Asking For Trouble (25 page)

My heart was beating like a drum and I felt my isolation in this wilderness more than ever before. Why hadn’t I stayed in London? In London I could have ducked down a side street, gone into a shop, jumped on a bus, anything. Out here I was marooned amongst empty fields. I’d have to scramble over a hedge or fencing before I could get into one of those and the driver would be out of his van and have grabbed me before I’d got ten yards.

The one hope was to reach the turning up to the stud. He wouldn’t follow me on to the property, surely? Someone might see him from the house. I could see the turn ahead with the wooden sign, promising sanctuary. I made for it like a medieval fugitive, heading for the church door with the mob on his heels. But it was all uphill, very steep. An agonising stitch shot through my side. I doubled over. I couldn’t make it. I had to halt.

The van had reached me and stopped. A door slammed. Footsteps grated on the road surface, approaching.

‘This is it, Francesca!’ I told myself between spasms of agony.

I tried to stand upright, groaning with the pain of the stitch. A hand gripped my shoulder. I wasn’t going to give in without a fight, even in my state. If Terry had put up a fight, she mightn’t have finished dangling from a light fitting. I struck back with my elbow and there was a yell of pain. Good! I thought. I’d got him where it hurt. I tried another jab and there was another howl.

‘Fran! Stop it, will you? What are you trying to do?’

I could hear my name and the protesting voice was familiar. I twisted in his grip, peering up in my doubled-over state, hand clasped to my ribs, panting, sweating – a real sight.

‘Have you gone completely crazy?’ Ganesh panted. ‘I tried to attract your attention and you took off like a rocket! What’s is the big idea? Training for the Olympics? Then you tried to use me as a punch-bag. Country living has scrambled your brain – or what brain you’ve got left!’

‘I thought you were a hit man,’ I said.

We’d limped together to the van and driven past the house and down the hill on the other side until we reached a wooded dell. There we sat until the stitch in my side had gone and the pair of us had got our breath back.

Ganesh lounged sideways on the driver’s seat, his back against the door, one arm propped on the seat and one on the wheel. His long black hair hung over his face and he was scowling ferociously at me through the tangles. He was probably still suffering from the two punches I’d aimed at him and what I had to say didn’t make him any happier. In reality, I was delighted to see him, but at the moment could do no more than gawp at him.

Then he said in the tone which he reserves for pouring cold water on my ideas, ‘Hit man?’

‘Well—’ I tried to sound as if it wasn’t a daft idea. ‘You might have been!’

‘A hit man, in a van like this? Not built for getaways, is it? It only just got here from London! Why didn’t you recognise the van, anyway? It’s the one belonging to the shop. You’ve seen it enough times.’

This drew my attention to the fact that the inside of the van smelled of cabbages, potato earth and over-ripe bananas. There was a torn plastic net at my feet with a label reading ‘Florida Pink Grapefruit’.

‘I know I have!’ I snapped, getting flustered. ‘But in London, not here! You didn’t say you were coming down here! What are you doing here, anyway?’

‘Rescuing you,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to drive you back to town.’

‘Not now! Not now I’m getting somewhere!’

I burst into a recap of my theories. ‘Terry was going to inherit the lot. That would have left several people out in the cold. There’s Philip, her father. Everyone says he was never interested in the stud and anyway, he’s got his own successful business. And I don’t really think he’d kill his own daughter. But what about Jamie? He was in London that day, I’m sure of it. You saw him and so did Edna. I found a piece of Squib’s chalk in his car and he uses that cologne. He frequents that wine bar. He smokes Benson and Hedges. He’s worked hard to rescue the stud from the slide in business while Alastair was in charge. He probably feels that if Ariadne left it to anyone, she should have left it to him. He is a family member, after all. He’s probably resented bitterly her decision to leave it to Terry.’

‘If he knew about it,’ Ganesh pointed out. ‘And even if he did, why didn’t he just marry Terry?’

‘That’s the Indian way,’ I said. ‘Keep everything in the family. That hasn’t been done in this country for a hundred years. What’s more, I can’t see Terry falling for Jamie.’

