Fate Worse Than Death (6 page)

She had no spray, then. But that was the kind of thing she needed, something that would prevent him from seeing for long enough to allow her to escape. What could she use? If only she could concentrate, if only she didn't feel so lightheaded …

And then the answer came to her, such a simple one that she laughed aloud with relief. She could hear her own laughter, so high and cracked that she imagined for a moment that it must come from someone else.

Of course! Why hadn't she thought of it before? He would bring her the weapon she needed – he would literally hand it to her on a plate. Breakfast wouldn't do, because that was invariably a sandwich. But in the early evening, just before six o ‘clock, he brought her a main meal of cold meat with lettuce and a tomato. And with the meal he always brought a dish of stewed plums covered by a thick yellow blanket of cold custard – a gooey, throwable custard pie …

She imagined herself talking to him to distract his attention as she balanced the pudding dish in her hand and took aim. The ruse would work, she felt sure. As long as she flung the contents squarely in his face, she could be well away before he finished wiping the mess out of his eyes.

In health she could run much faster than he could, she had no doubt about that. It was not knowing which way to run that bothered her – that, and the possibility that in her weakened state she might stumble or trip. She dare not dwell on what he might do if she fell and he caught up with her. He kept protesting that he would never harm her, but by abducting her he had already forfeited her trust. He was odd, unpredictable. He might do anything …

Despite the heat Sandra felt a momentary shrinking of her flesh, a goose-pimpling presentiment that someone was walking over her grave.

In the kitchen of her Regency Gothic cottage on Fodderstone Green, Constance Schultz –
née
Tait, and known to her relatives and friends as Con – was making preparations for her nephew's visit.

Most of the ten cottages on the Green were owned by the Forestry Commission and occupied by its employees or pensioners. Geoff Websdell, who lived with his wife Beryl at number 8, worked as a forester. But two of the cottages were in private ownership.

Numbers 9 and 10 had changed hands many times since the third Earl of Brandon's estate had been broken up in the 1920s. Middle-aged summer visitors fell in love with the cottages and bought them for holidays and eventual retirement, without taking into account the hard work that would be involved in keeping up the large gardens, and without realizing what a bleak, isolated place Fodderstone Green was in the winter. Con Schultz had stuck it for longer than most – for ten years, ever since she had retired from her job as an assistant public librarian in Ipswich – but she was by preference a solitary person. She was also an enthusiastic gardener, and she had always wanted to live somewhere where she could keep bees.

Her neighbours at number 10, Marjorie and Howard Braithwaite, had been in residence for two years. Howard, formerly the managing director of a light engineering firm in Chelmsford, spent his retirement fishing; he set off with pike rod and tackle every morning of the season for the lake in what had once been the grounds of the Hall. His wife, like Con, was a keen gardener.

Their love of gardens was the only thing the two women had in common. Even in this, they differed. Con's gardening was a random activity, her pretty garden not so much a creation as an assisted happening. Marjorie on the other hand, a born organizer, liked to keep everything about her well under control. The climbing roses on her walls were orderly, her lawns were frequently shaved, her borders were stiff with hotly coloured municipal bedding-plants. Any flowers that had the temerity to put in an appearance where she had not planned they should grow were ruthlessly given the chop.

So efficient was Marjorie's gardening that she still had plenty of energy for other projects. She had taken charge of every community activity in Fodderstone, but there were too few of them to provide sufficient scope for her abilities. With time to spare, she had turned her attention to her disorganized neighbour.

‘What on earth are you
doing
, Constance?' she demanded, marching into the kitchen of number 9 without so much as a token knock.

Con flinched. It was, she knew, ungrateful of her to do so; her neighbour was generous and usually brought with her some small gift. The gifts were often edible, presumably because Marjorie thought that Con, who was built in the classic English gentlewoman shape with a long narrow face, long narrow hands and feet, and a body as flat as a plank, needed feeding up. This morning's gift was a bowl of home-made muesli. Marjorie lectured both publicly and privately on the importance of dietary fibre, especially for the over-fifties, and the principal constituent of her muesli was bran.

