The Office of the Dead (27 page)

‘Mrs Byfield?’ Filey said, his Adam’s apple bobbing in excitement. ‘I wonder if you’d care to comment on the tragic death of your daughter-in-law’s father. Was he someone you knew well?’

‘I don’t want to talk to you, young man. I shall complain to your editor.’

Filey jotted something down in his notebook. ‘Have you come down to stay with your son and his family, Mrs Byfield?’

She compressed her lips as if to stop the words falling out. David took her arm and drew her gently into the house. I followed, with Henry dragging the cases behind me. David shut the door and put the bolts across.

‘Well!’ Mrs Byfield said. ‘This is a fine welcome, I must say.’

‘It’s getting worse.’ David kissed his mother’s cheek.

‘Worse?’

‘They were peering through the kitchen window just before you came.’

‘But when all’s said and done, it’s none of their business.’

‘That’s not how they see it, Mother.’ He hesitated and then went on, ‘It seems that there’s a possibility that Janet’s father didn’t commit suicide after all.’

She frowned. ‘Some kind of accident?’

‘The police think not.’

‘But that’s ridiculous.’ She was nobody’s fool and saw where this was leading. ‘Then someone broke in. A thief.’

‘Perhaps. Janet’s father did say he’d seen a strange man in the house, but we rather dismissed that. As you know, he hadn’t been himself in the last few months.’

‘I’d like to sit down now.’ She looked tired and old.

‘Come up to the drawing room. Let me take your coat.’

‘Where’s Janet?’

‘Resting in bed.’

Granny Byfield grunted as she moved towards the door to the stairs, either because of the pain from her hip or because she disapproved of Janet’s resting in bed.

David looked at Henry and me. ‘I’m sorry about this. Why don’t you two go to lunch?’

‘Isn’t there something I should do here?’ I said. ‘Your mother will need some lunch as well.’

‘Just go,’ David said wearily. ‘Please. I’ll need to talk to her, and it’ll be easier if there’s no one else around.’ He glanced at his mother, who had begun the long haul up the stairs, and turned back to us. ‘I’m sorry to sound so unwelcoming.’

I don’t know why, but I put my hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek.

A few minutes later Henry and I slipped into the High Street and walked down to the Crossed Keys. I thought the lobby of the hotel smelled faintly of Turkish tobacco, but no one I recognized was there or in the bar.

The big, panelled dining room was almost empty. We ate tinned tomato soup, a steak-and-kidney pie with far too much kidney; and a partially cooked bread-and-butter pudding. Not that it mattered. Neither of us had much appetite. We had a couple of gins beforehand and shared a bottle of claret with the meal.

While we ate, or rather for most of the time failed to eat, I told Henry what had happened. It wasn’t until the pie arrived that I realized something that should have struck me at the station. I laid down my fork.

‘You
knew
,’ I said. ‘You knew about Mr Treevor.’

‘There was something in the
Telegraph
this morning. Not much – police are investigating the death of a sixty-nine-year-old man in the Cathedral Close at Rosington. That sort of thing. They didn’t mention him by name but they made it clear he was a resident. So I was half expecting it. And then I asked the ticket collector at the station, and he confirmed it.’

‘Filey.’

‘Who?’

‘He’s a reporter on the local paper. He was the one asking the questions when we arrived at the Dark Hostelry. I bet he sold the story to the
Telegraph.
’

‘How’s Janet taking it?’

‘Not very well. It’s come on top of David losing his job, and the miscarriage. It would be bad enough if he had just died. But to have it happen like this … David’s been good. I think they’ve learned who their friends are.’ I thought of the dean’s wife. ‘And sometimes they’re not who you’d expect.’

We sat in silence for a moment. There had been a party of rowdy men, perhaps journalists, in the bar, but the only other person in the dining room was a well-dressed woman sitting twenty feet away with her back to us and staring out of the window into the street. I thought she might be the woman that Mrs Byfield had recognized in the High Street, but I wasn’t sure.

Henry broke the silence. ‘No sign of Munro?’

‘It seems rather unimportant now, whatever he and Martlesham are up to.’

Henry glanced across the table at me. ‘After what happened to Janet’s father?’

I nodded.

‘I suppose they are unconnected.’

‘They must be.’ I pushed aside the small mountain of bread-and-butter pudding. ‘Martlesham hadn’t got anything to do with Mr Treevor. They probably didn’t even know of each other’s existence.’

