Take No Farewell - Retail (22 page)

‘That’s settled then.’ As Victor spoke, I glanced at Miss Roebuck and sensed once more her overwhelming perceptiveness. Every significant feature of the exchanges had revealed itself to her. She knew that Victor and I disliked each other, that Angela distrusted me, that Jacinta was anxious our encounter should be prolonged. And what did I know? Only that she, not Victor, had made the final decision as to whether it should be.

We covered the half mile to the Villa d’Abricot in varying states of awkwardness, Angela and Miss Roebuck debating the rejuvenating effects of the Mediterranean air whilst Victor strode ahead in silence, hands clasped behind his back. Jacinta brought up the rear with the slobbering Bolivar. I risked a couple of glances back at her and each time she smiled at me in encouragement.

At length we came to an arched wooden door set in a high stone wall to our right. Victor wrenched at the handle, but
it
would not yield. Then Miss Roebuck passed him the key. With a glower of irritation, he took it, unlocked the door and led us through.

We ascended a steep flight of steps, with a pair of grinning stone monkeys watching us from creeper-clad plinths at the top. We were in a large, east-sloping garden, where a rich and riotous design was teetering on the brink of wildness. Gravel paths led off in several directions towards dark overhangs of pine and fir. Behind us, in the lee of the wall, enormous cacti reached towards the sky. Ahead, palm trees soared above thickets of bamboo and rhododendron. And everywhere the bare tendrils of some determined parasite were to be seen, choking shrubs and swathing masonry.

Jacinta slipped Bolivar from his chain and he loped off up the garden. As he vanished from our view, I turned to Victor and casually enquired: ‘How long has Major Turnbull lived here?’

Victor made no answer. After a moment, Miss Roebuck said: ‘I believe he settled here on his retirement from South America fifteen years ago.’ She smiled at me. ‘Isn’t that correct, Mr Caswell?’

‘Mm? Yes. About that.’

Emerging from a particularly overgrown patch, we suddenly came in sight of the house. It stood at the top of the slope on which the garden had been constructed, beyond a palm-fringed lily-pond and a steep grass bank. It was of conventional Mediterranean design, virtually square, with a long conservatory appended at one side. A loggia occupied the central third of the upper floor, marked by a row of arched pillars. Otherwise, the windows were classically regular, framed simply in white against the apricot wash of the walls.

‘The doctors recommended rest and recuperation after the poisoning,’ growled Victor, as if he had suddenly decided his presence at the villa required justification. ‘My health’s still not entirely recovered, you know.’

It was, I think, Angela’s little frown and nod of understanding that provoked me into saying: ‘Nothing to do
with
all the gossip and publicity, I suppose?’

‘That too,’ snapped Victor, glaring back at me. ‘It wasn’t fair to expose Jacinta to the clacking tongues of the ill-informed.’

‘Of course it wasn’t,’ said Angela. ‘We quite understand, don’t we, Geoffrey?’

Once again I avoided her glance. ‘Yes. I rather think I do.’

We rounded the pond, mounted the bank by a flight of steps and followed a gravel path along the back of the house towards the conservatory, traversing as we went a row of lichen-patched statues of mythical beasts – wyvern, griffin, merman and cockatrice – all of whom wore the same inane grins as the monkeys at the end of the garden. The conservatory itself was an extravagantly arched composition of glass and cast-iron, its interior obscured by streams of condensation and barriers of frondage. We entered by a narrow side-door and were met by sweet, humid air. Songbirds in a cage I could not see were in full voice against a tinkling melody of fountain-water. The huge leaves of exotic plants seemed to over-arch and receive us, disclosing at their centre a semi-circle of wicker chairs, in one of which Major Turnbull was taking his ease according to his nature.

He was at least a stone heavier than when last we had met and his fair hair had faded towards white. Yet he was still disarmingly handsome, his bulk offset by his height and the cut of his loose cream suit. His legs were propped up on a footstool, in his lap lay a newspaper and on a low table before him were a crumb-scattered plate and an empty coffee-cup with a cigar-butt in its saucer. Between his chair and the next stood a life-size plaster statue of a naked woman, voluptuously formed and possessed, her expression and pose suggested, by a disabling ecstasy. Major Turnbull was at that moment engaged in running his hand down her back. It came to rest on her right buttock and there remained as he smiled across at us.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Your stroll has proved unusually rewarding, Victor.’

