Asking For Trouble (24 page)

Nick asked, watching me, ‘Did she talk much to you, Fran?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it was just the way your mother described it. She didn’t talk to anyone.’

I plunged in and told them all about the squat, the discovery of her body, Alastair’s visit to my flat. I didn’t tell them that just possibly Ganesh had seen Jamie hanging about outside the house before Terry died, or about the cologne smell or the scrap of chalk in the car. Nor did I tell them about Jamie’s searching my things or my turning over the room and finding the will.

They were both of them clearly upset when I described finding the body. Penny looked quite pale and Nick got up to make some more coffee. He probably noticed that his mother was taking it badly and I hoped he wasn’t annoyed with me for upsetting her. I apologised because I hadn’t come to ruin anyone’s day, just to find out if they could help.

Penny leaned across the table and patted my hand. ‘Don’t worry about it, Fran. Obviously it’s not pleasant to hear about it. But it must have been even more unpleasant to be the person who found – who found her.’

Nick clashed the coffee mugs together and refilled them from the kettle.

‘Don’t take this wrongly,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘But before we met you – well, we had a different idea about the people Theresa knew in London. We’d gathered she was living in a way Alastair and Ariadne Cameron wouldn’t approve of. We imagined you all as down-and-outs. Obviously, you’re not, weren’t. Highly normal, I’d say.’ He gave me a wry smile which quite made my heart hop.

‘I can imagine what you’ve heard,’ I told him. ‘Believe me, she was safe enough with us!
We
didn’t kill her!’

This time they both apologised, speaking at the same time. That made me feel I’d been rude so I apologised again and we all apologised together until it became funny and we all started to laugh.

When we stopped giggling, Penny said in a contrite voice, ‘It’s not something to be light-hearted about in any way, that’s the worst of it. It’s wicked and terrifying and – and it makes me so angry. What on earth happened to her? It must have been just—’ She gave a gesture of despair. ‘We can’t imagine how awful it must have been during the last moments of her life.’

Nick grunted and buried his face in his coffee mug. I guessed he was upset too, but he had a different way of showing it. Strong, male, keeping it to yourself stuff.

They probably didn’t know the details, how poor Terry had been knocked half unconscious and strung up, perhaps aware of what was happening, perhaps not. It was better they didn’t know.

I just nodded. ‘I want to know what happened to her. Alastair was nice to me and said to get in touch, so I did and here I am. I didn’t know about Ariadne until I get here. I didn’t know it was her house. It was embarrassing, I can tell you. I really wouldn’t have barged in the way I did if I’d known about her.’

‘Ariadne’s fine!’ Penny assured me. ‘Just a bit formal in her ways. She’s in a lot of pain most of the time. She hurt her spine some years ago in a riding accident. She was a very active woman before that. Being stuck in that chair must be unbearable for her.’

‘Someone mentioned it to me. I understand her husband had died before that, so it must have been a terrible blow to find herself disabled as well.’

‘It was more than that,’ Nick said unexpectedly. ‘She took the fall from his horse, Cameron’s. The horse’s name was Astara and they called the stud after him. Cameron had bought the horse with the intention of breeding good competition horses out of his bloodline. The horse was worth a packet to them. After Cameron died, Ariadne used to ride Astara around the place. Then she had the bad fall. You can understand it if she’s a bit tetchy sometimes.’

‘Basically she’s a very kind-hearted woman!’ Penny insisted. ‘She gave a home to Theresa when her parents split. And to Alastair, come to that. He had nowhere to go so she took him in. He ran the place for a while for her, but he wasn’t the ideal person. She could’ve taken on someone more efficient. Then there’s Jamie. He was at a loose end until he came to the Astara Stud. Admittedly, he’s turned things around there and made a go of it.’

‘She took me in, too, in a manner of speaking.’ I was thinking about it. Some people took in stray animals but Ariadne Cameron seemed to collect stray human beings.

At the mention of Jamie, however, a distinct
frisson
had been felt in the atmosphere.

I trailed a lure. ‘I have to admit I don’t like Jamie much.’

‘Jamie Monkton cares about no one but himself!’ Penny said crisply. ‘I’ve known him since he was a boy. He was a little stinker as a kid and he’s not improved.’