Henry shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. When Munro came to Rosington, he might have been finding out about the Dark Hostelry as well as about Youlgreave. So Martlesham could have known about Mr Treevor. I bet it was an open secret in the Close that he was going senile. And Munro would have told Martlesham.’

I thought about the stroke-blighted man we had met. ‘Martlesham was hardly in a position to nip down to Rosington and cut somebody’s throat, even if he had a motive for doing it.’

‘No. I agree.’ Henry threw down his napkin and reached for his cigarettes. ‘Nothing quite fits. I wish you’d come away with me.
Now.
Not go back to that bloody house. I don’t like thinking of you there.’

‘I’ve got to stay. They need me.’ I gave him a weak smile. ‘Besides, Granny Byfield will fight off any intruders.’

‘But this could go on for ever.’

‘Nonsense.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘Listen, we can’t stay too long. I’ve got to collect Rosie from school.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘There’s really no need. I’ll take the car.’

‘I’d like to come. And I’m going to book myself into a room here.’ He flapped a hand at the smoke between us. ‘Have you paid that cheque in yet?’

I shook my head.

‘Then that’s something else I can do, isn’t it? You see – I can make myself useful.’

‘Henry –’

‘Wendy.’

We looked at each other across the table.

‘Yes?’

‘I wish,’ he said, and stopped.

‘I do too.’ For an instant I laid my hand on top of his and watched the expression of shock leap into his eyes. I moved the hand away. ‘I don’t think I want any coffee.’

‘What about a small brandy?’

‘Not for me.’

When we got back to the Dark Hostelry, we found Janet crying on the sofa, David looking harassed in the hall, and Granny Byfield standing in the doorway between them, explaining what she was going to do. She glanced at us as we came up the stairs from the kitchen.

‘I’m sure Mr and Mrs Appleyard will agree with me.’

‘Agree with what?’

‘That the Dark Hostelry is no place for a child at present.’

‘I take your point, Mother,’ David said. ‘But the question is whether Rosie would find it more upsetting to go back with you than to stay here.’

‘I’m surprised at you,’ she fired back.

‘Take her,’ Janet said.

David slipped past his mother into the drawing room. ‘Darling, are you sure?’

Janet blew her nose. ‘Your mother’s right. Especially
now.
’

Now that the police were treating Mr Treevor’s death as suspicious.

Granny Byfield wheeled on Henry and me. ‘The sooner the better, don’t you agree? I wonder if one of you would be kind enough to drive us to the station. I’ll get ready to leave while you pick Rosie up from school. There’s a train back to town at ten to four.’

‘I’m coming as well,’ Janet said.

‘Where?’ Granny Byfield asked.

‘To the station, of course.’

The old woman nodded. ‘But you won’t come up to town with us?’

‘No,’ Janet said.

Janet and I went upstairs to pack a suitcase for Rosie.

‘Are you sure this is sensible?’ I murmured.

‘She’s right. I don’t like to have to admit it but she is.’

‘They needn’t go by train. If you want I could drive them, and you could come too.’

Janet thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. ‘It would only prolong the agony.’

‘Where exactly does she live?’

‘She’s got a flat in Chertsey. It’s quite large, and very nice.’

I knew her well enough to understand what she wasn’t saying. ‘But no place for a child?’

‘As Granny Byfield has said herself. More than once. But at least she’ll be away from all this. No, don’t pack Angel. Rosie will need her on the train.’

I carried the suitcase down to the kitchen. Janet launched into a desperate conversation with Granny Byfield about Rosie’s likes and dislikes. Semolina would make her sick, and she wasn’t very fond of porridge. Could she have the landing light on when she went to sleep? She usually had a glass of orange squash in the middle of the morning and the middle of the afternoon.

‘We’ll see,’ Granny Byfield said. ‘I don’t approve of cosseting children.’

Henry and I slipped out to fetch the car.

‘Poor Rosie,’ Henry said as we walked up the High Street. ‘I’d pay quite a lot of money to avoid a few days alone with Granny B.’

‘She’s a tough little kid.’

‘She’ll need to be.’ He touched my arm. ‘Funny how they vary – kids, I mean. I wonder what a child of ours would be like.’

‘I wonder.’ I stopped by the car and unlocked the driver’s door. ‘By the way, aren’t you going to have to buy a toothbrush and so on if you’re staying the night?’

Henry accepted the diversion and we moved on to safer subjects. We drove down to St Tumwulf’s and collected Rosie. She was shy at first with Henry but willing to flirt with him – she always preferred men to women. Then I told her that Granny Byfield had come to take her on a little holiday. Her face froze for a moment as though briefly paralysed.

