Design for Murder (24 page)

“I had to kill them, Tracy, can’t you see that? They forced
me into it, both of them. None of it would have happened if
Ursula hadn’t come back and held that threat over me.”

In a voice that was fraying with nerves, I said, “Perhaps, if you were to make a clean breast of everything to the police,
Ralph, they’d be sympathetic. I mean, better than being on
the run for the rest of your life—which you’d have to be, be
cause they’re bound to find out about Ursula being your wife.
Probably, in the circumstances, the charge would be manslaughter, and the law wouldn’t be too hard on you.”

I had made a mistake and gone too far. Ralph lost his air
of defeat and became brisk.

“Not a chance, Tracy. But I shall make a clean getaway, don’t you worry. I’ve been prepared for it ever since I killed Oliver. I’ve been carrying my passport and a fair bit if cash
in my wallet. I only need a few hours start—and I’ll get
that, all right. Nobody is going to look for you before morning, my dear, and although Grace will be worried, she won’t get around to reporting my absence to the police for a while.
By then, I’ll have vanished.”

“Where, Ralph? Where can you possibly go?” I was play
ing for just a few more seconds while I readied myself for a
final, desperate escape bid. On the wall of the stairs beside me
hung an oval gilt-framed mirror. Mentally, without turning
my head a fraction, I gauged its weight. I would need to
sweep it from its hook in one swift movement.

“I’ve got it all worked out,” Ralph told me. “I shall drive to the coast and get a cross-channel ferry. Then once in France I’ll have the whole of Europe to lose myself in.”

While he was still speaking I launched myself, bringing up
my arm and jerking the mirror off the wall and propelling it
towards Ralph’s head in a smooth arc. He raised his hand
quickly to ward it off, but only succeeded in slightly deflecting
my aim. He was struck on the side of the head, and the glass splintered into a hundred fragments. Ralph staggered back
wards, muttering curses, both hands to his face. I saw blood
between his fingers.

But in sending Ralph reeling against the front door I had blocked my own path of escape. I would have to push him aside, and I knew that he’d never let me get past. So I took the only other route, racing the length of the narrow hall to
the garden door at the rear. A quick twist of the key and I
was out. But Ralph was close on my tail.

After the bright light in the hall, it seemed pitch black out in the garden. There was no way round to the front of the
cottage without climbing a six-foot wall, so I raced across the
small lawn. As I ran past the old swing that hung from the
pear tree, I gave the seat a tremendous shove. Ralph, close behind me now, must have caught the full impact of its re
turn, solid oak and two inches thick. I heard him yell out with
the pain of it, but he still came after me.

Aunt Verity’s workshop loomed up ahead. I groped for the
door handle and dodged inside. My plan was to hammer
wildly on the great bronze gong, making a din which would
be certain to bring people running to investigate. But I had miscalculated about one vital thing. The key to this door was
on the outside. Once I’d entered, it was too late to reach
round for it, with Ralph so close on my heels.

Too late, also, to reach the gong. I’d never manage to
strike it even once before Ralph overpowered me. So I aban
doned the gong and dodged behind the massive wooden work bench.

The big windows and skylight let in what moonlight there
was, and by now my eyes were growing accustomed to dark
ness. I could see Ralph’s figure against the oblong outline of the open door, then it closed and I heard the key grate in the
lock.

Ralph spoke breathlessly, in a sorrowful tone. “You haven’t a hope of escaping, Tracy. Surely you see that.”

“Keep away from me,” I shouted, “or I’ll...”

“You’ll do what? You’ve got plenty of spirit, my dear, you always have had, but there’s nothing more you can do to help yourself now. God knows I dislike the idea of anything so drastic, but I have to make sure that you don’t get a chance to raise the alarm. So let’s get it over with.”

He advanced towards me across the concrete floor. When I
saw that he was circling round the end of the bench, I kept
the distance between us by edging round the opposite end.

