The Evil that Men Do (10 page)

‘I guess I need, first, to explain how Alan and I met Ms Carter.'

‘She told me,' said our reluctant guest. ‘She overheard you talking about Paul  . . . Paul Jones.'

‘Yes, and she was apparently looking for him. A lot of people were looking for him at that point.'

‘Jo said he was suspected of some crime?' Her voice was casual, but her hands were clenched. If you ever need to lie convincingly, learn to keep your hands relaxed.

‘He was, at the time, but he isn't now.' Alan handed her a cup of tea as he spoke, and I thought she was going to drop it as every muscle in her body sagged. ‘I added sugar. I hope you don't mind, but you look as though you could do with some energy.'

‘I  . . . yes, it's all right. Thank you.' She sipped. ‘But you still haven't told me what it is you wanted of me. It isn't about this Jones boy, is it? Because I know almost nothing about him. Only what Jo told me.' The tension was back.

‘Well, actually, that's what we did want to ask you. Have a biscuit, and some cheese.'

Alan offered a plate of assorted snacks. She took a minute piece of cheese, placed it on the edge of her saucer, and ignored it. She looked at me, a look far too intense for the ordinary conversation we appeared to be having.

‘We wondered if you know where we might find Jo – Ms Carter. We've been asking around town, but no one seems to know her.'

‘She doesn't live in Broadway.' Ms Robinson relaxed a trifle.

‘Cheltenham?'

‘Outside Cheltenham. I'm afraid I don't know the address. You know how it is when you know where someone lives; there's no need to remember the address.'

‘You've known her for some time, then?'

‘She's my best friend in the world.' That was, I thought, the first statement of pure truth that she had uttered.

‘Then you would have her phone number.' Alan picked up a pad and pen.

‘Actually, no. That is, I don't remember it. It's programmed into my mobile, which I left at home. Mrs Clarendon doesn't like us to have them at the gallery. Why are you so eager to find her?' She was slowly crumbling a biscuit.

‘Mostly,' I said, ‘to get to know her better. She's an interesting person, don't you think? A professional woman, I gathered. What is her occupation?'

‘Social service. Yes, she's an interesting woman. So interesting, apparently, that you felt you needed to virtually abduct me in order to find out more about her.' She stood, scattering crumbs. ‘I'm sorry. I have no idea what your interest is in Jo, or in me, but I have no wish to pursue this acquaintance. Thank you for the tea.'

She was out the door before I could say a word.

‘Not one of my more successful efforts.' I began to tidy up the remains of our totally unnecessary picnic.

‘No. The woman's terrified of something, Dorothy. What, do you suppose?'

‘It has to do with Paul Jones, I'm sure.' I made an attempt to clean up the crumbs on the floor.

‘Leave it. Pam and her staff will cope. She was certainly lying when she said she didn't know him, did you notice?'

‘Give me some credit, husband of mine. I haven't been married to you for all these years without learning a little something about liars.'

‘Most of which you knew already. Teaching those wretched children, and reading every detective novel ever written.'

‘Only the cosies,' I said absently. ‘Sayers and Christie and that crowd. Alan, whatever is wrong with the women?'

‘Something to do with Jones, I agree. And Pam said we'll get a surprise about him this evening. Or something like that.'

‘Meantime, I've given up on sleuthing for the moment. We're getting nowhere, and it's nap time.'

‘And the house is apparently deserted,' said my husband, with a certain tone in his voice.

We did nap, eventually.

It was late afternoon when I woke. The sun streaming in our window had a honeyed look, the waning of a gorgeous summer day. I yawned and stretched, and smiled at Alan, who had been up for long enough to make tea. I had a cup, showered and dressed, and then we wandered the village for a little while, had an early dinner, and came back to the Holly Tree.

‘What now?' I asked Alan, sitting on the bed. I was beginning to get a trifle homesick. Doing exactly what one likes can actually pall after a while. I wanted my cats, my home, even my housewifely duties.

‘A bit restive?' Alan asked. The man nearly always knows what I'm thinking. ‘Perhaps we should find Pam and ask her what her big secret is. She seemed to think we might know by now, but I haven't a clue.'

