Bridesmaids Revisited (22 page)

Richard didn’t ask me to explain this last part; he was patently preoccupied. “No, Ellie, but I don’t want you to go back to that house, not even to collect your things. I’ll do that for you, or Arthur will, later.”

“But I have to go back,” I protested, sounding more courageous than I felt. “We’ve nothing to take to the police to encourage them to take another look into my mother’s death. Which means that they’re not likely to take seriously our suspicions that Ted was murdered, not unless they already have questions in that regard, which they probably don’t. He was old, he was tottery, and he should never have been climbing up ladders propped up against trees. He wasn’t a rich patriarch with heirs swooping in like vultures for the first pickings from his will. He wasn’t Sir Clifford Heath, out to destroy lives with a vengeful business scheme. The local squad won’t be calling in Scotland Yard on the double. They’ll write me off as a woman who’s read too many gothic novels and tell me to get a life.”

“We’d like you to keep the one you have.” Arthur looked as though he would also have liked to tuck me into bed with a hot-water bottle, read me a bedtime story, and leave me to sleep with a night-light on. But I wasn’t a little girl; I was a woman who was determined to find out who had murdered her mother. At that moment I wasn’t thinking that I had children of my own who needed me, or that my husband wasn’t eager to become a widower. I was thinking with my head wrapped in a towel, deaf to any voice other than that of my emotions.

“I’ve got a friend not far from here that I could go and stay with.” I looked unflinchingly at the two men. I didn’t add that her name was Mrs. Malloy and that she was staying with Edna Wilks’s cousin Gwen. That might not have sounded too reassuring, given the fact that my whereabouts could so easily leak back to the wrong quarter. Nor did I say that, while I could stay there, I had no intention of doing so.

“You promise?” Richard eyed me intently.

“Yes,” I lied without feeling my color rise.

“Then I’ll give you Sophia’s diary.” He crossed to the wall behind the sofa, took down an abstract painting composed of interlocking circles of black, taupe, and gray, and pressed a finger against a spot in the white paneling. A square opening appeared from which he produced a thin brown leather book. It looked very much like the book Thora had lent me last night. Had someone thought it was the diary when they saw Thora bring it into the house? Were they afraid that she had managed to find it and was intent on showing it to me? Had they seen her slip it in among the other volumes in the bookcase, imagined that she had concluded that the best hiding place was the one in plain view, and searched for it along the shelves only to find that it wasn’t the diary after all? Was that why Thora hadn’t been able to find
Secrets of the Crypt
quickly, because it wasn’t where she’d thought she’d put it? Or had she been playing a devilish game of her own devising?

“Rosemary brought me the diary that day when she came to talk to me.” Richard handed it to me as he spoke. “Her explanation was that she didn’t want to destroy it, but she didn’t want it to remain in the house, because just knowing it was there would have brought Mina’s ghost into the Old Rectory to join the ones that were already there. She said she was already depressed and was afraid of a recurrence of the nervous breakdown that had forced her to leave her job and persuaded her against the stress of taking another one.”

“So that’s what Thora meant in saying something to the effect that Rosemary could be vulnerable and why she and Jane at times seem protective of her even though in the main she seems so in charge. But what can I really believe about any of them?” The diary felt like a living object in my hands. “Did you read it?”

Richard studied my face. “I didn’t look at it until I heard you had been invited to the Old Rectory. I had the same scruples that Rosemary claimed about not invading Sophia’s privacy. Also, I’m a coward. I don’t think I wanted to know what she might have written that had reaped such devastating results for her daughter. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. But they’re not always willing to play dead, are they?”

“Did you read anything that struck you as something a person might be desperate not to have come out in the open?”

“Nothing.” Richard’s smile was wistful. “Sophia had her own way of putting her thoughts down on paper. The only thing that seemed of possible significance was that a couple of pages had been torn out.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.” Arthur cocked his pony-tailed head on one side and squinted through half-closed eyes. “Because if what mattered had been removed, what harm would be done if Ellie’s mother was given the diary? And the time it took to rip out those pages would have been better spent throwing the whole thing on the fire or hiding it until it could be properly disposed of.”

