Roots of Evil (36 page)

A mad old man’s ramblings, dear boy
, said Crispin’s voice sadly.
You said yourself I was as near mad as made no difference by then
…
Would anyone have listened or believed
…
?

But I couldn’t risk it! cried Edmund silently. I couldn’t be sure! I needed to kill the past! You do understand that?

Of course I understand, Edmund,
said Crispin’s voice.
I understand it all
…Suddenly it was the remembered, infinitely loving voice of Edmund’s childhood, and Edmund frowned because just for a moment his sight had misted over. Stupid! He brushed his hand impatiently across his eyes, and concentrated on the unfamiliar road.

You were afraid I might talk, weren’t you
…
? That was it, wasn’t it
…
?

Yes, said Edmund gratefully. Because you had talked to me, you see. You couldn’t stop yourself. (‘I just kept on stabbing him, over and over again,’ Crispin had said. ‘I had to wipe out the words he had said; I brought the knife down on his face – on his mouth – over and over again. And there was so much blood…’)

So much blood. The words had dropped into Edmund’s mind that night, exactly in time with the rhythmic ticking of the old clock on the landing. So-much-blood. Tick-tick-tick…Like little jabs into your mind.
So-much-blood
…

With the words ticking inside his mind, he had taken his father into the bathroom. ‘A nice warm bath – it’ll be refreshing. I’ll run the water for you, and then you can get in. I’ll help you – I won’t let you slip. And you’ll feel much better afterwards.’

I did all that, thought Edmund. But I did it for
you
, Crispin. And while you were in the bath I came in, and I brought the razor down on your throat, and you died, there in the steam-filled bathroom, and there was so much blood, you were right about that, Crispin…

Afterwards I did all the things I would have been expected to do if it had been a real suicide. I felt for a heartbeat and when I was sure there wasn’t one, I phoned the doctor.

And while I waited for the doctor to arrive, I sat on the stairs, watching the man I had murdered and the father I had loved and admired grow cold and stiff, listening to the ticking of the clock repeating his words
over and over. So-much-blood…After a time it changed to
No one-must-know
…
No one-must-know
…

No matter the cost, no one must ever know that you were a murderer, Crispin.

One of the main problems was actually to find the address. Lincoln was a big place, and Edmund could not risk asking for directions. So before coming off the motorway, he pulled in at a big service station with a self-service restaurant and several small shop units.

Once inside, he wandered casually along the shelves of the shops. Magazines, convenience foods, cans of fizzy drink of all kinds. Ah, local street maps. Lincoln? Yes, there it was.
Good
. He picked it up in a rather absent-minded fashion: a traveller taking a break from his journey, spotting a map he did not possess and thinking it might come in handy sometime. You never knew where you might have to drive. He dropped a pack of sandwiches into his wire basket, along with a can of lemonade, a box of tissues and some peppermints, so that the map would not particularly stand out. He paid for everything in cash, of course.

The voice on Lucy’s phone was brisk and businesslike and very apologetic for the fact that the time was a few minutes before eight o’clock in the morning.

Lucy had been snatching a hasty breakfast before setting off for work, and she had taken the call in the kitchen. She said it was quite all right to be ringing; was anything wrong?

‘Probably not. But we need your help, Miss Trent, and I’m afraid this might be a distressing call for you.’

Lucy asked what had happened.

‘I’m ringing about your cousin, Edmund Fane,’ said Fletcher, and Lucy felt a stab of apprehension.

‘Nothing’s happened to him, has it?’

‘Not as far as we know. But we need to talk to him quite quickly.’

‘Why?’

A pause, as if the inspector was deciding how much to say. Lucy waited, and then Fletcher said, ‘Last night Michael Sallis telephoned me to make a statement. He says that earlier in the evening Edmund tried to kill him.’

For a moment the words made absolutely no sense to Lucy. Edmund tried to kill Michael Sallis. She tried them over again in her mind. Edmund-tried-to-kill-Michael-Sallis. This time the words fell into the proper pattern, but even though Lucy understood them, she did not believe them. But with the idea of trying to establish a degree of normality, she said carefully, ‘When you say “kill”, do you mean in a car? A road accident of some kind?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said the DI. ‘It seems that Mr Sallis drove up to your aunt’s house yesterday—Your aunt Deborah Fane, I mean—’

‘Yes, I knew about that.’ Here, at least, was something reasonably ordinary and understandable. ‘Some of the furniture was being given to CHARTH – that’s the charity Michael Sallis works for.’