‘Can Angel come?’ she said at last.

‘Oh, yes.’

I drove round to the High Street door of the Dark Hostelry. There were no journalists, which was just as well. Granny Byfield was not in a mood for compromise, she would probably have attacked them with her umbrella. Janet and I loaded her into the car while David put the suitcases in the boot.

David said, ‘Wendy, if you don’t mind, I’ll take them down to the station.’

‘Is this wise?’ his mother said through the open window of the car. ‘Having both Mummy and Daddy there might give Rosie a bit of a swollen head.’

‘I don’t think so,’ David said.

He started the engine. His mother was beside him in the front. Rosie sat in the back holding Angel, both in pink to make the boys wink.

We’re sisters now.

As the car drew away from the pavement, Janet glanced up at me, her face unsmiling. No wave, no words, just an expression that said,
Now I have lost two children.

Henry and I went back to the Dark Hostelry. As I was unlocking the back door, Henry brushed my arm.

‘Look. There he is. I’m sure it’s him.’

I swung round. A large black car had just passed us, moving slowly up the High Street towards the marketplace. I glimpsed the profile of a man sitting in the front passenger seat. The driver was very small and his head was turned away from us, towards the passenger. It was impossible to see dearly because of the reflections in the glass.

‘Munro?’ I said.

‘I think so.’

‘Who’s driving?’

‘It looked like that woman. The one who was having lunch in the Crossed Keys.’

‘Perhaps she works for Martlesham too.’

The car turned left and vanished round the corner.

‘Hell of a car,’ Henry went on. ‘A Bentley. He must be simply rolling. Do you think Martlesham could have been in the back?’

‘I don’t think anyone was.’

He looked at his watch. ‘I need to draw some cash. We’ve just got time before the bank doses.’

‘Do you still have an arrangement here?’

He shook his head. ‘But I can give you a cheque made out to you and you can draw the money out of your account.’

‘All right.’ I patted my handbag. ‘I’ve got a cheque book.’

We walked down the High Street to Barclays Bank. It was a dark, gloomy building both inside and out. Henry and I sat facing each other at one of the tables in the banking hall and wrote our cheques. I reached for a paying-in slip.

‘Wouldn’t this be a wonderful opportunity to pay in that cheque for ten thousand?’ he suggested.

‘I’ve not made up my mind about that yet.’

‘Then pay it into your account and make up your mind afterwards.’

‘Don’t try and bully me.’

‘After all, your handbag might be stolen.’ He slid the new cheque across the blotter to me. ‘And there’s the other one.’

I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t had the interruption. I’d been dimly aware of a tall man in a dark suit standing at the counter with his back to us. At that moment, he turned around, sliding a wallet into the inside pocket of his jacket. It was the dean. Mr Forbury saw me at the same time that I saw him.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Appleyard.’ He nodded in a stately way.

Henry pushed back his chair and stood up, his hand outstretched. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Forbury.’

As chairman of the Choir School governors, the dean had had a good deal to do with Henry’s resignation. But Henry wasn’t the sort of person to bear a grudge. He wouldn’t have wanted this meeting, but now it had happened he was going to make the best of it.

‘Good afternoon.’ If the dean’s face had been a pool of water, you’d have said it had frozen over. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Appleyard.’

He ignored Henry’s hand and stalked out of the bank. I noticed that the tips of Mr Forbury’s ears were pink.

‘Horrible man,’ I said.

Henry shrugged. ‘It had to happen sooner or later.’

He spoke lightly but I wasn’t fooled. Henry liked people to like him. It was his little weakness. The episode with the Hairy Widow hadn’t just been about money.

‘The bank’s going to close in a moment,’ I said. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

He was always quick to seize an advantage. ‘You’ll pay in both cheques, won’t you?’

I scribbled the long row of noughts on the paying-in slip. Just because of the dean.

‘Good girl,’ Henry said.

I stood up. ‘Don’t push your luck.’

We were the last customers to leave the bank. I stood in the doorway searching for my keys in my handbag and listening to the heavy doors closing behind us and the soft metallic sounds of turning locks.

‘Excluded from paradise,’ Henry said. ‘Again.’

‘We’ll have to go back through the Close. I haven’t got my back-door key.’

The Boneyard Gate was only a few yards from the bank. As we went through the archway, the full length of the Cathedral was in front of us, stretching east and west like a great grey curtain.