Death of a Friend (19 page)

‘I’m still a bit hazy about Quaker values,’ he said apologetically, ‘but Mr Aspen did strike me as rather …
old-fashioned
.’

‘He’s crazy,’ she said with sudden emphasis.

‘Oh?’

‘I know I shouldn’t say it. He can’t help it. It’s because of his illness. He’s been to hell and back since his breakdown – you can see that just by looking at him.’

‘Breakdown?’

‘Their baby died, and other stuff was going on, too. He had two years of total dysfunction. Mandy had to carry him.’

She seemed to think she had said too much, and shrugged. ‘He’s harmless enough, just a bit obsessive. Finding this position as Warden was the best thing that could happen to him. It’s secure and undemanding and he can get his life back on track. It was all going so well when he first came, but then he lost his job and that set him right back again.’

‘What job was that?’

She laughed rather nervously. ‘He was running the after-school club in Okehampton. Silly to jump into something as stressful as that. Some of the children are only six or seven and they get
tired and whingy. Apparently it was a disaster from the start. I don’t know what fool took him on in the first place, but he was never liked by the children.’

‘Is he well liked by anybody?’

‘We’re Quakers,’ she reminded him. ‘We do our best.’

‘I don’t think there’s much more to ask.’ He stared at the scanty jottings on the current page of his pad. ‘Just this – how well do you know the family at High Copse?’

‘We knew Nina, of course,’ said Val readily. ‘We would have done anything for her. And we knew Alexis slightly because she was Charlie’s girlfriend.’

‘Have you ever been to the house?’

‘Polly and I were there on Saturday to talk to Alexis about a memorial for Nina. We probably should have waited a while. She wasn’t really ready to talk about it. Frankly, she was very rude.’

‘You’re a social worker, I understand? What’s your speciality?’

‘Child protection,’ she said shortly. Den made a note and closed his notepad.

‘Well, that’s been very helpful,’ he said blandly. ‘I’ll be on my way now. If I could just have your phone number in case I think of anything else?’ She supplied the number and he took his leave.

Three items seemed to him to be significant. In the car, he wrote them down.

At the Grattons’ home that evening, the telephone rang, as it had done many times over the past week. ‘Hannah? Is that you?’ The tone was gruff, the delivery impatient; Hannah knew exactly who was speaking.

‘Hello, Frank,’ she replied. ‘How are you?’

‘Well enough. Now, this business with Charlie. Have you got the funeral sorted out yet? I didn’t expect you to consult me, but I’d like to come along, all the same. I take it there’ll be no objections?’

‘I’ve just had a call from the police, as it happens. They say we can’t go ahead for a little while yet, but they’ll get clearance as soon as they can. It’s easier if it’s a burial – in case of
complications – so we’re going to bury him in the Friends Cemetery, behind the Meeting House. I think he’d have wanted that, anyway. Of course we’d be glad to see you, Frank, when the time comes. Why shouldn’t we?’

He snorted softly, and said, ‘I’ll come then. You’ll let me know what day, won’t you?’

‘I promise we will. In a way, it’s just as well there’s a delay. It’s so soon after poor Nina Nesbitt. I think it’s good if people get over that first.’

‘All the same to me,’ he said carelessly. ‘Don’t expect me to take an interest in that side of it. It’s another world, after all this time.’

‘And yet you still want to come to his funeral.’

The silence on the other end of the line was broken by a harsh breath which Hannah had no difficulty in interpreting. ‘He’s a loss to us all, Frank,’ she said gently. ‘Including your father. He won’t make any difficulties about you coming to share in our grief. You know that, don’t you? He’s never had any hard feelings towards you.’

The bitter laugh was more painful to listen to than the stifled weeping had been. ‘Easy to say,’ he grated. ‘Easy enough to say, Aunt Hannah. And what are the chances of the truth coming out, now the boy’s dead? They say it’s impossible to take a secret to the grave, don’t they?’

Hannah closed her eyes. ‘It wasn’t Charlie’s secret though, was it Frank?’

‘I’ll see you at the funeral,’ he said and the line went dead.

Hermione Nesbitt also paid a second visit to High Copse that day. She reappeared in the evening, having been invited to dinner with the whole family. She sat on the long antique settle in the front room waiting for the summons to the dining room, with her son and two grandsons dancing attendance on her. Alexis had pulled out all the stops with a huge beef stew and three kinds of veg, but her normally unreliable culinary skills were further undermined by an inability to concentrate. One by one, members of the family popped into the kitchen offering helpful suggestions, or sometimes whispered comments about the effect Hermione was having on the household.

‘She’s trying to play draughts with Clem,’ Martha reported in exasperation, ‘but she keeps forgetting about her sling. She’s knocked everything over twice. No wonder she drove into that pickup this morning. She’s not fit to be out.’

