Seeing is Believing (4 page)

Brian answered him, ‘Yes, Judy was with me last time I came, but she's visiting her own family now.’

‘And you live in Edgewater, don't you?’ Hugh said. ‘The place we've all heard so much about in recent times.’

Lucille heard him. ‘Edgewater!’ she cried in her thin, high voice. ‘The place where they've had all those frightful murders! You really live there, do you? Do you know an awful lot about them?’

Hugh had not introduced Brian to her yet, but he did so now, and to Jane Kerwood, a small, pretty woman of about thirty who did not look as if she could be the Jane Kerwood who had ridden across the Sahara on a camel, seen some African civil wars at first hand, helped in famine and disease-stricken areas and written a very successful book about it all. But that was who she was, little though she ever spoke about it. She had soft, curly brown hair, gentle brown eyes, the most delicate of complexions, and
a generous mouth. As she was the nearest thing to a celebrity in the village, Lucille cultivated her with energy, which Jane appeared to mistake for the kindly interest of a wise, elderly woman in someone very young and ignorant. There had been several people in the dramatic society who had put forward the claim that she should be Juliet in our coming production, and it had only been her own insistence that she was too old for the part and that Sharon Sawyer would be far more suitable that had settled the matter. Actually, Jane had declined to take any part in the play.

While Hugh was bringing us our drinks, Lucille asked again, ‘Do you know much about those murders, Mr Hewlett? After all, Edgewater's quite a small place, isn't it?’

‘Small enough for almost nothing else to be talked about for some weeks,’ Brian replied. ‘But that didn't get them anywhere.’

‘Wasn't anyone ever suspected?’ Lucille asked.

‘Oh, several people, I believe,’ Brian said. ‘But there was nothing conclusive.’

I was very relieved that he had decided against mentioning that one of the suspects worked in the Loxleys’ garden and in ours, and sometimes, I believed, in Lucille's own, though most of the work in that was done by herself.

It was just then that the Loxleys arrived. As a matter of course they had brought their three dogs with them, since apparently they could not be left to themselves for an hour or two in an empty house, and the dogs had to be given the opportunity of investigating the drawing room and all of us who were in it before being turned out on to the patio, where they were safe enough from traffic because Hugh's garden was entirely enclosed by a high wooden fence. But they took their exclusion from the party in a bad spirit, barking and growling and rubbing their noses against the closed glass door that led out on to the patio, which Avril appeared to think was charming behaviour, and sure to please us all.

She stood at the door, her drink in her hand, saying, ‘Be quiet, you naughty boys, be quiet!’ Then she turned to smile at us, as if to make sure that we were enjoying the charm of the dogs’ performance.

In a low voice to me, because I had sat down beside her, Lucille said, That woman ought to have had children. I wonder why she didn't.’

‘Perhaps they just didn't happen,’ I said.

‘They might have adopted one or two then, mightn't they? But perhaps her husband was against it.’

Peter Loxley had given Jane and me each a kiss on entering, but had baulked at Lucille and now he was being introduced to Brian. His heavy, rather formidably handsome face was looking tired. There was an air of worry about him, which was not unusual. Though he was several years younger than Avril, it was unlikely that anyone would have guessed it, seeing them together. Perhaps it was all the travelling to London and back that he did that helped to tire him out, but I always felt that there were other strains upon him too. I was fairly sure that their marriage was not particularly successful.

Avril soon told everyone that she was going to London tomorrow to meet her cousin, Lynne Denison.

‘I wonder if success will have changed her much,’ she said. ‘She used to be such a modest, quiet sort of person, who never made any show of her obvious talent. I want to persuade her to come down here to take a look at our
Romeo and Juliet
. Frances tells me of course she won't come, because there's nothing a professional hates like an amateur, but she was always so good-natured, I think she might come just to please us.’