“It could be that we’re dealing with someone who doesn’t make sense because she’s mad as a hatter behind the mask she presents to the world.” I stood up. “And I’m not singling out Rosemary. Lots of people have nervous breakdowns. I’ve sometimes thought I was about to have one myself. I’m talking about the sort of madness that grows out of evil until it forces a body completely over the edge. And I really don’t see that it could be Rosemary, not when it was she who gave you the diary, Richard. There may have been someone in the house who at one time or another thought that it was still there and went around looking for it, and while doing so, took the veil out of the bag where it had been with the wedding dress.”

I was suddenly feeling terribly tired, which wasn’t surprising given my broken night’s sleep. And Richard, seeing this, escorted me, with Arthur making up the rear, back down to the studio, where he took down the photo of the Old Mill from the wall and went with it over to the crescent-shaped counter.

“I’ll wrap this in tissue paper for you,” he said. “It’ll be a happier reminder of Sophia. As I told you, she loved to paint that scene. And if you’ll give me the diary, I’ll wrap that, too, and put them both in a box. That way, if someone should happen to see you leave here, someone you would prefer wasn’t watching, they’ll think you made a purchase or I’ve given you a present. Which is what I am doing.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the diary in my handbag?”

“Just what I was thinking,” agreed Arthur.

“But that’s what this someone would expect you to do.” Richard now sounded as tired as I was. “Either way”—he handed me the box—“look both ways when you go out the door, Ellie. And when you cross the street. Then go to your friend’s. You’ll not have second thoughts about that?”

“I’m going there right now,” I told him, “cross my heart.”

I wasn’t telling a bald-faced lie, I thought as I went out into the High Street. I was providing an edited version of the truth. It had been my intention on leaving the house that morning to go and see Mrs. Malloy at Gwen’s. And that’s exactly what I was going to do. All I had failed to tell Richard Barttle and Arthur Henshaw was that I wasn’t going to seek refuge there. At least not for more than a couple of hours.

And I wouldn’t stay even that long if Gwen or her obsequious husband, Barney, remained on the scene, making it impossible for me to tell Mrs. M. to button her butterfly lips while I skimmed through Sophia’s diary. Then I would impose on her sense of loyalty to get her to hide it under her mattress. Needless to say, she would mention the hope of an increase in her wages when we returned to Merlin’s Court. Along with my promise to leave her the grandfather clock in case I was foolish enough to get myself murdered.

There were quite a number of people about, bustling along with shopping bags, pushing babies in prams, trotting dogs beside them on leads, going in or out of shops, or just pausing to look in windows. It was Wednesday, I reminded myself, which probably meant early-closing day, so it wasn’t surprising that there was a lot of morning activity. I had been grateful when the phone rang in the photography studio before Richard or Arthur could ask me where my friend lived and how I planned to get there. Luckily it had been a customer calling with some question that had sent Arthur into the back room while Richard returned the receiver to his ear. So I had mouthed across the room to him that I would be in touch as I nipped out the door.

So many emotions were running through me. Grief, rage, and a desperate desire to know what Sophia might have written in the diary that had impelled someone to murder my beloved mother. Fear had taken a while to rear its head. Now I had to fight the urge to keep from repeatedly looking over my shoulder. I paused in front of the greengrocer’s and while pretending to be looking at the bunches of flowers in the wooden crates outside, I casually glanced around without spotting a familiar figure amongst the throng.

So I moved on, intending to take the first side street I came to that would lead me back to Hawthorn Lane. From where I could retrace my steps to the Old Mill. And with any luck be able to figure out Thora’s instructions on how to cut across the fields by using the footpaths and somehow end in Upper Thaxstead. But with each step I became increasingly sure that I was being followed. There was nothing to substantiate the feeling, because when I gave in to the urge to turn around, while drawing level with the bus stop, I still couldn’t see anyone who looked suspicious. Even so, the prickling down my spine grew and I clutched the box containing the photograph and the diary to my middle. I wished that a bus would appear. It didn’t matter where it was bound. Timbuktu would have done just fine. I would have been on board.