“It’s no use thinking you can make a dash for it,” he
warned. “You heard me lock the door, and I’ve pocketed the key.”

Despair came swamping down on me. I could try screaming my head off, but there was precious little hope that my
voice would be heard. Better to conserve my energy, and my
wits.

Even as it was, my attention had strayed for a vital split
second. When Ralph made a sudden lunge to grab me, I only
just managed to evade him. As I fled across the workshop I stubbed my toe against something loose which I realised was
a wooden mallet. Bending quickly, I snatched it up and flung it back at Ralph. But it missed him, making a clatter as it fell
to the floor.

I ducked behind the great block of pink alabaster—Aunt
Verity’s unfinished sculpture of Hebe—and it seemed for a
moment that Ralph was uncertain where I’d gone. This was
my single advantage over him, that I knew the layout of the workshop better than he did, so I could move about more eas
ily in the dark. But if he found the light switches, it would be
a different story.

The mallet had given me a sudden new thought. On the
wall racks behind the bench were rows of sculptor’s tools ...
hammers and wickedly sharp chisels—points and claws, my
aunt had called them. If only I could get back there and
snatch a couple, I’d be armed with lethal weapons.

Deliberately, I scraped the toe of my shoe across the con
crete floor. The sound alerted Ralph, and he came at me with a cry of triumph. I broke free again and raced to my first re
treat behind the bench. In a fever, I felt along the rows of
tools and found what I wanted. Heavy steel chisels, tempered
to a point. I clutched one in each hand as Ralph came after
me again.

“Keep away,” I called, “or you’ll be sorry.”

Something in my tone made him pause. “Another clever trick, Tracy? What is it this time?”

I extended one arm into a pallid glimmer of moonlight that
slanted in through the side window. Perhaps he would just get
a glimpse of what I held in my clenched fist.

“It’s a chisel, Ralph, very sharp and very dangerous. I’ve got two of them. I don’t want to use them, but I will if you force me to.”

I saw his shape move back a little into deeper shadow. He
said, “Don’t be a fool, Tracy. You’re only prolonging the
agony, you know.”

“I mean it, Ralph,” I assured him. “Look, why don’t you
just make a run for it? What if I promise not to alert the
police for an hour ... two hours, if you like ...”

His voice coming out of the darkness bit me with sarcasm.
“I hope you’ve got your fingers crossed, Tracy, because you
don’t mean a word of it. You’d be on the phone to your
friend Neil Grant in a minute flat.”

He was moving as he spoke, but not coming nearer. Strain
ing my eyes I could just make out that he seemed to be stoop
ing down across the room, over by the sink.

I had to go on lying, hoping to make him believe me. “You’re wrong, Ralph,” I insisted. “I know that you don’t want to kill me, any more than you wanted to kill Oliver and
Ursula. You could still get away. I don’t need to tell anyone
where you’ll be heading.”

Ralph grunted, as if preoccupied. He started moving again, still half crouched down, approaching my end of the bench. Warily, I took a step or two away from him, but he came no
further.

“You’re wasting your breath, Tracy,” he said after a moment. I saw him straighten up and stand there, as if staring at
me, though I knew that he could see me no more distinctly
than I could see him. It seemed to be a stalemate, for the mo
ment.

From far off I heard the drone of an engine. An airplane?
No, a car. My ear detected the deepening note as it slowed to
take the corner into Millpond Lane. One of my two neigh
bours, perhaps, or someone from the farm half a mile further
on? Somehow or other, I had to catch their attention.

Twelve feet above me, the big skylight was a pale square of
grey in the gloom. An easy target, surely? I weighed the
heavier of the two chisels in my hand, swinging it once, twice
... and then letting fly. A brief second of silence, then the
night quiet was shattered by the sound of breaking glass. Bro
ken pieces came showering down to smash again on the hard concrete floor.

The car stopped. I heard doors slam and voices shouting.

