Eleven Pipers Piping (58 page)

John’s mouth formed a thin line. He set his glass on the mantel and lifted a poker from a rack by the fireplace. “I’m not certain what you’re getting at, Tom,” he said, stirring the logs so they tumbled and flared.

“John, you recall our conversation in the vestry Thursday. Ariel’s well-being was very much on your mind, and why? At the time, your concern seemed to me outlandish and misplaced. But then I began to see why you—you, the most phlegmatic of men—would rise to such passion. Will, it turns out, had ingested poison last Saturday. At the time, Caroline had been in the hotel, not here at Noze, not in town. At the inquest, I’m sure, it struck you that Caroline may have had a hand in her husband’s—”

“I never—”

“And that’s why she sought your cooperation. She knew you had a …” Tom groped for understatement. “… soft spot for her.”

“I never thought Caroline was responsible.”

“Wives kill husbands. Husbands kill wives.”

John’s face flushed. “What are you on about?”

“John, I’m not referring to your late wife, to Regina. I’m merely saying that spousal homicide is not uncommon.”

“Caroline wouldn’t have poisoned Will.”

“Are you quite certain?”

John looked away. “She’s not the sort,” he said thickly, adding in a defensive tone, “Why? Do you think she did?”

“What I think won’t matter. What others think will. Once police
learn Caroline was at Thorn Court, once they learn she asked people to keep this a secret, she’ll be their prime suspect. Caroline stands to benefit financially from her husband’s death, and it seems half the village knows Thorn Court is in financial peril.”

He watched John continue to poke at the fire, which now sparked and blazed.

“John, I went through the hell of a police investigation myself when my wife was killed. So, you told me, did you. I know the police must do what’s asked of them, but I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone who is innocent.” Tom paused. “I think anyone who loved, or was in love with, Caroline wouldn’t wish it on her, either.”

John looked up from the fire, his eyes steady but now watchful.

“Caroline is an attractive woman, is she not? And she seems in her way to get what she wants from men. Will left a good job in London to come down here and run a hotel with her. I’m sure it was she who persuaded Nick to lend them part of his inheritance to finance Thorn Court. It can’t have been Will. There seemed little love lost between the two. Adam, too, is prepared to lie about his mother’s whereabouts, even though he is deeply troubled as to why. His mother won’t tell him. But I’m sure he fears he’ll lose her, too. That she’ll be arrested, tried, jailed. And what will become of Ariel?—your concern to me in our Thursday conversation. But it’s not simply your natural daughter’s fate that worries you, it’s Caroline’s, too, isn’t it? You are, after all, in love with her.”

“What of it?” John glanced towards the connecting door. “I didn’t poison Will, if that’s what you’re on about.”

“No,” Tom murmured, “that’s not what brings me here.”

“Then what does?”

“John, you weren’t the only person to see Caroline at Thorn Court last Saturday.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. Judith Ingley saw Caroline come out of the
hotel entrance moments after you saw her cross the lobby. Later, Judith made sure that Caroline knew what she saw—”

“Blackmail.”

“In effect. Then you do know what I mean.”

“Yes, all right,” John groused, slipping the poker back into the rack and retrieving his whisky. “Adam did say something about it. I’d forgotten.”

“Something?”

“We were out wrapping some sack around one of the barbed-wire fences Friday and he happened to mention it. The lad was a bit upset, needed someone to talk to, I suppose.”

“And did you tell him that you, too, had seen Caroline at the hotel?”

“No.”

“John, there are only two people who knew about Caroline’s disturbing conversation with Mrs. Ingley. One was Adam. I expect Caroline felt she needed to tell her family at least part of what Judith had to say, since they would be the ones to suffer if anything happened to her.”

“And Nick.”

“Caroline says not. She had almost no communication with her brother since the morning of the inquest. It wasn’t until Thursday evening that Judith arrived at Thorn Court. John, the second person is you, of course. Adam shared his worry with you. He couldn’t very well with Tamara, since he’s trying to protect his mother, and he couldn’t with Nick, who is hardly a steady, sympathetic character, and his sister is a child—so he told you.”

“Well, what if he did.”

“Last night, as you know, Judith Ingley was shot dead by someone who knew his way around a shotgun.”

John frowned. “Folk at church this morning were speculating about Nick Stanhope.”