‘I don't see how she can help us,’ Lucille said stiffly. She had not forgiven the society for not having chosen Kevin as Romeo, though he himself had shown no desire whatsoever to act. He was helping to make our scenery and showed a good deal of skill in this, and appeared to enjoy doing it, but to have no wish to take any part in
the actual performance. ‘If she'd arrived in time she might have been able to advise us on our casting. For instance, she might have been able to prevent our giving the part of Romeo to someone who doesn't even speak like an educated man. I've nothing against Fred Dyer, I like him very much, but in my humble opinion his accent is going to make him quite ridiculous.’

‘It's said by some people,’ Hugh said, ‘that cockney is much nearer the way that Shakespeare himself would have spoken than our modern form of English.’

‘Well, as we're doing the show in modern dress, I think we ought at least to do it in modern English too,’ Lucille said sharply.

‘Anyway, it isn't cockney that Fred speaks,’ Avril said, ‘and I think he's a pretty well-educated man. I think the chances are that he knows more about Shakespeare than any of us in this room.’

‘I don't know if you've noticed it,’ Kevin said, ‘but when it's mentioned on television that the police want to interview a man who's just done a murder or robbed a bank, and they describe him in case any of us can help them to catch him, they never say that he has a cockney accent but always a London accent. There's a kind of inverted snobbery about that, don't you think? The word cockney would apparently imply that he belonged to the working class, which would be improper.’

‘Personally, I think the whole show is going to be a disaster,’ Lucille said. ‘Much too ambitious, in the first place.’

‘But that's the fun of it,’ Hugh said. ‘And if we make fools of ourselves I don't think our audience will know it. They're liable to be a fairly simple-minded lot.’

‘But if you advertised it more in Otterswell, as I'm sure you should,’ Lucille went on complaining, ‘and didn't rely just on the village, they might not be so simple-minded. I think you've approached the whole project in the wrong way.’

‘Well, perhaps Lynne Denison will help us sort it out,’ Peter said, but he said it wearily and it struck me that he would sooner be at home than brought out to this party. ‘Avril's right, she's very good-natured.’

‘But if you're going to London tomorrow, Avril,’ Lucille said, ‘will you be back in time for the rehearsal?’

‘In lots of time,’ Avril said. ‘I'm only going to have lunch with Lynne.’

They went on chatting about the play, with Lucille returning, whenever she had the chance, to the impropriety of having cast Fred Dyer as Romeo. She was also against the part of Juliet having been given to Fred Dyer's girlfriend. I thought that perhaps she might be right there. The whole village knew of the relationship, and so were liable to take some of the more impassioned speeches as particularly titillating jokes. Some sniggering in the audience was only to be expected.

On our way home, Brian observed, ‘I wonder if that girl, Sharon Whatshername, knows anything about her boyfriend's past. I didn't think this evening was the time to mention it, but I've a feeling she at least ought to know something about it.’

We had walked home with the Loxleys, leaving them and their three dogs at their gate. Peter had been very quiet all the evening. Not that he was ever very talkative, but it seemed to me that he had been more silent than usual. He gave the impression of having some serious worry on his mind, and I had my own private belief of what it might be, or at least to what it might be connected. Avril and Hugh's wife, Anna, had been close friends, and during Anna's long illness Avril had not only helped Hugh to nurse her, taking on herself as much of the burden of this as she could, but had slipped into a close and intimate relationship with Hugh. What Avril's feelings about him were I did not know, but I was fairly sure that if the rumour was right that he would remarry quite soon, I believed that if only she had not been married already, it
would have been Avrilwhom he would have chosen.

Of course, if Avril did not respond, Peter would have no reason to worry, but it had seemed to me during the evening that her intimacy with Hugh had almost been put on display. His kiss of greeting to her on the Loxleys’ arrival had been a great deal warmer than the light touch on the cheek that he had given me and he had held an arm around her for long enough to make her give a self-conscious little laugh, not really at all displeased, as she extricated herself from it. Hugh had talked to her quietly far more through the evening than to anyone else, while Peter, with a sullen look on his face, had talked mostly to Kevin, though this had meant taking on Lucille as well, while I had spent most of the time with Jane Kerwood and Brian, who had read her book and was charmed to meet her. Malcolm had wandered here and there, but had spent only a few minutes with Avril and Hugh, which had made me wonder if he had the same thoughts about their relationship as I had.