‘While they were at the house, there was an injury to Mr Sallis’s hand. It meant he couldn’t drive, and he stayed at the house for the night. He’s made a statement, saying that while he was in a room in the front of the house
Edmund Fane came in through a back door, very quietly and furtively, and turned all the gas rings of the cooker fully on. And then stole out again, locking the door behind him.’

‘Leaving the gas escaping into the house? With Michael locked in?’

‘Yes.’

‘But that means,’ said Lucy, wanting to be sure she had not misunderstood, ‘if Michael hadn’t realized what was happening, he would have been gassed?’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘But – but this is ridiculous. For one thing Edmund hardly knew Michael. Why on earth would he try to kill him?’

‘We don’t know yet that he did, although so far there’s no reason to doubt the substance of Mr Sallis’s statement – or his integrity. As far as we can make out, he’s a perfectly sane person, quite highly regarded by the charity he works for, with no axe to grind against Edmund Fane.’

‘But so is Edmund sane and highly regarded,’ said Lucy at once. ‘He’s the most correct, most law-abiding person—It’s a family joke, how correct he is. And he’s – he’s devoid of nearly all the emotions! Aunt Deb used to say he was entirely passionless.’ At least Deb had been spared this. ‘What’s happening now?’

‘Well, we’ve certainly got to talk to Mr Fane as soon as possible,’ said Fletcher. ‘The immediate problem is that we don’t know where he is. I drove up here in the early hours, and we went out to his house shortly after seven. But there’s no sign of him, his car’s gone, so it looks as if
he either went off somewhere very early or he’s been out all night. Normally in this kind of situation we’d check with neighbours – perhaps the staff at his office – but I’m loath to do that yet in case there’s some innocent explanation for all this. I thought I’d talk to you first.’

‘In case I might know where he is?’ said Lucy. ‘Or in case he might be here? Well, I don’t know where he is, and he certainly isn’t here.’

‘Might he have stayed overnight somewhere? With friends, perhaps?’

But Edmund had never, to Lucy’s knowledge, stayed out all night. ‘He lives a very quiet life. Beyond the office and his clients he hardly has any social life at all – maybe the odd Rotary Lunch or a Law Society dinner, but nothing else. And even on the rare occasion he does go out in the evening I don’t think he stays anywhere much after half past ten.’

‘Is he likely to have gone out very early?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. He’s hardly the early-morning jogging type.’

‘What about friends? Do you know the names of any of them?’

‘I don’t think he’s got any – not close ones,’ said Lucy. ‘Just acquaintances and business associates.’

‘No ladies in his life?’

‘No.’ But this was all sounding so sad for Edmund that Lucy tried to qualify it by saying that Edmund was a bit of a loner.

‘We do want to find him fairly quickly,’ said Fletcher. ‘Just to check Mr Sallis’s story, you understand. I daresay it’ll turn out to be a misunderstanding.’

It would be a misunderstanding, of course. This was Edmund they were discussing, and it was simply not possible to think of Edmund skulking into a darkened house with the aim of killing another human being, or to imagine him on the run from the police. Lucy found this such a disturbing image that she said, ‘Inspector – would it be all right if I drove up there?’

‘D’you mean right away?’

‘Yes. I can set off more or less at once – I’ll tell Quondam there’s a family crisis and that I won’t be in for a couple of days. I’ve got some holiday leave owing, and I’ve just finished putting together a project so it won’t be a problem. I can get there in a couple of hours if there aren’t any snarl-ups – it’s practically motorway all the way and I know the roads.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘I wouldn’t get in the way or anything, but he’s my cousin and we more or less grew up together. If he’s in trouble, I think I ought to be there. I don’t think he should be on his own.’

And there isn’t anyone else, said her mind. Edmund really hasn’t got anyone else. Was that why he had made that odd approach that night? ‘You’re footloose and fancy-free, Lucy,’ he had said. ‘It seemed an alluring idea.’ And his hand had curled around hers…And his body pressing against her…

‘All right,’ said the inspector, having apparently considered the idea. ‘You’d better come straight to the White Hart; I expect you know it, do you? Good. Mr Sallis is still there, and the manager’s let us have a little coffee-room as a base to work from. We haven’t divulged anything to the staff, of course: we’ve just said we’re involved in an investigation.’