“Anyone carrying a shotgun at the Old Orchard last night is being investigated. But the direction of the shot, the type of ammunition, and the discovery of a shotgun in the vicarage garden suggest the involvement of another party. It might be Nick. A phone call apparently prompted him to leave the Wassail a little before Judith was shot, so he may have had the opportunity, but …”

John glanced again towards the communicating door, as if someone on the other side might be listening. “Is this why you’ve come?” He dropped his voice, shifting his eyes, now steely, to Tom. “Are you suggesting that I shot Judith Ingley?”

“I pray that you didn’t, John.”

“The gun was Colm’s, not mine. I don’t own a Purdey.”

“How do you know the gun was Colm’s?”

“It’s certain, isn’t it? I saw the look on Colm’s face when your daughter brought it in, then you and he closeted yourselves in the vestry with that detective. If it wasn’t Colm’s, why would he be bothered? And how would I have got hold of one of Colm’s, in any case?”

“Thornridge’s security system has been inoperative much of the week. Nick was supposed to have been doing an upgrade. Access wouldn’t have been difficult.”

“I only ever see Nick Stanhope at band practice. I know little about his work or his whereabouts.”

Tom ran his finger absently over the rim of his glass. “Was Helen with you last night?”

John reddened. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

“I agree it isn’t,” Tom responded evenly. “But her presence here would establish an alibi for you.”

“I don’t bloody need an alibi.”

Tom stepped towards his jacket, turned it to its tartan lining, and slipped his free hand into an inside pocket. “John, my purpose in venturing out on a winter’s eve isn’t to spread accusation—”

“Don’t you have an evening service?”

Tom glanced at a clock on the mantel. It was almost six; Evensong
was in half an hour. “They’ll manage if I’m delayed.” He pulled a piece of folded paper from the pocket. “I came for another reason, although …”

“Although …?”

Tom hesitated. “Perhaps we should sit.”

Regarding him with new unease, John settled onto the sofa. Tom sat opposite, in the wing chair.

“You recall previous mentions we’ve made about our parentage,” Tom began. “We’re both adopted. We’ve each wondered from time to time who our natural parents were, particularly when we were teenagers, but neither of us has pursued it as an adult. When my wife and I were planning a child, we thought of exploring my parentage, for the usual reasons, genetic legacy and so on, but somehow it fell to the wayside. Life crowds in in other ways.”

“Yes.” John frowned at him over the rim of his glass.

Tom placed his tumbler on a table beside the chair and ran his thumb unthinkingly along the paper’s folds. “Mrs. Prowse found an old document among Mrs. Ingley’s belongings earlier today. It’s something that should properly be placed with the police, but …”

“What is it?”

Tom studied John’s watchful, weathered face a minute, dreading what the next few minutes would bring. “I want very much for this document to be utterly irrelevant, but I believe very much that it isn’t. Actually, I thought about simply destroying this, but I have my reasons—good reasons, I think—for showing it to you.” He straightened the paper along his lap and read from it. “Were you born April second, by chance?”

“Yes.” John’s brow furrowed. “I’ll be forty-nine this spring.”

Tom glanced at the stated year of birth in the second column, and made a swift calculation. “Your mother—your adoptive mother—never said where you were born, did she?”

“Near Leeds. Or in Leeds.”

“At Furness House Nursing Home?”

“That I wouldn’t know. Or remember. I know it was a private adoption.” He shrugged. “It’s been many years since I’ve had this sort of conversation with my mother.”

“Your parents—your adoptive parents—had you christened John?”

“Yes. What are you on about, Tom?”

“And they chose John? Adoptive parents often change the name of the child.”

“My parents apparently liked the names my birth mother gave me. Most of them, at any rate—the traditional ones, William and Anthony. But they didn’t care for Sean, which was the third one. I think they thought it too trendy … or too Irish, so they changed it to John, and I suppose I was always called John because it was the name they more or less chose. Why?”

Tom stared silently at the aging document with its entries in tidy cursive handwriting, now faded. He considered for the second time that day tossing it into the fire—the flames were so near—but desperation to protect the welfare of two people stayed his hand. Silently, with foreboding, he passed the certificate to John and watched as the man’s eyes below their heavy brows scanned the information.

