Fate Worse Than Death (31 page)

Alison looked at him with sympathy. She had never seen Martin so vulnerable as he had been at his aunt's funeral, or so savagely depressed as he was now. But she couldn't help thinking how pale and handsome he looked in a black tie and a new, obviously expensive, dark-grey worsted suit.

‘Couldn't you transfer to another county force?' she asked.

‘Hell, no! That is, I
could
, but I'd be crazy to do it. For one thing, it would look like an admission of guilt. For another, however far I tried to run, somebody would make sure that the allegation went with me. No, I'm staying here.'

He summoned a waiter and ordered a fresh pot of tea. There were plates of sandwiches and cakes on the table, but neither of them was hungry.

‘I know you well enough not to suggest that you could leave the police force altogether,' said Alison. ‘Dad says that your career is more important to you than anything else.'

‘It's a lot more important than lousy money, I'll tell you,' he said. ‘That's something I've realized in these last few weeks. I love my job, and I want to make high rank – but in this atmosphere of suspicion, my file's certain to be marked. Even though there's nothing official against me, there'll always be a question-mark beside my name.'

‘But what about your promotion?'

‘Oh, I don't suppose it will be blocked completely. I might even make Superintendent. But they'll certainly stop me from going any higher. It would never do, would it, to make a Chief Superintendent – let alone an Assistant Chief Constable – of a man who's suspected of murdering his aunt.'

Hating to see him so bitter, she put a hand on his. ‘It'll be a nine-day wonder, Martin. Your colleagues may be talking about it now, but they'll forget it sooner than you imagine.'

‘With the fortune Aunt Con's left me? Not a chance! Not that I've got any of the money yet, my solicitor says it'll be months before everything's sorted out. But it's a lot, Alison – well over a quarter of a million.'

She moved her hand away immediately, embarrassed lest he should think she had designs on him.

‘And
that
,' he went on, ‘is why the suspicion will never go away. Don't you see? The money will give me the kind of lifestyle I've always wanted. I can have my own aeroplane, more than one car, a big house. I'll be the envy of every copper in the force. As a result, they'll make me pay for being rich by keeping the story alive:
There's Tait, throwing his poor old aunt's money about again. And we all know how he got it from her, don't we?
Let's face it, I'm going to be a social outcast. And the same will go for my wife, too.'

The waiter approached with fresh tea. While he was busy at their table, changing the teapots, Alison and Martin glanced at each other. Their eyes met, sparked, and locked.

The waiter went. Without premeditation, Martin heard himself say: ‘Taking account of all that … and bearing in mind that I've missed you, and I love you and I need you … would you consider marrying me?'

Alison found that she was breathing more quickly than usual. ‘If – if I answered you now,' she said nervously, ‘when I'm feeling very sympathetic towards you, it would probably be “Yes”. But you wouldn't want me to accept you out of sympathy, would you? Let me think about it, please. I'm going on holiday tomorrow, to stay with some friends in Wales for a couple of weeks. I'll answer you for sure when I come back.'

Three days after his aunt's funeral, Martin Tait received a telephone call from her old school friend, Eileen Farleigh.

Mrs Farleigh had just returned from a visit to a daughter in Canada. She had originally expected to come back in early August, but her visit had been prolonged by an injury she had received in a car accident.

She was now telephoning to thank Martin for his letter telling her of Con's death, and to express her sympathy and her own sorrow. There was also something she had to tell him … but it was much too difficult to discuss over the telephone. In fact, it ought to be done officially, through their respective lawyers. Would Martin please be good enough to give her the name and address of his solicitor?

Within forty-eight hours, Martin was asked to call on his solicitor as a matter of urgency.

When he had needed a lawyer to accompany him at his interview with the Assistant Chief Constable, he had chosen an acquaintance, an up-and-coming young solicitor who was a partner in an old-established firm with offices in the cathedral close at Yarchester. William Carrow had as sharp an eye as Tait's own, but he chose to camouflage it by wearing a flowing late-Victorian beard in a rich shade of chestnut brown.

‘Good news, and bad,' he said. ‘First the good –'

He handed Martin a photocopy of a letter written by Constance Schultz on the day before her death. It was addressed to her friend Eileen Farleigh, and it told of Con's intention to take her own life, in her car.

‘A note for the coroner was also enclosed with this letter. I've sent it on to him to confirm his finding,' said William Carrow. ‘Had Mrs Farleigh been at home when the letter arrived, as Mrs Schultz expected, there would of course have been no question about your aunt's death.'

Tait felt shaken by the sight of Con's handwriting, the sad matter-of-factness of her letter, the affectionate farewell paragraph. ‘You call this good?' he said. ‘I don't. Nothing can undo the fact that I quarrelled with my aunt, and said unforgivable things to her that were overheard by a busybody of a neighbour. I know that I didn't kill Aunt Con, but I do feel in some way responsible for her death. I put so much pressure on her, because I wanted her money, that I probably drove her to kill herself. That's what the whole county police force is going to believe and say about me.'

