Mad About the Boy? (21 page)

‘God forbid,' muttered Haldean. ‘That would never do. I'll leave you to it, Ashley.'

‘Thanks, Haldean. As for Mr Charnock, I suppose I can talk to him in the library just as easily as I can here. Any news of Captain Stanton yet, Bevan?'

‘None, sir,' replied Bevan, holding the door open. ‘I expect he'll be holed up somewhere. Apart from anything else, it's nasty weather to be out.'

Ashley collected Sergeant Ingleton and walked into the library. It might have been Haldean's opinion of Charnock that had put him on his guard, but when Ashley saw Alfred Charnock sprawled in an armchair, he felt his hackles rise. The man was darkly handsome with the worn charm of an ageing roué, and, thought Ashley, dangerous.

Charnock flicked the ash off his cigarette on to the carpet. ‘Ah, Superintendent, do come in. I understand I missed all the excitement.'

‘If you want to call it that, sir,' said Ashley, knowing he sounded at his most wooden. Perhaps that wasn't a bad thing. It never did to underestimate an opponent and Charnock obviously thought himself superior to any mere policeman. Ashley wasn't given to coarse language but the words ‘cynical bastard' framed themselves in his mind and stayed there. ‘Can I ask you where you were this afternoon?'

Charnock looked at him from under drooped eyelids. ‘Oh, Superintendent,' he said softly, ‘I do wish I had something exciting to tell you, but I haven't. I started off in Brighton and then I went to the pub.'

Ashley looked at him appraisingly. ‘Just what are you doing here, sir? Don't you find it dull?'

Charnock yawned. ‘Deadly' He gave a sudden, attractive smile which lit up his face. The smile took Ashley by surprise. He's got real charm, Ashley reluctantly acknowledged to himself, even though it is a bit shop-worn. ‘Do you remember the story of my famous namesake who burnt the cakes?' said Alfred Charnock. ‘Well, I burnt my fingers. I was caught out in the City and have retired to bucolic bliss in the bosom of my family. Tough on the family, but there! Think how happy they'll be when I leave. Philip loathes me and I derive a good deal of innocent amusement from seeing how far I can push him before his veneer of horribly correct good manners cracks.'

Ashley's sympathies were strictly with Sir Philip, but his attention was alerted. Lady Harriet had told him Charnock had introduced Lord Lyvenden to Sir Philip, which meant there was a connection between the two men. Lyvenden's reputation, so he knew from both Haldean and Smith-Fennimore, was that of a financial shark. A clever enough shark to have caught Alfred Charnock? He drew a bow at a venture. ‘Before you answer the next question, sir, I'd like you to bear in mind that these things can be checked. This financial loss of yours. It wouldn't be connected with Lord Lyvenden, would it?' He was pleased to note a flicker of irritation in Charnock's eyes. The arrow had hit home.

‘Got it in one, Superintendent. I suppose you now think I have a motive for killing the wretched man. That should make it easier for you to blame me if you fail to catch Captain Stanton.'

Ashley reverted to wood. ‘We've not got to the stage of blaming anyone yet, sir. We're simply collecting information.'

‘An admirably uninformative reply. What information do you want to collect?'

‘I would like to know what you were doing around one to one thirty today, sir.'

‘Before lunch?' Charnock frowned. ‘Oh yes, I was in the hall. I talked to my niece and that rather solid young man she's going to marry. Jack Haldean was there as well. We discussed Art, if you can call that ghastly daub of a portrait of Claudia Rivers Art. I suppose people have to have ancestors, but why they want to look at them beats me. Then I borrowed Haldean's car and went on my merry way. Have I said enough for you to arrest me yet?'

‘Not really, sir,' replied Ashley, stolidly. ‘I take it it wasn't a local pub you went to.'

‘Wrong, actually.' Charnock stubbed out his cigarette and stretched his arms. ‘The pub's one of my local haunts. It has the great virtue of being the sort of place none of my family would be seen dead in. You can't imagine the relief.'

‘Who did you see in Brighton?'

Charnock raised an eyebrow. He looked highly amused. ‘I don't believe I caught the lady's name. Careless of me, but you know how it is.' He laughed. ‘Or perhaps you don't.'