‘Edmund will appreciate that when all this is cleared up,’ said Lucy, hoping that it would all be cleared up.

‘I hope he’ll also appreciate what a good cousin he has,’ said Jennie Fletcher rather dryly.

‘He won’t,’ said Lucy. ‘He never appreciates anyone. But I can’t help that.’

At eight thirty the traffic was pouring into London. Lucy battled doggedly through it, and finally got clear of the M25 and on to the northbound M1. At least this was a familiar journey; there was something reassuring about familiar things when your mind was in turmoil. An hour and a half of motorway, a brief stop at the usual Little Chef just before Nottingham for a break and a cup of coffee and to top up with petrol, then on again.

As she drove, she tried to think what she would say to Edmund – always assuming he turned up – and wondered if he would be grateful to her for coming. If he was his more sneering self she would leave him to stew and drive straight home. No, she would not, of course. Concentrate on the journey, Lucy. There’s the new bypass that Aunt Deborah hated because it had churned up so much pastureland, although now it was finished it took miles off the last stretch.

When she reached the White Hart she asked for either Mr Sallis or Inspector Fletcher, and was directed to a small coffee-room.

‘Hello, Lucy,’ said Michael Sallis. He looked pale and there were shadows around his eyes as if he might not have slept much; one of his hands bore a professional-looking bandage, but he came towards her, holding out his other hand. Lucy took it, relieved to find that there was no awkwardness between them. She had not wanted to discover that she hated Michael for making this accusation and she had not wanted any embarrassment between them. But it was all right.

Without preamble, he said, ‘This must be a nightmare for you. I’m very sorry about it.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s been any picnic for you,’ said Lucy, and saw him smile.

‘Francesca’s here,’ he said. ‘Francesca Holland. Did you know?’

‘No.’ Lucy did not like to ask why Francesca was here; perhaps she was somehow linked up with Michael, or in the process of getting linked up with him. They had seemed quite friendly at Quondam that afternoon.

‘She’s just gone to get some coffee – Inspector Fletcher said you’d probably get here about this time.’

Francesca came in as he said this, carrying a tray. She smiled at Lucy. ‘Hello. I’m glad I timed the coffee so well. Did you have a good journey or did you have to fight through the rush hour?’

Lucy accepted the coffee gratefully, said the journey had been like traversing one of the minor outposts of hell, and asked if there were any new developments.

‘I don’t think Fane’s turned up yet,’ said Michael. He hesitated, and then said, ‘But Fletcher’s people went out to the house with a warrant about an hour ago.’

Then they’re taking the accusation seriously, thought Lucy. She tried to quell a swift unpleasant image of Edmund’s fury if the police broke into his house in his absence, and by way of explanation for her own presence, said, ‘I thought Edmund oughtn’t to be left to face this on his own. I thought he might like someone here who was prepared to bat on his side. Family.’

‘Family,’ said Michael softly, and Lucy saw him exchange a look with Francesca. She thought Francesca nodded very slightly, as if Michael had asked a silent question, and she thought she had been right about them linking up. They already had that rare mental closeness you occasionally encountered in couples.

Michael said, ‘Lucy, it’s odd you should use the word family, because—’ He broke off as Francesca leaned forward to look through the window to the White Hart’s little car park at the front of the building.

‘What is it?’ said Lucy.

‘It’s Inspector Fletcher,’ said Francesca. ‘But it looks as if she’s on her own.’ She glanced at Michael. ‘That means they didn’t find Edmund, I should think.’

‘I should think you’re right.’

Lucy did not know whether to be sorry or glad.

‘We’ve been in the house,’ said Jennie Fletcher, who looked tired but as if she still had plenty of energy in reserve. ‘Fane wasn’t there and his car had definitely gone.’

‘You broke in? You mean you really did break the door down?’

‘We levered the lock off one door, Miss Trent. But it’s a neat job of levering and it’s easily repairable. We did get a warrant before we did it.’

Lucy guessed that in view of Edmund’s standing as a respectable local solicitor the police were not cutting any corners. ‘Did you – find anything in the house? Any clues as to where he might be?’

‘We’ve contacted his office now, and it seems he left a message on the answerphone last evening to say he was going out to take some measurements of a piece of land before going in to the office today – something to do with a boundary dispute. The call was made at a quarter to eight last night, and it was made from Edmund Fane’s home phone.’