I stepped forward. ‘Remember me, Major?’

‘There was no danger of my forgetting you, Staddon. None at all.’ He gave the statue a farewell pat, swung his feet to the floor and rose to meet us. I noticed a limp that he had not exhibited before, but his upright bearing was otherwise intact. ‘Your wife, I presume?’ He flashed a smile at Angela by which I sensed she would be instantly charmed. As I completed the introductions, I glanced at her and saw that I was right.

‘Mr and Mrs Staddon are here on holiday,’ said Victor. ‘We met them on the path. By chance.’

‘A happy chance indeed. Welcome to the Villa d’Abricot, my humble home-from-home. Can I offer you some refreshment?’

‘That would be very pleasant,’ said Angela. Suddenly, her eagerness to be away had evaporated.

‘Why not show them round first, Major?’ put in Miss Roebuck. ‘You know how proud you are of the villa.’ She smiled at Angela. ‘Major Turnbull has an exquisite collection of furniture and
objets d’art
, Mrs Staddon. You should see them, you really should.’

‘A capital notion, Miss Roebuck,’ said Turnbull. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

‘Take Mrs Staddon by all means,’ said Victor. ‘But I’d appreciate a word with Staddon in private.’ He looked across at me. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Not in the least.’

‘In that case,’ said Miss Roebuck, ‘you and I should take ourselves off, Jacinta. Come along.’

Miss Roebuck led Jacinta back into the garden whilst Turnbull escorted Angela towards the open French windows that linked the conservatory with the rest of the house. In a matter of moments, Victor and I were alone, confronting each other across Turnbull’s richly patterned rug and the remnants of his
petit déjeuner
. Victor’s face was like a thundercloud. Anticipation of what he would say, as much as the humidity, prickled against my neck.

‘I’ve had a full account of your visit to Hereford, Staddon,
so
we can drop the charade about holidays straightaway. What the devil do you mean by prying into my affairs?’

‘I wouldn’t call it prying.’

‘Questioning Banyard. Plotting with my sister. Coming here uninvited. What would—’

‘You didn’t have to ask us in.’

‘By God—’ He broke off, aware, it seemed, that his voice might carry. He moved to the French windows, closed them and turned round, with his back against them. His voice was calmer now, his anger under control. ‘I’d be obliged for an explanation of your conduct. I think you’ll agree one’s due.’

‘Very well. I don’t believe Consuela is capable of murder.’

‘You don’t, eh?’

‘That’s why I went to Hereford. And nothing I learned there lessened my certainty on the point.’

‘So you decided to make a nuisance of yourself here as well?’

‘You left me little choice. Most of the witnesses have conveniently left Hereford. And I gather you don’t intend to return there until the trial begins.’

‘What business is that of yours?’

‘None. Except for this. You may have fooled everybody else, but you haven’t fooled me.’

He strode slowly towards me and halted by the statue that Turnbull had fondled. He took a deep breath, then said: ‘I’ll have it plainly, if you don’t mind. What exactly are you accusing me of?’

‘Nothing – yet. But since I don’t believe Consuela murdered your niece, I have to believe somebody else did, somebody who was also at the tea party and who may have covered his tracks by administering part of the poison to himself.’

‘To what end, may I ask?’

‘I thought you might tell me that.’

He slipped his hand round the statue’s neck. ‘What makes you so sure my wife is incapable of murder?’

‘Everything I remember about her.’

‘Everything? You were barely acquainted as I recall. Are
you
about to tell me you knew my wife better than I thought? Better than a jobbing architect had any right to?’ His grip on the statue’s neck tightened. His eyes engaged mine. How much he knew, or how little, was indecipherable. I could make no answer, merely stare dumbly back at him. ‘If not, your interest in this matter is common effrontery.’

‘Call it what you like. I’m not prepared to let her be hanged for want of action on my part that you may find objectionable.’

‘She may have changed since you last met. Have you considered that?’

