Seeing is Believing (20 page)

‘Are we going to talk about something serious?’ she
asked, with a forced note of cheerfulness in her voice.

‘Fairly serious,’ I said.

‘I was afraid so.’ She flung herself down in a chair, gesturing to me to take another and giving an artificial little laugh. ‘I could see it in your face as soon as I saw you. Oh God, everything's become so damnably serious, hasn't it? Is it about my baby?’

‘Partly.’

‘I wish Lynne hadn't told you about it. Soon everyone's going to know all about it, and they'll all be giving me advice about what I ought to do. But I don't want advice. I want a little peace so that I can make up my mind myself. D'you think that's unreasonable?’

‘Not if you know all the facts,’ I said. ‘I've a feeling perhaps you don't.’

There was something wary in the way she looked at me.

‘Which facts were those?’ she asked, trying to sound facetious.

‘That it can almost certainly be proved that Fred Dyer was the man whom I saw at the Loxleys’ gate,’ I said. ‘That he'd disguised himself
as himself
, if you see what I mean. He'd turned himself into an exaggerated version of himself, with that wig that was just too red to be really his hair, and everything else about him being just a bit wrong, so that Mrs Henderson, whom he planned to meet when she was leaving the house should swear it couldn't have been him. Then I came along, and I was ready to say that too. I was sure until this morning that the man couldn't have been Fred. Now I'm sure that it was.’

A look of deep antagonism had replaced the wariness in her eyes. It made her face rather frightening.

‘What happened this morning to make you change your mind?’ she asked.

‘A telephone call from Judy Hewlett, Brian's wife. It was she who pointed out that one can disguise oneself as oneself. And once we'd thought of that, all the other
things seemed to fit together. Avril, I haven't come here to frighten you. I felt I ought to warn you. I felt you ought to have some time to think over your position and see if you've any answers to the things you're going to be accused of.’

‘Like offering Fred ten thousand pounds if he'd get rid of Peter for me, is that what you mean?’ Her voice had gone harsh. ‘Is it?’

That's one of the things,’ I said.

‘But why should I want to get rid of Peter? You don't know that, do you? Well, I'll tell you. You do know the child couldn't have been his, don't you, but you don't know what he did when he found out about it. Because, as I told you, I told him. Simple little old me, I told him I was going to have a child. And what do you think he did? He said I was to have an abortion, and if I didn't, if I insisted on having the child, he'd kill it. Yes, he said that. He said it'd have a cot death before it was a week old.’

‘He didn't mean it,’ I said quickly, wondering if I thought so or not.

‘Oh yes, he meant it,’ she said. ‘And he wouldn't give me a divorce, and I was afraid of simply leaving him because I'd no money. And I told all this to Fred and said — oh yes, I did — that I'd give him ten thousand pounds if he'd get rid of Peter for me. And he took me seriously! He thought I meant it! I was only talking nonsense, but he thought I meant it!’ She had flung herself back in her chair and let out shriek after shriek of hysterical laughter. ‘He thought I meant it and he went and did it. He killed Peter without even telling me he was going to do it. And now I'm going to spend most of the rest of my life in prison.’

I waited until the dreadful laughter had stopped, then I said, ‘But you
did
mean it.’

She sat up straight and rigid in her chair, a look of angry astonishment on her face.

I repeated, ‘You did mean it.’

‘I don't know what you're talking about,’ she said. ‘What did I mean?’

That you wanted him to kill Peter. That you asked him to do it.’

‘You're mad,’ she said. ‘As if I could possibly do such a thing. A man I hardly knew.’

‘You knew him well enough to have a child by him.’

‘That's different. You know it's different.’

‘All right, it's different. But it isn't an actual bar to intimacy, however casual it may have been.’

‘I tell you, I was only joking. I never meant him to take me seriously.’

‘Then how did he get hold of the gun?’

She stared at me with her mouth a little open.

‘The gun?’ she said.

‘Peter's gun, with which Peter was shot. How did Fred get hold of it if you didn't give it to him?’

