Blood on the Wood (20 page)

‘Perhaps it was guilt.'

‘Guilt!' I looked round, making sure nobody was near enough to hear. They were all safely clustered round the urns. ‘You're not saying he had something to do with killing Daisy?'

‘No. But I do think it's possible he put her into a situation where she got killed. You know what I said to you about trying to embarrass the Venns. Suppose he decided to persuade Daisy to go up to the house and confront them?'

‘She wouldn't confront anybody.'

‘Not on her own, no. But if he had one of his crazy schemes – oh, I don't know – imagine all the Venns trooping into dinner and Daisy sitting there at the table with Harry hiding behind a curtain, working class come to claim its own from the bourgeoisie. I'm not saying that's what Harry did, but something like that would be in character.'

‘But they wouldn't have shot Daisy for that.'

‘No. Well, maybe he persuades her to creep in after dark and one of the Venns really does take them for burglars and – like any good middle-class socialist in defence of his property – fires into the dark to scare them off. Only he hits poor Daisy and Hawthorne gets away.'

‘I just don't believe he'd go off and leave her like that.'

‘Perhaps he'd convinced himself she was only injured and it was a real shock when he heard she was dead, hence the guilt.'

‘But if he hates the Venns so much, surely he'd tell the police that.'

‘No, because he'd be quite sure the police would side with the Venns and put the blame on him. He might even be right about that.'

‘Is Hawthorne still at the Scipian camp?'

‘No. That broke up after the police came. Nobody had much heart for it. I suppose Harry's back in town. In fact, I thought he might be here tonight but—'

Before he finished speaking, there was a stir by the doorway and Harry Hawthorne walked in with a little group of supporters behind him. By then the meeting had been on the point of breaking up; people had separated into little groups, the caretaker was fidgeting with keys. When he came in there were shouts of welcome, cheerful insults about being late as usual. The petition was produced and Hawthorne scrawled his signature, taking up three lines. I noticed because I was at his shoulder by then. Before I could speak he turned round and saw me.

‘You were at the camp. You're a friend of young Daniel Venn's, aren't you?'

At the top of his voice as usual, his beard practically scratching my face. A knot of people had collected round him already and others began to drift in from corners of the room. I started saying I was more of an acquaintance than a friend, but he didn't take any notice.

‘Well, did they kill her?' Gasps and questions from all round. He played up to them. ‘Rich young man got himself engaged to a working-class girl and the family objected so they shot her, like doing away with a puppy you don't want.'

I said, loudly because he seemed to be making a public meeting of it, ‘We don't know who did it. Anybody could have shot her.'

‘But who'd have wanted to?'

I felt Max's grip on my elbow. He said to Hawthorne, ‘I don't think we'll get far like this. Why don't we go and talk outside?'

Surprisingly, Hawthorne obeyed. Max steered the two of us out of a side door into an alleyway. There was a gas lamp on the brick wall above us and by the direct light of it Hawthorne's face looked lined, older. He lit a cigarette that smelt like a cattle shed, his hand shaking, and took a long drag on it.

‘Why do you think they killed her?' I said.

‘They'd taken a trip to the marriage market and brought him back a nice young woman with a dowry. Then he goes off slumming and comes back with a penniless girl who'll cost them a packet. What would you expect them to do?'

‘You're talking as if they were millionaires,' I said. ‘You can't describe Daniel as rich, and even if Felicia is going to inherit some money of her own, I'm sure it won't be the sort of fortune people get killed for.'

‘What do you know about what people will kill for, girl? I've been in places where I've seen a man murdered for ten bob and that's daylight truth.'

I started saying but this was a different world, but it only played into his hands.

‘It's all the same world, girl. Just that some of it has prettier curtains than the rest.'

Max came in on my side. ‘That's all very well, Harry, but the Venns aren't stupid. Why would they take a risk like that for a few hundred pounds and some passing social embarrassment? Give them a year or two, they'd have had poor Miss Smith pouring Earl Grey tea and playing Chopin on the piano just like the rest of them.'