‘Can you be more specific, sir?' said Ashley without heat.

Charnock laughed once more. ‘Certainly not. Use your imagination, Superintendent. She was a lively girl, but we didn't have much in the way of conversation.' Ashley would have given a good deal to have wiped the smile off Charnock's face, but he sat without speaking, waiting for Charnock to say something else. Charnock, however, was silent.

‘What is the name of the pub you went to, sir?' asked Ashley eventually.

‘Are you arresting me?' asked Charnock, softly, lighting another cigarette. The Superintendent shook his head. ‘Then I don't believe I have any obligation to answer your questions. Any other points you wish to bring up?'

‘Yes, sir. Who was the Russian who came on the night of the ball?'

‘An old friend.'

‘I think not, sir. He didn't recognize you.'

Charnock gave him a swift glance. That rattled him, thought Ashley with satisfaction. ‘You mean young Haldean says he didn't recognize me,' said Charnock, smoothly enough. ‘His grasp of the situation was not all it might have been.'

‘Where did you go on the night of the ball, sir?'

‘I went out.' Charnock rose to his feet. ‘Where I am going now, rather than waste any more time answering irrelevant questions. I would suggest your time might be better spent in searching for Captain Stanton rather than intruding into my personal affairs. Goodbye, officer. Pleasure to meet you.' He wafted out of the room in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

And the devil of it is, thought Ashley wrathfully, that he's probably right. He glared after Charnock's departing back and was rewarded by a sight which made him draw his breath in.

The library led out on to the hall and in the hall stood a massive oak sideboard with a mirror split into three parts. Its purpose was to enable the ladies of the house to check that their hats were on correctly before venturing into the outside world. Ashley could see Charnock reflected in one of the side mirrors.

Charnock leaned against the wall, drew heavily on his cigarette and momentarily put his hand to his forehead in a gesture of relief before walking away.

Standing by the library table, Ashley smiled grimly to himself. If that arrogant devil hadn't insisted on being interviewed in the library but had had the humility, to say nothing of the common courtesy, to come to the gun room like everyone else, he'd have been all right. There wasn't a mirror outside the gun-room door.

He thinks he's got away with it, thought Ashley, his heart lightening. He tried to put one over on me and he thinks he got away with it. He really does have something to hide.

Arthur Stanton stared at his hands. They didn't seem like his hands. They were slimy with blood. Lots of blood. Blood from that . . . that
thing
on the rug.

‘Back against the wall!'

The voice seemed to come from the end of a long tunnel. He didn't know who said it. It was imperious, commanding. It reminded him of a voice in hospital. His stomach knotted in fear. He thrust his arms out in front of him, fending off that voice, that harsh hospital voice. He instinctively shrank backwards, caught his foot and fell, fell over that
thing
on the rug. He was on his knees beside the
thing
.

He tried hard not to scream. Someone was laughing. Why were they laughing?
He
was laughing. He'd tried not to scream because officers and gentlemen are never frightened and have to set a good example and don't scream, but he'd laughed instead. He had to stop laughing, he knew that. He tried hard to look away from the
thing
. Still on his knees, he saw a cigarette case. It seemed massive, as if it covered the whole floor. He picked it up, watching it shrink back into focus. He blinked. Even the cigarette case was covered in blood. ‘Look. He wanted a cigarette.'

The cigarette case was slimy. He thrust it away, into his pocket. Instinct, that. He covered his face with his hands, trying to catch his breath so he could explain what he'd done, but all he could do was laugh.

‘Stop it, Arthur! Stop it!'

And that, too, was a hospital voice. Worse, even. He'd known that voice in hospital.

He had to get control of himself. He managed to stop laughing, took a deep breath and tried to explain. ‘I know . . .'
I shouldn't have laughed
. ‘I know . . .'
I really didn't mean to laugh
. ‘It's not funny.'
I know it's not funny. I was trying so hard and it came out wrong
. ‘It's just that . . .'

And then that other voice came again, stopping him. A hospital voice. He had to get off his knees. He had to get away from that
thing.
Isabelle? Isabelle would understand. Isabelle wouldn't blame him.

