Death Speaks Softly (11 page)

But Daphne was not to be put off. 'I saw her parents arriving at the station. Prof. Warwick was with them, and two other bods.' Daphne hesitated and glanced at Beryl's empty desk. She was not on duty today, and after the previous evening's dinner party, Claire was relieved. Not that she felt up to coping with Daphne, either. Daphne Farlow, at forty-five, still looked and spoke like an overgrown schoolgirl. She wore her dark hair caught back with a rubber band and hanging in a straight ponytail down her back. She was earnest, gauche and well-meaning, given to shrieks of laughter when mildly amused. Yet Claire liked her. There was something innocent and therefore vulnerable about her which aroused Claire's protective instincts. She found herself trying to shield Daphne from the harsher aspects of present-day living, which, as she confessed to herself, was ridiculous.

'Did Prof. Warwick mention them last night?' Daphne was asking. Claire frowned. 'Last night?'

'You said they were coming to dinner. Beryl and her husband.'

'Yes, they did.' Claire spoke shortly, surprised at Daphne's persistence.

'I thought they might know the Froggies. Old pals, or something.'

'Daphne, what is this? How could the Warwicks possibly know Arlette's parents? They've only just arrived in the country.'

'I know, but—' Daphne looked up, her face flooding with miserable colour. 'You see, I saw them. This morning. And they certainly looked pretty friendly.'

Claire stared at her. 'Who did you see this morning?'

'Prof. Warwick and Madame. They were in that little coffee shop in Lazenby Road. It was a fluke that I saw them —I'd just popped in to get some doughnuts. They were over in a corner, leaning towards each other and talking very intently—in French, I think, though I couldn't really hear. And—and he was holding both her hands,' she finished in a rush.

Claire felt slightly sick. 'Professor Warwick and Madame Picard?'

Daphne nodded. 'I feel rotten, spilling the beans like this, but you're Beryl's chum and I thought you should know. Of course, I'd rather
die
than breathe a word to her.'

Claire moistened her lips. 'Let's get this quite straight. You're sure you couldn't be mistaken? If they were in a dark corner, and you'd come in from bright sunshine—?'

Daphne shook her head emphatically. 'It was them all right. No question about it.'

'Did he see you?'

'Lord no, he never took his eyes off her. And he'd chosen a pretty out-of-the-way place; he wouldn't expect anyone he knew to be there.'

'But you were,' Claire said flatly.

'Yes. I take a short cut that way to avoid the traffic lights, but I've never been in the cafe before. It was jolly hard luck on him, wasn't it? I mean, if he—' She floundered, but Claire was incapable of helping her. 'Gosh, Claire, I hope I've done the right thing, telling you about it.'

'Yes, of course.' But what on earth could it mean?
Bernard,
of all people. And what chance had they had, to know each other well enough to meet in an obscure cafe and hold hands? Daphne
must
be mistaken.

But her comforting conclusion was weighed against Bernard's agitation the previous evening, his immobility in the garden in the small hours.
Something
had thrown him seriously off-balance. Could it be Mme Picard? Yet if the Warwicks and the Picards
had
met previously, Beryl would have said, surely. Unless Beryl didn't know? With a sinking heart, Claire admitted the possibility that there might be several things Beryl didn't know.

She felt a flash of anger. Daphne had no right to discover Bernard's secret and then, by confiding in her, hand over the responsibility for it.

Daphne, watching her silent deliberations with some anxiety, offered a less than tactful olive branch.

'I say, would you like a doughnut?'

'No,' Claire snapped, 'I most definitely would not.'

CHAPTER 7

Barnsley was at the same time triumphant and chastened. 'Well, I knew
some
lass was there. It came to me the minute I heard "Broadshire" on the telly. But I'm sorry it weren't the one you want.'

'Never mind,' Webb told him, 'we're glad to have this one back safe.' They knew by now that the shivering, bruised sixteen-year-old was Debbie Lester, who had run away after a row with her mother. Her abductor attended the same school. He'd offered to help, and she'd trustingly gone with him. 'You haven't any other vibes, have you?' he added hopefully. The vindication of the man had shaken him, even if he'd got the identity wrong.

'Can't say I have. I'm right sorry, Chief Inspector.' The man looked crestfallen.

Webb shrugged and gave him a rueful grin. 'I thought it was too good to be true.'

So that was that. Furthermore, Chris had had to withdraw his lunch invitation. 'Sorry, Dave, another time; Happy and I'll be tied up all day now. But this is our pigeon. There's nothing to keep you, surely, now that you've made your report? Why not take the afternoon off and come back fresh tomorrow?'

'I might, at that,' Webb conceded. 'I did put my sketching gear in the car, in case chance offered.'

'Excellent. Happy sketching, then!'

Webb went to the Barley Mow for a late lunch. The boat was crowded with Sunday drinkers, leaning over the deck rail and thronging the dark interior.

Shouldering his way to the bar, he ordered the pasty he'd enjoyed on his last visit.

'Sorry, mate,' the barman told him, 'only cold on Sundays.'

'Fair enough. Pork pie and salad, then.' Looking about him, he saw one or two faces he recognized, but no one seemed anxious to meet his eye. Perhaps talking with a copper spoiled the taste of the beer. Well, it was no skin off his nose.

The pie was good; crisp pastry, and succulent jellied meat within. What was Hannah doing now? The thought came before he could stop it. Perhaps roasting beef for her fancy man. The bitter phrase didn't ease his pain. She'd said she'd never marry; would she change her mind if Charles Bloody Frobisher popped the question? Who the hell was he, anyway? Webb stabbed viciously at the tomato on his plate.