Hawthorne's laugh was short and bitter. ‘Anyone will behave stupidly when he's panicking.'

‘And you think the Venns were panicking?' I said.

‘Daniel admitted it himself. That Sunday, when he came down to tell me how they'd taken it, he said his brother and his uncle were in a panic about it.'

‘They didn't like it, of course,' I said.

‘More than that. Daniel had some money in trust from his aunt for when he got married – you knew that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, his uncle's a trustee and his brother knows all about it. Daniel goes to them on the Sunday and says he'd like his money, please, because he's going to marry Daisy and they tell him he can't have it because it's not there.'

‘Daniel told you that?'

‘He did, and the day after that, the girl's shot. What more do you want? Daniel even had a gun. He showed it to me the night she was killed.'

With only the two of us for audience, his voice was more subdued, almost depressed.

‘So you're claiming Daniel himself shot Daisy?' I said.

He shook his head. ‘I think there's just a shred more decency in Daniel than the rest of them, just a shred. Showing it to me, he was as good as confessing what his brother and uncle had done.'

‘Daniel had the gun because he thought the other girl he was engaged to had used it to try to kill herself. He told you that, didn't he?'

‘That was the story at the time, yes.'

‘What did he do with the gun? Did he leave it with you?'

‘Of course not. Why would he do that? He took it away with him.'

‘What happened when he'd gone? Did you try to find Daisy Smith and tell her what he'd said about ending the engagement?'

‘No. I thought she'd be asleep with the rest of the women.'

‘But she wasn't, was she? When did you notice she was missing?'

‘I didn't. By the time I knew, she was dead.'

‘Did you suggest she should go up to the house?'

‘I might have if I'd talked to her, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her.'

‘When did you last see her?'

He took another long drag on his cigarette. ‘Some time on Monday, I suppose, probably at Daniel's talk in the morning.'

I looked up and caught Max's eye. He seemed content to let me ask the questions but I knew I wasn't getting far. Hawthorne was keeping something back.

‘Why were you so pleased when Daniel announced he was engaged to Daisy Smith?'

He shrugged. ‘Nice to see a poor girl getting a chance.'

‘There was more to it than that, wasn't there? You knew it would embarrass his family.'

His eyes went to Max. ‘Have you been talking to her?'

Max nodded. Hawthorne took another lungful of tobacco smoke, threw the butt down and ground it under his heel until it was no more than a smear on the cobbles.

‘All right, he's told you that the Venns owe us money. There was five thousand the old lady wanted the Scipians to have and they haven't got it. So yes, I was showing them that we weren't going to go away quietly and forget about it.'

‘But it didn't work, did it?'

He grinned. ‘You don't think so? At least it got them talking to me.'

‘Daniel, you mean?'

‘Daniel's not the one with his hands on the purse strings. No, his brother. Ever since the old lady died he'd refused to meet me, sat in his office sending me letters saying to get my dirty working-class boots off his nice doorstep – in lawyer's language, of course. Then three days after we really turn up on his doorstep, he says let's meet and talk.'

‘When?'

‘Monday evening. He asked me to be patient about the money his aunt wanted us to have and handed over two hundred pounds in banknotes on account. And if you're wondering what's happened to the money it's duly entered in the Scipian bank balance and will be used for educational purposes just as the old lady wanted. If you don't believe me I'll give you the treasurer's name and you can check with him.'

I believed that at least. Financial greed on his own account was something even his enemies had never attributed to Hawthorne. For the cause, it was another matter. Still, I found it hard to believe that Adam Venn had voluntarily handed over money.

‘Where did you meet him?'

‘Down in the village at the back of the public house. He drove up in his gig, handed over the money, drove off again.'

‘How was the meeting arranged?'

‘I got a note from him on Monday morning, telling me to meet him there at seven o'clock.'

I remembered that as Bobbie and I had been carrying the picture up the hill on Monday evening we'd seen Adam driving down it in the gig. ‘How did he behave when you met? Was he angry?' I asked.

