He’d sell you down the river. Jane patted Tom Bull’s eroded cheek, hoping his bones were twisting and tangling up in fury. Turn this chapel into a wine bar.
She jumped as the main doors creaked, and they came in together, the famous acoustics soon making it clear that this wasn’t Uncle Ted.
31
No Smoke
THERE WASN’T MUCH doubt at all, any more, was there?
‘Let me try to understand this,’ Merrily said. ‘Mary was writing to you from Tepee City.’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Morningwood was squatting on the floor now, arms around the dog, face in deep shadow, Roscoe panting. Merrily picked up the letter.
‘She wanted to meet you back at Garway. She wanted you to go with her to the Master House – because you’re the strong one. And yet you read this … and it doesn’t seem right.’
It’s in my dreams, Muriel. I thought I’d got away but I cant. When I was having the baby it was terrible, the dreams I was having then I cant tell you. Rachel who was looking after me said it was just the hormones and they got Rick who was a priest to pray with me and it was all right for a while but then it started again after the baby was born.
‘She’s had a very bad time at the Master House and yet she wants to go back?
‘She needs to deal with it,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘And now it’s different. Now she isn’t the only one affected.’
The baby cries too much. The baby cries day and night. I cant get no sleep and when I do the dreams start.
The baby cries whenever shes WITH ME. Thats not how it should be! It really frightens me! Please help me Muriel! Theres nobody else I can go to to do what I need to do.
‘You agreed to meet her? You replied saying you’d—’
‘I didn’t waste time replying, I came back. Drove across to West Wales, found this rather pathetic community, boiling their drinking water from the ditches. She’d left. Nobody knew where she’d gone. They weren’t terribly helpful.’
‘Nobody told you about a baby, then.’
‘Not a word. Probably thought I was a spy from Social Services.’
‘And you never heard from her again.’
‘Nobody did. And then, of course, while I was in Wales, something else happened. The police carried out their famous dawn raid on the Master House, removing quantities of drugs … and the future Lord Stourport.’
‘Just Lord Stourport? He carried the can?’
‘Couple of others, I think. Nonentities. There were said to be some more people involved in the activities, but not living in. They may have got away minutes before the police broke the door down. A dawn raid tends to be less effective when its targets are habitually not going to bed until dawn.’
‘Have you still got the original letter?’
‘Somewhere. It was getting worn with repeated, agonized readings, so I retyped it, word for word. Preserving the erratic application of the apostrophe, as you may have noticed.’
‘And this is all of it? I mean, is this all she said? No explanation of exactly what happened to her at the Master House.’
‘No, it … perhaps she’d explained in a previous letter that went astray. That seems the most likely explanation.’
‘Or that she didn’t want to put it in a letter anyone might read. Or that she couldn’t bear to write about it. What’s all this about money? Look at the money your getting.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The people at the Master House seem to have been paying her. For what?’
‘Evidently not merely as a housekeeper.’
‘No local gossip about it?’
‘Of course there was gossip. Sex, drugs, orgies. But nobody really knew.’
‘What about Lord Stourport? What’s happened to him?’
‘Became some kind of rock-music promoter, putting on concerts and festivals and making a ridiculous amount of money. Last I heard of him he was languishing at his family seat in Warwickshire – I think he acceded to the title within a few years of coming out of prison. I actually wrote to him once asking if he remembered Mary Roberts. Had quite a polite, civilized reply – under the circumstances he could hardly deny he’d been at the Master House – saying there’d been quite a number of young women at the house over the months and, to his shame, he didn’t really remember their names.’
‘That figures.’
‘Lying, I don’t doubt, but, darling, what could I do? You know what always haunted me?’
‘The thought that Mary might have gone back to the Master House without you?’
‘You’re very perceptive.’
‘It’s …’ Merrily shrugged ‘… It’s what would’ve haunted me, too. Look, the only thing that occurs to me – if she’s out there, she’s likely to have heard about what happened to Fuchsia. I shouldn’t think it’s made that much impact in the national press, but it’s not a common name, is it, Fuchsia Mary Linden, and if Mary is out there …’
‘You mean if she’s still alive.’
‘You’re fairly sure that Fuchsia was conceived at the Master House?’
‘Almost certainly.’
‘So her father could be Lord Stourport himself? The story Felix gave me was that the father had gone to America. But that’s the sort of thing Mary might just say to forestall questions. And you were obviously wondering about Felix himself.’
‘I was simply thinking of reasons why the girl might suddenly have wanted to smash in the skull of the man she was living with.’ Mrs Morningwood waved an unlit cigarette. ‘Might she simply have found out, coming here, that Barlow was at the Master House at the same time as her mother? The same time, in fact, as her mother got pregnant?’
‘With the worst will in the world, I really don’t think we’re looking at an incestuous relationship.’
‘Some strange and complex alliances are formed, Watkins. I merely floated the possibility.’
‘Yeah, well, I feel fairly confident about sinking it. If Felix was Fuchsia’s father, why would he tender for the building contract at the Master House in the first place and bring her with him? Wouldn’t a few people have recognized him?’
‘Hmm.’ Mrs Morningwood sniffed. ‘Stourport’s people didn’t exactly mix in the community, but I take your point. It would have to be unusually perverse – especially whilst employed by the Duchy of Cornwall.’
‘Who were the other girls Lord Stourtport mentioned?’
‘I … I’ve no idea. I suppose you didn’t have to be able to change a washer to get a bed at the Master House. You could also be a woman. And probably didn’t have to be all that good-looking either, towards the end, when everyone was perpetually stoned.’
‘No idea where Mary got to, between walking out on your mother for the last time and turning up in Tepee City? She must’ve been introduced to the community.’
‘I have no idea. Tell me – why do you think Fuchsia did it – killed Barlow?’
‘Don’t know. It’s why I’m here. Partly.’
Roscoe hauled himself up, stretched and wandered over to Merrily, tail waving. She stood up.
‘He wants me to go. Would it be his dinner time?’
‘You’re very perceptive,’ Mrs Morningwood said.
‘I wanted to be a vet when I was a kid. And then discovered about all the pets they had to put down.’ She patted Roscoe, didn’t need to bend. ‘It’s surprising how well behaved he is, isn’t it, when he’s not in a churchyard?’