The Mistress of Alderley (10 page)

“Guy's mother is called Sheila, and they're still married. In name only, but he lives with her, and she sometimes goes with him to events that interest her…. I'm sorry, I must use the past tense, mustn't I? Marius came up to Alderley every weekend, and that suited both of us rather well.”

“Are you still acting?”

“No, that's a thing of the past, thank God.”

“Is Guy an only child?”

“No, there's a daughter, Helena. Guy's twenty, she's only fifteen. I met her once, and she and my brood got on very well, as they do with Guy. I never wanted to destroy Marius's home arrangements, though we've had to talk about things recently.”

“Oh? Why was that?”

“Sheila seems to have got herself some kind of boyfriend, and she's pregnant by him. That made Marius wonder a bit, naturally—I mean there were questions, like whether he wanted to bring up someone else's child as his own.”

“Yes, I can see that. So what about you? How many children have you got?”

“Three. The eldest, Olivia, is twenty-nine and she's an opera singer; that's why we were at the Grand Theatre last night. She was singing the lead soprano role in
La Forza del Destino.
The other two are much younger—Alexander's sixteen, Stella is fourteen.”

“Not the same father as Olivia's, then?”

“No. Olivia's by my first husband, Rick Radshaw. Actor, with a reputation of sorts for musicals. He was there last night with his…
current.
The younger ones are from my second husband, Evelyn Cottle, who is always abroad at some embassy or consulate in some insignificant part of the globe where his total witlessness will not do too much harm…. Sorry about the cattiness. If you can't be catty about your former husbands, who can you be catty about?”

“So your name is a stage name, is it?”

“That's right. And it's also my maiden name. The children have all taken that too.”

“But now you've retired, and don't miss the life.”

“Miss it like you miss an aching tooth. Of course if something absolutely unrefusable turned up, I suppose I could be persuaded, just for the one thing. My giving it all up just like that does worry some people. Jack—that's my best friend in the village, Sir John Mortyn-Crosse,
Bart.
—he insists on that last to distinguish him from a mere knight, though I don't know the difference so it's lost on me—Jack thinks I'm forsaking my Art, or some nonsense like that, and is always encouraging me not to regard myself as retired, to maintain all my contacts and that sort of thing. I tell him I have the most wonderful feeling of
peace
in that house, and it comes from having severed all links with the theater…. Though whether that will be quite the same without Marius, who can say?”

She paused for a moment, but then the hysterical impulse to talk and talk took her over again, and Charlie heard all about the opera the previous night and the party afterward, her life with Marius, the idyll of country living, her joy at having so much time with her children, how she had been welcomed by the people of Marsham—and on and on. Charlie listened, because he needed to pick up all the background information and atmosphere that he could. But with another part of his mind he was picking out the things that were of most interest, planning possible future moves.

Jack, for example. Sir John Whatsit-Whatsit. He sounded of interest. Was he the sort of concerned friend who could be counted on to have a cool outsider's view of the situation at Alderley—a view that might counter, or at least augment, the rather rose-tinted account of it that he was getting from Caroline Fawley? He hoped, and rather suspected, that he might be.

Caroline directing him, he drove through Marsham and drew up outside Alderley. He got out and opened the passenger door for Caroline, and since she seemed uncertain whether to say good-bye to him, he began to escort her into the house. When the children heard the front door open they came to the sitting-room door, and Stella threw herself into her mother's arms. After a few seconds Caroline disentangled herself from her youngest child and drew them all, Charlie Peace following, into the room.

“This is Sergeant Peace. He's very kindly brought me home. This is Guy, Stella, Alexander…. Now, could someone make us all a cup of tea?” And when the tea was brought in Caroline told all the young people, in a low voice drained of all emotion, the facts of Marius's murder. Charlie put in a word here and there, realizing that Caroline had asked him no questions beyond how Marius had been killed—presumably because the mere fact of his death was more than enough for her to absorb in the hour or so since the body had been shown to her. He stood by the window looking out over the long garden, its lawns and rosebushes, its sheds and greenhouses and tennis court. This was gracious living, Charlie thought.