‘What are you up to?' repeated Marjorie. Con often thought that her neighbour's frequent visits were made for the purpose of finding out what she was doing and telling her either to stop it or to do it some other way. Marjorie was not a particularly large woman, but everything about her – firm features, greying hair worn straight with a fringe, spectacles worn with a retaining chain that hung in loops on either side of her cheeks, home-made summer tent-dress, strong flat sandals – proclaimed a formidable practicality. Con found her overpowering: too loud, too inquisitive, too personal, too interfering. She wished Marjorie would leave her alone, but she was too polite to say so.

‘I'm making a casserole for supper,' she replied patiently. It was an unwelcome job on such a hot day. She knew that her face must be shining, and she hoped that Marjorie would not comment on it. ‘I'm not sure when my nephew will be arriving, so I thought I'd make something now and heat it up this evening.'

Con ate little and cooked less. During the last few years of her working life she had cared for her aged mother, and after the old lady was removed to a nursing-home Con had thankfully given up the practice of cookery. Her favourite meal was bread and honey, or a piece of cheese and an apple, eaten absent-mindedly while she read a book.

Having got out of the way of cooking, she found it difficult to do so while anyone watched her. That was why she had decided against giving Martin a steak, because he would be sure to come into the kitchen to talk to her while she grilled it. She was becoming so forgetful, so easily confused … as she was now, under Marjorie's disapproving eye.

‘A
casserole
, in this weather?' her neighbour hooted. ‘No wonder you're sweating – what an idiotic thing to do! Why on earth aren't you giving your nephew a cold meal?'

‘Er …' Con tried to remember whether she had seasoned the neck of lamb before browning it. At the moment she was frying chopped onion – and gosh it was so hot, standing over the cooker. If only Marjorie would go away instead of watching and criticizing …

Despite her lined face and grey head, there was something almost coltish about Con Schultz. Her hair was cropped, her movements were nervous and awkward, her manner gauche. It was impossible to imagine her as a 1940s good-time girl, but not at all difficult to see what she must have been like in her last year at school. Her clothes – she always wore plain skirts and blouses – were a kind of uniform, and her favourite expletives came straight from the pre-war
School Friend
magazine.

Marjorie, who never took silence for an answer, was still waiting to hear why she wasn't giving Martin a cold meal. Con tried to remember why not, as she pushed sizzling onions about the pan and suffered in the heat. Eventually, dragging up some recollection of the long-departed Mr Schultz, she suggested that men preferred hot food.

‘Rubbish!' declared Marjorie. ‘A complete fallacy. Men
think
they prefer hot food, but that's because they haven't been properly trained. Take Howard: when he was at work he always ate a hot lunch in the directors'dining room, out of habit. But now that he spends all day fishing he's perfectly happy with the wholemeal bread sandwich I make him for lunch, and a vegetable salad in the evenings. It's far more nutritious, and so much better for his bowels. He agrees that he feels healthier for it, and so would your nephew. You'll be doing the boy a great disservice if you don't take the opportunity to restructure his diet while he's here.'

Con sighed, and fried on, and said nothing. Marjorie might well be right about the importance of dietary fibre, but for herself Con was past caring; and she had never thought it her mission in life to reorganize anyone else's. Besides, she knew that Marjorie was wrong about her husband. Her other neighbour, Beryl Websdell, had recently happened to mention that Howard Braithwaite bought himself a cooked lunch every day at the Flintknappers Arms.

Con kept the knowledge to herself, of course. The Braithwaites' domestic arrangements were no concern of hers. She might have felt sorry for Howard, knowing that he had to resort to subterfuge to provide himself with a square meal, if it weren't for the fact that he was such a cross, impatient man.

Village life carried with it, Con believed, an obligation to speak to one's neighbours. Not to buttonhole them or bore them, but never to pass them by without a greeting and some observation about the weather, or an enquiry about the health of anyone known to be ill. But Howard Braithwaite preferred to ignore everyone unless he was spoken to directly, when he answered with a bark.