He'd never seen her look like that. She was afraid. Afraid of
him
.

They were all afraid of him but that was stupid because they had the gun and they were talking to him in hospital voices and they were going to take him away and lock him up in a hospital and he couldn't let them do that because it would be dark and he would be frightened and officers and gentlemen are never frightened and he had to
get away
.

The window, the french window, was the only way out.
Run, Arthur, run! Cover your face and run!

The glass splintered and hurt, but he was outside. The gun roared, a terrifying noise. Then he was on the grass, running for the shelter of the shrubbery. The gun cracked out again and a searing pain shot through his head. He lost his footing, falling on to grass, scrambling back up, ignoring the pain in his head, putting one foot in front of another, falling once more. He'd fallen amongst twigs and leaves. Bushes. Lots of bushes. Crawl into the bushes. Crumbled earth under the bushes. Dead leaves. Fallen twigs. Dry, crumbled earth where the rain never fell. He dug his fingers into the earth and pulled himself further in, under the thick shrubs. The leaves whirled and kaleidoscoped before his eyes and he fell forward in a dead faint.

When he awoke it was to the sound of slashing rain. His head throbbed and he wiped his forehead with his hands, before he stopped, horrified. Where had all that blood come from? He frantically rubbed his hands on the earth. He had scratches on his wrists and the backs of his hands, but not nearly enough to account for all this blood. He had blood on his palms and all over his shirt, too. His head sang as he tried to remember.

He mustn't stay here. They would be after him soon. He knew they were after him. He parted the bushes on the side away from the house and tried to run across the lawn to the river. He couldn't run but could only manage a plod, his footsteps squelching into the soggy ground. He missed his footing on the bank and slid down the grassy slope to the bulrushes. It was swampy and the clinging black mud between the reeds came over his knees. It was horribly difficult to walk. The river lay before him, churning with brown, ugly, yellow-tipped water in the whipping rain.

They were after him.

He plunged in, fighting for his footing against the current, the water pulling at his legs like iron hands. Weeds streamed out, blocking his way, and he had to thrust them aside as they tangled round him, drawing him down. The cold bit into him.

He fell rather than climbed on to the far bank, the water still growling past him. He forced his legs up out of the river and lay exhausted on the slippery mud and stones, his breath coming in great gulps.

His head ached and he touched his temple lightly, wincing. More blood. That must have been the gun. He could remember the gun, but why had they fired at him? He frowned, and that hurt too, as the muscles of his forehead tightened. He couldn't remember who
they
were. They were going to do something that he was afraid of. Really, cripplingly, afraid of. The fear was a hard, physical knot in his stomach. He had to get away but for a long time all he could do was lie on the stones and mud, the pebbles so close they filled his entire world, looking at the rain washing the earth over the tiny stones and rivulet away.

They were after him.

He raised himself unsteadily to his feet, lurching forward off the bank to the grass beyond. A clump of trees stood blackly in front of him. Underfoot was grass in clumps, churned up into countless shallow muddy hollows. The tussocks were hard to walk on and he had to thread his way through using the little muddy paths of the hollows. He was near the woods now and the ground was changing. It banked up, a rim of dirty chalk and earth, about two foot high, edging the field. He crawled over the chalky rim and found himself on firm, springy grass.

Hemming in the trees was a barbed wire fence.

For the first time he was aware of an emotion other than fear. Call that a fence? It was useless. There should be barbed wire in rolls, lots of barbed wire, with picket stakes at intervals. What was the wiring party thinking of? They'd get a rocket, an absolute rocket from their sergeant. Come to think of it, why hadn't he been stopped? Where the blazes was everyone? And where the blazes was he?

He'd come over no man's land. He knew that. The earth had been churned by bullets. That's why it was difficult to walk on and now he'd reached the wire. Why weren't there any snipers? Why wasn't there
anybody
? There was something happening here he didn't understand.

The Germans must be behind him; that was obvious. Only the Germans would have fired at him and he knew he'd been shot at. Then he'd run for it . . . Yes, he'd run for it, but where had he run to? Was that pathetic piece of barbed wire ours or theirs? He was puzzled to find he didn't know.