“So you see,” Caroline was saying in that flat voice that seemed so unnatural coming from her, “we're all going to have to learn to live without him.” She took up her cup to her lips for the first taste, but then suddenly burst into a passion of sobbing and fled from the room. Stella showed signs of running after her, but Charlie slipped swiftly over to stand against the door.

“I think she'd rather be alone,” he said. “Wouldn't you, in her situation?”

They looked at each other.

“Probably,” said Alexander. “We've only known Granny Cottle dying, and she wasn't close.”

Charlie looked at Guy, who simply nodded.

“Now, before I go and leave you to yourselves for a bit, perhaps you'd all tell me what you did last night.”

Again, and rather surprisingly, it was Alexander who spoke.

“Oh, we just watched a bit of television.”

Charlie left a second or two's silence after this.

“Well, well,” he said silkily, his eyebrows raised, “the oldies go off for the evening, and you use your freedom by just sitting in front of the box, eh? What was it that got you so hooked? Cilla Black? Michael Barrymore? The National Lottery draw? Come off it! Saturday-night television—it's crap! Only idiots and invalids can watch it. Here are all you bright young things off to university this year, next year, some time in the future, and the best you can think of doing is to sit watching a pile of infantile rubbish.”

“It was pretty childish,” said Alexander. “So after a bit we played a game.”

“What game?”

“Monopoly. We hadn't played for years.”

“Really. Where did you find the box?”

Alexander looked around him a bit wildly, then pointed to the sideboard. Charlie went over to it and opened the door. Files, boxes of place mats, old silver, a few letters, an unopened Christmas present all fell out onto the floor. No Monopoly set. The sideboard clearly hadn't been opened since they'd moved into Alderley.

“So,” said Charlie, “you're lying. I'd guess that Mrs. Fawley has a car in the garage. She'd need one in an out-of-the-way village like Marsham. And I suppose you, young man”—he looked at Guy—“have a driving license. So where do you decide to go? Doncaster? Sheffield?
Leeds?”

There was silence.

“We went to Leeds,” said Stella.

Charlie left Alderley pondering. So the children had all been to Leeds the previous night. The two younger ones had been more specific about where they had been than the dead man's son, but that was perfectly understandable: it was Guy Fleetwood's first time in the city, so a vagueness about its geography was inevitable. What had they all been doing, as they went their separate ways? Their tale was one of pubs, burger bars, and cinemas. Natural, in themselves convincing—so why was Charlie dissatisfied?

He put his finger on the cause as he was driving through the gates of the house: there was something about Guy—perhaps it was his very confidence, or the carapace of it—that repelled trust, and this affected his view of the other two. Though they all claimed to have done their own thing, only meeting up in time to drive home and be in bed well before their elders could be expected, somehow nothing that any of them said quite rang true. All of them had something to hide, including the youngest, Stella, who had never made eye contact with Charlie. But the one he was convinced was holding the most back was Guy Fleetwood.

The rich man's son who'd had everything he wanted? Charlie asked himself. Or one who'd been kept on a tight financial rein, and wanted more?

As he drove through Marsham, a fairly typical mixture of the picturesque old and the mass-produced new, an idea occurred to him. Seeing a man in a dog collar emerging through the gates of the churchyard, Charlie slowed to a stop beside him and lowered his car window.

“Excuse me, sir: I'm a police officer.” He reached into his pocket and produced his ID.

“Ah—have you come from Alderley? I do
trust
that the news is not bad.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows.

“Why do you assume it may be, sir?”

“Ah, well, the son of one of our oldest communicants was at the Opera North party in Leeds last night, and he'd rung his mother this morning to tell her—he knew she'd be interested, with him living at least
partly
in the village—that Marius Fleetwood didn't appear there as expected, and that Mrs. Fawley was very worried.”

“I see. So it's all round the village?” The clergyman nodded. “Well, it will be on the news by tonight. I'm afraid Mr. Fleetwood is dead—found stabbed to death not far from the Grand Theatre.”

