Dry Bones (4 page)

When he thought about it, the whole thing was rather odd, starting with Cornelia Heathcote's letter:

Dear Hugh,

I expect you will be surprised to hear from me out of the blue. I'm sorry to have been out of touch for so long and hope you are coping all right in your new home. It must be very hard for you without Laura. I know how much she meant to you. I miss her too. She was such a dear friend.

To be perfectly honest, I am writing because I need your help. Something very horrible has happened and I don't know how to deal with it. But I know that you will be able to tell me what to do. There's nobody else I can trust. So, I should be so grateful if you would come and stay this weekend. Howard is away in Hong Kong at the moment, and no one else is staying, so we will be able to talk in private. Do please come on Friday evening, in time for dinner.

As you will see from the address above, we have moved to King's Mowbray in Wiltshire. The house is just a mile outside the village and you can't miss it.

He had been rather intrigued. What on earth could have happened in Cornelia's cosseted life that was so horrible? And why was he the only person she could trust?

‘Don't forget the fête committee meeting next week,' Naomi reminded him as she drained her other half.

He
had
forgotten it. ‘Oh dear.'

‘It's a crashing bore, I agree, but at least we'll have Ruth there this year, instead of her bitch of a mother, and Marjorie's not a bad chairman. She'll keep things moving along as much as she can.'

He remembered last year's committee meeting at the Manor all too well. He had been a complete new boy – lumbered with the unwanted job of treasurer – and had listened for what had seemed like hours while detailed plans for the fête were discussed: ticket prices, trestle tables, raffle prizes, numbers of tea cups and saucers, the dread subject of the weather and provision for rain. The late and unlamented Lady Swynford had held court from a condescending distance, seated in a Hepplewhite chair with her ridiculously clipped poodle, Shoo-shoo, on her lap, a long silk scarf trailing theatrically from one of her red-nailed hands.

‘Another one, Naomi?'

She seldom did, but he always asked.

‘No, I must go. Maybe we can christen the terrace when you get back?'

‘I'll look forward to it.'

‘I suppose you'll want to do the bottle stall again, Roger?'

Major Cuthbertson wasn't sure he cared for his wife's tone. He rustled his newspaper. ‘I'll do it, if nobody else wants the job.'

‘I thought you might.'

Damned nuisance, actually, and not worth all the trouble, he thought irritably. Only ever one proper bottle of whisky in the whole lot. Perhaps a half of vodka, a quarter of brandy, some disgusting British sweet sherry and a few bottles of undrinkable home-made wine made from the most extraordinary things. Pea pods, he remembered from last year.
Pea pods,
for God's sake. There had been turnip wine, as well. He knew that you could make vodka out of potatoes but he'd never heard of using turnips. Otherwise, it was fizzy lemonade or American coca-cola or some health thing called Lucozade. People were too bloody mean these days to give anything worth winning. Not that he could be seen to win the whisky. Not the done thing at all. If he did, he'd have to give it up. Last year he'd won the half bottle of vodka fair and square, shutting his eyes when he'd put his hand inside the drum; but nobody had noticed and he'd been in desperate need of a pick-me-up after the way Ursula Swynford had spoken to him. He'd always thought she was pretty keen until then. No need for her to have been so rude. Plenty of other women noticed him. He still had most of his hair, and the grey was rather distinguished, and he'd kept his figure – more or less. What about all those film stars who were in their seventies, or even older? Women liked mature men.

Marjorie was still standing in the doorway, like a dog on guard. He wished she'd go off and do the lunch so that he could get in a quick one before they ate. It always helped the old digestion which wasn't what it used to be. Marjorie's cooking didn't help, of course. Not her fault. They'd always had servants to do it abroad. He turned a page of the newspaper and shook it.

‘Was there anything else?'

‘I ran into the Colonel this morning. I told him how pleased we were that he was going to be giving Ruth away.'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘He's the best man for the job.'

He turned another page. ‘I'm sure he is.'

A pause. She said quite kindly, for her. ‘You didn't think she'd ask
you
, did you, Roger?'