I had never discussed the matter with him, as I had had a feeling that he would have told me that village life was corrupting me into an old gossip and that I had better not start saying that sort of thing to anyone else. As I had no intention of doing so, or even of agreeing about it with anyone who might raise the subject with me, this would not have troubled me much, yet I had a feeling that sometime soon I should suddenly find myself telling Malcolm about my suspicions, mostly to find out if he did not share them. He was shrewd and observant and his years of work in a co-educational school had trained him in the noticing of when friendship was sliding into something that on occasion could be more dangerous.

But of course, in those days he had had to make up his mind whether or not he had a responsibility to interfere, something that he had intensely disliked doing and in fact had done only two or three times in all the years that we had been at Granborough, whereas now, whatever might
be happening had nothing to do with him, even though he liked Peter and would not wish to see him hurt and humiliated. He liked Hugh too, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, Avril. I was not sure how much the dogs had to do with that. He had complained to me that it was almost impossible to have any contact with her undiluted by dogs which he found uninteresting.

Walking up the path to our door, Malcolm replied to Brian, ‘So you believe in Dyer's guilt,’

‘I didn't say that,’ Brian said. ‘I only said I thought that girl ought to know something about what this man was doing before he came here. Perhaps she does know and doesn't worry about his using a false name. I hope she does, because if not, there's something rather worrying about her playing Juliet to his Romeo.’

‘I think you do believe in his guilt, all the same,’ Malcolm said, as he opened our door and the three of us went into the sitting room.

‘I'm not at all sure that I do,’ Brian answered, as he dropped down on to the sofa. ‘His leaving Edgewater suddenly and changing his name could have been the reaction of a sensitive man to the mere fact that he was suspected of three atrocious crimes and saw no way of absolutely clearing his name. And the little evidence they got was very thin. That he was red-haired. That a girl saw him and identified him and then changed her mind about it. That he'd bought some plastic bags. You could hardly accuse him on that, could you? And he'd a good reputation in the place. He hadn't been there long, only six months or so, but his employer was entirely satisfied with him, though he did say he was a bit of a queer ‘un. A little too well-educated to be working in a garage, it seemed. He evidently tried not to show it, but didn't quite succeed. All the same …’ He paused. ‘Well, it's nothing to do with me. I'm not going to that girl of his with my story.’

‘Do you suppose the Edgewater police know where he is?’ Malcolm asked.

‘I should think they certainly do,’ Brian said.

‘Have there been any other suspects?’

‘Oh, everal.’

‘But no arrest.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Are they sure that it was an Edgewater man?’

‘I don't think so. In these days of the car and the motorbike, he might have come from anywhere. As all his murders seem to have happened in Edgewater, it would appear that the place has some meaning for him, even if he doesn't live there. Who knows, he might even have come from Raneswood. No …’ Brian raised a hand to stop Malcolm interrupting him. ‘That isn't entirely a joke. I've been wondering if anything special brought Benyon — or Dyer, if that's what you want to call him — if there was anything special that brought him here. Does he know something that the rest of us don't, and is he perhaps doing rather nicely out of it?’

For supper we had cold roast veal and salad, followed by biscuits and cheese, finishing up with coffee and brandy. Malcolm carved the veal while I made the salad. Afterwards, we watched a play on television, then the news. We went to bed early. Malcolm and I were both in bed, with the light turned out, when, perhaps because I had had a little more to drink that evening than I was used to, I found myself saying the very thing to him that I had so far managed to keep to myself.

‘Malcolm, has it ever struck you that Hugh's in love with Avril? Or if not exactly in love, say about halfway there? If she weren't married, don't you think she might quite soon replace Anna?’

‘It's odd you should say that, because this evening I started wondering if Jane wasn't elected for that, though he's a bit old for her,’ Malcolm replied. ‘But did that never occur to you?’

‘No, and I don't find the idea of it convincing,’ I said.

‘For one thing, if he were in love with Jane, why shouldn't he get on and do something about it? There's nothing to stop him is there?’