Death of a Stranger (3 page)

“I'd be happy enough just to come back here after the celebrations even so. But I'm glad we're going.''

“And not regretful that it isn't anywhere exotic?''

“I asked you for Scotland. Are
you
sorry?''

“Of course not. I've never been, and for me it's abroad. How difficult it must have been once,'' Tim thought aloud, as they snuggled down in bed a half-hour later, trying to confine the cat to a bottom corner, “to have the fun of new places on a honeymoon all mixed up with having to adjust to going to bed together and, well …''

“I know. And not to be able to say ‘Not tonight' for fear of irreparably damaging your new partner's feelings. Not tonight, my dearest darling, I'm asleep already.''

“Me too.'' But although he dropped off almost at once, Tim's sleep was beset by dreams in which he prowled the thin byways of St Peter Port, looking for his mother but seeing only the distant figures of Simon Shaw and Constance Lorimer and never being able to catch them up.

T
o give themselves a few unfevered hours in Lorna's company, Anna and Tim had devised the run-up to their wedding to allow for the completion of their preparations a day short of it, and their colleagues had insisted they finish work at lunchtime on Friday. Neither of them of course had the sort of job where this could be guaranteed, but Anna had kept her diary free of afternoon visits and Tim's one all-day concern was uninvolving enough for him to be quite easily persuaded to leave it in the hands of his sergeant.

So when he arrived home just before two o'clock he found his mother and his bride-to-be under the one big tree in his narrow walled garden, drinking coffee.

“Now, Mother,'' he said, when he had changed into a short-sleeved shirt and joined them for the second time, mug in hand, “ what's this about your young friend Simon's job being so hush-hush we can't be told a thing about it?'' She knew him as well as he knew her, and he wasn't sure he had been able to fool her that his question was light hearted.

Her eyes met his without blinking. “It is hush-hush, darling. But I've told him how utterly discreet you are and he's given me permission to tell you about it if I feel that maybe you're thinking that it doesn't exist. And that's what you are thinking, isn't it?''

Discomfited but at the same time reassured, Tim looked down at his knees.

“There you are, you see. But what Simon's more worried about telling you is what he is, with you being a policeman.''

Tim drew a sharp breath, and Anna got to her feet. “ Look, I'll leave you both—''

“Please don't go, Anna,'' Lorna said. “ Simon isn't ashamed of his profession, he just felt – well, I think he's afraid despite all my reassurances that Tim might look down on him.''

“Would that matter?'' Tim asked, immediately wishing he hadn't.

“I'll ignore that remark, darling,'' Lorna responded with dignity. “Simon's a private detective, he runs an agency in London, and he's been hired by an insurance company to carry out an undercover investigation over here. I gather the Guernsey branch manages most claims on its own but when something – well, something a weeny bit dubious – comes along, they consult their London office, and this time London took it seriously enough to hire Simon.''

“Quite a responsibility for someone so young.'' Tim said it lightly, leaning up to pluck the bottom pair of leaves of the overhead ash frond as he spoke.

“He's had a lot of experience.''

“I'm not doubting it. How did you and he meet, Mother?''

“He's the son of my friend Gina.'' For the first time since they had started talking about Shaw, her eyes slid away from his. But it could be simply because with what she was telling them she was fastening Shaw more securely into a younger generation. “You remember Gina, darling. Well, you remember hearing about her. Her husband was a distant cousin of Geoffrey's but not nearly so nice, in fact he was really foul to her and she had to ditch him.''

“You seem to have had a few friends in that position.''

“I do, darling, don't I? You'd like Gina, though, you both would, she's so amusing and articulate.''

“Does she have other children?''

“Only Simon. All right?'' Lorna dropped her eyes and started fiddling with the gilded chain that hung in the neck of her minimal turquoise top, beginning to look mutinous.

Anna decided to switch the line of questioning. “Simon's assignment sounds intriguing, Lorna. Can you really tell me as well as Tim about it?''