‘I guess there's nothing better to do. I've been wondering why I even care about Paul. He doesn't seem to be in trouble any more.'

‘You care because you like the boy, and there's some mystery about him. Perhaps if we find Pam, the mystery will be solved.'

So we went downstairs. No one seemed to be in the kitchen or Pam's private suite, but voices were coming from the lounge, so we followed them.

‘Ah, there you are,' said Pam. ‘I hoped you would see this. It's almost time. Sit down and have some sherry.'

Most of the guests seemed to be in the lounge, as puzzled as we. Barbara McGath and Eileen O'Hanlon shared a small couch, looking as disapproving as ever. The television was on, end credits rolling for some programme I didn't recognize. Pam found chairs for Alan and me and poured us sherry, and we sat and waited.

When the next programme started, we all looked at each other in some dismay. Eileen O'Hanlon said ‘Preposterous,' and she and Barbara tried to get up to leave, but the small room was too tightly packed with people and furniture to make escape easy.

I understood the impulse, though. For once I was in agreement with the two Irish ladies. What we were about to watch was, apparently, a rock concert. For someone like me, whose taste runs from Bach to Gilbert and Sullivan, it would be a form of torture.

‘Excuse us,' said Barbara, steel in her voice. ‘Could you let us through, please  . . . excuse us  . . .'

‘Sshh!' said Pam. ‘They're about to begin.'

Barbara and Eileen sat down again, perforce. Barbara folded her arms and picked up a magazine from the table in front of her. It was a golfing magazine, and there was too little light to read, but she effectively demonstrated her distaste for her situation.

‘And now, for the very first time on television, ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present  . . . Peter James!'

The end of the emcee's announcement was swallowed up in cheers and screams and applause. The backup group began playing and singing immediately, though they were inaudible to us over the crowd noise, and I suspected to those in the crowd, as well.

‘Can they hear anything at all?' I murmured to Alan.

‘Probably not. They're all partially deaf, anyway, from listening to this rubbish since they were babies.'

The boom of the bass cut through the general riot of sound, and the camera panned the group and then zoomed in on the soloist caressing the mike.

Alan was the first to react. He slapped his knee with a sharp crack that I felt but couldn't hear. ‘So that's it,' he mouthed in my ear.

‘What's what  . . . oh!'

Heads came up throughout the room. Barbara's mouth dropped open; Eileen clutched her arm.

Pam, her hand on the remote, turned the volume down and beamed at us all. ‘And that is the secret Paul Jones confided to me yesterday! He is Peter James!'

ELEVEN

S
o that's that,' I said rather flatly as we were reading in our room before bed. ‘Shave off the beard, and he's a famous pop star. At least I suppose he's famous. I'm not up on that kind of music.'

‘Oh, he's famous, all right. And probably ten, twenty, forty times richer than we are.'

‘And we felt sorry for him and bought him lunch.'

Alan grunted. It struck me as funny, for some reason. I chuckled.

‘Mmm?'

‘You're disgruntled. You grunted. Never mind.'

He smiled, giving the remark more credit than it deserved. ‘I am, a bit. We've been wasting a good deal of sympathy on that lad, and spoiling our holiday. Let's hire a car tomorrow and get ourselves to St Michael's, Buckland, for church. And then we can take off in whatever direction suits our fancy.'

‘What a good idea. That's a beautiful church, and I'm getting a bit claustrophobic here. Shall we keep our room?'

‘We're booked in for a week, and tomorrow night would be the last night of that. Let's leave our things here, and decide on Monday what's next on the agenda.'

‘Did you check on service times?'

‘Service time, singular. It's a very small village, you know, and the parish must be tiny. Holy Communion at nine thirty,
and
with the 1662 Prayer Book.'

‘Not only tiny, but conservative as well. This is a very good idea, Alan. Only, can we hire a car on a Sunday morning?'

‘I'll go down and ask Pam. I need to tell her we won't be in for breakfast, anyway.'