“Are you suggesting …? Frost?” John glanced up from the paper, his features creased with perplexity. “Should the name be familiar? I don’t understand?”

“Frost is Judith Ingley’s maiden name. She said so at the Burns Supper.”

John frowned again at the document then lifted his eyes once more, only this time they were narrow slits of contempt. “But this can’t be. It’s a … coincidence. There must have been another baby born that day who was named …” His heavy face, turned the colour of ashes, suddenly pricked with red. “Did she tell you this? That I was her …”

“No, she—”

“There you go then.”

“John, listen to me.” Tom leaned forwards. “Judith said she came to Thornford with a notion of buying a business and moving back. That might be true, but I think in the end it would have depended on another factor. You see, she told me that she had travelled to the village last Saturday very purposefully to arrive at Thorn Court in time for the Burns Supper. She wouldn’t tell me why, but we had a provocative conversation about adoption and children and in what combination they are products of their parents’ nurturing or their own inborn natures. This afternoon I made an attempt to get in touch with Judith’s son to alert him to his mother’s death. You may recall her saying she had a son working in Shanghai.”

John gave him a quick assenting nod.

“She doesn’t have a son working in Shanghai. I talked to a woman related to her by marriage, who’s known her well for almost half a century, who told me Judith had no son. None. And yet”—Tom gestured towards the certificate—“she did have a son, born almost forty-nine years ago, with the same three Christian names you have.”

“That doesn’t—”

“I’m certain she came to the Burns Supper to see the man who was her son, to see what life had made of him, and what he’d made of his life.”

“They’re not to make direct contact like that! They’re supposed to—”

“I know. Make contact through some intermediary agency. And maybe Judith would have in time, but …” He didn’t voice the obvious. “At first, this afternoon, I thought that Will might be the child. He”—Tom chose the next word carefully—“said … he was adopted. He’s your age, but the dates and places don’t match. Yours do.”

As he spoke, Tom observed a succession of emotions struggle for supremacy on John’s normally stolid visage: incredulity, shock, fear, cunning, and, finally, horror. He stared at Tom, his mouth wrenched open, seized in a rictus of disbelief.

“It can’t be.” His eyes had a feverish shine. “It’s impossible.” But as the seconds passed, the full implication seemed to seep into his expression. “Why?” his voice rasped as he lurched from his seat. The certificate fluttered to the floor. “Why are you saying this? She’s dead! You didn’t need to tell me this. I didn’t need to know.”

“John, there’s something more,” Tom began, his heart sick, watching the man stagger past him and dart his eyes around the room as if in search of something, an exit, a drink, a weapon. Tom jerked forward in his chair in readiness as John stumbled along the carpet, crashing into the drinks table, steadying himself by grasping the edge of the mantel with one hand. With the other he clutched his stomach and bent towards the fire as if he were about to be ill.

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned. “What have I done?”

A muted keening, more terrible somehow coming from a man, seemed to inhabit the room in that moment. An echo of the bagpipe’s chill lament, it pierced Tom’s eardrums and travelled his spine. Helpless, horrified, he watched John struggle to stop. The connecting door flew open and Helen burst into the room like an avenging virago. She stared at John speechlessly, then turned to Tom.

“What’s he done?”

Her phrasing, her knowing tone, nonplussed him. He looked to John, who raised his head.

“Get out.” He had recovered his voice.
“Get out!”

She didn’t blanch. She stayed her ground. “You did it, didn’t you?” Her voice was cold. “You shot that woman.”

“Helen, shut up!”

“He was gone for about an hour last night.” Helen turned to Tom, her eyes blazing. “And in my car! And when he got back, he was—”

“Shut up, I said!”

“John Copeland, what have you done?” Her jaw thrust forward, her teeth bared. “All because of that bloody woman—that bloody Caroline.” She spat out the name. “I’m calling the police.”

“No!” John howled, lunging towards her.

Tom was on his feet in an instant. Helen struggled towards the door, her hand straining for the knob, John tearing at her shoulder. Tom wedged his body between them, seeking purchase on John’s arm to pry them apart, but John was powerfully built and it took all Tom’s mettle to separate him from the woman. In doing so, he slammed John face-forward against the wall, knocking a picture off its nail, sending it cascading to the floor with the resounding shriek of fragmenting glass.