Murder Fortissimo (18 page)

Harriet had forgotten for a while just how prone he was to slip into his lost worlds. He had remained lucid for a long time tonight, empowered by triumph perhaps. Or more likely by desolation, she reconsidered, looking at his ravaged face.

‘Years ago,’ he told her, in a conversational tone, ‘I remember reading that there was some old fellow in an old folks’ home, who put a pillow over an old woman’s face and smothered her. His defence, such as it was, turned out to be that he believed she was in pain so he thought he ought to put her out of her misery.’

In spite of the exhaustion that by now had him hanging on to the back of the chair to keep upright he shot a glance of pure mischief at her, then his face slid into an exaggerated version of the lost look and he began to mumble.

‘Poor creature, I thought she was in pain, you see, having to spend her entire time in a wheelchair. I couldn’t bear to see her suffer.’

The ancient leer he directed at her was perfect, just over the edge of vacancy. He was quite right; a plea of insanity would be a cinch, if it even came to that.

‘All right, Tim,’ she told him, her voice dry. ‘You can snap out of it now. I believe you.’

‘It’s all for the best really.’ he urged. ‘Tony’s been offered promotion and relocation to somewhere in Cheshire so they’ll be a fair distance away. The shame won’t be so acute with a journey of a couple of hundred miles or so from there back down here and their new friends won’t ever need to know.
Besides, a secure unit, or wherever they send me, won’t be any worse than some old people’s homes that you read about. There’s no way we could afford a place like this for more than my fortnight, so it’s quite convenient really.’

She put out a tentative hand as he opened her door.

‘Tim?’

He looked down at her, his face sweating, the skin a greenish grey with strain, but with a slight smile twisting his mouth. ‘Don’t, Harriet. There’s nothing more to say, except: thank you for everything.’

He bent to kiss her swiftly on the cheek and gave her a kind of salute, then he was gone and she was quite alone in her room.

Christmas Day

‘Pass the port, Harriet, there’s a good girl.’ Sam reached out a lazy hand and took the bottle from his cousin. It was nine o’clock on Christmas evening and they were both sprawled out on the comfortable sofas by the fire in Harriet’s cottage parlour.

‘It’s been a good day, hasn’t it?’ Sam nodded with satisfaction. He had driven over to pick her up the evening before and later they had gone to the midnight service at the cathedral in Winchester, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands in the frosty air when they came out. Christmas morning had begun with Sam’s culinary speciality, the full english breakfast which they had eaten in Harriet’s kitchen because the dining table was decorated and laid ready for the turkey.

‘I know it seems a bit silly, doing all this just for the two of us,’ Harriet had confessed as she opened a box of crackers. ‘But I’d already decided to go to town this year, even before all the shenanigans at Firstone Grange. That made me even more determined to put on a bit of glitz to put all the horrors out of our minds, if we can.’

‘Don’t apologize, Hat,’ Sam assured her. ‘I like a bit of glitz myself and you’re quite right; after what we’ve recently been through we could do with thinking of something else.’

When it came to opening presents they ended up almost in
tears of laughter. Harriet had earnestly assured Sam that she really didn’t want anything this year and he had agreed, equally solemnly, that there was nothing he wanted either. It came as a surprise to Harriet therefore to find Sam offering her a parcel but she merely grinned and reached behind the sofa, to give him his present too.

‘Talk about great minds.…’ Sam was almost speechless when he unwrapped the blue cashmere sweater Harriet had chosen for him. She looked surprised but started to laugh as she unwrapped her own gift; also a cashmere sweater, though in a slightly lighter shade of blue. ‘Bet you haven’t done the same thing
this
time,’ she said, handing him a smaller parcel, with a flourish.

He opened a boxed set of Joan Baez CDs and went straight over and put one on. ‘No, I didn’t get you Joan Baez,’ he said, with a suggestive twinkle. She pursed her lips and felt all round the packet he handed her. It felt like … well, she knew what it felt like. The wrapping fell away and she was looking at a set of CDs. Elgar, her favourite.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, with an answering smile. ‘Great minds. Definitely.’

Calls from both of Sam’s children followed and Harriet found herself agreeing that she and Sam would spend next Christmas in Australia with Sam’s son and his family. Then it was time for a drink with the people in the cottage next door, but they managed to escape before the noise levels generated by the neighbours’ six small grandchildren reached pain level.

‘You’re right, Sam,’ Harriet said suddenly, agreeing with his earlier remark. ‘It’s been a really good day. Church on Christmas morning is always special and the new vicar is rather dishy, much more decorative than our previous incumbent. And we did all right with the turkey too, didn’t we?’

He raised his glass of port to her with a grin, just as the phone rang. Harriet searched under cushions and books, then, just as she was getting exasperated, she unearthed it by the Christmas tree.

‘Hullo? Who?
What
?’ She beamed at him delightedly. ‘It’s Neil and Alice,’ she told him.

