Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow (11 page)

“That’s a motive for finding a position somewhere else, not plunging a big knife into somebody,” Fiona replied.

“What if the first call was genuine, he really had some startling news to tell Peter,” I began again, “and somebody killed him to keep him from telling it?”

“More plausible,” she admitted.

“How could we find out what that news was?” We fell silent for a few minutes, thinking.

“Perhaps his wife would know,” Fiona offered.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have confided in her, but she could have seen or overheard something, right?” I felt a new rush of hope, almost as exciting as when I’d gone after Barbie. “You know, I think I’ll go and talk to her tomorrow, Fiona! She’s got some mental problems, of course, but if she does know something, I’m sure I can get it out of her.”

Fiona turned down my invitation to stay for dinner, because John for once was coming home in time to eat with her. I gave up digging and joined Archie’s futile cat hunt, crawling under bushes with him and ending with a grand chase around the garden. It was after five o’clock by then, his usual supper time, so I gave him a bath and got him into his pajamas, then showered and changed and started cooking.

One meal he would sit down for was a boiled egg served in an egg cup, with “soldiers,” strips of whole wheat toast to dip in the yolk. I fried up the sausages the Brits call chipolatas, pretty much like American breakfast sausages instead of the big fat “bangers” they prefer, and he ate one with his egg and toast, and drank some apple juice. I had the same, with a cup of tea instead of the juice, and then we went upstairs. It still got dark early, which made it easier to get him into bed. We looked at a picture book for a little while, but his eyes had drooped shut before the last page. Really, I thought as I went back downstairs, for such an active child he wasn’t hard to get to sleep at all. And, thank heaven, he was sleeping through the night now—or at least until just before dawn.

I did the dishes, got into my nightclothes, and as the long-threatened rain started clicking against the roof slates I ended the day as usual, with Horlicks and
Book at Bedtime.
I was still thinking intermittently about my new idea for solving the case and freeing Peter, and I could hardly wait for tomorrow to come so I could start putting it into action. It would probably be best not to tell Emily, I decided. I knew she’d think I was going to upset her former patient, and “meddling” was high on her list of my faults.

It occurred to me that the only person in the village who hadn’t asked about Peter was Mr. Ivey. He probably didn’t even know about the arrest. A vicar was never really one of the villagers, and Mr. Ivey would be even more isolated because he was a newcomer to Far Wych-wood. He must be lonely, I thought, his wife dead and his son gone to live his own life. I really should invite him to dinner.

Before climbing the narrow staircase I went out to the potting shed with an umbrella, to check on the cat and leave a bowl of water to get him through the night. He was up on a shelf between two bags of perlite, unreachable by invaders. The look he gave me was not one of approval.

“Well, I’m sorry, all right?” I said to him. “It doesn’t happen all that often, now does it? You’ll be back in the house tomorrow.”

I left him to sulk and went inside as the nightingale started tuning up in the woods across the road.

Grief, find the words; for thou hast made my brain

So dark with misty vapors which arise

From out thy heavy mold, that inbent eyes

Can scarce discern the shape of mine own pain.

—Sir Philip Sidney

A
fter Emily and Rose had embraced Archie the next morning, heard the tale of his adventures—“Dig! Twee! Baby! Cow!”—and exclaimed over his battle scars—“Bad cat!”—he and Rose went looking for the tape player while I sat down with Emily at the table in the dining corner.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said. “I
am
glad you can do the nature-exposure thing, it’s so educational for him.”

Emily was big on educational activities, typical of her generally earnest outlook on life. She looked a little more rested this morning, and I hoped I had contributed to that. But she was still distracted and nervous, still twisting her hair and glancing around periodically as if to catch the next disaster creeping up on her.

“It was fun for both of us,” I answered. “Have you had any breakfast? How about if I fix you some scrambled eggs with cheese, the way you always liked them?”

She made a disgusted face. “Mom, really I couldn’t. Food just sticks in my throat. But cook yourself something if you like.”

“Archie and I ate before we came. Cup of coffee, at least?”

“Please don’t keep on asking.”

I knew that tone of voice, so I changed the subject.

“How did the meeting with Peter and the lawyer go yesterday?”

“Well, it looks as if Mr. Billingsley is planning a defense of temporary insanity.”

“Insanity! He doesn’t believe his own client, then? He thinks Peter did it! That’s the kind of help your father gives you, finding a lawyer who won’t even
try
to prove his innocence!”

She sat silent for a minute, while from the nursery that high-pitched voice sang about Mrs. Bond and her dinner plans. Then she said quietly, “Are you finished?”

“Emily, you and I have to go and find another lawyer.”

“No, Mother. Dad’s spoken to several colleagues here, and they all say Mr. Billingsley is the best you can get.”

“Best, my eye! If we go to London, to the Inns of Court—”

“Mother, I have faith in Mr. Billingsley and I’m going to keep him. Dad is an experienced attorney, and he agrees that unless we can get around that 999 call, no jury is going to believe us.”