The seven people assembled around the large mahogany table in the seldom-used dining room shivered and chewed valiantly, six of them wondering how Hermione could cause such
turmoil by her mere presence. The matriarch herself behaved with precarious dignity. Not only was one arm in a sling, making eating very awkward, she was also nursing a slight bump on her temple, consequent on the impact with Barty White’s vehicle. Nev, Hugh and Clem had all shown concern for her injuries, but the others were sparing in their sympathy.

During her visit that morning, Hermione had spent twenty minutes at Nina’s graveside, kneeling unselfconsciously on the grass and speaking in a low voice. Nev had approached her warily, and together they stood quietly for another five minutes. Alexis had watched with so many conflicting emotions she felt sick. Richmond had hovered worriedly. ‘She ought to get that bump seen to,’ he muttered. ‘Should I drive her to the doctor?’

‘Yes – do that, and then take her home. Make her rest. Then you can bring her back later on and she can drive herself home when it gets dark. She always says the roads are safer at night and I think she’s got a point. At least the headlights will let her know when there’s anything coming.’

So it had been arranged, with both visits from the police fortuitously occurring in the interlude when Hermione was recovering at home.

It wasn’t as if she really disliked the woman, Alexis had to admit to herself, as she chopped
carrots and onions. In many ways she was utterly admirable. Her own mother, Eliza, had found plenty to admire in her son-in-law’s mother, although she had never sought her company. ‘A bit horsy,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Otherwise, for somebody with so much money, she’s remarkably human.’

There had, however, been a very strange encounter between Alexis and Hermione at Christmas, when they’d found themselves side by side at a big village party. Charlie had been there, as well as all the Cattermoles and most of the hunting fraternity. Nina had gritted her teeth and ignored Gerald Fairfield and his cronies, but Charlie was less restrained. Alexis had taken him to task with some ferocity.

‘You and Charlie are going out together, are you?’ Hermione had enquired. There had been a deep frown between her eyes and her lips seemed pale, as if with suppressed tension.

‘That’s right,’ Alexis had confirmed carelessly. ‘Since the end of July.’

‘I honestly don’t think he’s right for you, dear. I know there’s nothing I can say to change your mind, but go carefully. That’s all.’ The older woman shook her head, and Alexis thought she caught the sparkle of a tear.

‘But—’ she had started to protest in bewilderment.

‘His mother and I were best friends,’ Hermione said. ‘You might not have known that.’

‘Yes I did,’ Alexis contradicted. ‘Nev’s said so many a time. But I don’t see why—’

‘There’s nothing to see,’ Hermione said. ‘Nothing alarming or sinister. But I know you both quite well, and I wish I could convince you—’ She turned away with a sigh that Alexis saw rather than heard. ‘Never mind. We just have to trust to fate, I suppose.’ And she returned to her hunting friends without another word.

Now that Charlie was dead there didn’t seem any sense in even remembering the mysterious conversation. Fate had indeed intervened and Hermione no longer needed to worry about an inappropriate connection – whatever that might mean.

Around the dining table now, the conversation drifted by inches to the matter of Charlie’s death, yet nobody wanted to be the first to utter his name. Clem sat between Nev and Martha on one side of the table; Hugh was flanked by Alexis and Hermione on the other. Richmond took the large carver chair at the head of the table, more because it contained his girth more comfortably than from any sense of patriarchy. It was past seven and the light was fading. The room had two large windows on two walls. From one, the big oak tree and Nina’s grave were visible; Clem,
Nev and Martha could all see it if they tried, but they made sure this didn’t happen. Instead, they focused with determination on their food, or the faces of those across the table.

Alexis was the first to raise the topic of the police interviews. ‘At least they’ve done us all now,’ she said. ‘Between us we must fill quite a dossier. Heaven knows what they make of us.’

‘They haven’t seen me,’ put in Hermione. ‘Ought I to feel left out?’

‘Oh, we’ve all taken your name in vain,’ Nev told her. ‘They got your address out of me this morning.’ His attempt at Richmond-style joviality was not a great success; they all heard the strain in his voice. ‘You’ll probably find them on your doorstep first thing tomorrow – unless they’re there now, searching the stables for you.’

‘Good luck to them,’ said his mother shortly.

Martha finished her food, and put down her fork. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ she said to Hermione, fiddling with a button on the cuff of her shirt. ‘Why is Frank Gratton Nev’s godfather? I mean – apart from anything else, Frank must have been a Quaker, and they don’t go in for godparents, do they?’

A snort of surprise came from Nev. Hermione looked at him dispassionately. ‘It’s rather a long story,’ she said, ‘and it might not make much
sense after all these years. I’m surprised you even know about it. Who told you?’

‘I did,’ Nev said. ‘We were talking about it with Nina, ages ago. Clem had been doing comparative religion at school and he wanted to know about baptism. It came up then.’