Nick was watching me carefully. ‘Fran? Do you think Jamie had anything to do with Theresa’s death?’

‘Nick!’ his mother exclaimed, shocked.

‘Oh, come on, Ma! Fran’s investigating. She told us so. And she’s come all the way down here so she doesn’t think the killer is in London, does she?’

He was right. I didn’t. But this wasn’t the moment to start making accusations I couldn’t back.

Penny was going to argue about it. ‘They were cousins, Theresa and Jamie. Near enough cousins, anyway. I know he’s pretty well capable of most things but he wouldn’t – not
family
, surely?’

It hadn’t struck me that Jamie would let a relationship put him off his stride. But it would be undiplomatic to take sides in an argument between Penny and Nick. I stuck to my part of the conversation.

‘I feel the more I know about Terry, the nearer I can get to
her
, then the nearer I get to the answer to all this. That’s why I’m here. Alastair told me she’d run away several times before – before the time she came to London and ended up living with us. On one occasion she went off with some New-Age travellers. I know that’s true because she did mention it once.’

The Bryants looked at one another uneasily.

‘It didn’t last long,’ Penny said. ‘A few months. Just during the summer. When the weather turned chilly and wet she came back. Her health had quite broken down, I think she was quite ill. I used to see her sometimes, wandering up and down the lane. She was as white as a sheet and I was worried she’d pass out somewhere and fall into a ditch, lie there for ages with no one any the wiser. Both Nick and I took her home a couple of times in the old pick-up after we’d found her wandering about. Her manner was always very odd, most unfriendly and withdrawn. I don’t think either Ariadne or Alastair could cope with it. Poor child, she needed help, but there was none to be had at the Astara.’

I sipped at my coffee. ‘She had parents. They could have been asked in to help. I met Marcia just this morning.’

‘She’s at the Astara? Theresa’s mother?’ Penny and Nick spoke together. Nick whistled.

‘She doesn’t lack nerve! There was a hell of a bust-up with Alastair at the funeral.’

‘I think she’s come to make up.’ In fact, interesting though it had been to meet Marcia, I’d dismissed her from my investigations. Since her divorce and Terry’s death, Marcia had no interest in what happened to the Astara Stud. But someone else did. I asked, ‘What about Philip Monkton, Terry’s father? If Terry was ill, shouldn’t he have been told?’

Penny considered the question. ‘He’s a successful man in his own line of business, and I think there’s some ill feeling between him and his relatives. He didn’t come often to see his daughter. I fancy that if there’d been a problem, Phil wouldn’t have wanted to know about it. He has remarried, too, and that always makes a difference. I understand his new wife is quite young – nearer his daughter’s age, if you see what I mean, than his. It’s not something he’d want to be reminded of.’

There was a silence. Into it came a clip-clop of horse’s hoofs outside and a bark from the dog. A girl’s voice called out.

‘That sounds like Kelly,’ Nick said. He raised his voice. ‘In the kitchen, Kell!’

She came in a few moments later, her face flushed either from the exercise of having ridden over here, or from anticipation.

‘Good morning!’ she said happily. ‘I thought I’d—’

At this point she saw me and broke off, an almost comical consternation on her freckled face.

‘Another visitor!’ said Penny hospitably. ‘Join us, Kelly. I’ll make another lot of coffee!’

Kelly came awkwardly into the room, her former exuberance evaporated. She sat down, her eyes still fixed on me. ‘Hullo,’ she said dully.

‘Fran’s seeing life on the farm at first hand,’ Nick grinned. ‘She’s never been on a farm before, can you imagine it?’

‘You’ve always lived in a town, I suppose,’ Kelly sounded more resentful than curious.

She was casting covert looks at Nick and the situation was clear enough for me to read. She was sweet on him and in a big way. The thing was, did he even notice? She wasn’t unattractive, in a healthy, outdoor way. In fact, I’d have thought she’d have been ideal if he really was looking for a wife on the farm here. But what people need, and what they want, are not always the same.

‘I reckon’, said Nick cheerfully, ‘that she’d settle into a farming way of life in no time at all! You want to give it a try, Fran.’

Kelly was clearly startled and gave me a very unfriendly look. From now on, she’d see me as a rival. It was a pity, because I’d been getting along well with her and she might have been a valuable ally.

