Truth Will Out (18 page)

She returned five minutes later looking uneasy. ‘I can’t find anything, but maybe he returned the references to her after he’d read them.’ She sat down. ‘I’m sure we must know all about her.’

‘She has a family, I take it?’

‘Er . . . yes, she must have family.’ Had she ever mentioned them?

‘Does she get many letters?’

Biddy’s anxiety increased with a jolt. ‘Not really. No.’

‘But she goes away sometimes to visit them?’

‘No, but . . .’

‘Is she an orphan? Does she have a young man?’

Before the kidnap, Biddy would have flown to Alice’s defence, but the last few days had thrown up doubts on another aspect of her life and now, the more she thought about it, the more she became uncomfortably aware that they knew very little about Alice Crewe’s background.

She came to a sudden decision. ‘You must ask her these things yourself. I’ll go and wake her up. Or perhaps you’d come up with me. She seems unwilling to come downstairs today and won’t tell me why – but she would have to talk to you if you tell her you’re the police.’

Ignoring his confusion, she led him upstairs and Biddy knocked on the door. ‘Alice, DC Fleet is here and wants a word or two with you. DC Fleet from the police in Hastings. I think you’d better come out now and talk to him . . . Please, Alice.’ She waited but they heard nothing.

DC Fleet narrowed his eyes. ‘Alice Crewe, this is Detective Constable Fleet. I need to talk to you. There is no point in refusing to come out. If you do you might be charged with refusing to cooperate with the police and that is a felony.’

Silence. Biddy waited, unaware that she was holding her breath. Surely Alice was not going to defy the police. ‘Alice love, you’re not in any trouble,’ she said loudly. ‘The policeman wants you to help him, that’s all!’

DC Fleet said, ‘I don’t like the sound of this. It’s
too
quiet. Is she the type who might take her own life?’

Biddy’s mouth fell open. ‘Take her own . . .? Good Lord! I should think not! At least, I hope not.
Take her own life?
’ She banged on the door with her clenched fist. ‘Alice. Come out this minute!’

Another silence.

‘I may have to break into the room.’ The policeman looked at her grimly.

‘No! Wait!’ cried Biddy. ‘There’s a ladder we bought when the painters did the windows!’

Five minutes later, after a short search, the ladder was found propped against the back of the garden shed, which made the detective shake his head.

‘The number of people who do that! An open invitation to any passing burglar looking for an easy entry!’

‘Don’t blame me!’ Biddy replied indignantly. ‘I didn’t leave it there.’

They carried it to the house and propped it against the wall below Alice’s bedroom and Biddy leaned against the bottom of it to hold it securely in place. DC Fleet climbed up while Biddy prayed that Alice was still alive. Her heart was thumping and she felt weak with dread.

He stared in for a moment or two then turned. ‘I don’t see her and the window is slightly open at the bottom. I think Miss Crewe has gone!’

He pushed up the window and climbed in while Biddy returned to the house and hurried upstairs. He unlocked the bedroom door and together they surveyed the room. To Biddy’s eyes it was neater than usual. The bed had been made and there were no odd clothes draped over chairs and no shoes tucked under the bed. There was an unnatural stillness about it, which further affected Biddy’s heart.

The detective looked in the wardrobe and found it half empty. ‘Ah! She couldn’t carry everything!’ he said. ‘My guess is she put the ladder in place when no-one was looking, packed her things, threw out her bag, climbed out . . .’

‘And then she must have returned the ladder to the shed!’

They regarded each other speechlessly.

Biddy said, ‘Her clock’s missing from the bedside table and her dressing gown gone from the back of the door. She
has
gone!’ Still only half convinced, she searched for another reason for her disappearance. ‘She can’t be gone unless . . . She wouldn’t just leave like this.’ She turned to the policeman. ‘D’you think they’ve kidnapped her, too?’

DC Fleet hesitated for a moment but then shook his head. ‘Hardly. I can’t imagine kidnappers allowing her to tidy the room and choose a few clothes and personal objects . . . nor can I imagine how they could force her to climb out of the window.’

Biddy noted his expression and realized that this was a blow to him personally. He was in charge of the case and now it appeared that he had misread the signs. Or rather he had been too willing to take matters at face value. He would be hauled over the coals, she thought, and that would do his career no good at all. She felt a moment’s pity for him but then reminded herself that if he had been cleverer, maybe . . . But no. She shook her head, unable to work it out. Thank heavens women were not allowed to become detectives, she thought. Solving crimes must be a nightmare.