‘Relax,' advised his solicitor, leaning back in his chair and fitting his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat. His lean stomach was ornamented with a watch and chain not unlike the one Tait was wearing, except that this was only silver.

‘Mrs Schultz's death had nothing to do with you,' William Carrow went on. ‘Mrs Farleigh has told her own solicitor that she and your aunt discussed the subject of death on several occasions. Mrs Schultz was extremely anxious not to go the same way as her mother – your grandmother. I understand that the old lady kept her health well into her nineties, but lost her wits long before she died.'

‘I didn't know that,' said Tait. ‘Granny was in a nursing home for about five years, but –'

‘Not a nursing home, according to Mrs Farleigh. Your aunt looked after her mother for as long as she could, and then had to put her – for the sake of her own sanity – in a private psychiatric hospital. It wasn't a fate that appealed to Mrs Schultz herself. She told Mrs Farleigh some years ago that she found the Almighty's arrangements for dying unsatisfactory, and that she intended to make her own.'

Tait looked up, surprised and slightly shocked. ‘Some years ago? Good grief, I had no idea …'

‘And then in May of this year, when she was staying with Mrs Farleigh in Shropshire, Mrs Schultz said she was beginning to feel that she'd had enough. She was forgetting, mislaying things, becoming easily confused, and so on. She told Mrs Farleigh that she might well end her life before long, and that she'd write and tell her when she made the decision. It was extremely unfortunate for you that we've only just heard about your aunt's letter, but I'll pass it on to your Assistant Chief Constable and that should finally clear your name.'

‘Thanks, William,' said Tait, dazed. Poor old Aunt Con … what a hell of a life she must have had with Granny. How grim it must have been for her to imagine that she was going the same way …

He got up to leave, but William Carrow was already on his feet and opening a corner cabinet. ‘What about a drink, Martin? I should have one, if I were you. I haven't told you the bad news yet.'

Half-suspecting what was coming, Tait clutched at a glass of single malt whisky. ‘Is it – my aunt's will?'

‘'Fraid so. She decided to make a new one, on her last visit to her friend. Apparently Mrs Schultz wasn't too keen on using the Woodbridge firm, once the family connection had been severed. Mrs Farleigh recommended her own solicitor in Shrewsbury, and that's where your aunt went. She decided against taking a copy of the will home with her to Fodderstone, because she was getting so absent-minded that she thought she'd only lose it.'

Tait swallowed some whisky to lubricate his throat. ‘The new will's valid, I suppose?'

‘Perfectly. And of course it invalidates the previous will made in your favour. I believe you said your aunt told you the terms of her new will?'

‘Ten thousand?' Tait mumbled queasily.

William Carrow nodded his patriarchal head. ‘Tough, I know. All the same, you're a lucky devil, Martin. You're not even married … I've got a wife, three children and a hefty mortgage. I'd be overjoyed if I had an aunt who was leaving ten thousand to me.'

Martin made his way out into the damp cathedral close. A few days of rain, and the heat of the summer was over.

He felt numbed. Pacing across the close towards the cloister car-park where he had left his ageing Alfa, he sought to come to terms with his changed circumstances.

At least his career in the police force was no longer blighted.

At least he was no longer suspected of having killed Aunt Con.

At least his own conscience was more or less clear.

But he knew now that he would never get the money he so badly wanted; the money he'd been counting on getting, ever since his mother had told him about his aunt's will on his eighteenth birthday.

He'd assured Alison that his career mattered more to him than money, and that was true. But now he actually
needed
the money. After all, he'd proposed to her on the strength of it.

If Alison should accept him – and he couldn't imagine that she would refuse – how could he possibly afford to marry her on nothing but his police pay? It wasn't practicable, unless he completely gave up his hobby of flying. He loved her very much, and he was prepared to give up his freedom for her; but not his share in the aeroplane, not yet.

He was still waiting for her answer. If she accepted him, what the hell was he going to do?

On holiday in Wales, and unaware that Martin wasn't in possession of a fortune after all, Alison made up her mind how to answer him when she returned in a week's time.

She acknowledged now what she had known all along, but had refused to admit to herself: that she and Martin were not really suited. It was his attitude towards his newly acquired wealth that had finally convinced her.
The money will give me the kind of lifestyle I've always wanted
, he'd said.
I can have my own aeroplane, more than one car, a big house
…

But that high-flying lifestyle wasn't what Alison herself wanted. Marriage to an ostentatiously rich Martin would, she knew, distance her from all her friends and relations; and the prospect depressed her. Regretfully, because she had been very much in love with him throughout that long hot August, she knew that the only answer she could give him would be a sympathetic ‘No'.

First published in 1985 by Constable

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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Copyright © Sheila Radley, 1985

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