“What does Peter say about this?”

“He hates it, but Dad talked to him and I think he’s—”

“That man is going to destroy Peter’s reputation, if not his life! Even if they got him off with temporary insanity, what college or even lower school would hire a murderer? He wouldn’t be able to earn a living, he’d be a marked man for the rest of his life. No, it’s essential to prove he’s
not guilty
, nothing less will work. Somebody has to find the real murderer.”

“I don’t know what else to do!” she said shakily. She closed her eyes for a few moments, as if to hide from everything. Then she opened them, and her voice was firmer. “I’m not going to alienate Dad. I’m lucky to have his advice, he knows about these matters much better than you and I. But it’s true, the insanity defense could ruin our future, and if it fails they’ll take Peter away from me completely. Maybe John Bennett would help us?”

“I’ll ask him,” I said, patting her hand. I could see my outburst had made her feel worse, so I said no more. Kind though he was, I knew from experience how over-cautious John Bennett could be. He would never investigate a case behind the backs of his superiors. I was more determined than ever now to talk to the one other person who had been in the house while the killer was there.

“Have you heard anything about Mrs. Stone?” I asked.

“Ann and Dorothy came to see Peter just as we were leaving, you remember, Cyril Aubrey’s wife and Dorothy Shipton, the tutor? Ann said she’d been to visit Perdita and found her stuffing her husband’s clothes into a bin bag for Oxfam, alternately laughing and crying about the murder. She made Ann very uneasy. Perdita told her she never wanted to see me again, because my husband had killed hers—then the next minute she was giggling, saying how happy she was now.” She shook her head. “Bipolarism is not a good progression in her case.”

There was a knock at the door, and when Emily opened it Quin stood there, accompanied by the girlfriend with her sulky face on.

“Dad!” Emily exclaimed, with some annoyance. “I told you Mom would be here and you should wait till later.”

He stepped in, pulling Miss Congeniality by the hand. “Honey, all this ducking and dodging is crazy,” he said, putting his arm around Emily’s shoulders. “There’s no reason we can’t be here when your mother is. We’ve got to start acting like grown-ups sometime. Hi, Kit!”

“See you,” I said to Emily as I passed her, going out the door.

It was another sunny day, so I walked to the Stones’ house, about forty-five minutes away. I hoped Quin wouldn’t be around when I came back for my car, but I wasn’t going to let him keep me from getting my exercise. What was this “grown-ups” nonsense? Did he really believe I could forgive and forget? And he’d always said I was the one who refused to face facts!

When I rang the doorbell, Geoffrey Pidgeon answered it and blinked at me in surprise.

“Hello, Mrs.—er—”

“Not Mrs. anybody,” I said briskly. “Just Catherine. I’m Peter Tyler’s mother-in-law, remember?”

“Of course, of course,” he said heartily. “How could I forget so clumsily ruining your frock? Do please come inside.” As I did, he continued, “I’m just helping Perdita to sort through her accounts, Edgar always did them and so—”

“Geoffrey!” called that deep, dramatic voice peremptorily, and he stepped quickly to the study door. It stood open as it had on the night of the murder, the broken lock still dangling. “Who is that? Tell them to go away.”

She was sitting at a big oak desk, the top littered with checkbooks and papers. Although the day was mild, she was dressed in woolen slacks, a pullover, and a heavy coatlike sweater which she held wrapped tight around her as if she couldn’t get warm. Her long, thick black hair had obviously not been combed for the past two days. I could see some mats that were going to have to be cut out. She looked up, narrowing her dark eyes suspiciously.

“I’ve seen you before,” she said. “Who are you—one of Edgar’s lovers?”

“Far from it,” I answered. “I’m Emily Tyler’s mother. You met me at Mercy College the night of—the other night.”

“Oh, Emily.” She went back to shuffling through the papers, dismissing me. “
She
couldn’t help me to deal with him. Talk, talk, talk—that’s all she could do. I knew that wasn’t enough. Geoffrey, come help me with this!”

He obeyed, pulling a chair up next to hers, glancing at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, rather a difficult time, not yet ready to receive visitors, the shock, you know,” he mumbled.

“Emily’s concerned about you, Mrs. Stone,” I said. “She’s afraid you might not be taking your medications.”

“Medications!” She spat the word at me, fury suddenly twisting her face. “I don’t need those anymore, and you can tell her so. They make me feel—thick. They give me bad dreams. Do you know,” she went on, her eyes widening with amazement, “I didn’t dream of Simon last night! It was the first night since he was murdered that I haven’t dreamt of him.” She turned to Geoffrey and laid her hand against his chest. “Do you think his ghost was waiting for justice, like Andrea in
The Spanish Tragedy,
and now he can rest?”

Geoffrey shook his head. “No, my dear,” he said gently. “The dreams were only an effect of your grief. There are no ghosts.”

“How do you know?” She snatched her hand away, angry again. “You sound just like Edgar, always the
expert
on every subject!”