‘Well, couldn’t it be true about the boundary dispute?’

‘It could, except the client concerned – a local farmer – hasn’t seen Mr Fane and wasn’t expecting him. We’ve also spent quite a long time at Deborah Fane’s house, and the evidence so far bears out your statement,’ she said to Michael. ‘We found the window you smashed; it’s clearly been broken from the inside.’

‘It
was
broken from the inside,’ said Michael politely.

‘We found a couple of things in Edmund Fane’s house, that are – well, curious.’ Fletcher delved into her pocket and brought out a mobile phone. ‘This is yours, isn’t it, Mr Sallis?’

‘Yes. Then Fane did have it,’ said Michael. ‘I wonder if he took it deliberately – to prevent me calling for help – or whether it was just absent-mindedness. Can I have
it back, or d’you need it for evidence or anything?’

‘You can probably have it later,’ said the inspector. ‘We’ve looked at the calls made from it in the last twenty-four hours, and they’re all perfectly innocent – oh, except that there’s no record of any call to the White Hart.’

‘There should be,’ said Michael. ‘He did phone them. As far as I can remember it was around half past four, and he said they hadn’t a room.’

‘And yet when you got here last night there were several,’ said Fletcher.

‘Are you saying Edmund faked a phone call?’ For some reason Lucy found this almost more bizarre than the attempted murder accusation.

‘That’s what it looks like.’

‘You said there were a couple of things that were odd,’ put in Francesca.

‘The other thing is a letter that seems to have arrived by yesterday’s post. It was on the dining-table, and it’s dated the day before yesterday, so it’s a fairly safe bet that it was delivered yesterday – the postal authorities are confirming that later. But we think Mr Fane got home last evening around half past six, found the letter, and made the call to his office at quarter to eight that night.’

‘And then went batting off somewhere at crack of dawn next morning?’

‘It’s a reasonable assumption, Miss Trent. The milk was still on the step – it’s delivered about quarter past seven apparently, so it looks as if Mr Fane left the house before it arrived. I don’t think he’d have left the milk on the step, do you?’

‘No,’ said Lucy rather shortly.

‘What was the letter?’ asked Michael.

‘It’s from HM Land Registry. It’s addressed to Edmund Fane’s home, and it’s a reply to a request he made about some land. We’ve contacted them, and they confirm that they do provide a search service for the title to property or land. There’s a small fee, but it’s a standard service to anyone who writes in.’

‘And being a solicitor, Fane would know all that,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘He’d know it would be an unremarkable request to make as well. Well? What did Edmund Fane want to know?’

‘The name of Ashwood Studios’ owner,’ said Jennie Fletcher.

‘Ah. And did they give him the name?’

‘They did.’

There was a shuttered look to Michael’s eyes, but when he spoke he sounded quite calm. ‘How about an address?’

‘Yes.’ She was watching Michael very intently. ‘Yes, they gave an address for the owner.’

This time Michael turned so white that for a moment Lucy thought he was going to faint, and she was aware of Francesca making an involuntary movement and then sinking back into her chair.

‘Mr Sallis?’ said Jennie Fletcher sharply.

Michael was already reaching for his jacket. He said, ‘I know where Edmund Fane’s gone, and it’s desperately important that we head him off.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s coming up to eleven o’clock now, and it’s probably about an hour’s drive from here. Fane’s got a three or four hour start, but I can phone ahead.’

He reached for the mobile phone, and Francesca said,
‘Michael, if you’re thinking of driving it’s out of the question. Even if your car was repaired – which it isn’t – your hand isn’t up to a long journey.’

‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten the car.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ said Fran. ‘To – wherever it is.’

‘I’ll come too if you want,’ offered Lucy. ‘We could share the driving.’

‘Nobody’s going to be sharing any driving, and if anyone’s going anywhere it’ll be in a police car – two police cars,’ said Jennie sharply. She frowned, and then said, ‘All right, I’ll trust you a bit further, Mr Sallis. We can leave someone stationed at Edmund Fane’s house, and you can give my sergeant directions as we go.’

‘Can Francesca and Lucy come as well?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘We could follow you,’ said Lucy.

‘You can’t stop us doing that,’ added Fran.

‘Oh, for—All right,’ said Fletcher in exasperation. ‘But when we get to – to wherever we’re going, you’re both to stay well out of the way, is that understood?’