He said slowly, ‘I think she ran while she still could. I think she was involved. In other words, Miss Cope, Alice Crewe was a co-conspirator!’ He sighed heavily – a sigh of failure, of helplessness.

‘Alice . . .
involved
? That’s nonsense.’ Biddy, totally bewildered, refused even to consider the idea. All she could think of was poor Alice alone and desperate. ‘But where has she gone? This is her home.’

‘She’s gone to him. To Lionel Brent.’ Slowly he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at Biddy who had one hand to her heart, her face pale, her body trembling. ‘I’m afraid, Miss Cope, that from Mrs Brent’s viewpoint this is even worse than we imagined. Mrs Brent may never see her husband again. I’m beginning to think she’s been the victim of a well-planned fraud.’

Biddy’s legs chose this moment to give way and she half fell on to the bedside chair. DC Fleet put his hands to steady her and she sat up gingerly.

‘This is quite beyond me . . . quite out of my league,’ she whispered, as though talking to herself. ‘Maude . . . I mean Alice, wouldn’t . . . No! She’s not that sort of girl. Why should she, after all we’ve meant to one another? There must be some other explanation.’ Her eyes widened abruptly. ‘Oh! What will Maude think if you’re right about all this? She’ll be devastated when she knows.’ Clapping a hand over her mouth as if to prevent any more awful truths from escaping, she looked at DC Fleet but found no comfort there.

He said, ‘So if what I think is true then there’s no actual kidnap. If they are together they can fade into the landscape – but they won’t have the money they wanted!’ He frowned, trying to assess the changed situation. ‘And Mrs Brent will never see her husband again – if he really
is
her husband.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Maybe it was a bigamous marriage . . . set up to swindle your niece from a large amount of money!’

‘A bigamous marriage? How dare you suggest such a thing!’ Biddy sat up straight, fired up with indignation. ‘Maude would never do such a thing . . . and I was there! I was at the wedding. It was lovely. A wedding with rose petals and–and the bells were rung and everything. You can ask the vicar. He was real and so was the church!’ For a moment she frowned but then a smile lit up her face. ‘I made the wedding cake! That proves it, doesn’t it? Rich fruit but without the candied peel. Maude doesn’t care for candied peel, bless her, so I substituted a few dates chopped very small.’ She didn’t like the expression on his face. ‘It was a proper marriage!’ she insisted.

‘What do you know about Lionel Brent, Miss Cope? How did he and Mrs Brent meet? Where did he live before he married her?’

Biddy hesitated. ‘I don’t know where he lived but he did have some letters. What I mean is someone wrote to him, because letters came occasionally. I do remember that. But his parents had moved to somewhere miles away – it might have been Scotland. I forget why exactly, but they were too old to travel any great distance. He did say that.’

‘But they came to the wedding, surely?’

‘No. I’ve just explained that they were too old.’

‘But somebody came? Friends, other relatives?’

‘No–o, but they all had reasons why they . . . couldn’t be with us.’ Biddy swallowed hard.

They regarded each other soberly until the detective straightened his shoulders. ‘We’d better go downstairs. There’s nothing we can do here.’

Downstairs, in the sitting room, he tried to think it through. ‘I should have seen through it! I should have suspected there was more to it! Nothing in police work is ever straightforward so there must have been clues . . . I should have recognized them. But . . .’ He gave her a look of pure misery. ‘But it’s not too late! Maybe I can still catch him. And her . . .’

Biddy gasped with horror. He meant to arrest them both. Was he mad?

Ignoring her reaction, DC Fleet went on, talking aloud to himself. ‘The question is, what will Brent do now if Alice Crewe has run out before the swindle has been completed? Is she in any danger? If Brent killed Jem Rider then he might kill again . . . God in Heaven!’ He glanced at Biddy. ‘I could do with a stiff drink!’

But Biddy’s mind was spinning, unable to hold any thought for more than a second or two. She felt totally adrift, as if the real world had been replaced with something unfamiliar and darkly threatening. She wanted to cry but her eyes remained dry.

