Murder Among Us (27 page)

When they were alone again, he asked urgently, "Will you go and talk to her?"

"Oh no!" said Meredith promptly, putting down the cup she had just raised to her lips. "Not me. I don't want to get involved in this any farther!"

"She'll listen to you. You are a woman of the world. I mean that as a compliment."

"Even if she does trust me, that's not a reason for me to go and talk to her, it's a reason for me to stay away! Eric, let her simmer down and then you go and see her. Give her time."

"No, there isn't time!" He stood over her, large and pugnacious. "The boy Harding can be the only one to profit by delay. He will have time to fill her head with vile suggestions about me. He is a member of that historical society, too. The whole lot of them have formed a united and vicious conspiracy against me!"

"Zoe's a member," Meredith pointed out.

He dismissed this crossly. "Only because of the animals. I don't include her. There was no need for her to join with them! If she had come to me herself at the beginning ..."

"Or if you had gone to see her at the beginning instead of just sending lawyer's letters threatening the home!" Meredith interrupted.

"Very well, I was at fault!" Eric slapped his massive palms irritably against the arms of his chair. "But now I am trying to put matters right! Do you want to see her hurt? Do you want to see the animals carted off to be destroyed because she won't move them to the new site?"

"No, of course not, and stop trying to twist my arm!" Meredith retaliated. "You could just leave her there, you know, with the animals on the existing site."

"Rubbish. It isn't suitable. Even the veterinary surgeon has told her so. I checked with him, too. And that rusty old trailer? You want her to continue living in that? She will end up with arthritis at thirty! She will finish like the woman who founded the home, Miss Batt! Un-

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able to run it at all because of her health!" He jabbed a forefinger at her to mark his argument and glowered.

There was a long silence. "If I go," said Meredith firmly, "it's on the understanding that this is a one-off visit. I'm not going to be your permanent courier!"

"Of course!" said Eric impatiently.

As Eric and Meredith talked, Zoe was running down the drive of Springwood Hall as fast as she could in the stupid high heels. But tight skirt and heels between them defeated her and cursing both, she slowed to a walk. At the gates she saw that the gardener had been posted already to raise the alarm should Robin try and get back in. She stalked past him head held high.

With less assurance she began the trek back along the roadside towards the Alice Batt Rest Home. The breeze brought a whiff of its familiar odour and led her heart to rise briefly. When she got back, everything would be all right again. She would be herself once more. No more silly pretence. She'd be back with the animals, in her creaky trailer by the ramshackle barn, out of these clothes and into familiar, comfortable ones. Best of all, out of these ridiculous crippling shoes.

"Out of them now, dammit!" she said aloud. She stopped and took them off and holding them in her hand, resumed her way along the grass verge in stockinged feet. The return of freedom was not enough however to buoy up her brief feeling of release. Deep depression overcame her. What an awful mess.

There was a rustle in the hawthorn hedge. Zoe gave a cry of surprise which became an exclamation of relief as Robin emerged from a gap accommodating a five-barred gate. He was red-faced and tousled, his expression grim. His motorcycle was propped up behind him.

"Oh Rob!" said Zoe. "Are you all right? They didn't hurt you?"

He ignored her query after his well-being. "So you've come to your senses?" he demanded truculently.

She flushed. "Meaning just what?"

"Pretty obvious, I should have thought!" He thrust out his jaw. "What the hell did you think you were going to gain by hobnobbing with that bully?"

"You've got a damn cheek!" The force with which this burst from his slightly built companion caused even Harding to recoil. "Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to tell me what I may do or where I can go or whom I may meet? What business is it of yours?"

He rallied. "I happen to think it's my business because of the way I feel about you!"

"Keep your feelings to your damn self! It isn't your business. The animals are my concern! If I need to talk their welfare over with Eric, I will!"

"Eric? Eric!" roared Robin. "So it's first names now! You silly little bitch, are you so thick you can't see—"

There was a resounding crack as Zoe's palm met his cheek.

Silence followed. Then Harding dragged his motorcycle to the road and flung himself on to the saddle. "Right!" he said hoarsely. "So that's the way of it! Well, nobody makes a fool of me! Not him, not you, not—anyone! You remember that!"

