Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave (4 page)

Once again it did not seem the appropriate moment to mention Tina Archer and
her
possible future ownership of the plantation house. As Joseph himself had said, the morning would do for all that. In his office in Bowtown. They danced on for a while. It was as Jemima had suspected it would be: something to lose herself in, perhaps dangerously so. “This is my island in the sun”: that tune too was played and Jemima never once heard the graveyard words in her imagination.

Then Joseph Archer, most politely and apparently regretfully, said he had to leave, an extremely early appointment, and not with a fish either, he added with a smile. Jemima felt a pang which she hoped did not show. But there was plenty of time, wasn’t there? There would be other nights, and other parties, perhaps more intimate, other nights on the beach as the moon waxed to full in the two weeks she had before she must return to England.

Jemima’s personal party stopped but the rest of the celebration went on late into the night, spilling on to the sands, even into the sea, long after the sliver of the moon had vanished. Jemima, sleeping fitfully, heard the noise in the distance. She was visited by dreams in which Joseph Archer, Tina and Miss Izzy executed some kind of elaborate dance not at all like the kind of island jump-up she had recently been enjoying.

Far away on Archer Plantation’s lonely peninsula the peace was broken not by a steel band but by the rough sound of the waves bashing against the rocks at its furthest point. A stranger might have been surprised to see that the lights were still on in the great drawing-room, the shutters having
been drawn back once the sun was gone: but nobody born on Bow Island, a fisherman out to sea for example, would have found that at all odd. Everyone knew that Miss Izzy Archer was frightened of the dark and liked to go to bed with all her lights blazing. Especially when Hazel had gone to her sister’s wedding and Henry had taken her there; another fact of island life which most Bo’landers would have known.

In her room overlooking the sea, tossing in the big four-poster bed in which she had been born over eighty years ago, Miss Izzy, like Jemima Shore, slept fitfully. After a while she got out of bed and went to one of the long windows. Jemima would have found her night clothes, like her swimming costume, bizarre: for Miss Izzy was not wearing the kind of formal Victorian nightdress which might have gone with the house; rather she was “using up,” as she quaintly put it, her father’s ancient burgundy silk pyjamas, purchased so many aeons ago in Jermyn Street. As the late Sir John Archer, Baronet, had been several feet taller than his plump little daughter, the long trouser legs trailed on the floor behind her.

Miss Izzy continued to stare out of the window. Her gaze followed the direction of the terrace which led in a series of parterres, once grandly planted, now overgrown, down to the rocks and the sea. Although the waters themselves were mostly blackness, the Caribbean night was not entirely dark; besides, the light from the drawing-room windows streamed out on to the nearest terrace. Miss Izzy rubbed her eyes, then looked away. She turned back into the bedroom where the celebrated oil painting of old Sir Valentine, hanging over the mantelpiece, dominated the room. Rather confusedly—she was confused, she must have drunk far too much of that punch—she decided that her ancestor was trying to encourage her to be valiant in the face of danger
for the first time in her life. She, little Isabella Archer, spoilt and petted Izzy, his last legitimate descendant, no, not his last legitimate descendant, still, the habits of a lifetime were difficult to break, she was being spurred on to something courageous by the hawk-like gaze of the fierce autocrat.

“But I’m so old—” thought Miss Izzy; then, “But not
too
old. Once you let people know you’re not after all a coward—”

She looked out of the window once more. The effects of the punch were wearing off. Now she was quite certain of what she was seeing. Something dark, darkly clad, dark’ skinned, what did it matter, someone dark had come out of the sea, and was now proceeding silently in the direction of the house.

“I must be brave,” thought Miss Izzy. She said aloud, “Then he’ll be proud of me. His brave girl.” Whose brave girl? No, not Sir Valentine’s, Daddy’s brave girl. Her thoughts began to float away again into the past. “I wonder if Daddy will take me on a swim with him to celebrate?”

Miss Izzy started to go downstairs. She had just reached the door of the drawing-room and was standing looking into the decaying red velvet interior, still brightly illuminated, at the moment when the black-clad intruder stepped into the room through the open window.

Even before the intruder began to move slowly towards her—dark-gloved hands outstretched—Miss Izzy Archer knew without doubt in her rapidly beating old heart that Archer Plantation, the house in which she had been born, was also the house in which she was about to die.

“Miss Izzy Archer is dead. Some person went and killed her last night. A robber maybe.” It was Joseph Archer who broke the news to Jemima Shore the next morning.

