Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) (36 page)

“—near Arundel,” Jane murmured.

“—and was only a few months from release. I wrote and arranged to travel to see him at Ford Prison.”

“It must have been a very difficult conversation,” Tom said.

“It was for me. I was horrified that John had made, as you say, Mr. Christmas, this terrible sacrifice, and that there was nothing I could do that would give him back those lost years. I wondered at first if I should let it be, but he had
not
done it. He had
not
killed his brother. He was innocent! The thought that the world would always think him a murderer was unbearable.”
She seemed to sort through her memory. “He was changed in many ways—more solemn and serious, taciturn—but I sensed the same integrity and sweeter nature within. He was oddly accepting when I told him what David had told me, stoical—but then we were in the visit room. He had strengthened in his faith, as you know, Mr. Christmas—”

“ ‘Tom,’ please, Anna. But I suspect Sebastian—John—welcomed
you
, however unwelcome your news.”

Her silence was her assent. “He had written. I never received the letters, of course. To the post office, Ree Corlett no longer existed.”

“But I can’t believe he was ‘accepting’ of this, Anna,” Jane said. “Surely—”

“No, of course not. We’ve gone over it and over it ever since.”

“
We’ve? We’ve
! Then your good man John Phillips
is
John Allan. I’m right! But why this masquerade, Anna? I don’t understand.”

A shadow flickered along Anna’s face. “As I said, John had changed. He wanted to live a very simple and quiet life. If we brought the claim of a mentally handicapped man to the police or courts after all these years, what would it do?”

“It might launch a proper investigation!”

“And launch publicity and attention, and bring no peace, Jane. He couldn’t bear a repeat of the circus around his arrest and trial all those years ago. The memory was still raw.”

“And,” Tom interjected, “I expect he was concerned for your well-being, particularly if this ginger-haired man had seen your brother at Tullochbrae.”

Anna nodded. “We decided we would solve this puzzle
ourselves, and only then come forward and clear John’s name. A very kind old gentleman who visited John in prison—”

“Colonel Northmore,” Tom supplied.

“Yes, he fought with John’s grandfather in the war. He made arrangements that John could live and work at Thornford Regis.”

“And you moved from Bournemouth,” Jane said. “But why—”

“We didn’t choose to live together or marry at first because we thought that might create too much notice.” Anna anticipated her. “But we wanted to be nearby, so Lady Fairhaven—”

“What! Marve? Do you mean Marve has known all along John’s whereabouts?”

“Yes. Her support has been vital.”

“But,” Jane gasped, “John’s mother, Jamie, me … we’ve been
desperate
to find him for the last four years. And we thought we had last year when we were alerted to a murder in Thornford—”

“I’m so sorry, Jane. I can understand this has brought suffering. But John very much wanted a life free of trauma, and so did I. Only if we could identify William’s killer was he prepared to communicate again with his family.”

“But Marve
is
family!” Jane protested. “Near enough.”

“I know it’s been difficult for Marguerite. But she has been marvellous to us. She’s asked us no questions, made no demands, and kept our secret, as John asked her to do.”

“But how—?”

“Marguerite is a trustee of the National Association of Official Prison Visitors for one thing—”

“Of course!”

“—she regularly visits at Dartmoor Prison. And she visited John, when he was at Ford. He asked for her help and she gave it willingly, helping me find a cottage in Abbotswick, arranging work as a daily to Eggescombe and as a server at the Pilgrims Inn—and when John left Thornford last year and joined me, she helped him find gardening work. He’s an undergar-dener here on the estate, part of the time. He’s been using my last name.”

Tom said: “Surely he’s come to Lord and Lady Fairhaven’s notice.”

“No. They’re so rarely here, or at least Lady Fairhaven is. Lord Fairhaven comes more often, but he’s paid no notice to me, a daily, and I doubt if he pays much attention to the gardening staff. It’s Marguerite and the employees of the Eggescombe Trust who really manage Eggescombe Park. Besides, when Lord and Lady Fairhaven are in residence, John absents himself.”