She went on staring at me, saying nothing, but a change came about in her face. A wildness that I suddenly found extremely alarming and that made her eyes brilliant. I felt for a moment that she was going to hurl herself at me and I tensed myself to resist it. But I was wrong, which was fortunate for me, for she was young and powerful and I
was elderly and not notably strong. Instead, she leapt to the door, shot through it and slammed it behind her. I heard the key turn in the lock. Then, while the dogs broke into a frenzy of barking, I heard the slam of the front door and a moment later the sound of a car starting. By the time I had climbed out of the window into the garden, gone round the bungalow and reached the road, the Loxleys’ car had disappeared.

I stood there, bewildered, wondering where she could be going. Then it occurred to me that perhaps she did not know herself and I began to think what a fool I had been to come and try to talk to her. Because of our past friendship I had wanted somehow to help her and all I had done was frighten her out of her wits. If I had had any sense, I would have got Malcolm and Brian to go to Detective Inspector Holroyd with me and tell him what we had made of Peter's murder. Feeling extraordinarily annoyed with myself, I started for home and as I turned into the lane that led up to our house was suddenly shocked to see that there was a police car at our gate.

The inspector had got there before me. With his great bulk aild his strange pixie face, with the eyebrows that tilted up at the ends, he managed to make our sitting room look cramped and somehow commonplace. Malcolm and Brian were also there.

The inspector stood up as I came in, and said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Chance. I believe you've been visiting Mrs Loxley.’

‘I have,’ I said, ‘and I've got to apologize for what I've done. I've frightened her into making a bolt for it. I don't know where she's gone, but she's left Raneswood.’

‘Of course, it was to be expected she'd do that once she knew that we'd identified Dyer as the man you saw at the gate. I came to tell you that we'd some fairly definite evidence that that's who he was, and I wanted to know if in spite of that you still stuck to it that he was someone disguised as Dyer. Now your husband and Mr Hewlett
have told me that you'd all come to the conclusion that he was Dyer disguised as himself. That fits very conveniently with the evidence we've got.’

‘May I know what that evidence is?’ I asked.

‘It's a matter of two red hairs inside the red wig from your dramatic store,’ he said. ‘Hairs that match exactly some red hairs we found in the flat of Sharon Sawyer, which are indisputably Dyer's. In other words, it's clear that Dyer had that wig on his head at some time or other. So it seemed fairly certain that in spite of your doubts, he'd been the man at the gate, even though we didn't yet know what his motive might have been.’

I turned to Malcolm.

‘Have you told the inspector about Avril's pregnancy?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and that Dyer almost certainly committed the murder for the money she'd promised him.’

‘But there's something more you should know about her motive,’ I said. ‘She told me that she'd told Peter about the child, and that he'd insisted on an abortion, and if she wouldn't have ohe, he said that he'd kill the child. I think that fact might help her when it comes to her trial.’

But it never came to a trial. Where Avril was thinking of driving no one will ever know, but she got on to the M5 and appeared to be heading for Scotland. She was not known to have any friends or relatives in Scotland, but she was driving in that direction at nearly ninety miles an hour when a police car picked her up and gave chase. It made her try to increase her speed and in passing one of those great lorries that lumber along the motorways, she lost control and plunged into the side of the lorry. It rolled over sideways on top of the car, which burst into flames. By the time that the police car arrived, both Avril and the child that was never to be born were dead.

Was it intentional? It is a comfort to me to think so, because I have to face the fact that I was partly responsible for what happened, and it is a help to think that she would
have chosen the end that came to her rather than endure the years in prison of which she had spoken to me. For certainly she would have been sentenced. When Fred Dyer was caught in Northern Ireland, he talked without restraint, confirming that Avril had offered him ten thousand pounds to get rid of her husband for her. If the plot had succeeded, she would have inherited all Peter's money and have been able to let people assume that the child was his. Perhaps she had not thought of the fact that she would be subject to blackmail by Dyer, though he would have been at her mercy too. If he had gone to Australia or any other far off place and made a success of his life there, they would probably both have been satisfied to put their crime behind them.