“It’s all up, Ralph,” I cried with a surge of relief. Then I
yelled at the top of my voice, “Help! In the workshop. Help!”

For a moment or so Ralph seemed petrified. Then he made
a sudden lunge at me. I dodged away, then spun about to face him with my remaining chisel raised to strike. But now that
rescue was at hand, I couldn’t bring myself to smash such a
vicious weapon into his face. Ralph grabbed at me, twisted my wrist, and forced me to drop the chisel. With his arm
around my neck he held me locked against
him
in a clamp-
like grip.

Outside, there were confused noises, and I saw flashes of
light through the high windows. I struggled against Ralph
with all my strength, but I couldn’t break his hold on me.

I screamed again.

Someone shouted back. The door rattled, and a second later it shuddered from what must have been an almighty kick. Another kick. At the third try the lock gave way and
the door crashed open. A flashlight beam stabbed around the
workshop before it homed on the two of us, dazzling my eyes.

“Keep away,” warned Ralph, his grip on me tightening.
“Keep right away, whoever you are, or I’ll...”

“We’re the police, Ebborn.” It was Neil’s voice. “Let her
go, man. You can’t hope to get away now.”

“Listen to me, Grant ... you do exactly as I say, or by God I’ll break the girl’s neck. I mean it.”

“Don’t be a bloody fool. You’ll only make it worse for
yourself.”

“I told you to
listen,
Grant. Stand clear of the door, and
shine the light on yourselves. How many of you are there,
anyway?”

“Enough of us to deal with you,” said Neil. “Be in no doubt of that. Give yourself up.”

From somewhere behind Neil there was a flurry of movement and a dark shape came hurtling towards us in a flying Rugby tackle. Ralph and I were both carried down to the floor and I felt all the breath knocked out of me. I felt hands drag me free of Ralph, who took the chance to scramble to his feet and make a dash for the door. An instant later, though, he uttered a terrified shout and there was a sickening thud. Silence
followed.

“Are you all right, darling?” Incredibly, it was Tim’s voice, close to my ear.

“Tim. Yes
...
but how
...
?”

“Ssh. Later, not now.” Gently, he lifted me to a sitting position. “Nothing broken?”

“No, but I...”

“Good. Then let’s see what the devil has happened.”

The darkness flickered, then the banks of fluorescent tubes
in the ceiling came on. Blinking, I gazed around me. Neil
strode across the floor to the centre of the room, where Ralph
lay crumpled in a heap at the foot of the huge block of
alabaster.

“What’s he done?” asked Tim. “Knocked himself out?”

“No,” said Neil, rising to his feet.

“Then what?”

“He’s killed himself.”

I gasped. “But ... how?”

“He fell across this trip wire and hit his head against
the…”

“Trip wire?” I exclaimed in astonishment. Then suddenly I
understood and gave a shudder. “That was meant for me. I
suppose Ralph found a coil of modelling wire on Aunt
Verity’s work bench and it gave him the idea. I couldn’t make
out what he was doing just now, when I saw him fiddling
around in the darkness.”

“A very nasty little device,” said Neil. “Only Ebborn
copped it himself as he rushed for the door. He must have
taken a headlong dive at this two-ton slab of rock and
smashed his skull in.”

I felt a burning need to bare my conscience, but Tim refused
to listen to me. We were sitting on the sofa in my living room,
while all kinds of people connected with the police trudged
through the hallway of Honeysuckle Cottage.

“I still don’t see what brought you here to the cottage, Tim. I mean, what happened after Neil’s men came to the vineyard
to pick you up?”

“They didn’t. I reported to Neil Grant of my own free
will.” He grinned and dropped a kiss on my cheek. “When
you ran out on me in such a panic, it made me realise that I’d
better go to the police and come clean. I’d been crazy not to
do it right at the start, of course. But it seemed so incriminating to admit that Oliver Medway and I had quarrelled that
morning, just minutes before he was murdered.”