He grabbed the phone from her to add his greetings.

‘Happy Christmas, Sam.’ It was Neil. ‘Congratulate me; she’s agreed to make an honest man out of me at last. We got engaged yesterday on a deserted beach, with white sand, turquoise sea, sapphire sky and all bathed in tropical sunshine. It was magic.’

‘Congratulations indeed.’ Sam was delighted. ‘That’s terrific news, when—’

Harriet snatched the phone back from him. ‘Here, let me … Neil? You’re not married? Oh engaged? How wonderful. Where are you, are you still in Fiji? Tell us all about it.’

‘Yes, we’re still in Fiji,’ he said, the happiness in his voice bubbling over into a spontaneous peal of laughter. ‘It’s magic,’ he said again. ‘Here, Alice wants to tell you all about it.’

‘Harriet?’ Though she was nearly 12,000 miles away Alice sounded near at hand and so happy that Harriet had to wipe away a tear. ‘It’s Boxing Day morning here, Harriet. We got engaged at midday yesterday, Christmas Day. It was so romantic, we went for a walk along this wonderful empty beach and Neil suddenly went down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes!’ Harriet smiled at the excitement in her voice. ‘There’s a jeweller’s here and I’ve got the most beautiful ring, rubies and diamonds, and when we get home we’ll start thinking about planning a wedding. We’ll wait till we’ve sorted everything out with getting rid of the house first.’ Harriet heard the catch in the younger woman’s voice but Alice took a deep breath and continued in a lighter tone.

‘We’re staying at an island resort, it’s like a hotel but with cabins, they call them bures, instead of rooms, all scattered round. We can lie in bed and look straight out at the Pacific – the sea is only a few yards away down the beach. Oh, Harriet, I do love him so!’

The news seemed to put an extra gloss on their happy, comfortable day. While Sam went back to slouch in front of the roaring log fire, Harriet gave a sudden exclamation and went out to the kitchen. She reappeared holding a couple of tall flute glasses and a bottle of Moët she had been hiding in the fridge and which she handed to Sam to open.

‘I suppose I had a sort of inkling that something like this might happen,’ she admitted, accepting her glass from him and raising it in a toast to the happy couple. ‘If they hadn’t rung, it wouldn’t have been wasted. I was going to get it out anyway, to drink to ourselves. Neil did the right thing, getting Alice away so quickly, it was pretty grim once the tabloids did a double-take and decided the story was worth pursuing after all. Still, Matron was wonderfully starchy with those reporters and they soon went haring after another victim.’

‘It’s odd how it all worked out, isn’t it?’ Sam leaned back and stretched out his long legs again, kicking off his shoes to warm his toes at the fire.

‘You thought it was Tim, didn’t you?’ she asked him suddenly. ‘When you left me that note, telling me about his wife. That’s why you were so cross with me when I wouldn’t let you come over to Chambers Forge that night. You were afraid he might do something to me.’

‘Something like that,’ he admitted. ‘I wasn’t sure, not really, any more than you were, that it
was
him. It was just, when you weighed it all up, the haphazard nature of the enterprise, the whole thing seemed completely mad.’ He shifted into a more comfortable slouch and nodded to her over the rim of his glass.
‘That’s what alerted
you
, I imagine. The fact that the other two, or three I suppose, if you include Doreen Buchan, though I was never really convinced that she was a player; no, the other two were more or less in full possession of their marbles.

‘I mean, Tim’s plan was downright crazy. It was only by sheer chance that the whole thing came together; so many things could have stopped it in its tracks. The thread could have been spotted by the horn player or it could have snapped harmlessly. Somebody else could have been hurt and in any case it was a miracle nobody else was even touched, no matter what he said about calculating the trajectory. There were too many things left to chance and Ellen Ransom and Fred Buchan had shown themselves to be capable of cunning.’ His eyes clouded for a moment. ‘I know Fred was a victim of circumstances, just as much as Christiane was in her way, but once he’d got away and when he came to this country, he certainly showed plenty of guile. Though who can blame him. I doubt if I would have done anything else, given the circumstances.’

Harriet nodded. ‘That’s more or less how I reasoned it too,’ she said. ‘Everything you’ve said about Fred, being a victim of sorts, applies to Ellen too, though I can’t get that picture out of my head, of her calmly killing her own baby down on the beach one early summer’s morning. It’s almost as bad as the other one … I’ve been having horrible dreams about Fred and his terrible story. Here, pour me some more champagne, Sam. I might sleep better tonight.’

He topped up their glasses then cast a considering look at her. ‘It was surprisingly fortuitous,’ he ventured diffidently. ‘Tim having a fatal heart attack that last night, wasn’t it? A very peaceful death, Matron told me, and not unexpected according to the doctor, not with Tim already having a heart condition. After all, Matron had organized a medical check on all of you,
on the Sunday, hadn’t she, to make sure everyone was coping after such a trauma. It was much less distressing for Tim’s family, the fact that they didn’t have to go through all the palaver of an autopsy, seeing that the doctor had only just examined him.’