‘Yes,’ they said in unison.

‘You’ll never keep up with the police cars,’ said Michael to Fran. ‘Where’s something to write on – thanks, that’ll do.’ He scribbled an address and what looked like brief directions on the back of one of the paper napkins from the coffee tray. ‘Can you read my writing?’

‘I think so.’

‘Mr Sallis, you’ll have to do some fast talking on the journey,’ said the inspector as they went out. ‘There are a great many unanswered questions in this affair.’

‘We can take my car if you prefer,’ said Lucy, as she and Francesca sprinted across the car park. ‘I don’t mind driving.’

‘You’ve already driven a couple of hundred miles,’ said Fran. ‘You must be exhausted.’

‘So have you.’

‘Yes, but I’ve had a break since then, and something to eat.’ Fran settled the matter by opening the door of her car and getting in. ‘But I might ask you to take over for a spell – it depends how far it is. Michael said about an hour.’

‘He was right about us not keeping up with the police cars,’ said Lucy, as Fran drove off the White Hart’s car park as fast as she dared.

‘Yes, they’re out of sight already. But we’ve got directions of a kind and I’ve got a road atlas in the glove compartment.’

‘Then I’ll map-read as we go,’ offered Lucy, propping Michael’s scribbled notes on the dashboard.

For several miles neither of them spoke except when Lucy gave directions, but once they had joined the motorway, she said, ‘Francesca – I’d appreciate knowing what this is about. It’s clear that there’s quite a lot going on under the surface, and it’s also clear that you know more about it than I do.’

Fran hesitated, and then said, ‘I don’t know why we’re going to this place, whatever it is, but I do know some things from Michael. But not everything.’ As Lucy glanced at her, she said firmly, ‘It isn’t my story to tell. I think when you do hear it, it’s got to be from Michael. And apart from any other consideration, it isn’t a story
to tell while we’re belting along a motorway at eighty miles an hour.’

‘Fair enough. How are we doing for time?’

‘It’s just coming up to half past eleven.’

‘I think we’re going to be too late,’ said Lucy, and thought: but too late for what?

Edmund was beginning to wonder if the Land Registry could have given him the wrong information, because he had not been expecting to find himself driving into such rural isolation. Still, there was a growing trend for companies to have a country house for sales conferences, or for overworked executives to recuperate. And in the last few years ugly, severely functional industrial estates had sprung up on the outskirts of most towns and cities. He might go round a curve in the road and come to just such an estate at any minute.

He did, in fact, go round several curves in the road, and one of them turned out to be a wrong turning, wasting several miles and time he did not really have. Fortunately he realized his mistake and was able to pull on to the side of the road to check the map. Ah, that was where he had gone wrong – that big traffic island. He should have taken the second exit, not the third. It was infuriating when local authorities did not display clear road signs. He drove back to the island, quelling a stab of concern at how late it was getting.

Left, and then right, and left again at some crossroads. He passed several farms, looking as if they had been dropped down from the sky at random. The road was bumpier now, and narrower, and there were fields
with the deep lines of drainage ditches in places. In the dull morning they looked like wounds in the earth.

Edmund drove on, through a couple of villages that interlocked with one another; the houses fronted on to the street and had low-browed windows and the wavy look of extreme age. Then came a village pub and a small village church. Yes, this was the right place; he drove into the shadow of the trees surrounding the church and switched off the engine. He was almost at his destination, and he had better decide what he was going to do.

As he sat in the car he was aware of Crispin strongly with him, and presently a plan began to form in his mind. Crispin’s plan was it? It did not matter. Edmund would find the house, and to whoever opened the door he would say he had a client interested in buying odd parcels of land in the south-east, and that he was retained by the man to keep his ear to the ground. After seeing the neglected condition of the Ashwood site, it had occurred to him to find out who the owner was. No, he had not wanted to make an official inquiry through Liam Devlin; he had wanted to keep the thing very discreet, very lowkey, in case there was no mileage in it.

And so he had obtained the name and address of the present owner via a standard Land Registry Search, and when a business journey had brought him to this part of England, he had made a spur-of-the-moment decision to call, to see if there was a possibility of negotiations being opened. He rehearsed this several times over, trying out different ways of presenting it, and when he thought he had it as right as he could get, he started the car again and drove along the little street, looking for
the address he wanted and then at last seeing the sign that took him out of the village again, and along a hedge-fringed lane.