They found him near the closed-off kitchen garden, loitering on the path which led from the gift shop to the car park. He had already finished one cigarette, and unthinkingly trodden the butt into the flagstone beneath him; another was already alight and dangling from the corner of his mouth. As they approached, he was looking up at Bracketts.
‘I do like literary houses,’ he observed. ‘It sounds sentimental and simplistic . . .’ (That seems to be one of his favourite words, thought Carole sourly) ‘ . . . and yet there is a sense of place, a feeling of the forces that shaped the thoughts that were written there. I mean, obviously, the dourness of Haworth for the Brontës . . . the tweeness of Wordsworth’s Grasmere . . . and then for Jane Austen at Chawton a kind of neat elegance . . .’
Jude looked along the neatly tiled roofs of Bracketts, the skill with which the architectural styles of different periods had been homogenized into a kind of inoffensive primness. ‘So what do you get from this house, Laurence?’
‘Ooh, it’s bland, really bland. All the rough edges have been smoothed off, to produce a building which, in spite of its antiquity, is quintessentially middle-class.’
He seemed to make a point of looking at Carole as he said this, so she asked, ‘And what does “middle-class” mean to you?’
He smiled knowingly. ‘Devious. Secretive. The middle classes are always trying to hide something. Some failed aspiration, some thwarted ambition, someone presenting themselves to the world slightly differently from the way they really are.’
Carole couldn’t continue to meet the sardonic gaze of his sharp brown eyes. ‘So how does that apply to a writer like Esmond Chadleigh?’
‘I look at that house, and I see pressure to conform. Repression. Secrets.’
Jude chuckled softly at this, though Carole couldn’t see anything funny about it. ‘Look,’ she said brusquely, ‘I’ve just got to drop a letter in to Graham Chadleigh-Bewes. Won’t be a moment. Do you want to take the car keys, Jude?’
‘No, far too nice to sit in the car. We’ll just enjoy the final reminder of summer, in this beautiful spot.’
‘And I’ll light up another cigarette,’ said Laurence.
Carole turned, partly to set off to the cottage, and partly to hide the growing resentment that the man triggered in her.
‘Oh.’ Jude’s voice stopped her, and dropped to a whisper. ‘Could you just point out where . . . the thing . . . was found? Just so’s we know.’
Carole pointed to the locked gates of the kitchen garden. ‘I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to get inside or see anything interesting.’
‘No. But it’ll help to be able to picture the place.’
‘Couldn’t agree more,’ said Laurence, prompting anxiety in Carole as to how much Jude had confided in him about their case.
There was a solid gate which led from the main gardens of Bracketts to Graham Chadleigh-Bewes’ cottage. A notice on it read ‘Private’, but Carole had seen other Trustees using it, so went through.
Outside the cottage’s front gate, a taxi was driving off just as Carole arrived. She couldn’t be absolutely certain, but the height of the woman in the back seat and the flash of sunlight on chestnut hair suggested that the departing visitor was Professor Marla Teischbaum.
Carole had planned just to pop the publisher’s letter through the letter box and be on her way, but she hadn’t expected to find the front door of the cottage open.
She tapped on it. There was no response. She called out a gentle ‘Hello?’ Nothing.
Carole stepped into the hall. A coat-rack supported a selection of ‘Bracketts Volunteer’ waterproofs. Gum boots and walking shoes, some with the previous spring’s mud on them, were scattered higgledy-piggledy on the floor.
She tried another ‘Hello?’, but no one responded.
Carole moved on into the cottage. The door to Graham’s study was ajar. She pushed it open, and walked in.
Graham Chadleigh-Bewes was sitting behind his desk.
In his hand was an old service revolver.
He was unaware of Carole’s presence as he announced, ‘I can’t escape the Chadleigh bad blood. It’s always there. This time I’m really going to do it.’
Then placed the barrel of the revolver pointing upwards in his mouth.
Chapter Eighteen
Graham Chadleigh-Bewes caught sight of Carole Seddon standing in the doorway, and embarrassment coloured his ageing baby face. He removed the revolver barrel from his mouth and let out an inadequate ‘Ah’.
Clearly it wasn’t her he’d been expecting. Carole didn’t have any difficulty working that out. Nor was it too wild a conjecture to conclude that the person he had been expecting was his aunt. She lived in the cottage, after all, and there had been a note of familiarity in Graham’s words. Were his suicide threats, Carole wondered, another of the rituals which he and Belinda played out on a regular basis, a darker counterpoint to their cake-eating pantomime?
He put the revolver down amidst the chaos of his desk. ‘I don’t know what you must be thinking,’ he said, with an incongruous attempt at joviality. ‘Just a little game I play.’
‘Russian roulette?’
He chuckled, assuming her to be sharing the lightheartedness he was trying to impose on the situation. But she wasn’t. Carole’s emotions were more complex. There was an element of shock at seeing the man in that situation, but, more powerfully, a sense of embarrassment, as if she had disturbed some shameful ritual. Graham’s own reaction to her arrival compounded the impression
‘No, not Russian roulette,’ he replied tartly.
‘You mean there aren’t bullets in any of the chambers?’
‘Oh no. In fact, every one is loaded.’ He let out a manufactured chuckle. ‘So the odds for any Russian playing games of chance with that gun wouldn’t be very good. I don’t think even Dostoevsky would have taken that bet.’
‘The gun works then?’
‘Oh yes. Been looked after with great care. The Estate Manager is a great gun enthusiast. Checks that one out at least once a year. Even indulges in a little target practice in the kitchen garden.’
‘Is that legal?’
‘I’m sure it isn’t. But who’s to know? When the revolver was originally put on display, it was spiked, so that it couldn’t be used. The Estate Manager thought that was a pity, so he restored it to its original splendour.’
Carole moved into the room and sat down. ‘I assume it’s the one that belongs in the glass case in the Bracketts dining room?’
‘Yes. Graham Chadleigh’s revolver.’
‘ “Contents removed for cleaning and restoration”.’
‘Exactly. It’s been to a specialist gunsmith, to be properly cleaned. Has to be done every few years. Only came back from there yesterday.’
‘And when did it go? When was it sent off to be cleaned?’
‘Oh . . . What? Three weeks ago.’
‘Before the last Trustees’ Meeting?’
‘Definitely before that, yes.’
Carole didn’t contest this, but she knew it wasn’t true. She remembered seeing the revolver in its display case at the meeting. Either Graham Chadleigh-Bewes’ memory was playing him false, or he was lying. She favoured the second explanation, though she could not guess at the reasons for his duplicity.
‘You talked of “Chadleigh bad blood”,’ she said suddenly.
‘Sorry?’
‘When I came in. When you were playing your . . . game with the revolver. Is “Chadleigh bad blood” part of the game?’