Ganesh didn’t look convinced but I ploughed on. ‘There’s a very unpleasant groom, or stable manager, called Joey Lundy. He knocks his simple-minded wife around. Alastair and Jamie seem content to let him stay in his job and just drop a word from time to time when poor Mrs Lundy’s bruises get too obvious. But Terry might have thought differently. She might have ordered Lundy off the place, once she owned it. So he would have a motive to kill Terry and he’s the sort who’d do it.’

‘Is there any evidence this Lundy fellow was ever in London in his entire life?’ Ganesh punctured another theory.

‘Evidence’, I told him, ‘is what I’m here to find. Maybe he and Jamie were working together. They both had an interest in removing poor Terry from the scene.’

‘Only according to you and your theories.’ Ganesh could, on occasion such as now, sound irritatingly smug.

‘All right, there’s something else,’ I told him. ‘I saw Jamie talking to the solicitor, Watkins, in that wine bar. I’m sure Jamie was trying to find out about Ariadne’s new will. He might even have tried persuading Watkins to put pressure on her to make it out in Jamie’s favour. Jamie had no business to be with Watkins there.’

Ganesh struck his hand against the steering wheel and swore vigorously, something he rarely, if ever, did. ‘I’ve sometimes thought you were crazy, Fran, but I’ve never thought you were stupid. I’m beginning to change my mind! This is family business. Monkton family business. The last thing they want or need is a complete stranger like you prying into it! Besides which, you’re putting up a load of theories without any proof! Why shouldn’t Jamie Monkton meet Watkins? Watkins probably handles all the legal business to do with the stud. They needn’t have been discussing the will at all!’

‘Watkins came to the stud this morning. If Jamie wanted to talk business with him, he could have done it today, without traipsing into Winchester. He wanted to meet Watkins in Winchester, Gan, because he didn’t want anyone at the stud knowing about it! Ariadne should be warned! Look, suppose—’

‘You can’t go about making accusations like this!’ Ganesh broke in hoarsely. ‘If you’re wrong, you’re going to be in a hell of a tight corner! And if you’re right – it’s not Ariadne you should be worrying about, it’s you!’ He leaned forward pugnaciously. ‘You shouldn’t stay here another minute. You’ve found out all you can. We’ll drive back to London right now. We’ll go to Morgan and tell her. She can sort it out, right? It’s her job. Leave your stuff here. You can phone Monkton and ask him to send it on.’

‘No way!’ I told him indigantly. ‘I’ve got your camera, amongst other things! Hey! Did you get that film developed?’

‘What film?’

Dismay swept over me. ‘You didn’t get it?’ Then I remembered. I’d only posted it the previous day and if he’d left London early this morning – ‘It will be at your place now, unopened! Gan—’ I grabbed his jacket. ‘You’ve got to drive back, now, pick up that film and take it to the chemist’s near your shop. He does one-hour processing!’

‘If I drive back, does that mean you’re coming with me?’

‘No.’ He was looking so furious I found myself almost pleading, ‘I must stay just one more day. I’ve
got
to talk to Ariadne.’

‘She’ll tell you to mind your own business and I for one won’t blame her!’

‘I’ve still got to try! Right?’

He glared at me. ‘Wrong! This isn’t a game, Fran!’

‘I know that! Look, I don’t know why you have to come. I can look after myself!’ I yelled.

It was getting pretty noisy inside the van. My ears were ringing. It was time to quieten down.

We both sat in silence for a few minutes until Ganesh began to speak again, using a reasonable tone which always infuriates me.

‘You can’t look after yourself, Fran, not this time. I know you can in normal circumstances, but there’s nothing normal about this. You’re in a strange part of the world, living among people you know very little about. These aren’t your sort. They’re rich. They’ve got big houses, land, horses and so on. They may quarrel among themselves but they’ll close ranks against outsiders. You’re the one who will be sacrificed. You do see that, don’t you?’

He waited and when I didn’t answer, went on more angrily, ‘All right, look at it this way. Just now you thought you were being attacked. Suppose you’d been right? How tall are you? What do you weigh? I’ve seen twelve-year-old kids as big as you. You haven’t got the strength, Fran, to save yourself in a struggle.’

‘I know all this,’ I told him. ‘Because contrary to what you seem to think, I’m not stupid and not unaware of the risk. But I can’t give up now, not just at this point. Not after I’ve come all the way down here and managed to find out so much.’

He sighed. ‘How much longer do you think you’ll need to stay on?’