‘Never crossed my mind.'

‘A newcomer was a much better idea. Then nobody from the village could be offended, you see.'

She stumped off to the kitchen and the Major sat for a moment, seeing slowly.

The old girl was probably quite right. Clever of Ruth to do that. Pick a complete outsider, like the Colonel. Considerate of her. She wasn't anything like her late mother, thank God.

Marjorie was crashing around with pots and pans in the kitchen. Just time for a quick one, if he was sharp about it. He tiptoed over to the cocktail cabinet, given by the regiment when he'd retired. Damned decent of them, except for the fact that it played
Drink to me only with thine eyes
when you opened the lid and the old girl had ears like a bat. He'd learned to get the lid open, bottle out, lid shut, tot poured, bottle back, lid shut again with only a few tinkling notes played. Mark you, he'd had plenty of practice.

He was faster than ever this time; reactions like a man half his age, he thought, pleased. He sat down in his chair again and took a gulp from the glass. Things looked a bit rosier now.

T
he Colonel drove over to Wiltshire in his old black Riley. He had bought the car in the Fifties and had kept it in a rented garage whenever he and Laura had been stationed abroad. He had never been tempted to exchange it for a newer and more up-to-date model. True, he had to wind the windows up and down by hand, there was no power steering, no convenient central locking system or air conditioning, and the heating was tricky, but the rest of it was perfectly satisfactory. He liked the car and he enjoyed driving it. What more could one ask?

He had seen from the road map that King's Mowbray lay in the middle of a large and sparsely populated area to the south of Salisbury Plain. The few scattered villages were linked by a maze of lanes that frequently petered out into dead ends.

It was not a part of England that he knew and it was very different from neighbouring Dorset. Wide open skies, switchback land rolling away into the distance, wind-bowed trees, flint-choked soil. Man had lived there for many thousands of years, back to prehistoric times. Ancient earth barrows remained where the dead had been buried, together with mysterious formations of standing stones, and evidence of inhabitation – axe heads, arrows, utensils, coins, jewellery.

He turned the Riley into a narrow lane that, with luck, would take him in the right direction. At the top of a rise, he stopped the car and got out. A dull, overcast sky, not a house in sight, no farm buildings, only the tumbledown remains of a flint stone wall. A group of gnarled and misshapen trees, the dark glint of water in a pond, ditches fenced with strands of wire, long feathery grasses flattened in the wind. A bleak landscape. Chunks of flint lay at his feet and he stooped to pick up one. Its outer casing was chalky white, the flint inside glassy grey. It weighed heavily in his palm, fitting snugly within his fingers. He rubbed his thumb along a razor-sharp edge: a grisly weapon.

For some reason, the place gave him a sense of unease, even of menace. He was not usually fanciful, but the feeling was very strong – a conviction that ghosts from the past were standing at his shoulder.

He chucked the flint stone away and got back into the car to follow the lane another mile before he stopped to refer to the map. In fact, he had to stop several more times. A signpost made no mention of King's Mowbray and a promising lane ended in a field. Eventually, he saw a woman walking a black Labrador. The village was straight ahead, she told him. The Heathcotes' house lay about half a mile on the other side and he couldn't miss it. Cornelia had said the same in her letter. The dog walker's comment had sounded sarcastic, he thought.

King's Mowbray turned out to be a fair-sized village, sheltered in a dip in the land and with attractive old houses built of flint stone. They were all very well maintained and would certainly be very expensive to buy. The village might be out of the way, but the main-line station was actually still near enough to commute to London. In estate agents' parlance, King's Mowbray would be described as nestling in peaceful Wiltshire countryside, the properties up for sale termed rare opportunities, the area deemed highly sought after. He passed a very pleasant looking pub – the Golden Pheasant – and a lovely old church, also built of flint. The village shop had replica blown glass windows and glossy white paintwork. He guessed that its stock would be carefully geared to discerning customers.

When he reached the Heathcotes' house outside the village he saw why Cornelia and the dog-walker had described it as unmissable.