He pulled on his helmet, kicked the powerful machine into life and roared off down the road.

The yard of the Alice Batt Rest Home was deserted when Meredith reached it a little later. The animals grazed in the paddock and raised their heads curiously as she closed the squeaky gate. The two Shetlands moved together to form a mini-phalanx against the intruder and the piebald pony rolled a white eye. No, they were not attractive good causes, more's the pity!

Meredith peered into the gloomy barn but it was empty. The trailer door, however, was ajar, swinging in the breeze and she approached it. "Hullo! Anyone home?"

Zoe appeared in the doorway. It struck Meredith that

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she looked briefly apprehensive before she exclaimed, "Oh, it's you. Come in."

"Sorry to intrude. Is—is anyone with you?"

"No. Rob's stormed off in a bad temper. I suppose I can't blame him. We had a dreadful row. Rob is normally the most easy-going person, but when he does lose his temper, it's really quite frightening. Anyway, he was very rude to me and I wasn't going to stand for that!" She shrugged, dismissing the subject. "I was just going to make coffee, only instant. Would you like some?"

The interior of the trailer was by no means as bad as the exterior suggested. Zoe had done a good deal to make it comfortable. All the same it was a poor place and Eric would never be persuaded this was a suitable place for Zoe to live. Nor, thought Meredith, was it. Eric was right. His trouble was that he was generally right but had problems persuading people of it.

Zoe sat with her feet up on a long seat which probably doubled as her bed, with her back against the wall of a cupboard, nursing the mug of coffee. "I went to that lunch with Schuhmacher. It was a disaster."

"I know," Meredith confessed. "I was in the dining room and heard."

"Then I don't have to explain. Rob was right about Schuhmacher! Do you know what bugs me most? That I'd actually begun to think better of that man and he turned out to be a creep after all!"

"I think you're being unfair, you know. Robin turning up like that threw Eric a bit and you can't be surprised. Eric said things he ought to have saved up to say another time. I'm quite sure he didn't mean to make his offer of a new site for the home depend on a return in personal services! That wasn't his meaning at all!"

"Wasn't it?" Zoe glared at her over her coffee mug. She looked like one of the pugnacious Shetlands in the paddock glaring through its tangled forelock. "Well, it doesn't make any difference now, does it?" Her aggression faded and dejection entered her face, voice and whole manner. "I can't accept his offer of the new site,

not after all that, even if we could have raised the money for stabling somehow. Which is unlikely. I'm having to face it, Meredith. The home is finished. When the lease is up, the animals will all be put down and I—I don't know what I'll do . . ."

"It would be stupid if that happened only because of pride!" countered Meredith vigorously. "Just because you wouldn't go back and say, yes, I'd like to move to the new site."

"I told you, it isn't just because of that. It's because even if we moved, we haven't money for new stables. I've been thinking about Ellen. I suppose I was wrong to expect she might have left us something. But I do think she ought to have done! She knew how badly off we were and she could still have left the bulk of it all to Margie Collins! I mean, it isn't as if Margery will spend the money! It will sit in the bank! I know Margery!" Zoe stared into space. "Life's bloody unfair."

There was no answer to that.

Markby stood in the street as Meredith had done and looked up at the elegant, well-maintained fa?ade of the Fultons' Chelsea house. But now it was early afternoon and, unlike Meredith, he was not alone. For company he had a metropolitan colleague by the name of Chirk.

DI Chirk had just reached forty but looked a few years older. Whereas Eric Schuhmacher represented the type of former athlete who had kept his physique, Chirk represented the other extreme, the man who had largely given up strenuous sports and had gone to seed. He was overweight with heavy shoulders, a bull neck and jowls. His face was red and his hair receding. He had an ill-trimmed moustache. About him hung an air of general disillusion and mistrust towards human kind. If he resembled anyone, he resembled a particular type of nightclub bouncer. And he gave the distinct impression that it would be unwise to argue with him, a suggestion given further credence by a long, black leather jacket of Eastern European type belted round his ample midriff.

.