He spoke across the broad desk of his formal office in Bowtown. Joseph Archer’s voice was hollow, distant, only the familiar Bo’lander sing-song to connect him with Jemima’s handsome dancing partner of the night before. In his short-sleeved but official-looking white shirt and dark trousers he looked once again completely different from the cheerful ragged fisherman Jemima had first encountered. This was indeed the rising young Bo’lander politician she was seeing: a member of the newly formed government of Bow Island. Even the tragic fact of the death—the murder as it seemed—of an old lady seemed to strike no chord of emotion in him.

Then Jemima looked again and saw what looked suspiciously like tears in Joseph Archer’s eyes.

“I just heard myself, you know. The Chief of Police, Sandy Marlow, is my cousin.” He did not attempt to brush away the tears. If that was what they were. But the words were presumably meant as an explanation. Of what? Of shock? Grief? Shock he must surely have experienced, but grief? Jemima decided at this point that she could at least enquire delicately about Joseph Archer’s precise relationship to Miss Izzy. It came back to her that he had visited the old lady the week previously, if Miss Izzy’s rather vague words concerning “Little Joseph” were to be trusted. She was thinking not so much of a possible blood relationship as some other kind of connection. After all Joseph Archer himself had dismissed the former idea in the graveyard. His words about Sir Valentine and his numerous progeny came back to her: “Don’t pay too much attention to the stories. Otherwise how come we’re not all living in that fine old Archer Plantation House?” At which point Greg Harrison had commented with obvious fury, “Instead of just my ex-wife.” The exchange made far more sense to her of
course, now that she knew of the position of Tina Harrison, now Tina Archer, in Miss Izzy’s will.

The will! Tina Archer would now inherit! And she would inherit in the light of a will signed that very morning, the morning of the day of Miss Izzy’s death. Clearly Joseph had been correct when he dismissed the claim of the many Bo’landers called Archer to be descended in any meaningful fashion from Sir Valentine. There was already a considerable difference between Tina, the allegedly sole legitimate descendant (other than Miss Izzy), and the rest of the Bo’lander Archers. In the future, with Tina come into her inheritance, the gap would widen even more.

It was extremely hot in Joseph Archer’s office; there was no air-conditioning. It was not so much that Bow Island was an unsophisticated place as that the persistent breeze on the island made it generally unnecessary. The North American tourists who were beginning to request air-conditioning in the hotels, reflected Jemima, would only succeed in ruining the most perfect kind of natural ventilation. But a government office in Bowtown was rather different. A huge fan in the ceiling made the papers on Joseph Archer’s desk stir uneasily. Jemima felt a ribbon of sweat trickle down beneath her long, loose white T-shirt, which she had belted as a dress to provide some kind of formal attire in which to call on a Bo’lander minister in working hours.

By this time Jemima’s disbelieving numbness on the subject of Miss Izzy’s death, no, her
murder
, for heaven’s sake, was wearing off. She was struck by the frightful poignancy of that last encounter in the decaying grandeur of Archer Plantation House: worse still, the old lady’s pathetic fear of loneliness was beginning to haunt her. Miss Izzy had been so passionate in her determination not to be abandoned: “Everyone knows little Miss Isabella mustn’t be
left … It’s so lonely here by the sea. What happens if someone breaks in?”

Well, someone had broken in. Or so it was presumed. Joseph Archer’s words: “A robber maybe.” And this robber—maybe—had killed the old lady in the process.

Jemima began hesitantly, “I’m so sorry, Joseph. What a ghastly tragedy! You knew her? Well, I suppose everyone round here must have known her—”

“All the days of my life, since I was a little boy. My mamma was one of her maids, just a little thing herself, and then she died. She’s in that churchyard, you know, in a corner. Miss Izzy was very good to me when my mamma died, kind, oh yes. She was kind. Now you’d think that independence,
our
independence, would be hard for an old lady like her, but Miss Izzy she just liked it very much. ‘England’s no good to me any more, Joseph,’ she said. ‘I’m a Bo’lander just like the rest of you.’ ”

“You saw her—last week, I believe. Miss Izzy told me that herself.”