‘Twenty-four hours tops, I swear. Tonight and perhaps part of tomorrow. Then I’ll go back to London. I realise I’m a fish out of water down here. But I don’t like leaving something half-finished.’

He scratched his head and scowled. ‘All right. One more night. I came prepared to doss down in the van in case I couldn’t contact you at once. I’ve got a sleeping bag and some food. Tomorrow, right after breakfast, I’ll come and collect you. If anything goes wrong before that, get out of the house, leg it down here and you’ll find me.’

I felt a twinge of guilt at having yelled at him and I told him I really did appreciate his coming to help, and being worried, and all the rest of it.

‘Yeah, yeah . . .’ he said impatiently. ‘Just remember, watch out! If anything – anything at all goes wrong – just start running as fast as you were running away from me just now!’

At the house, both Marcia’s car and Watkins’s Mercedes had gone. I limped round to the back porch to take off the wellies. They were jammed on my swollen feet by now and I could have done with a boot-jack, like the one they had at the farm. I managed to get them off and thankfully divested myself of the Barbour, inside which I was steaming like a steak and kidney pudding.

I staggered in my socks into the kitchen, carrying my pixie boots in my hand. I couldn’t get them on.

Ruby was there mixing up batter again. She was an obsessive cook.

‘Hullo,’ she said without stopping the beating action. ‘You look as if you’ve been running.’

‘Brisk walk!’ I told her. I drew a glass of water from the tap and drank it down in one long swig. She gave me a curious sideways glance. My purple face indicated more than a healthy stroll, but she didn’t say anything else.

She poured batter into the cake tin and put the whole thing in the oven. This time she just handed me the bowl to scrape without asking.

The batter was sweet and sticky and made me feel about six years old.

‘Ruby? Does Mrs Cameron come downstairs during the day? She doesn’t stay up there all day, does she?’ I pointed my spoon at the ceiling.

Ariadne obviously had a private sitting room upstairs, but I hardly felt I’d be welcome if I just went up there uninvited and knocked on her door.

‘Not generally,’ Ruby said. ‘You finished with that bowl? Not unless she’s having a bad day. A nice day like today, she likes to go out in the garden. She’s quite a fine artist. She’s out there now with her drawing papers and pens. She’s a very talented lady.’

I took off the socks and walked out barefoot into the garden. The grass was blessedly cool under my toes. Ariadne was at the far end in her chair under some appletrees which had seen better days. She had a board propped up on her lap and she was sketching. It must have been a little chilly there despite the sun, but she didn’t seem to mind. She had a blanket over her legs and a gauzy scarf wrapped lightly round her throat, the ends trailing down her back
à la
Isadora Duncan. The breeze caught the ends of the scarf from time to time and lifted them gently, only to fall back again, pale turquoise tips trailing across the long grass.

It occurred to me that if anyone meant her any harm, she was about as vulnerable as she could be, sitting out here in her invalid chair, all alone and too far away from the house to shout for help.

‘I wish I could draw or something,’ I said, sitting on the grass by her.

‘Have you ever tried?’ She smiled down at me.

I had to confess I hadn’t. She pointed to a satchel by her chair.

‘Take a sheet of cartridge paper out of that and see what you can do. Try charcoal.’

I got myself a sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal and used the cardboard satchel to lean on. I could just see a corner of the house through the shrubs and old fruit trees so I had a go at drawing that but it looked lopsided when I’d finished, with all the windows too large.

Ariadne inspected it when I finally decided I couldn’t manage any more.

‘You’re too worried about detail,’ she said. ‘You need to get down just a general impression first. Details can come later.’

That tied in rather neatly with what I was doing here. I wondered how I could get round to Watkins’s visit that morning.

While I was thinking it out, she showed me what she’d done. It looked highly professional to me. I told her about Squib and his pavement reproductions. She seemed genuinely interested.

‘If he’s had no formal training, he must have an exceptionally keen eye,’ she said.

I asked her if she’d had lessons and she said she’d had a few. She’d been at art college when she’d been young.

‘Did Terry draw?’ I asked. ‘I never saw her do anything like that.’

‘Theresa had no patience.’ She began to put her work away. There was something final about the way she spoke. She didn’t want to talk about Terry. I persevered, all the same.

‘She never talked about her home, this house,’ I told her. ‘Or the stud. I was really surprised when I found out what was here.’