‘Nobody as good and gentle as your wife—’

‘Good and gentle? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Consuela’s never been either of those things unless she wanted somebody as gullible as you to think she was. Quiet and still I’ll grant you, so quiet and still you can hear her scheming little mind ticking away like a time-bomb. She’d have happily watched me swallow that arsenic and stood idly by whilst I retched out my last hours, and if that’s what you call good and gentle you’re an even bigger fool than I thought. As for the idea that I might have poisoned myself, I’d laugh in your face if it weren’t so absurd. Have you any idea of the sheer damned agony arsenic inflicts? Of course not. Nor did I, until I’d spent six hours gagging on my own blood. I nearly died, Staddon, and it’s not a death I’d wish on any man. The doctors told me that if I’d had a weaker constitution I’d have been done for. Do you seriously think I’d have taken a risk like that? And for what? What would I have gained by it?’

His vehemence confounded me. Now, like a creeping paralysis, doubt assailed me. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Consuela was a murderess after all. ‘You’d be rid of her,’ I stumbled. ‘Free to … to …’ I clutched at a straw. ‘Hermione remarked on how unsurprised you were. As if you were expecting it to happen.’

‘And so I was.’ His hand fell away from the statue. ‘I’d been expecting her to do something for months. I don’t know
what.
Run away. Lash out. Something drastic, at any rate. I never thought she’d go as far as murder, but, when she did, Hermione’s right: it didn’t surprise me.’

‘But … but the letters. She hadn’t been receiving them for months.’

‘The final provocation as she saw it, I suppose.’

‘Was there any truth in them?’

‘No.’

‘You have no plans to marry somebody else?’

‘If I did, divorce would be easier to arrange than murder.’

‘But Consuela’s religion would preclude divorce.’

‘Not if I took the blame. For God’s sake, Staddon, face up to what’s happened. Consuela tried to murder me because she hates me. Rosemary got in the way. And now Consuela has to answer for what she did. It’s as simple as that. I don’t know why you’ve chosen to involve yourself in this – and I don’t want to know – but take my advice: give it up. If you don’t—’ He broke off and looked past me. ‘What is it?’

When I turned round, it was to see John Gleasure standing a few feet away. I had not heard him come in and nor, presumably, had Victor. His hair was thinner than I remembered, but still jet-black and oiled down. He wore dark trousers, a white shirt and tie and a striped waistcoat. His expression was studiously blank and he had evidently managed with aplomb the transition from obliging footman to deferential valet. ‘I was unaware that you had returned until Major Turnbull alerted me, sir. I thought I should ascertain whether you required anything.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Remember me, Gleasure?’ I put in.

‘Of course, Mr Staddon. What a pleasant surprise to see you again after all these years.’ But his face betrayed neither pleasure nor surprise.

‘Staddon here doesn’t believe my wife’s a murderer, Gleasure,’ said Victor abruptly. ‘He’ll probably ask your opinion before he’s done, so we may as well hear it now.’

‘I wouldn’t venture to express an opinion, sir.’

‘Force yourself.’

Victor’s heavy-handedness would have disconcerted many a servant, but not Gleasure. ‘Mr Staddon’s disbelief is understandable, but the facts permit of no alternative. Will that be all, sir?’

‘Will it, Staddon?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

Gleasure turned and left, closing the French windows behind him. As soon as they had clicked shut, Victor said: ‘I hope you really mean that will be all, Staddon. I don’t expect to hear anything of this kind from you again.’

‘I can’t give you any undertakings.’

‘Can’t you indeed?’ He stepped closer. ‘I haven’t heard of any new buildings lately that you’ve designed. Retired from architecture, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Or just finding commissions hard to come by after the scandal over the Thornton fire? They made you the scapegoat, didn’t they? And your wife is old Thornton’s daughter, isn’t she? That must have made it all particularly difficult for you. I should guess your marriage has never been the same since.’ I glared at him and instantly knew it was the response he had wanted. He smiled broadly. ‘Bad form to poke your nose into another fellow’s private affairs, isn’t it?’ The smile vanished. ‘Now you know how it feels.’

Before I could reply, the garden-door opened and Angela came in, flushed about the cheeks and wreathed in smiles. Turnbull limped in behind her, grinning like one of his own statues. ‘Major Turnbull has a simply lovely house, Geoffrey,’ Angela announced.

‘Regrettably, I shan’t have the opportunity to admire it.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Turnbull. ‘I’ve invited you both to dinner on Wednesday night. And your wife has graciously accepted. I trust there’s no difficulty.’

‘No.’ I glanced triumphantly at Victor. ‘None at all.’