As soon as the inquest on Peter was over, Brian returned to Granborough, where Judy joined him. Fred Dyer at the time had not yet been caught. It was some weeks before that happened and before it did, Malcolm and I set off for a visit to Italy. We stayed for a good deal longer than we had intended, and much that went on in Raneswood was only communicated to us by post, most of it by Jane. For instance, it was she who wrote to tell us that she and Hugh Maskell had decided to get married. They were going to live in her bungalow and put Hugh's house up for sale. It remained empty for some months, but was eventually bought by a retired professor of psychology, who traced the artist who had created the figure of a woman in the patio and commissioned him to produce another, only noticeably male. When we returned to Raneswood, we found him and his wife interesting and friendly neighbours.

Jane found good homes for the three dogs, actually keeping the Belgian shepherd for herself. I do not know how much disturbed the dogs were at being separated, but at least they were not put down. The Loxleys’ house has remained empty to the present time. It is a very pleasant house, but with the housing market what it is, buyers
had not plunged into buying a house where murder had been committed. A solicitor in London is responsible for it and has contracted with a firm in Otterswell to keep the garden in order. From time to time, the windows get broken by vandals, but eventually, I suppose, someone will decide that it is his or her dream house and the story of the murder will fade into a half-forgotten legend.

After all, how many people know anything much about their predecessors in the houses in which they live contentedly? Malcolm and I know nothing about the people who lived in our house before us. We bought it from a young couple who were moving to a cottage on the island of Barra. We knew nothing about why they wanted to go to Barra, or what happened to them once they were in their cottage there, and no one ever told us about who had lived in our house before them. For all we know, murder was done there. Perhaps if we took seriously the job of digging up our whole garden, we should come on a part of it where a number of bodies are buried. I admit it is unlikely, but it is not impossible. Our experiences during that spring in Raneswood have left me with a feeling that very few things are impossible.

Lucille remained in her home in Raneswood. Except that she became even more proud and stiff and unapproachable than before, there was very little change in her. No one dared to express any pity for her. She went on playing bridge and occasionally asking neighbours in for drinks, and it somehow became recognized in the village that she held herself responsible for all that her son had done, although this did not mean that she was to blame for it. As was only to be expected, he was detained at Her Majesty's pleasure. It is to be hoped, I think, that this will last for as long as his life, and that he will not be returned to be cared for in the community. Not that Lucille would shrink from undertaking this, but after all, she is much older than he is, and a time would probably come when he would be left alone to commit what further
murders he chose. Malcolm and I have discussed his case with our new neighbour, the professor of psychology, who is very sure that the Kevins of this world should be kept shut away. The well should be protected from the sick,’ he says, an attitude which is not as popular these days as I think it ought to be.

Just how sick Avril Loxley was will never be ascertained, or Peter either, for that matter. If she told me the truth that he had threatened to kill her child if she insisted on letting it be born, perhaps he was the sicker of the two. But those are problems to which there are no answers.

Ernest Askew was persuaded by his wife to submit the play that he had written to Hugh Maskell, and Hugh, most reluctant to look at it at first, fearing to be put into the embarrassing position of having to tell the writer that it was a piece of amateurish blundering, was overcome with pleasure at finding it just what Victoria Askew had said, exceedingly funny and splendid entertainment. The dramatic society made it their Christmas production and it was an amazing success. It happened that an agent from London was in the village, staying with friends, and was taken to see it, and now there are rumours going round that it will be produced in London sometime next year. In fact, without anyone suspecting it, we have had a village Chekov living amongst us. I was in our local production, as an elderly lady who spends most of her time throughout the play playing patience and had only about three lines to say. I enjoyed it very much.

Sharon Sawyer, as shyly and diffidently as ever, soon acquired another boyfriend. Gossip had it that he treated her as badly as it seemed she liked to be treated. He was part owner of a small market garden in the neighbourhood.