Lorna looked up, smiling her approval. “Of course. I can see already that you're as discreet as he is. It's the fire that destroyed a rose grower's greenhouse last month near Beaucette Marina. The Golden Rose.'' Tim and Anna murmured their recognition. “ It must have been all over the
Guernsey Press
because of the valuable paintings in a cupboard inside the greenhouse. They'd been thought to be by some minor Florentine master – I can never remember which – and what with the high cost of the insurance and a couple of recent art thefts on the island …'' Lorna looked a question at Tim, who nodded humbly. “Anyway, they'd decided to sell, and consulted a self-styled art expert friend who promptly called the pictures into question. So they made an appointment with a professional expert in town, for a few days after the fire. It isn't easy for a greenhouse to go up in smoke, which is one of the reasons the insurance company's uneasy, but it was very hot the day this one did, and the owners are saying that if the fire wasn't lit deliberately it must have been caused by a magnifying glass left by their son on top of some paper on a table near the cupboard – that particular greenhouse wasn't used for growing roses, the family used to eat and sit there in the summer, and the boy used the end where the pictures were as a sort of study, reading and doing his homework there. The fire happened on the one day in the week when the nursery closes, and the owners and their son had gone out. So the greenhouse was locked, but as most of the glass shattered in the heat there's no way of discovering if anyone had broken in and started the fire. And no sign inside of what might have started it apart from the remains of the magnifying glass. Someone saw the fire before it had time to spread to other buildings or really get the trees and bushes going, but it was too late to save either the greenhouse or the pictures.''

“A strange place to store valuable pictures,'' Tim commented, lazy and detached. Sprawling in his peaceful garden and looking at the two women he loved, he had a moment of contentment so complete he knew it was happening and must be savoured there and then as well as in retrospect.

“Apparently not. The greenhouse was warm and dry and the wooden cupboard insulated them from any extremes of weather. And after the art thefts the owners felt the pictures would be safer there than in the house if the wrong people got wind of them. And it wasn't to be for long. If their knowledgeable friend hadn't cast doubt on them they'd probably have been sold by now.''

“Or there might not have been a fire,'' Tim said.

“Or the insurance company would have paid out,'' Anna suggested.

“The insurance company may still pay out,'' Lorna said, yawning. “It depends on Simon's report.''

“His report could be bringing me into the picture, if it suggests the greenhouse was torched. Quite a responsibility,'' Tim repeated.

“He's up to it.'' Lorna stretched, and Anna watched a gold bracelet slide down one of her slender brown arms as she raised them in a vee above her head, noting without trying to that her future mother-in-law's chin line was still sharp and the only signs of age were the striations down the skin of her bare upper arms as she dropped her hands back into her lap. And there was nothing in her appearance, Anna continued to observe approvingly, to indicate effort or disguise: Lorna had slapped suncream on her face as well as her limbs after settling into her deck-chair, and her dark hair was streaked with silver.

“Let's talk about you two, now,'' she continued, still relaxed but showing Tim in some long-recognised subliminal way that she would not talk any more about Simon Shaw. “I'm sorry you're not being married in church, but at least you've chosen a place which used to be one before it became a concert hall, so there will be, well …''

“An odour of sanctity?''

“If you have to put it that way.''

“And why's that a good thing, Mother? Neither of us is religious in any orthodox sense.''

“I know
you're
not.'' Lorna turned to Anna, and assumed an exaggerated look of regret as Anna shrugged and gave her a rueful smile. “All right, but it's – well …''

“It's a subject you've never really thought about.'' Tim knew that throughout her unconventional life, while not attending church except for weddings and funerals, his mother had continued to hold ‘religion' in reflex regard, in a triumvirate with the Royal Family and what had once been known as the Establishment. He even remembered her telling him, on one of her early breathless visits, to model himself on what she said rather than on what she did.