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Markby was, however, grateful for Chirk's awesome appearance. He suspected that despite the warrant in Chirk's pocket, entry to the house wasn't going to prove easy and as for removing items ...

"Nice place," observed Chirk with a touch of resentment. He rubbed a sausage-like finger over his walrus whiskers and peered over the railings into the basement. "Looks like a separate flat down there."

"Staff probably," said Markby. "I understand there is a Filipino couple in residence."

"Speak English, will they?" asked Chirk as if the greatest number of obstacles was being placed in his path by malign Fate.

"Oh, I should think so. This house, incidentally, belongs to Mrs. Fulton. She already owned it when they married."

"Wish my old lady had owned something, anything!" said Chirk, further incensed by the unjustness of life. "Mind you, we did get her dad's allotment eventually."

"Gardener, are you?" said Markby brightening and pleasurably surprised to find he had something in common with his lugubrious companion.

"Gets me out of the house!" said Chirk meaningfully. "I keep us going with veg from the allotment. Of course that's not my real interest. Dahlias are that. I belong to the Dahlia Club. That's all I grow in our house garden."

"Get much trouble with earwigs?"

"You can't help it. The missus doesn't like cutting the blooms and bringing 'em indoors for fear of earwigs dropping out and running over the table. She's dead scared of creepie-crawlies. is Eileen. Screams blue murder at the sight of a spider. But her uncle, he kept snakes in glass tanks. Had 'em all over the house, even in the bedroom. So she doesn't mind snakes. But insects, any sort, she goes barmy."

"I'd like to see the dahlias," said Markby.

Chirk cheered up for a couple of seconds but then relapsed into his habitual gloom. "Yes, I'd take you if

238 Ann Granger

you had time today. If you come again, we'll make time. Pity."

'Yes, it is. Oh well, let's see how we get on here.'" Markby walked briskly up the steps and beat a loud rat-tat on the door.

Silence followed. Chirk, still leaning over the railing and peering down at the basement, said. "Someone's just taken a gander up at us from down there."'

"When the houseowners are away I expect the staff get nervous. Do you think we look like coppers?" They exchanged furtive glances. "Can't be helped!" said Markby with a sigh.

There was a scrabbling at the front door which opened two inches on a chain to reveal a strip of features, mostly nose and mouth.

"Good afternoon!" said Chirk loudly, stepping forward and, with a professional sleight of hand, producing the warrant and his identity card from his black jacket. "Police. Detective Inspector Chirk. Take a look at the card. Okay? I have a warrant here. We'd like to come in."

"I ask my husband!" said the voice. "You give me paper."

' * You—bring—husband—to—door!'' returned Chirk, speaking even more loudly and slowly than the British normally do when faced with foreigners. He thrust his battered face towards the crack. "I show paper to your husband, savvy?"

The door was slammed shut, just missing his nose.

"Silly bitch!" growled Chirk, starting back.

"Scared." said Markby with some sympathy.

Voices could now be heard on the other side of the

door. The chain chinked and the door opened wide. The

maid had been joined by her husband. They stood side

de blocking the entry and gazing apprehensively at

Chirk and Maris

Chirk displayed his card and warrant again and explained in pidgin English just what it represented. When he'd finished Markby felt that, if he hadn't known al-

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ready, even he would have been at a loss to know what it was.

"Mr. and Mrs. Fulton not at home!" said the husband.

"You will be Raul?" asked Markby cheerfully, anticipating Chirk. He owed this nugget of information to Meredith. "The cook, right?"

The man looked slightly more at ease. "Yes, I am Raul. I am cook. Mr. and Mrs. Fulton are not at home."

"We know. But we come in." The pattern of speech was catching. Markby mentally checked himself. "We have a warrant, permission, to come in. Do you understand?"

There was a flurry of conversation between the two servants in a tongue quite strange to Markby and which he supposed might be Tagalog. Then they moved reluctantly aside and allowed the two police officers to enter.

"Study," said Markby. "Where is Mr. Fulton's study? The room where Mr. Fulton works." He mimed typing.

More Tagalog. "Come, please!" said the maid, moving off down the hall.