Still, he didn't want to marry her himself. Once bitten, very definitely twice shy on that score, specially after Susan's brief comeback. So what was he moaning about? It was just that their relationship had been so perfect, each content with the limitations mutually set. Until he'd blotted his copybook over Susan. Come to think of it, what was
she
doing now? He hadn't seen her since the morning after she'd spent the night at his flat, when, as they came downstairs together, Hannah had opened her door to take in the milk. (He'd not seen Hannah since, either, till last Friday, and that was much less understandable.) But he'd heard soon after that Susan had left Shillingham. Did he drive her away? 'You don't own the bloody town!' she'd flung at him. Perhaps she'd decided that he did, after all.

He sighed, pushing the remainder of his salad to one side and finishing his beer. To hell with the lot of them. He'd have a perfect afternoon all to himself in' the glorious countryside, and he was willing to bet he'd feel much the better for it.

He drove north out of town, leaving the main road just short of the Gloucestershire border and winding his way through undulating countryside in search of a good place to stop. After a while he parked the car, collected his equipment, and set off over the flower-filled meadows, climbing steadily as he went. Another month, and the poppies would be out. Every year he did a couple of watercolours of them. They were his favourite wild flower. He smiled, remembering Mrs Marshbanks's interest in his paintings, but he wouldn't show them to her. He regarded them as a means of self-expression, and therefore private to himself.

He paused and surveyed his surroundings. This would do. There wasn't a building in sight, even from this altitude. He must be a good ten miles from Steeple Bayliss.

But having set up his easel, he decided to take a nap first. He'd not slept well the last couple of nights, worries about the case and thoughts of Hannah keeping his brain overactive. Now, his lunch-time beer combined with the warm sunshine to make him pleasantly drowsy.

He took off his sweater, rolled it into a pillow and lay down on the warm, prickly grass. In the distance a sheep bleated plaintively, answered by one nearer at hand. His nostrils were filled with the sweet, hay-like scent of dry grass and his closed eyelids presented a changing palette of vibrant colours.

If only the girl they'd found that morning had been Arlette. He'd immersed himself so deeply in her over the last four days that he felt he knew her better than many of her acquaintances: knew her as a vibrant, attractive girl, fun-loving, flirtatious perhaps, but, in Simon's opinion at least, not promiscuous. Where in heaven's name was she? He was becoming steadily more fearful for her. He frowned at the thought, settled his head more comfortably on the sweater, and slept.

It was late afternoon wh
en Claire arrived home from Mel
bray. Tom was out playing golf. A pity; she wanted to tell him Daphne's story. She made herself a cup of tea and drank it walking restlessly about the kitchen, her thoughts revolving round the tensions of the dinner party.

Surely things weren't seriously wrong between the War-wicks? Beryl gave the impression they were devoted to each other, and Bernard was so calm, so unchanging, so predictable, that it was impossible to imagine him showing any kind of emotion. Yet it was precisely because he was always in control that his evident loss of it had been so disturbing.

What had caused that dissociation? Mme Picard? The whole idea was preposterous. She went over again what Daphne had told her, unable to latch on to any facet that she could accept. Would a distraught mother, newly arrived in the country, even temporarily desert her husband to sit in some out-of-the-way cafe holding hands with a man she'd just met? Illogically, what Claire found hardest to believe was that Bernard—
Bernard
—would hold hands with anyone, anywhere.

Had anyone else recounted the story, Claire might have suspected sheer, mendacious troublemaking. But Daphne was so guileless, so transparently upset by what she'd seen, that against all her instincts, Claire had no option but to believe her. Or at least, to believe that was what she
thought
she'd seen.

Claire set her cup down with a positive little thump. She'd go round and see Beryl. That would put her mind at rest. She'd probably find the pair of them in the back garden, and then she could laugh at her imaginings.

But her optimism faded when the front door opened. Beryl's face was red-eyed and grim. She stood silently to one side and Claire stepped past her into the panelled hall.

'Come into the kitchen,' Beryl said. 'I'm doing the sandwiches for tea.'

'Where's Bernard?' Claire asked brightly, following her. 'Out in the garden?'

Beryl didn't reply, and when she turned her mouth was trembling. 'I don't know,' she said eventually, 'and that's the least of the things I don't know about Bernard.' Mechanically she picked up the knife and went on buttering the bread.

Claire said gently, 'What's wrong, Beryl?'

'What's wrong,' Beryl repeated deliberately, laying pieces of ham on the bread with exaggerated care, 'is that I've suddenly realized not only that Bernard doesn't love me, but that he never has.'

'Oh Beryl, no! That can't be right! You've been so happy together. Surely this is just—'

'I doubt if Bernard's been happy. I have, because I've been fooling myself. I've spent the last ten years trying to please him, and all the time he scarcely knew I was there.'

'But what makes you think that? If it's just that you've had a row—'

'A row!' Beryl gave a choking laugh. 'That's one word for it. I thought he was going to kill me!' 'Beryl!'

'I wanted to help him, you see. But he turned on me in a blind white fury, ranting and raving about the "wasted years". I didn't understand half what he was saying, but what
did
come through was that he could scarcely bear me near him.' She was crying openly now, sobbing little hiccups punctuating her words, her plain face totally defenceless and ugly with her grief. Claire put a tentative hand on her arm, and was shaken off.

'I don't want your sympathy! God, you're so
smug,
Claire! What do you know about it, mouthing platitudes like of course it will be all right? It won't be, and it never has been, all right, though I didn't realize till now. It's over, totally and completely finished. If I can accept it, surely you can.'

'But—but why?' Claire stammered, trying to modify her role as comforter. 'Why now, all of a sudden?'

'Because quite suddenly he can't take any more. And neither can I!' And as Claire watched, dumbfounded, Beryl caught up the breadknife and started plunging it again and again into the loaf on the table, finally collapsing over it in a paroxysm of weeping.