“Good God, right under our very noses!” Jane fumbled in the pocket of her trousers. “I can hardly believe it! But where is he? Where is John? In the village? I have to call Jamie.” She pulled out her mobile. “Oh, no, what is it?” Her voice dropped with disappointment as she looked from her phone to Anna’s face, now stiff and vaguely furtive.

“He’s … gone.”

“John? Not again. Anna, he can’t have!” Jane’s body slumped. “Why?” she asked in an anguished voice. “Is it because Jamie and I are here?”

“No,” she said, then amended her reply, “I don’t know. Yes, probably,” she amended again, more firmly this time.

“Perhaps you should explain.” Puzzled, Tom watched her
as she loosed the band from her hair, letting it cascade along her shoulders.

Anna paused as if to gather her thoughts. “We have racked our brains for a long time, John and I, about the identity of the ginger, going over the people at Tullochbrae at the time of William’s murder. One or two of the staff had red hair, and at your wedding, Jane, a guest or two had red hair, but by the time of your brother-in-law’s death, most of the wedding guests had departed. We could think of no one from David’s brief description—absolutely no one—with a motive strong enough, or the character brazen enough, to—”

“And your brother could give you no other description?” Jane asked impatiently. “Height, build …?”

“No.” Anna shook her head. “Not that he could say.

“David lived in another Steiner community, Highdale, this one near Buckfastleigh—not far from here at all. Both John and I volunteer there. John helps them with the gardening. I often lend secretarial support, which they always seem to run short of—helping with fund-raising and such. David was very happy there. There’s a hundred acres of farm and gardens and woodlands on the edge of Dartmoor, and he spent much time working on the upkeep with the other residents. He’d gained enormously in confidence. Although they’re supervised as they work, they’re not minded as though they’re children. Last week—a week ago today—David was working in the lower vegetable garden, then went to walk up Hawkmoor Road to another garden. He would do this every day, at virtually the same time. Routine was very important to him. As you know, he was killed by a car on Hawkmoor Road, very much a speeding
car, the police tell me, to have …” Anna looked bleak. “So hard to take in what has happened in a week.”

Tom flicked a glance at Jane. “Take your time,” he said to Anna.

“As you read in the paper, the police have been unable to find the car or the driver. We were allowed to bury David, however. There was a service Friday at St. Bartholomew’s near Buckfastleigh. Saturday morning, I went to Highdale to retrieve David’s few things, among them a tablet computer we’d given him for Christmas. He was never too interested in computers, but something about the open face and the colour of the tablet attracted him. Some games he liked to play on it, and he would watch videos. He got used to messaging me and John … and others, it turned out. His disability impaired his verbal abilities a little, but he could write and read at a reasonable level.” She reached down for another blanket. “I happened to glance at some of the messages he had lately sent. Most were to others in the community, to some of the volunteers. A few were to old mates at the Bournemouth community, and a very few to more distant organisations—football clubs and the like. Harmless responses to matches on TV and such. But one that caught my eye was to the Daedalus Group. David’s message was to ask that some group I’d never heard of—Spector? Was that it?—be considered for a concert next year at the O2 Arena.”

Tom frowned. “This People’s Choice concert ‘Mad’ Morborne, so called, was organising.”

“You mean,” Jane said, “your brother wrote to Oliver directly.”

“He wrote to Lord Morborne’s company—I know that. Morborne had been on
BBC Breakfast
last month, talking up this thing, asking viewers to email or text or tweet him—him, personally; some special address had been set up—their favourite musicians.”

“But Daedalus must have received thousands and thousands of—”

“I know,” Anna cut in. “But I am also certain, absolutely certain, that even though it’s really staff who weed through these messages, if they weed through them at all, and it’s not some cynical populist exercise, Oliver saw David’s message, and read it.”

“You mean,” Jane said, “Oliver sent a reply.”