She gave him an innocent smile and a very slight nod of agreement but his forehead creased in a thoughtful frown.

‘It must have given you a bit of a shock,’ he said, watching her. ‘Finding him like that with his heart tablets on the floor where he must have dropped them before he could open the bottle. What made you go and check up on him?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, you can’t deny that his late night discussion with me was pretty stressful,’ she said. ‘It seemed a good idea to make sure he was feeling better. After all, he’d looked dreadful when he said goodnight.’

No need, she thought, to mention Tim’s sleeping pills to anyone: an old prescription, he’d said, dating back to the time of his wife’s death. There had been no autopsy, no worrying revelations, and no empty bottle left inconveniently on his bedside table. She felt no qualms of conscience about any of her actions, so she resolutely kept her own counsel. She knew however, none better, that her cousin Sam was nobody’s fool.

‘There didn’t seem much point telling anyone about what he had told me,’ she said casually. ‘After all, everyone, including Alice and the police, accepted Christiane Marchant’s death as an accident. The musicians were completely exonerated and Neil had told me only that morning that the euphonium player was now beginning to feel very much better about the whole sorry affair. Why stir up a hornet’s nest? It might well have been an accident after all. Who’s to know Tim wasn’t talking nonsense? He sounded logical enough, I grant you, but he might have completely flipped. Besides,’ she reached for the bottle again. ‘I was the only person who heard him and who
knows? I might have dreamed the whole thing. After all, I was completely exhausted that night.’

‘Quite right, Old Hat.’ Sam smiled affectionately at her and she knew that whatever suspicions he might harbour, the matter was now closed. ‘As for our other two prime suspects, I gather poetic justice has befallen them?’

‘It certainly has.’ She roused herself to pass a plate of mince pies. ‘Here, take one, you’re quite safe, I didn’t make them. I bought them in Waitrose yesterday morning. Yes indeed,’ there was a gleam of triumph in her eyes. ‘Fred Buchan had a massive stroke that night so Doreen and Vic have fixed up to move him next door into Hiltingbury House on a permanent basis once he’s out of hospital.’ She munched reflectively. ‘I suppose we were right not to report him as a war criminal? He was a Nazi, after all.’

Sam shook his head. ‘No, he suffered divine retribution, I’m quite convinced of that. No human agency could touch him. But it was retribution tempered with mercy.’ He was wearing his inward look. ‘As divine retribution always is.’ He sat up straight and smiled affectionately at her. ‘I do truly believe that he found some kind of peace down in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral that day, staring at the statue; that, and confessing his tragic tale to Alice and the rest of us. Besides, there’s a time and place for a spot of mercy from the likes of us too.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ She pursed her lips and nodded. ‘After all, Alice was so anxious to be rid of all the horrors, all the past anguish and the recent misery. What would be the point of raking it all up? Fred Buchan had suffered years of the most dreadful guilt which is retribution after all, a life sentence, in fact. I understand he’s severely paralysed down his right side and can’t speak, but Doreen says it’s quite obvious that he can understand all they say to him.’

Sam winced. ‘Oh Lord, that’s the cruellest punishment of all.’

Harriet nodded in sympathy then recalled the other resident at Firstone Grange whom they had thought deserving of punishment.

‘Did I tell you…?’ she sounded slightly gleeful, and then looked abashed. ‘Matron had a word with Ellen Ransom’s son-in-law and convinced him that it would be a kindness to get Ellen into Hiltingbury House too. She didn’t specify to whom – it would be a kindness, I mean – but he was pretty quick on the uptake and between them they pushed it through before Ellen or her daughter could come up with any objection. A room fell vacant and Matron and her crony leapfrogged Ellen to the top of the waiting list. It’s always
who
you know.…’

Drowsing in the glow of the firelight Harriet knew Sam was remembering, as she was, the damp, grey December morning when Christiane Marchant was finally sent to her rest.

‘What a sad, injured soul she must have been,’ reflected Sam, looking momentarily unhappy as he considered the warped and twisted mind of the woman who had caused so much pain and misery.

‘Oh, Sam.’ Harriet looked at him with affectionate exasperation. ‘Don’t go all broody about it. There was nothing you could have done for her, even if you’d known. She wasn’t the type to let anyone get close.’ Knowing his tender heart, Harriet decided to keep her real opinion of Christiane MIarchant to herself. I don’t believe, she pondered, that even such an appalling event in her past could have turned a normal woman into a monster. Sad or angry, certainly, insane even, but such a bitch? I don’t think so.

She upended the champagne bottle over his glass. ‘Here, get this inside you and pass me that tin of Quality Street. It’s
Christmas Day, let’s just thank God it’s all over and we managed to get out of it unscathed.’

He grinned at her and nodded. ‘Happy Christmas, Old Hat,’ he said, raising his glass to her. ‘Here’s to us.’