The entrance to the drive was marked by a pair of attention-grabbing steel gates, the house name carved in bold letters on a slab of granite at the side. The long drive led to a large house of stone and slate and a great deal of glass.

As the Colonel parked his car discreetly in front of the house, a manservant appeared at the door and came forward to take his suitcase. He looked Asian – probably from the Philippines.

‘Please to come in, sir.'

He took off his cap as he walked into an enormous and high-ceilinged room with plate glass windows. The vast expanse of polished wood flooring was interrupted occasionally by Scandinavian rugs, scattered like islands in an ocean. Three immense white sofas formed a horseshoe shape round a log-burning stove that was big enough to incinerate a body. Beyond them, he could see a dining table capable of seating at least twenty people.

‘Hugh . . . how
wonderful
to see you!'

Cornelia was descending a circular steel staircase at the far end of the room. Round and round and round. He waited until she reached the bottom and came towards him.

Ten years since he had last seen her. If anything, she looked even younger. There was no doubt that very expensive clothes and make-up, hair cut and coloured by experts and, probably, the wielding of a plastic surgeon's knife, all helped the fight against time. As she stood on tiptoe to kiss him, he caught the sweet and costly scent of gardenias.

‘It's good to see you, too, Cornelia. And looking more beautiful than ever.'

She smiled and touched his arm. ‘You're not looking so bad yourself, Hugh. You always were divine. I used to envy Laura like anything.'

She was wearing what was clearly intended to be casual country dress: silk shirt, cord trousers, a blue cashmere cardigan draped across her shoulders, low-heeled brogues the colour of shiny conkers. He admired her beauty and elegance, but she held no physical attraction for him.

‘Diego will show you to your room and then you must come and sit down and have a drink.'

He followed the manservant up the spiral staircase. Round and round and round. As he had expected, the bedroom was starkly simple: a plain wooden bed, striped covers and cushions, more Scandinavian rugs on the floor, streamlined cupboards, an adjoining bathroom of chrome, polished black granite and mirrors. The bedroom window had a blind instead of curtains and overlooked the garden at the back of the house. A garden of disciplined borders, perfectly clipped box and yew, immaculate grass, and with a very large and unidentifiable marble sculpture taking centre stage.

When he came back down, Cornelia was settled in one of the white sofas. He found a way into the horseshoe and sat down opposite her. In spite of its dramatically good looks, the sofa was uncomfortable. The back was unreachable, the cushioning like a bouncy castle. Cornelia, he noticed, had solved the problem by kicking off her shoes and wedging herself in place. Not an option open to himself.

A glass coffee table stood between them. He noted a row of overlapping glossy magazines, a large white porcelain dish in the shape of a scallop shell that could carry a pocket Venus, and a heavy book entitled
Iconic Houses.
Its cover displayed a house built of gigantic blocks of concrete, assembled at different angles and peppered with small round windows, like portholes. Sprawled beneath the coffee table was an animal skin that had probably once belonged to a reindeer. Although it was June, the log-burning stove was flickering away discreetly behind its doors. At full bore, it could probably bring the whole house to sauna heat.

The manservant carried in a tray with drinks – a martini for Cornelia, a malt whisky for himself. They raised their glasses to each other.

‘What an amazing house,' he said politely. Which it was.

‘It
is
rather wonderful isn't it? Hans Birger designed it, you know. The Danish architect. I expect you've heard of him.'

‘I'm afraid not.' He thought wryly of the Frog End builders, Jim and Dave, who had done the necessary things to Pond Cottage.

‘When we bought the place three years ago it was just an old farmhouse. Practically falling down and filthy dirty. You can't imagine.'

He could – all too well. His cottage had been similar.

Cornelia went on. ‘The same family had lived in it for hundreds of years but they died out when the batty old grandmother finally dropped off her perch. Howard bought it for the land, of course – he liked the idea of asking friends down to shoot. Do you shoot, Hugh? I can't remember.'

‘Not that kind of shooting.'

He'd been pretty good with a rifle in the army, but he'd never much cared for killing game.