“No. He would have been careful not to. And anyone seeing the message from David to Morborne—either at Daedalus or on David’s tablet—would have thought little of it. Except for John and me.”

“Why?” Tom and Jane spoke in one voice.

“Because David, sadly, despite his short-term memory challenges, was, this time, able to remember a face. At the end of his note suggesting Spector he wrote innocently, ‘I’ve seen you before. I used to live in Scotland. In a place called Tullochbrae. You came to a wedding there.’ ”

“
B
ut that’s impossible!” The horse blanket fell from Jane’s hand. “Olly wasn’t at our wedding. He was invited, of course. One of the cousins. But he didn’t come. He was at a funeral in London.”

“What day was the funeral?” Tom asked.

“The day after our wedding, as it happens. Boysie should have gone to London for the funeral, too. The man who died was a friend of his and Olly’s from school—Kamran Arouzi—but as Boysie was standing up for Jamie, there was just no time to get down to London.” She paused. “Of course, Boysie was killed two days after our wedding. Jamie and I were en route to South America for our honeymoon. I suppose it is possible … but—wait!—couldn’t your brother have seen Oliver at Tullochbrae at some other wedding?”

“No.” Anna was adamant.

“But—”

“Jane, in the years I lived at Tullochbrae, I only recall one other wedding, and that was for one of the ghillies. David was five years younger than me, so he would have been perhaps four at the time. He wouldn’t remember it.”

“You’re right. Jamie’s parents were the last Allans to be married on the estate before Jamie and me.” Jane bit along her lower lip. “Of course, Oliver would never have entered our heads. I suppose if John hadn’t admitted to his brother’s death, maybe—
maybe!
—some evidence that Oliver had been in Scotland would have surfaced—a train ticket or a plane ticket, a gap in his diary, a sighting somewhere on one of the roads, on the estate … but the police were relieved from doing any investigating once John came forwards.

“But why? We always believed, Jamie and I at least—his mother, too—that John was innocent. Whatever the differences between Boysie and John, we could not bring ourselves to believe it would end so …” She flicked a glance at Tom. “… so biblically.”

“Cain and Abel.”

“But a cousin?” Jane frowned. “It seems almost as … I can’t find the word! Appalling? Shocking? Oliver and Boysie were great friends, Jamie tells me, closer than most brothers.” She paused. “I can’t imagine what the motive would be? And what could it be that all these years later he would come down to Devon, Anna, with the intent of harming your brother? Does John have any idea?”

Anna’s movements had taken her near the window. She turned her head, as if drawn momentarily to the view. The light, northern, cool, and diffused, streamed through the curtain of her fair hair, encircling her head in a soft halo. Tom
stared for the time it lasted, captivated by the ethereal, near-angelic effect, before Anna continued past. The sensation he’d had earlier, in Marguerite’s garden that morning, possessed him anew. He was certain now, and impatient to ask:

“You were in the Labyrinth early Sunday morning, weren’t you?”

Anna, opening her mouth to respond to Jane’s question, turned slightly, glanced at him with a little stricken look. A flush mottled her throat and rose to crimson her face. “No.”

“I think you were, Anna. Whatever could you have meant this morning when I offered my condolences? You said, ‘Rough justice may have already prevailed.’ ”

“The whole village—the whole country, now—knows Morborne is dead.”

“Perhaps it was the way you said it.”

“Do you think that I—?”

“I wasn’t accusing you.”

“I’ve thought that I would happily have done so, if I could. He was—” The squeal of a door hinge sounding from across the stable yard distracted them.

“Roberto must be back from Totnes,” Jane remarked. “That door could use an oiling. Tom, we should get the kids and move on to Marve’s soon,” she added, glancing at her watch. “Look, I’ll have Jamie meet us there. You will come, of course.” A look that brooked no rebuttal dissolved into a frown. “You said earlier you had been ‘keeping out of the way.’ Keeping out of the way of Jamie and me?”