She felt nothing more than a reflected embarrassment when she saw the red flood into his face but she did turn away.
She heard him say: “Thank you for that, at least. I don’t deserve it and I didn’t deserve you. God, what a fool I was!”
She thought: I mustn’t say, “In more ways than one.” She made herself look at him and said: “I think I should tell you that I know you were engaged to Sybil. It’s obvious that the police believe there was foul play and I imagine that as a principal legatee under the Will—”
He shouted her down: “You can’t — Verity, you would never think I–I—? Verity?”
“Killed her?”
“My God!”
“No. I don’t think you did that. But I must tell you that if Mr. Alleyn finds out about St. Luke’s and the cheque episode and asks me if it was all true, I shan’t lie to him. I shan’t elaborate or make any statements. On the contrary I shall probably say I prefer not to answer. But I shan’t lie.”
“By God,” he repeated, staring at her. “So you haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
“Forgiven? It doesn’t arise.” Verity looked squarely at him. “That’s true, Basil. It’s the wrong sort of word. It upsets me to look back at what happened, of course it does. After all, one has one’s pride. But otherwise the question’s academic. Forgiven you? I suppose I must have but — no, it doesn’t arise.”
“And if you ‘prefer not to answer,’ ” he said, sneering, it seemed, at himself as much as at her, “what’s Alleyn going to think? Not much doubt about that one, is there? Look here: has he been at you already?”
“He came to see me.”
“What for? Why? Was it about — that other nonsense? On Capri?”
“On the long vacation? When you practised as a qualified doctor? No, he said nothing about that.,
“It was a joke. A ridiculous old hypochondriac, dripping with jewels and crying out for it. What did it matter?”
“It mattered when they found out at St. Luke’s.”
“Bloody pompous lot of stuffed shirts. I knew a damn’ sight more medics than most of their qualified teacher’s pets.”
“Have you ever qualified? No, don’t tell me,” said Verity quickly.
“Has Nick Markos talked about me? To you?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Basil, really,” she said and tried to keep the patient sound out of her voice.
“I only wondered. Not that he’d have anything to say that mattered. It’s just that you seemed to be rather thick with him, I thought.”
There was only one thing now that Verity wanted and she wanted it urgently. It was for him to go away. She had no respect left for him and had had none for many years but it was awful to have him there, pussyfooting about in the ashes of their past and making such a shabby job of it. She felt ashamed and painfully sorry for him, too.
“Was that all you wanted to know?” she asked.
“I think so. No, there’s one other thing. You won’t believe this but it happens to be true. Ever since that dinner-party at Mardling — months ago when we met again — I’ve had — I mean I’ve not been able to get you out of my head. You haven’t changed all that much, Verry. Whatever you may say, it was very pleasant. Us. Well, wasn’t it? What? Come on, be honest. Wasn’t it quite fun?”
He actually put his hand over hers. She was aghast. Something of her incredulity and enormous distaste must have appeared in her face. He withdrew his hand as if it had been scalded.
“I’d better get on my tin tray and slide off,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
He got into his car. Verity went indoors and gave herself a strong drink. The room felt cold.
iv
Claude Carter had gone. His rucksack and its contents had disappeared and some of his undelicious garments.
His room was in disorder. It had not been Mrs. Jim’s day at Quintern Place. She had told Alleyn to use her key hidden under the stone in the coal house, and they had let themselves in with it.
There was a note scrawled on a shopping pad in the kitchen. “Away for an indefinite time. Will let you know if and when I return. C.C.” No date. No time.
And now, in his room, they searched again and found nothing of interest until Alleyn retrieved a copy of last week’s local newspaper from the floor behind the unmade bed.
He looked through it. On the advertisement page under “Cars for Sale” he found, halfway down the column, a ring round an insertion that offered a 1964 Heron for £500 or nearest offer. The telephone number had been underlined.
“He gave it out,” Alleyn reminded Fox, “that he was seeing a man about a car.”
“Will I ring them?”
“If you please, Br’er Fox.”
But before Fox could do so a distant telephone began to ring. Alleyn opened the door and listened. He motioned to Fox to follow him and walked down the passage toward the stairhead.
The telephone in the hall below could now be heard. He ran down the stairs and answered it, giving the Quintern number.
“Er, yes,” said a very loud man’s voice. “Would this be the gentleman who undertook to buy a sixty-four Heron off of me and was to collect it yesterday evening? Name of Carter?”
“He’s out at the moment, I’m afraid. Can I take a message?”
“Yes, you can. I’ll be obliged if he’ll ring up and inform me one way or the other. If he don’t, I’ll take it the sale’s off and dispose of the vehicle elsewhere. He can collect his deposit when it bloody suits him. Thank you.”
The receiver was jammed back before Alleyn could reply.
“Hear that?” he asked Fox.
“Very put about, wasn’t he? Funny, that. Deposit paid down and all. Looks like something urgent cropped up to make him have it on the toes,” said Fox, meaning “bolt.”
“Or it might be he couldn’t raise the principal. What do you reckon, Mr. Alleyn? He’s only recently returned from abroad so his passport ought to be in order.”
“Presumably.”
“Or he may be tucked away somewhere handy or gone to try and raise the cash for the car. Have we got anything on his associates?”
“Nothing to write home about. His contact in the suspected drug business is thought to be a squalid little stationer’s shop in Southampton: one of the sort that provides an accommodation address. It’s called The Good Read and is in Port Lane.”
“Sussy on drugs,” Fox mused, “and done for blackmail.”
“Attempted blackmail. The victim didn’t play ball. He charged him and Claude did three months. Blackmail tends to be a chronic condition. He may have operated at other times with success.”
“What’s our move, then?”
“Complete this search and then get down to the village again and see if we can find anything to bear out Artie’s tale of Claude’s nocturnal on-goings.”
When they arrived back at the village and inspected the. hedgerow near the corner of Stile Lane and Long Lane they soon found what they sought, a hole in the tangle of saplings, blackthorn and weeds that could be crept into from the field beyond and was masked from the sunken lane below by grasses and wild parsnip. Footprints from a hurdle-gate into the field led to the hole and a flattened depression within it where they found five cigarette butts and as many burnt matches. Clear of the hedge was an embryo fireplace constructed of a few old bricks and a crossbar of wood supported by two cleft sticks.
“Snug,” said Fox. “And here’s where sonny-boy plays Indian.”
“That’s about the form.”
“And kips with the bunnies and tiggywinkles.”
“And down the lane comes Claude with his pack on his back.”
“All of a summer’s night.”