“I’ve been trying to think, haven’t I, Charlie? You were at work. I was on my own here.”
“Where was your daughter?”
“Not here. Definitely not. Because if she’s in I always let her answer the phone. At that age their friends phone all the time and they talk for hours, don’t they, even if they only saw each other an hour ago. And then after I spoke to Bella I thought thank God Lucy’s not in because she’d probably have taken the call and then we’d have had to explain. She doesn’t know, you see, about Bella and Charlie’s dad.”
“Can you remember where Lucy was? That might help us to pin down a date.”
Louise sat for a moment, frowning, then her face cleared, a pantomime of enlightenment. “It was the school trip to Newcastle to see Macbeth in the Theatre Royal. I’d just come in. I’d taken down a car load and another parent was going to bring them all home. The school had arranged a coach but it had been double-booked and we’d all had to turn out at the last minute. I remember because I was so flustered.”
She beamed round at them, proud of the detail of her memory. It was almost, Rachael thought bitterly, as if she expected applause. Could she really be that childish?
“Good.” Edie nodded approvingly. “What date was that?”
“Oh God knows. It was months ago.”
“Would you have written it down? Lucy’s play, I mean?”
“Fetch the wall planner from the kitchen, darling.” Louise still appeared flushed with success. “It’ll be there!”
Charles returned with a large calendar. Each page was decorated with a photograph of a horse and there was a space for notes each day. He flipped the pages. “March the eleventh,” he said. “Lucy wrote it in.”
There you are then!” Louise cried. “If she’d wanted to talk to Charles she had a week to phone back. It was the nineteenth, wasn’t it, when she killed herself? But she never did.” “No,” Charles said. “She never did.”
“Now,” Edie interrupted calmly. “Now, we need you to remember everything Bella said, the exact words.”
Louise frowned again. She seemed incapable of thinking without screwing up her face. “She said, “I want to speak to Charlie Noble.”
Like that. Quite brusque. I was surprised because not many people call him Charlie. I thought it was someone wanting to book a ride. The stable office has a separate line but people still sometimes come through on this one. But she said it wasn’t about riding. It was personal.” Louise paused. “Those were the words she used. “It’s personal”. So I told her Charlie wasn’t here and asked if I could take a message. And then Bella said, “Who are you?” It sounded not rude exactly but as if she wasn’t used to making polite conversation, as if she wasn’t bothered what people thought.”
“And you told her,” Edie prompted.
“Yes, well, I couldn’t very well not. Not without being rude myself.”
The horror of being considered rude seemed suddenly to hit her again because she looked wildly round the room and said, “Hasn’t Charles offered you a drink or something. Really, darling… “
“What did she say then?” Edie broke in.
“She asked me if I could pass on a message to Charles. “Tell him it’s Bella and ask him to get in touch.” Something like that.”
“Did she say how Charles could get in touch with her? Did she give an address, a phone number?”
“I don’t think so.” Louise seemed uncertain. “If she had, I’d have written it down. You do, don’t you, automatically? Actually, it was a bit of a shock. Charles had told me about Bella but I’d never had any contact with her. I mean, speaking to a murderer. It’s bound to give you the creeps, isn’t it? So I might have missed something.”
“What did she say then?”
“She told me to tell Charles not to worry. “He’s quite safe.” I remember that because it seemed so bizarre. I knew he was safe, here with Lucy and me. I look after him. But she repeated it twice. As if I was some sort of idiot. Her attitude annoyed me actually. That’s probably why I didn’t tell Charles that she’d called. I mean, I don’t have to put up with that, do I?”
She looked round at them.
For a moment Charles seemed stunned. He sat with his mouth slightly open. Then he began to stroke Louise’s hand again.
“No,” he murmured. “No, of course you don’t, pet.”
Chapter Forty-Eight.
It was like the end of term. They were starting to pack up. In Baikie’s there were cardboard boxes half filled with books and papers.
Black plastic bin bags were filled with blankets which Rachael would take into Kimmerston to wash. At first Edie said she’d help tidy up and floated round ineffectually with a duster. Then she said significantly that there was something she had to write and disappeared upstairs. At least, Rachael thought, my father’s come in useful for something, even if only in providing an excuse.
Vera Stanhope seemed to resent the preparations for moving out. She had spent the night at home and turned up in the middle of the morning.
She prowled around Baikie’s, muttering to herself and poking the bags and the boxes, then summoned Rachael into Black Law to ask her about Neville. She was even ready to pass over tit bits of information in an attempt to persuade Rachael to talk.
“I’ve been following up Edie’s idea that Edmund Fulwell and Bella might have been in hospital at the same time.”
“And?”
“They were, briefly. They overlapped in the early eighties, just before Bella was released. They were on the same ward. I’m trying to track down any members of staff who might remember them both. It’s probably just a coincidence. It was years ago.”
“They might have kept in touch afterwards.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
Vera was out of sorts. She had made Rachael coffee, but grudgingly, as if paying her back for her reluctance to stay on at Baikie’s indefinitely. Now she made it clear that Rachael’s suggestions were hardly worth considering.
“Well, we think Edmund put pressure on Grace to fight against the quarry proposal. That’s what the exaggerated otter counts were about.
Perhaps he still had influence over Bella and used it to persuade her to refuse access over Black Law land.” Rachael paused, considered.
“Though of course she would have done that anyway.” “Would she?” Vera demanded. “How do you know?”
“Well, she’d have hardly wanted a road just outside her kitchen window.”
“Perhaps she didn’t have any choice.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I’ve asked an accountant to look over her books,” Vera said. “And talked to her accountant. Black Law’s in deep trouble.”
“Like every other hill farm in the north of England.”
“No. I mean deep trouble. She was within months of the bank taking over and making her and Dougie insolvent. She’d sold everything she could. The last Constance Baikie painting went last year. Her only hope of staying here was of doing some deal with the quarry company. And quickly. She couldn’t have afforded to wait for the planning process to go through.
Didn’t Neville mention that when you had your cosy chat last night?”
“He couldn’t have known.”
“Of course he knew. He’s been in charge of things, hasn’t he, since Bella died? You’re not telling me that he hasn’t had a quick neb through the accounts. He’s a businessman.” Like Peter Kemp, Rachael thought. That’s what he’d said the last time they’d met. That’s what I’m into now. Business. Not conservation.
Was that why Peter had come to Black Law the afternoon Bella killed herself? To do Godfrey Waugh’s dirty work? Offering her the final deal to keep her and Dougie on the farm? But she couldn’t face giving into him and killed herself instead.
“But she had access to money,” Rachael said suddenly. “When Charles Noble sold his father’s house after the murder he put the profit into an account for Bella. She knew about it. After all these years it would be worth a fortune.”