Probably, mused Con, he'd found barking the best way of dealing with his wife. She ought to try it on Marjorie herself – except that it was now too late to bother; her neighbour's tiresomeness didn't matter any more, she'd soon be out of it, thank God …

‘Constance!'
The chains on either side of Marjorie's cheeks swayed and clashed with irritation. ‘You're burning those onions! Stir in the flour, quickly, and add some hot water – really, you are absolutely hopeless. Now, do try to concentrate for a moment because I can't stay long, I'm going to Ashthorpe this afternoon to give a talk on nutrition to the Evergreen Club. What I want to know is whether you've finished preparing the schedules for the honey section at next month's garden produce show? I know what you're like. If I don't keep an eye on you –'

‘Crikey!' Con stood still, one hand holding a wooden spoon that immediately dripped gravy over the cooker, the other clapped guiltily to her mouth. ‘The produce show? But I thought we'd agreed –?'

Marjorie's chains quivered formidably. ‘You
can't
have forgotten about it. You put it in your diary, I know you did, because I stood over you while you wrote it down.'

‘Yes … but I don't always remember to look at my diary, you see.' In fact Con had mislaid it. She seemed to spend most of her time, lately, searching for things she had mislaid and mislaying other things in the process. But she wasn't going to tell Marjorie that. No sense in asking for a further scolding.

‘Do you mean you've done nothing at all to prepare for the show.
Really
, Constance, how can you be so irresponsible?'

Con began to worry. Not about the produce show, although she would never willingly inconvenience her fellow bee-keepers, but about her memory. Mislaying things was a nuisance, but being unable to remember whether or not she had promised to do something was frightening. She felt that she was beginning to lose control of her own life.

‘But I'm sure I asked you to find someone else to take charge of the honey this year, Marjorie. After all, I'm leaving. I told you that, I know I did. I may well have gone by the middle of September, and I thought we'd agreed that you would find a replacement for me?'

‘Nonsense, we agreed no such thing. I told you at the time that it would be months before you move. You've been talking about it for long enough, but all you've done so far is to sell your bees.

You haven't put your own property on the market yet, or been to view any others. Have you?'

‘Er … no.' Con took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘I've been waiting to discuss things with my nephew. I may go to look at properties with him. And if I find somewhere suitable, I could move from here almost immediately. I know it's a frightful nuisance for you, Marjorie, but you really must find someone else to take my place.'

Her neighbour consented, grumbling. ‘But it's ridiculous to imagine that you'll be able to leave at short notice, even if you find a suitable property with vacant possession. You'll have to sell either this cottage or the one on the Horkey road first.'

‘No, I shan't.' Con had always been reluctant to reveal much about herself to anyone, but she was tired of being browbeaten. ‘If you're wondering about finance, that's no problem. I have capital available.'

‘
Have
you?' Marjorie backed down, her tone a mixture of surprise and interest. ‘Lucky old thing,' she went on, almost respectfully. Then she rallied. ‘Well, no wonder your nephew's prepared to come and help you house-hunt! I suppose he expects to benefit from your will?'

‘You can suppose what you jolly well like,' Con retorted, her thin face pink with heat and exasperation. ‘I'm very fond of Martin, and believe it or not he seems to be reasonably fond of me. Now if you're busy, Marjorie, don't let me keep you.'

But her neighbour was listening to the sound of unmusical singing, a wobbly soprano coming closer as someone walked up the long garden path and round the side of the house towards the open back door.

‘Help!' said Marjorie. ‘It's that
dreadful
Beryl woman. She really does drive me mad. If she asks me again whether I've found my Saviour, I shall be very rude to her.'

What they could now both identify, shrilled out with joyous fervour and a persistent sing-along rhythm, was a gospel song that had been popularized by Cliff Richard. Beryl Websdell was an ardent Cliff Richard fan. She had once, on holiday years ago, seen and heard him live in concert at the Wellington Pier, Great Yarmouth, and had managed to get his autograph. His committedly Christian stance had helped to formulate her own belief, and she sang the chorus of his song – the only part of it she could remember – every day of her life.