“I didn’t mean—” he began miserably, but she rushed on, turning to me.

“Do
you
think Simon is at peace now?” she demanded.

“I don’t even know who Simon was,” I answered.

“He was my son,” she said, turning cold and quiet. “His father murdered him. I know he’ll rest now, and wait for me.”

“If you can feel at last that the poor boy is at rest,” said Geoffrey, “something good has come of this after all. You’ll see, these things that try your mind will fall away, one by one. It only requires someone who’s willing to give you kindness and understanding.”

That seemed a bit overoptimistic, from what I’d seen of her.

“I’d like to ask you a couple of questions,” I said quickly, since she seemed to have fallen momentarily into a quieter mood. “Didn’t you see or hear anything, the night your husband was killed? You were in the house the whole time, weren’t you?”

“I was asleep,” she said, scowling at me. “I told the police. It was their siren that woke me, and then I ran downstairs and saw his body.” Her eyes suddenly widened, and she pointed to the corner where Edgar’s body had huddled. “Look, you can still see his blood all over the wall!” I didn’t see any blood, but she must have thought she did, because she jumped up and cried, “I have to get out of this place! Blood everywhere—I have to go back to Tyneford, where the walls are clean—”

Geoffrey folded her in his arms, murmuring, “There, my dear, of course you’d want to move from this house. I’ll look up an estate agent this very day.”

Now she was weeping against his shirt. I was already exhausted by these violent mood swings and wondered how Geoffrey could even think of taking her on. But it was obvious he would do anything for the poor demented creature.

“No, not in Oxford,” she went on through her sobs. “He loved me when we lived in Tyneford, it was only after we came back here it all went wrong. You’ll drive me there, won’t you, Geoffrey? If I had a car I’d go by myself, but he would never buy one. Oh, God, is he really dead? How can he be dead? My poor Edgar, he shouldn’t be dead! He wanted
me
dead, me and Simon, and now he—Why must I be the one to go on living? There’s no point in it anymore!”

“I guess I’d better leave,” I said, and Geoffrey nodded. But she heard me and pulled out of his arms.

“No, don’t go,” she commanded, the sobs stopping abruptly. “
You
understand, don’t you? The way he betrayed me, the pain, the jealousy and the hopelessness?”

I could only stare, wondering if her mental state gave her some kind of sixth sense. Fortunately she didn’t seem to require an answer.

“I don’t want to look at those
bills
any longer,” she told Geoffrey. “I’m sick of the sight of them, they make no sense!”

“I’ll take care of them for you, my dear, don’t concern yourself.”

“Because I’ll have plenty of money after I sell all his books.” She waved her arm at the shelves that covered two walls, packed tight with books in all sorts of colors and states of preservation.

“Oh, but surely they should go to the college.” Geoffrey sounded profoundly shocked. “We all assumed—I mean to say, there are some important volumes there, they must be preserved for scholars, my dear.”

“They’re mine now, and I’ll do as I want with them!” she flared up. “A dealer can sell them for more money than Mercy College would be able to give me.”

Was she as disturbed as she at first appeared, or could she be acting? I wondered suddenly. That last observation had sounded surprisingly shrewd.

“You may be disappointed in their value, my dear,” Geoffrey said sadly. “Few, if any, of them are really rare. Edgar’s interest in books was more scholarly than pecuniary.”

“He told me some of them were
priceless
!” she insisted. “There’s a first-edition Heywood in here somewhere, I’ve seen it many times.” She started pulling books off the shelves at random, tossing them to the floor. “Well, I shall find it—and he told me there was something about this one, something important—I can’t remember what it was, but a dealer will know.” She was pulling out a shabby green volume with a beautiful gold sunburst pattern on the spine, the pages trying to fall out of a split binding. Geoffrey looked about ready to cry, picking up the books as she threw them down and setting them back on the shelves. I moved stealthily toward the door, longing to be gone but unwilling to provoke her by leaving openly.

“So I’ll have plenty of money,” she was saying, “and I’ll use it to buy back our house in Tyneford. Edgar said nobody lives in it anymore, and I’ll paint it and make it all lovely and then we’ll be happy again.”

“Please, Perdita, reconsider—”

She turned on him contemptuously. “Oh, go home, Geoffrey! Go on, leave me alone, I’m sick of your mewling.”

He tried to persuade her to let him stay, but anything he said only made her angrier, and finally he and I left her sitting alone at her husband’s desk, bundling up the papers.

“She really ought to have somebody with her,” I said uneasily. “She might hurt herself.”

“Not to worry,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “I know her better than anyone, she’ll quiet down now we’ve gone. I keep in touch with her by telephone several times a day, and a woman comes in the afternoon to take care of the housekeeping. She’s been told off to ring me immediately if there’s any problem.”

“You’re very kind to take such care of her,” I said as he stood back to let me go out the gate before him.

“Not at all. I feel it a privilege. Are you going toward Mercy? I’m heading for my study to get in a bit of work, and should be glad to accompany you that way.”