Rather too obviously, she turned her back to me. ‘I called by, Nick, because I missed you at the yard the other day. Lundy told me you’d been.’

‘Only being neighbourly,’ Nick looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘I thought Alastair might be in the yard and I’d have a word to let him know Ma and I are thinking about them. But he wasn’t there and I didn’t want to call at the house in case I ran into Jamie. His car was parked by the garage so I knew he was there and didn’t fancy chatting to him. Lundy was as tight as a tick, by the way. How does he get away with it?’

Kelly’s features had become steadily more disconsolate as he spoke. She’d hoped he called by the yard to see her. ‘I know Joey drinks, but it doesn’t interfere with his work.’

‘You oughtn’t to be lodging with them,’ said Penny severely. ‘The man’s not to be trusted.’

Kelly brightened, hoping, I was sure, for an invitation to lodge at the farm.

I decided the moment had come to make a tactful retreat.

I thanked Penny for the coffee and said I really must start back.

‘Come again!’ Penny urged.

‘Show you around the place properly next time,’ Nick chimed in.

Kelly’s misery returned. Her day was ruined and I was the cause.

However, as I walked back, I had plenty to think about besides Kelly’s troubled love-life.

Ariadne was a wealthy woman. Everyone depended on her. She was old and in poor health. She had no children and her brother, to whom she was close, was elderly. Her nephew Philip she disapproved of heartily and, in theory anyway, he was a successful man who didn’t need to inherit wealth. Jamie had worked hard in the business, but she had doubts about him. Theresa, on the other hand, she had ‘doted on’ in Penny’s words. Terry had been her heiress and Terry herself was dead. With no obvious alternative to Terry, Ariadne must have faced a dilemma over the future of the stud. Her choice had been restricted to plumping for one of several candidates, all of whom had less than her wholehearted support. But time wasn’t on her side. She’d had to make a choice and make it quickly.

This morning, Watkins the solicitor had called on Ariadne with a briefcase containing, I’d bet my boots on it, a new will. And very likely, this morning, Ariadne had signed it.

But in whose favour? And would it mean that Ariadne herself was now in danger?

Chapter Fourteen

I needed to speak to Ariadne but realised it wouldn’t be easy to get an answer to the question which mattered most. There was no way I could casually ask her about the provisions of her will. But I was convinced that the answer to that would provide the answer to everything else.

I set off back to the Astara Stud, turning over the problem all ways in my head as I tried to decide how to tackle it. I hadn’t realised detectives had to be so versatile. A course in practical psychiatry might have helped but I didn’t have it. All I knew was I had to deal with an iron-willed old lady of the old school, who was ill and on medication. No wonder I was so apprehensive at the thought. I juggled all kinds of approaches in my head, but none of them seemed realistic.

So buried in my thoughts had I been that I hadn’t been aware of anything else. Belatedly I realised that a vehicle was following me along the narrow, single-track road. I’d been walking in the middle – there were no pavements and the verges to either side were treacherous obstacle courses of grass-concealed holes and drainage ditches. I assumed the vehicle behind me couldn’t get past. Obligingly I moved over to the far side.

He didn’t overtake. He seemed happy to crawl along at the same pace, just a few yards behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. It was an old van. The driver seemed to be peering through the windscreen at me. But the screen was yellowed with age and chipped where a flying stone had hit it. I couldn’t make out the face behind the wheel. He was dawdling along, almost at a standstill. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I realised he hadn’t been held up by me. He was following me!

I began to walk faster. What with all the ideas of family secrets and murderous plots running round my head, I succeeded in frightening myself considerably. Not only Ariadne was in danger. I was. Me. Fran Varady, the great detective. Imagining I was one of the Famous Five and putting my nose into Jamie Monkton’s business.

I broke into a lumbering run, hampered by the gumboots which weren’t designed for sprinting. Even the pixie boots would have been better. They, at least, belonged to me and were the right size.

The van increased its speed. I couldn’t outrun a motor vehicle, even such an old one. Sweat poured off me. My feet were redhot and useless, my calf muscles ached. It was like running in thick mud, a nightmare of pursuit, as to lift one foot and put it in front of the other became increasingly impossible.