He was a little longer than I had hoped, and when he got back the news wasn't great.

‘There's no regular car hire in the village,' he reported. ‘Bourbon, love?' He held out the bottle of Jack Daniel's and, when I nodded, poured a tot into a tea cup and passed it to me. ‘Pam thinks we might be able to talk one of her friends into some sort of unofficial arrangement, but I'd actually rather not, because of insurance complications.'

‘Oh, shoot. I was beginning to look forward to a service in that beautiful church.'

‘All is not lost. There's one chap in Broadway who will drive us anywhere we want to go, even on a Sunday. If he's free, we can go to church, then have him drive us back to Winchcombe where we left our car. Then we're mobile again and can go where we like – on foot when we want, in decadent comfort when we don't.'

‘Perfect,' I said, and lifted my cup in a toast to pleasant plans.

We got up early the next day, to the sweet sound of church bells, and everything went like clockwork. Pam had phoned the driver, and yes, he was free, and yes, he would be happy to take us anywhere we liked. Our hostess had also kindly packaged up a portable breakfast, so on the brief drive to Buckland we nibbled on fruit and oatmeal bread and drank excellent coffee.

I marvelled, as we drove, over how different the countryside looked from a car. I had never given much thought to how much one misses when being whisked along at highway speeds. The small flowers, the strange and beautiful beetles, the lovely, fresh smell of the moist earth, the movement of the clouds – all of these are overlooked. ‘We've lost something,' I said to Alan.

He smiled, knowing what I was thinking. ‘We'll walk more, I promise. There's good walking near home, too, you know.'

‘They all used to walk. Everyone. These paths were made by people going someplace, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.'

‘Yes, but don't forget that some of them rode, the wealthy ones who had horses or mules. And if they had a long way to go, they had to contend with rain and wind and even snow sometimes, and predatory animals – and humans. We've lost the closeness to the earth, but we've gained safety and comfort. And of course speed. We could be in Edinburgh by teatime.'

‘I don't want to be in Edinburgh by teatime. I want to be right here, doing exactly what I'm doing. And later I want to walk and walk.'

‘Hmm,' was all Alan said.

The church service was lovely, simple and dignified. There was no choir, which was possibly just as well. We were used to the acclaimed Cathedral choir at Sherebury, and the efforts of a small group of village singers wouldn't have been quite the same. But the organ was good, and the organist acceptable, and the congregation sang the hymns with vigour.

After the service we explored the church more thoroughly than we had on our previous visit. The oldest bits of it were thirteenth-century, and there were some remarkable works of art, extremely old and very well preserved. One of the sidesmen (I called them ushers until somebody, years ago, told me the proper English usage) showed us around, with a good deal of expert knowledge and not a little pride. ‘One of the finest parish churches in all of England,' he said, and we couldn't disagree. Of course we wouldn't have, anyway, but it was easy in this case to say the right thing.

‘In Broadway for the festival, are you?'

‘In a way,' I said. ‘We're enjoying it, although we didn't know it was happening till we got there. We live in Sherebury.'

‘You're American, though, aren't you?'

‘By birth. I've lived in England for a good many years, now, but I guess I'll never quite lose the accent.'

‘It isn't just the accent, you know, love,' put in my husband, with an amused smile.

‘Well, I don't see what else it is! I buy all my clothes here, for heaven's sake. I know how to pronounce Gloucester and Worcester and Leicester, and I think it's a mean trick that Cirencester is pronounced with every single letter given its full value. I watch English television and read English books. I love fish and chips and steak and kidney pie.
Why
am I instantly spotted as an American?'

Alan and the sidesman looked at each other and shook their heads. ‘Can't put it in words, ma'am, but you just
look
American. Something about the way you walk?'

I rolled my eyes. ‘And I suppose we just
look
as if we've come from Broadway this morning.'

‘Well, maybe. I happen to know Fred, your driver.'

He said it without the hint of a smile, and Alan replied as gravely, ‘Ah, well, that would help.'

I swear I'll never know for sure when an Englishman intends to be funny. Maybe that's one of those indefinable things marking me for ever as American.