‘Who’s Frank?’ Clem asked, looking at Martha. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘I don’t think you’ve ever met him. He’s Charlie’s older brother, and Nev’s godfather. None of us know him really.’

‘His mother was my best friend,’ Hermione interposed. ‘I’m sure you knew that.’

Various heads nodded and Alexis spoke. ‘Which must make Charlie’s death a special sort of loss for you,’ she ventured.

Hermione smiled, with a kink of self-mockery at the corner of her mouth. ‘I can’t pretend I saw very much of him, once he grew up. He couldn’t really remember Eloise, and Hannah has been much more of a mother to him.’

‘But
Frank
remembers her,’ Martha said. ‘Do you see much
of him
?’

The elderly woman closed her eyes and again she smiled the same perplexing smile. ‘Very little,’ she said softly. ‘Frank’s fully occupied with his horses. He has his own life well away from here.’

‘But why the godfather thing?’ Martha persisted.

‘It just seemed right at the time. Nev was six months old, Frank was fourteen or fifteen and disenchanted with the Quakers by then. He liked babies, and was always saying he wanted a little brother. As it happened, Charlie was born about a year later, so he got his wish. Oh, I can’t explain it to you.’ She threw down her knife impatiently, having struggled to eat one-handed without any help, and glared at Martha. ‘What’s the point of discussing this? It was thirty-four years ago. When Charlie was born and Frank had a baby closer to home to play with, he never bothered much with Nev – just sent him a birthday card now and then.’

‘He must have bothered enough for Nev to know about the relationship,’ Alexis commented.

‘Actually, he sent me birthday cards right up until I was eighteen,’ Nev corrected his mother, with an air of nostalgia. ‘And presents when I was younger. Good things they were, too. Clever things, that nobody else would think of. And he took me fishing once on the Moor. Then he just lost interest. Not surprising, when you think about it. I can’t imagine why he ever wanted to bother with me in the first place.’

‘Maybe now Charlie’s dead, he’ll remember you again,’ said Hugh, speaking for the first time.

Martha remembered naming Frank to Den Cooper as her first choice of suspect for Charlie’s
murder, and shivered. ‘We know nothing about him,’ she said tightly.

‘He’s a thoroughly nice chap,’ Hermione said to Hugh. ‘You have my assurance on that.’

‘And Granny’s always right,’ said Hugh to the room in general. Clem nodded vigorously.

‘Thank you, boys,’ she said, a new twinkle in her eye. ‘I can always rely on you two, can’t I?’

‘They’re very lucky to have you,’ said Richmond, with his habitual knack of closing a topic of conversation. He smiled sweetly at Hermione. ‘What’s for pudding, Alexis?’

The turmoil of clearing away plates, producing a large overcooked apple crumble and resolving a recurrent argument over whether to have custard or ice cream with it prevented further conversation for several minutes. When everything settled down again, Nev asked, ‘Exactly how did you hurt your shoulder, Ma? You never told me.’

‘It was that bloody Boanerges,’ she said with her mouth full. ‘He’ll have to go if he doesn’t shape up soon.’

‘Oh, Granny –
no!
’ cried Hugh.

‘Boanerges?’ queried Richmond. ‘First I’ve heard of him.’

‘It’s the stallion I got from a man in Taunton. Beautiful beast, just what I need to cover the mares this year. But I’m hoping his temper won’t
pass to his offspring.’ She looked severely at Hugh. ‘And no amount of pleading will save him if he doesn’t start behaving himself.’

‘How exactly did he damage your shoulder?’ asked Richmond.

‘It was silly, really. I had him on a leading rein and he suddenly jerked sideways. I hung on, but it caught me at a funny angle and wrenched the joint backwards. Half pulled it out of its socket. It’ll be better in a few days.’

‘You need to slow down a bit at your age,’ Nev laughed.

‘One thing leads to another,’ she said obliquely, before filling her mouth again.

The meal concluded, a debate developed on whether Hermione was fit to drive herself home. She insisted stoutly that she was perfectly capable and the general inclination was to agree with her. Thanks to the quirks of Devon lanes, the journey was at least ten miles by car, but less than five on foot.

Hermione easily prevailed and climbed lithely into her handsome Range Rover. ‘Come and see me soon,’ she told Hugh and Clem. ‘Cleopatra is definitely in pup – due in a couple of weeks. She’ll want you to come and admire them.’

Whoops of enthusiasm followed her down the drive and Martha silently marvelled at the woman who could tame wild horses, control a large
group of huntsmen with a look, and at the same time attract such adoration from her grandsons. And yet there was something lost and lonely in Hermione’s eyes, when she thought nobody was watching. Some secret grief that had always been there. It wasn’t the death of her husband – she had weathered that with true British aplomb. Who, Martha wondered, had died or departed from Hermione’s life, long before she met the Cattermoles? Nobody sprang to mind apart from Eloise Gratton, long-dead mother of Frank and Charlie.