Joseph Archer gazed at Jemima steadily; the emotion had vanished. “I went to talk with her, yes. She had some foolish idea of changing her mind about things. Just a fancy, you know. But that’s over. May she rest in peace, little old Miss Izzy. We’ll have our National Museum now, that’s for sure, and we’ll remember her with it. It’ll make a good museum for our history. Didn’t they tell you in London, Jemima?” There was pride in Joseph Archer’s voice as he concluded, “Miss Izzy Archer has left everything in her will to the people of Bow Island.”

Jemima swallowed hard. Was it true? Or rather, was it still true? Had Miss Izzy really signed a new will yesterday? She had been quite circumstantial on the subject, mentioning someone called Thompson, her lawyer no doubt, who thought there would be “trouble” as a result.

“Joseph,” she said, “Tina Archer was there too yesterday afternoon, up at Archer Plantation House.”

“Oh, that girl, that sweet Tina oh, the trouble she made, tried to make. Tina and her stories and her fine education and her history. And she’s so pretty!” Joseph’s tone was momentarily quite violent but he finished more calmly. “The police are waiting at the hospital, you know. She’s not speaking yet, she’s not even conscious.” Then even more calmly, “Maybe she’s not so pretty now. That robber beat her, you see.”

It was hotter than ever in the Bowtown office and even the papers on the desk were hardly stirring in the waft of the fan. Jemima saw Joseph’s face swimming before her. She absolutely must not faint: she never fainted. Jemima concentrated desperately on what Joseph Archer was telling her, the picture he was re-creating of the night of the murder. The shock of learning that Tina Archer had also been present in the house when Miss Izzy was killed was irrational: she realized that. Hadn’t Tina promised the old lady to stay with her?

Joseph was telling her that Miss Izzy’s body had been found in the drawing-room by the cook Hazel, returning from her sister’s wedding at first light. It was a grisly touch that because Miss Izzy was wearing red silk pyjamas (“her Daddy’s”), and all the furnishings of the drawing-room were dark red as well, poor Hazel had not at first realized the extent of her mistress’s injuries: the blood which was everywhere as her little body lay slumped in the centre of the room. Not only was there blood everywhere, there was water too, pools of it. Whatever—whoever it was had killed Miss Izzy had come out of the sea. Wearing rubber shoes—or flippers—and probably gloves as well.

A moment later Hazel was in no doubt about what had hit Miss Izzy. The club, still stained with blood, had been
left lying on the floor of the hall (the cook, deposited by Henry, had originally entered by the kitchen door). The club, although not of Bo’lander manufacture, belonged to the house: it was a relic, African probably, of Sir John Archers travels in other parts of the former British Empire, and hung heavy and short-handled on the drawing-room wall. Possibly Sir John had in mind to wield it against unlawful intruders; to Miss Izzy it had been simply one more family memento. She never touched it. Now it had killed her.

“No prints anywhere. So far. That’s what Sandy Marlow told me.”

“And Tina?” asked Jemima with dry lips; the idea of the pools of water stagnant on the floor of the drawing-room mingled with Miss Izzy’s blood reminded her only too vividly of the old lady when last seen: soaking wet in her bizarre swimming costume of shirt and shorts, defiantly sitting down on her own sofa.

“The robber ransacked the house. Even the cellar—the champagne cases Miss Izzy boasted about must have been too heavy, though. He drank some rum. The police don’t know yet just what he took—silver snuff-boxes maybe, plenty of those about. Hazel hated to clean them.” Joseph sighed. “Then he went upstairs.”

“And found Tina Archer?”

“In one of the bedrooms. He didn’t hit her with the same weapon—lucky for her—as he’d have killed her just like he killed Miss Izzy, Left it downstairs and picked up something a good deal lighter. Probably didn’t reckon seeing her or anyone there at all. Thought the house would be quite empty with Hazel going away. ’Cept for Miss Izzy that is. She must have surprised him. Maybe she woke up: robbers—well, our island is a good place, Jemima, even if like everywhere in the whole wide world it holds some bad
people too. All I can say is that robbers here don’t generally go and kill people unless they’re frightened.”

Without warning Joseph Archer slumped down in front of her and put his head in his hands. He murmured something like, “When we find him, who did it to Miss Izzy—”

It was not until the next day that Tina Archer was able to speak even haltingly to the police. Like most of the rest of the Bow Island population, Jemima Shore was informed of the fact almost immediately. Claudette, manageress of her hotel, a sympathetic if loquacious character, just happened to have a niece who was a nurse … but that was the way information always spread about the island, no need for newspapers or radio. This private telegraph was far more efficient.