I was moving on at a quickened pace when a vehicle, a white van with black lettering on its side, came to an abrupt stop alongside me, and before I had finished leaping in the air, the window rolled down and a bristly head of brown hair stuck itself out the window.

“Mrs. Haskell?” The voice was curt, bordering on pugnacious—a good match for the face that could have belonged to a boxer bouncing around the ring. His gloved mitts pounding the air as he waited for the bell to ring. Actually his hands were on the steering wheel and he was smiling. “It’s me, Tom, from up the lane. One of them that gave you such a hard time yesterday. Want a lift somewhere?”

I would have agreed to elope with him if he’d asked me. Instead I nodded, climbed in alongside him, and drew a deep breath. There was something a bit fishy here, but only in the literal sense, and on leaning back in the seat I allowed my grip on the cardboard box to relax ever so slightly.

“Just delivered some nice haddock to the Old Rectory.” Tom looked at me before returning his eyes to the road as he drove on. “I hear Edna made one of her fish pies with the cod I brought last time. A great cook, Edna.”

“Yes, we had it for lunch yesterday.” I also gazed straight ahead, resolutely so. Someone had been following me. Maybe it had been Leonard Skinner, hoping I would lead him to Mrs. Malloy. But my mind refused to settle for that one. I remembered how Jane had encouraged me to visit Richard Barttle. Could that be because when he had rung up to speak to me last night and she had taken the call, she had leaped to the conclusion that he planned on giving me the diary? And then there was Rosemary who had taken it to him in the first place, which would seem to put her in the clear. Or was I giving her a pass too easily? Was this but an example of her diabolical cunning? Had she looked ahead to the possibility, remote though it might have seemed, that my mother’s accident would be questioned? And after tearing out the pages from the diary that might incriminate her, toddled along to Richard? My mind didn’t leap ahead to Thora. It wormed its way in circles about the question: What secret, revealed in Sophia’s handwriting, had to be protected at all costs?

“Where can I take you?” Tom asked me.

“I want to get to Upper Thaxstead, but there’s no need for you to drive me the whole way.” I tried to sound cheerfully relaxed. “I was going to walk. It’s a lovely morning. So different from yesterday, when it drizzled on and off. But it cleared up in the evening, didn’t it? The sky was blue until really late, and the sun was still coming in the window when I went up to bed. I had to close the curtains tightly to keep it out.”

He gave me a sideways grin. “You’re still worried, aren’t you, Mrs. Haskell?”

“What about?” His words struck me as decidedly menacing. Was he in the pay of one of the bridesmaids? He had turned onto a country road with only a smattering of houses, set far apart. He was pulling off at the grass verge and reaching into his jacket pocket. For what? A length of twine with which to strangle me? Trying to make as little noise and movement as possible I attempted with fumbling finger to undo my safety belt.

“About how me and the other neighbors carried on at you yesterday. Must have given you one hell of a scare.”

“You could say that.” My heart continued to pound so hard that my vision blurred and I had to blink several times before being able to see that he was holding a sheet of paper which he unfolded and studied, before responding.

“I know we apologized at the time, but that hardly seems enough, does it?”

Not if you’re getting ready to bump me off, I thought, while mumbling something unintelligible.

“It wasn’t just me that felt bad. Frank, Susan, and Irene all said they didn’t know what had come over them, not taking time to find out that you was you—if you get me, and not that woman that works for Sir What’s-his-face.”

“Clifford Heath.” I was sitting bolt-upright in my seat, my hands on my undone safety belt, the box in my lap—looking as though it were waiting to be snatched away from me.

“That’s him.” Tom replaced the paper in his pocket. “There’s times I’ve thought I could cheerfully strangle him with my bare hands”—he clenched them as he spoke and I saw the hairs on the backs of them bristle—“but the wife wasn’t for the idea.”

“Sensible woman.”

“She says we’ve got to pin our hopes on the old ladies making enough difficulties about selling that he’ll give up on Knells. Treating you nice at the Old Rectory, are they?”

“Couldn’t be more welcoming.”