.

‘I wasn’t expecting you this morning.’

‘Not a good time to disturb you?’ Kit asked.

‘Absolutely the right time. I need coffee in large quantities.’ Petra set the wheelchair in motion and sped off towards the barn door, Kit hastening behind.

The cottage towards which they were heading had not started life as a dwelling for humans but for horses. As such it had large door openings. This made it ideal to be converted for her sister’s use as a dwelling, giving her the independence she so much valued. The traditional cottages locally all had tiny doorways and windows and so many preservation orders attached to them that permission to alter them would never have been obtained.

Indoors, Petra’s home was open-plan in design, kitchen and living area united in one large, sparsely furnished whole. Only the bedroom and bathroom were separated. All had been designed with Petra’s needs in mind. ‘I’m lucky,’ she would often say, and she meant it.

It had not been easy, Kit remembered, to persuade their mother that Petra could live independently. Even though Petra had proved it, Mary Stapleton still fretted constantly. It was understandable up to a point. Following the accident, there had been a terrible period of doubt that Petra would even be able to do much for herself at all. But the doctors who expressed the doubt didn’t know Petra. She had never given up and use of her upper body had returned; but not that of her legs to any significant degree. When out of her wheelchair, she could only propel herself along using the two crutches propped just inside the front door. Kit watched her sister struggle out of the chair. She handed her the crutches and Petra grunted thanks. The family knew that one had to be very careful about offering physical help in any way. ‘If I need it, I’ll ask!’ Petra would say tartly.

Nevertheless, Kit said firmly now, ‘You’ve been slaving away painting that nag, I’ll make the coffee.’

‘I can do it,’ Petra responded, as she’d known she would.

‘Of course you can. I recognise that! I’m not saying you can’t. But let me do it, can’t you? I want to.’

‘Oh, all right,’ the words sounded ungracious but Petra was grinning. They had this conversation every time Kit dropped by.

They settled themselves by a window where a semicircular settle had been built at the right height for Petra to slide on to. Kit sat at the other end and looked down at a sheaf of snapshots scattered on the seat between them.

She picked up the topmost one. ‘Yikes! What an ugly pooch. Don’t tell me the owner wants you to paint it!’

‘Yes, I’m very happy to say, she does.’

‘Have you seen the mutt in the flesh?’

‘Yep! She brought him to meet me. I told her, quite truthfully, that he has lots of character. Animals are like people. Beauty and personality don’t always go together. Nice when they do, of course. I admit Hamlet got a bit short-changed on the looks. But he does have the personality.’

‘I believe you,’ said Kit, returning Hamlet’s photo to the pile.

‘So, what’s new?’ asked Petra, cupping her hands round the coffee mug. She’d decorated the mugs so that each one in the set of six showed a different breed of cat. Petra had the Siamese, because she always did, and Kit had the blue-grey Persian, because that was hers.

Habit, thought Kit, watching her sister. Habit keeps us going. Little things like always having the same mug. Silly, but they matter. But it did underline how fragile our personal world can be. Petra had built one for herself in which she could declare herself happy. Kit had news for her sister that might shatter her confidence. She wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. She and her mother had had a long conversation, well, argument, about it. There was no question that it would be Kit’s job to tell her sibling. But that hadn’t avoided heated debate.

‘Or have you just dropped by?’ prompted Petra, when her visitor remaining silent.

‘No, it’s not a casual call. I came to tell you something.’

‘Aha! Good news or bad?’ Petra’s grin faded. ‘Mother’s all right, isn’t she?’

‘Absolutely fine,’ Kit reassured her. ‘Nagging away at me as always. But as long as she’s got the energy to do that, I know she’s all right. I don’t know quite how to categorise the news, good or bad. Well, it’s not good.’

Petra gave a theatrical groan. ‘Just tell me, can’t you? I can’t stand the suspense.’

‘OK, Key House caught fire. It’s pretty well burned down. The walls are standing, just, but the roof’s gone, fallen in, and all the floors and inside fittings. I thought you might not yet know, if you hadn’t seen anyone.’

‘Oh, that’s awful … a shock,’ said Petra, what little colour remaining in her face leaching away to leave her alabaster-pale. ‘I didn’t know. When did this happen?’ She added almost, but not quite, at once, ‘Anyone in it when it caught fire?’

‘The fire was the night before last. Yes, someone was in it; but no, it wasn’t Gervase.’

Petra’s fingertips, gripping the mug, were white but the pressure on the fingernails had turned them mauve. ‘I thought it was empty of furniture. Surely no one was staying there. Is whoever it was safe, get out all right? How did the fire start?’

‘I don’t think the police know yet or if they do, they haven’t made that public. I’m afraid the person didn’t get out safely. They found a body in the ruins. They don’t know who it is yet. But they do know it’s not Gervase. Honestly, Petra, it isn’t his body.’

She had known this would be the most difficult bit of the news she’d come to impart. It had been her own first thought, her mother’s first thought and, naturally, Petra’s first thought as well. The body might have been that of Gervase Crown.

‘Is he in Portugal?’ Petra’s voice was studiously bland.

‘Yes, fooling around wasting his time as always. But I understand he’ll be coming back to attend to things. Reggie Foscott phoned Ma to tell her, warn her I suppose, that she might find herself bumping into Gervase in the street or somewhere. I hope not. She couldn’t handle it. She hates his guts. She’d mow him down with her shopping trolley. So do I loathe the useless blighter.’ Kit paused and added sadly, ‘But I know you don’t. For the life of me, I don’t understand why not.’

‘We were both young and stupid and drunk,’ said Petra evenly. ‘He shouldn’t have been driving. I shouldn’t have got in the car with him. Does Reggie think he’ll be staying long?’

‘As long as it takes, I suppose. The house is in ruins and some decision will have to be made about its future – and the police have started a murder hunt.’

The Siamese cat mug tilted and coffee splashed down into Petra’s lap. She gave a squeal and swore.

‘Oh, hell, my fault, sorry!’ Kit jumped up and went to fetch a cloth. ‘Were you scalded?’

‘No, only startled. What murder?’

‘I rehearsed all this to myself, you know,’ Kit said wretchedly, ‘just how I was going to tell you. Then I mess it up! I was putting off telling you how it was murder or trying to lead up to it in a gentle fashion. But it’s not gentle news, is it? So I might just as well tell you it all. I told you that when they’d put the fire out they found a body in the ruins of the house; but the really horrid thing, more horrid than someone dying there, is that whoever it is didn’t die in the fire accidentally. The cops have decided that guy was murdered. They believe the fire was started deliberately to cover up the evidence.’