‘Not Alice!’ she muttered. ‘I can’t believe it . . . And Lionel? No, he’s a good man. You must have got it wrong. Not Lionel. Certainly not.’ She peered at him as though through a mist. ‘A stiff drink? Is that all you can think about? Alice is in trouble and Lionel has been kidnapped – or maybe not – and all you can think about is a stiff drink!’ She closed her eyes. ‘I think I’m going to be sick!’ Struggling to her feet she stumbled towards the door and along the passage towards the kitchen. Primmy barked, sensing excitement, and the two of them went out into the garden.

DC Fleet followed them out and when Biddy re-entered the kitchen he offered her a damp towel. While she sobbed and shivered with shock he filled the kettle and set it on the stove and while he waited for it to boil, he telephoned to the Romilees Hotel and asked for Maude Brent to telephone him as soon as she and Derek Jayson arrived with the paintings.

‘Friday 16th June. Ten past eight and he’s gone. DC Fleet. Wretched man. I was glad to see the back of him in the end. Telling me all those dreadful things about Alice and Lionel. How am I to make head or tail of it? Saying poor Maude is a bigamist – or was it Lionel? He got me so confused my head is splitting so I’ve made myself some barley water, which is always soothing. Lord only knows what’s going to happen next.

He was all for taking me to Hastings with him – DC Fleet I mean
–
so that I won’t have to be here all alone, but I said, No! You’re not getting me mixed up with all that nonsense. And my mother warned me against sleeping on hotel mattresses because you never know who slept there the night before and they might have had fleas or there might be bed bugs.’

Biddy was sitting up in bed, having decided that that is where she would feel safest. She had locked herself in, just in case anyone broke in to the house. If they did, they were welcome to take anything at all as long as they left her in peace. She sipped her barley water, imagining it slipping down to soothe her stomach, which was in a bit of a state. Not surprising with all the shocks she’d had earlier. Primmy was downstairs in the kitchen and she would bark if anyone broke in.

‘
I can’t get over Lionel, or Alice, come to that. I keep thinking I shall wake up in the morning and everything will be back to normal. I shall pray very hard tonight and hope that DC Fleet has got it all wrong. Of course I don’t want Lionel to still be kidnapped but it would be better than being a bigamist and him being married to Alice and it all being a dreadful trick . . .
’

Her stomach rumbled and she said, ‘Stop that silly noise!’ A good thing no-one was around to hear it. She wondered about Primmy all alone in the kitchen. Maybe she should bring her up to the bedroom just this once because it was a strict rule that Lionel had made: no dogs in the bedrooms. She smiled, recalling how Maude had pleaded with him to let the dog sleep on the landing, but Lionel had been adamant. She frowned. They had all been so fond of him and poor Maude had adored him. How could he be a
different
Lionel? Could they really have been so wrong about him?

Suddenly Primmy started barking and that set Biddy’s heart to fluttering – a nasty feeling that she had suffered on and off for some months now without telling anyone. Old age, she had assured herself. Nothing to fuss about.

‘Now what are you barking at, Primmy?’ she asked. Probably a hedgehog in the garden. They snorted and wheezed like miniature hogs. She climbed out of bed and listened at the door. No footsteps on the stairs. Cautiously she opened the door but heard nothing. Slowly, one step at a time, she went downstairs, along the passage and into the kitchen. Nothing out of the ordinary, she thought thankfully. No mysterious men in long coats and big hats. Primmy rushed to greet her, wagging her tail ecstatically.

‘Come on then, silly old girl!’ said Biddy, patting her. ‘Just this once you can come up into my room but you have to be good and not fidget. I don’t want to be awake half the night.

‘I’ve brought Primmy upstairs. I think she was frightened by something. She rushed to me and almost jumped into my arms. Poor thing. I expect she wonders where everyone is with Lionel and Alice and Maude missing. She’s only got me now.
And I’ve only got her . . .’

The seafront was becoming chilly by ten to eleven but there were still a few late-night strollers – mostly people with dogs, Alice noted, although there was a rowdy group of young men on the beach, laughing a lot and swearing and trying to push each other into the water.

‘Go on!’ Alice muttered. ‘Drown yourselves, why don’t you! It would be a good riddance!’

Huddled in a shelter, staring out across the sea, she saw the pier outlined against the moonlight, which sent a glistening beam of sparkling silver across the placid surface of the water. She was waiting for the clock to strike the hour and then she would go to Lionel and confront him. She had strict instructions on how to carry out her part of the deception but running away from
Fairways
was not one of them. Turning up uninvited on Lionel’s doorstep before the agreed time was also not one of them, but she was desperate.