‘Cold and businesslike, typical lawyer. He had a receipt for me to sign and I signed it. He wanted me to agree not to start legal proceedings for the rest and said it would be forthcoming when the estate was settled. I said if the estate wasn't settled, how come we were getting the two hundred? He said his wife had had to sell her jewellery to get it.'

‘So you took the money, signed the receipt, and then what?'

‘He drove off, I walked back to the old schoolhouse. Some time after that, Daniel came to see me and told me about breaking things off with Daisy.'

‘Did you tell him about Adam and the money?'

‘I didn't get a chance. It wasn't his business anyway.'

Two of Harry's friends appeared at the end of the alley and called to him to hurry up. Even at this hour of the evening, they were going on to another meeting.

‘Well,' he said to me, ‘I've answered a lot of your questions but you haven't answered mine. Who killed her?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Some of the girls reckoned it was the other woman, the fancy fiancée, driven mad by love. I told them not to be so stupid. When the middle classes take to killing, it's not for love – it's for money.'

His friends came down to get him. He grabbed a couple of newspapers from the bundle one of them was carrying. ‘Latest edition of the
Wrecker.
Hot off the presses. Free to workers, threepence to members of the predatory classes like you two.'

Resignedly, Max and I fumbled in our pockets for coins. The sheets of thin newsprint were tacky with printer's ink. Harry was dragged away by his friends and Max walked with me to the tram stop.

‘Well,' he said, ‘what do you make of that?'

‘Would Adam Venn have handed over two hundred pounds just like that?'

‘I don't know why Harry should lie, but it's hardly a lawyer's way of doing business.'

‘Philomena's estate was settled weeks ago. If the money's there, why don't Oliver and Adam just hand it over?'

‘A big if, perhaps,' Max said.

‘You don't mean there's something in what Hawthorne said?'

‘That the Venns killed Daisy because she was a poor working-class girl? Of course not. But I think Oliver and Adam are in deep financial trouble. If you want a guess from me, they'd been gambling on the stock market with trust funds. While Philomena was alive, her money kept them going. Now she's bequeathed a lot of it all over the place, there are problems.'

When I thought of our own problem with the picture, that fitted in too. Perhaps Oliver had wanted to keep the Odalisque for her value rather than sentiment: for money, not love. The tram arrived.

‘Let me know what happens, Nell,' Max said.

I would, I said.

*   *   *

I slept on it and woke up thinking that I'd got worse than nowhere. I carried the problem with me all that Monday, on a round of offices and chambers of people who sometimes gave me translation work. It was hard going because most of my customers were just back from their summer holidays with minds full of sandy beaches or golf links, reluctant to get back into harness for the long autumn haul. The most I managed was a half-promise of some French legal documents in the next week or two, provided the client didn't decide to decide first.

By mid-afternoon, I'd decided to do nothing. Why should I take up a campaign that would harm a lot of people for the sake of a girl I hardly knew? A dissenting voice in my mind kept arguing – That's right. Sweep her aside again. Why not? Everybody else did. But that voice was in the minority, so would have to get used to being ignored. I made my way to Clement's Inn. Mondays were open days, when members of the public interested in what we did were welcome to walk in so I expected the place to be busy. Still, I was surprised when a friend grabbed me as soon as I'd set foot through the door.

‘Nell, where have you been? There's a man been waiting for you for hours and he's in an awful state.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't know. He says he won't speak to anybody else, it has to be you. We've put him in the back office and given him some tea and newspapers but he keeps popping out and asking if you're here yet.'

From the way she looked at me as I went along the corridor to the office, you'd have thought they'd got some kind of unpredictable beast penned up there. I opened the door, not too worried, then stood rooted in the doorway. Tea on the table, grey and untasted. Newspapers spread all over the floor and table as if he'd been looking for something. On his feet in the middle of it all, face grey, hair sticking out at all angles, whole body quivering with nerves and impatience – Daniel Venn. He didn't give me time to ask a question or even step inside the room, just came straight out with it in a croak of a voice, nothing musical about it.