“I'm not going to argue.'' How often had he heard those words of retreat from a potential debate for which she had no ammunition! Yet when her feelings or her mind were engaged she could present a case with fluency and skill. “At least you haven't chosen the Greffe, which would be really too clinical, just like an English register office. And as St James
was
a church and so has the space, you'll have been able to invite all the people you'd have invited to the Town church.'' Where Lorna herself had been married, before a large congregation; some of the black and white photographs of an uncharacteristically demure-looking woman in white beside a tall new husband showed the church in the background.

“Yes, but there aren't all that many.'' Tim gave an involuntary shudder as he thought of Constance Lorimer. Not as a wedding guest, of course, but inside the deconsecrated church of St James the Less a mere door's width away from his mother while he and Anna were being married. There'd be nothing to prevent it.

“And Constance Lorimer would hardly have the nerve actually to enter the Town church,'' Lorna said, watching him. “ Whereas at St James …''

“There'll be people on the door there, too.''

“Other things beside weddings go on in St James, darling. Art exhibitions, and so on. She'll be able to get into the building, and maybe …''

“Maybe into the body of the kirk to cry just impediment? There isn't any, Mother. And she has no quarrel with me. If she smoulders in the lobby so be it. And I can't believe she will. You always said she had no spirit.''

“That didn't stop her trying to run me down in her car though, did it? Yes!'' Anna cried out her shocked surprise. “One dark night just before Geoffrey and I escaped. I was able to get out of the way, but it was horrible. And so unnecessary – even before I appeared it was a sham of a marriage.'' Lorna yawned and stretched again, looking now at Tim. “I'm not concerned for myself for once, darling, I'm thinking about you and Anna. I don't want to be responsible for spoiling your perfect day.''

“You won't be.'' But Anna, too, in the warm sunshine, experienced a
frisson
of fear. “We're both so pleased you've come, Lorna. Simon's welcome at the ceremony and at the feast,'' she went on, not looking at Tim because they had already reached a consensus, “ if he'd like to come.''

“Oh, he would!'' Lorna's response was so confident Tim felt another pang of puzzled unease.

“That's fine, then,'' he responded heartily.

“It's kind of you both.'' His mother, now, sounded uncharacteristically humble. “ He'll creep in at the back, of course. And mingle with the crowd afterwards.''

“The top table's very short,'' Tim said. “ Only you and Anna and me and my Sergeant Mahy as best man plus his wife, and Clare and Robin Jameson, Anna's special friends.''

“No bridesmaids or matron of honour?''

“My friend Jane would have been both,'' Anna said regretfully, “but she lives in Cornwall and her husband's ill. I'll have Clare, though. Not behind me with a bunch of flowers, I'm not having any attendants, but she'll help me dress.''

“In white?'' Lorna enquired warily.

Anna laughed. “Off-white, actually. Which I suppose our grandparents would have considered totally appropriate. Not a bridal gown, Lorna, a very simple suit. And after much heart-searching, nothing on my head.''

“I've a beautiful hat,'' Lorna told them wistfully.

“Then wear it,'' Anna ordered. “I'd like some glamour, and I can't think that anyone else will supply it, apart from Clare in her gorgeous outsized way. I mean that, Lorna.''

“I can see you do,'' Lorna purred. “And that you're very well organised. I'm glad about that, Anna. Not having met you, I was afraid of finding myself forced to step in here, there or everywhere, but now I'm looking forward to being deliciously passive.''

Anna thought that Lorna, too, meant what she was saying, but she was also aware of a sub-text for which she was grateful: that her future mother-in-law didn't see herself as being owed anything from her son's wedding beyond the unearned status of chief guest. Which she was going to enjoy.

“Two witnesses are essential in Guernsey,'' Lorna said. “ I remember that. Who are yours, darlings?''

“Clare,'' Tim said, “and my sergeant Ted Mahy. There didn't seem to be any merit in widening the functional circle. And the Registrar-General will preside.''

“I don't know any of the important people on the island now,'' Lorna said, wistful again. “ Is tonight your stag night?''