He looked flustered, and went on to the attack. ‘I don’t see why you’re bombarding me with questions. There’s one very basic one I haven’t asked you yet. What do you think you’re doing walking uninvited into my house?’
Carole held out the envelope with the publisher’s permissions request in it. ‘I brought you this. Remember? You asked me to.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He retreated.
‘Your front door was open. I knocked and called out, but got no reply.’
‘I thought Auntie was here,’ he said rather peevishly, maybe confirming Carole’s guess that the suicide routine had been for Belinda Chadleigh’s benefit.
She decided to push forward while he was on the back foot. ‘I thought I saw Professor Teischbaum leaving as I arrived.’
‘What?’ He considered denial, but thought better of it. ‘Yes, she was here.’
‘Offering to co-operate with you? A jointly written biography?’
There a bark of derisive laughter. ‘Hardly. No, she was trying to blackmail me.’
‘Oh?’
‘Somehow she knows about the body that was found in the kitchen garden.’ Carole reacted as if this were fresh news. ‘She’s threatening to tell the press.’
‘So what did you say to her?’
‘I told her to bloody tell them!’ he snapped petulantly. Then a comforting thought came to him. ‘If she does, I think we can guarantee that she’ll alienate every single one of the Bracketts Trustees. Nobody’ll contemplate taking her side after that kind of betrayal.’
‘I didn’t think anyone contemplated taking her side now.’
‘There are a few waverers.’ He looked piercingly at her, so that his words became an accusation.
Carole ignored the challenge. ‘You don’t think Marla Teischbaum’s going to the press will cause any harm?’
‘So long as I warn Sheila what’s going to happen, it’ll be all right.’
‘Sheila won’t be surprised.’
‘Oh?’
‘I told her Marla Teischbaum knew about the body.’
‘But how on earth did you—’
Carole didn’t let him get any further. ‘Anyway, what’s this about Sheila? Isn’t Gina the one you should be telling?’
‘Who?’ At first, he appeared genuinely to have forgotten the Director’s existence. ‘Oh yes. Yes, of course. Sheila’ll tell her.’ He smiled with satisfaction. ‘Actually, we’ve done very well. Sheila’s contacts are brilliant. She’s kept the story quiet all this time. Only two more days till Bracketts closes for the winter. And if there is any threat of over-inquisitive press or ghoulish members of the public creeping round, we can just close a little early.’
‘So what was Marla Teischbaum trying to blackmail you for?’
‘Sorry?’
‘She threatened to spill the beans to the press, unless you did . . . what?’
He coloured, and pushed the revolver around in its nest of papers. ‘She wanted more information about Esmond, more documentation. Huh. If she thinks I’m going to give up my hard-won research that easily . . . well, she’s taken on the wrong person.’
Coming from those flabby lips, the attempt to sound macho didn’t work.
‘Going back to the “Chadleigh bad blood”, could we—?’
She was interrupted by a panicked voice from behind her. ‘Graham, what on earth are you doing with that?’
Carole hadn’t heard Belinda Chadleigh enter the room. But, when she turned and saw the old woman’s faded eyes staring with horror at the revolver on Graham’s desk, she began to wonder how much of a game his suicide threat had been.
And, also, whether the ‘Chadleigh bad blood’ perhaps referred to a depressive tendency in the family’s genetic make-up.
Chapter Nineteen
There were three butts on the ground by the Renault when Carole returned, and the fourth cigarette was already drooping from Laurence Hawker’s mouth. Neither he nor Jude noticed her approach. He was lounging against the car, gazing out over the green downland, while Jude looked at him with unusual intensity, as if trying to impress his image on her mind.
Carole, with some annoyance, interpreted this as a look of love, and in fact she wasn’t far wrong. Jude was having increasing difficulty in maintaining her ‘no love’ agreement with Laurence. Insidiously, over the past few days, he had become part of her life, and the prospect of losing him was more and more painful to contemplate.
Finally hearing Carole’s approach, she shook herself out of introspection, and observed, ‘Took a long time to pop an envelope through a letter box.’
‘Yes. I talked to Graham.’
‘And?’
But Carole didn’t want to discuss the case with a third person present. Particularly with Laurence Hawker present. Mumbling that Graham hadn’t said anything of great interest, she got into the car. Jude knew exactly what was going on, but said nothing.
On the way back, Laurence again trailed his smoking hand out of the window, but Carole was still very aware of the smell.
Graham Chadleigh-Bewes had moved quickly in contacting Sheila Cartwright. There was a message from her on the answering machine when Carole got back from Bracketts. While Gulliver fussed around her legs, as though she’d been away for six months, she listened to the playback.
‘This is Sheila Cartwright. The police are about to make a statement to the press about the discovery in the kitchen garden. It is very important that we all sing from the same hymn-sheet on this one. So I’m calling an Emergency Trustees’ Meeting to discuss the situation and the appropriate responses to it. The only time Lord Beniston can make is tomorrow evening, Friday, at seven. Seven o’clock in the dining room at Bracketts tomorrow evening. Do attend if it’s humanly possible. This is very important. Message ends.’
Carole Seddon smiled wryly. Sheila had realized that the secret could not be kept much longer, and made a pre-emptive strike. Regardless of whether it was her job to do it or not, she’d summoned the Trustees. How would Gina Locke react to this latest usurpation of her authority? The meeting the following night held the promise of a considerable firework display. It would not be an occasion to be missed, under any circumstances – least of all by someone who suspected some kind of skulduggery was going on at Bracketts.
There was a brief mention of the body on the local news at six-thirty. A presenter who was going to have to have her teeth fixed before she made it on to national television announced, ‘At Bracketts House, near South Stapley, the former home of writer Edmund Chadleigh, there has been a grisly discovery. Human remains buried in a shallow grave were discovered during digging the foundations for a proposed museum at the tourist site. A Sussex Police spokesman said that the body belonged to a man, and he is thought to have died at least fifty years ago. There is no information yet as to his identity or the cause of death.’
The report was accompanied by library footage of Bracketts looking at its best in summer sunshine. Then the presenter moved on to the story of a seven-year-old girl in West Durrington who had enlisted her primary school class-mates into a team of majorettes.
So much for the profile of Esmond Chadleigh in the wider world outside Bracketts – even a professional news service got his name wrong. Carole wanted to share her reaction to the bulletin with Jude. In fact, she would rather have been watching the news with Jude. But the presence of Laurence Hawker in Wood-side Cottage inhibited her from going round or picking up the phone.
Jude had said she and Laurence were going to have supper at the Crown and Anchor, and had, with her customary openness, invited her neighbour to join them. Characteristically, Carole had invented a reason why she couldn’t.
But she was desperate to talk to Jude. On her own.