“
Really?
How terrible!” It was a much-practiced response.

“Mrs. Fawley, of course, is extremely upset at the moment. I'm sure at some point soon she would appreciate a call. She has no adult to talk to up at the house.”

This was received less than wholeheartedly.

“Ah—I appreciate your concern, but I don't find calling
too soon
after a death is a sensible thing to do. In fact, the best thing would be to wait for her to contact me. Mrs. Fawley and Mr. Fleetwood have been to church here—and of course have been made very welcome—but it hasn't been
quite
clear whether they are regular churchgoers or have just been making some kind of
gesture.
”

“I see,” said Charlie, who did. A more obvious tactic of distancing he had seldom met with. Were there many places in England where the minister could afford to look gift worshipers in the mouth? “But it wasn't Mrs. Fawley I stopped you to talk about. She mentioned a friend—Sir John Something-or-Other, double-barreled, I think, who seems to live locally.”

“Sir John Mortyn-Crosse. One of the
old
Marsham families. In fact,
the
big family in the area at one time.”

“Could you tell me where he lives?”

“Oh yes. He lives with his sister—who is, well, let's say quite a character—in the Dower House, which is all that's left of the old manor lands. Go back the way you came, then where you'd turn right to get to Alderley, turn left. You can't miss it: the Dower House stands out, because there are lots of…modern houses around it.”

So Charlie turned his car around, left the pusillanimous cleric, and went in search of this lost paradise, the desecrated manor lands. He found it quite easily, on the edge of a wilderness of brick boxes like gingerbread houses. He left his car on the road, near the solitary stone house. It had obviously been built for some widowed Mortyn-Crosse, for whom her eldest son was willing to go to some expense in order to remove her from the manor house itself. It was solid and unpretentious—by no means small, yet perhaps too small to live in comfortably with a sister who was, well, quite a character.

The bell was a large iron circle in the wall, and visitors were directed to turn it clockwise. A fearsome clatter ensued, followed by a set of footsteps. Bolts were tugged at, and the door was then opened by Sir John, who looked at Charlie benignantly.

“Yes?”

“Sir John Mortyn-Crosse? I'm Detective Sergeant Peace. Here's my ID. I've just come from Alderley—”

Sir John's face crumpled in genuine distress.

“Oh
dear.
I heard rumours after church. You'd better come in.”

He led the way down a dismal hallway and into a larger, better-lit sitting room furnished with pieces Charlie couldn't decide about—perhaps they had once been “good,” but he thought not very good. He sat in the fat easy chair that Sir John had gestured him to, and looked at the concerned, worried baronet.

“I don't know what you heard at church,” he began.

“Merely that Marius had not been at the party last night, and had somehow…disappeared.”

“I'm afraid he has been found, dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, stabbed to death in a little piece of open ground not far from the Grand Theatre.”

Sir John opened his mouth to express shock, but he was forestalled.

“What's
he
doing here?” came a voice from the door. Turning his head Charlie saw a woman built like a trailer truck with an expression of puffy outrage on her face. She could have been a Tory spokesman on law and order matters.

“Sit down, Meta,” said her brother. Irritation had entered his voice and a pungent smell had wafted in Charlie's direction. “Sergeant Peace has some terrible news, I'm afraid. Marius has been found murdered.”

“That doesn't answer my question. What's he doing here?” Charlie had a sense—one he had quite often—of being the first black person ever to have entered the house. Meta Mortyn-Crosse's reaction was clearly one of outrage.

“I came to see you, particularly your brother, because Mrs. Fawley mentioned him as her best friend in the village, and she has only children or young people with her now—”

“I'll go up and see her tonight,” said Sir John. “And I'll get the rector to call.”

“I just tried to, but I met with a certain…reluctance.”

“He'll call,” said Sir John. “Sorry we were interrupted. You were telling me about Marius.”

“There's not much more I can tell you at the moment. But there was something else—and I may be reading an awful lot into a simple thing, so just stop me if I'm talking nonsense. Mrs. Fawley mentioned that you were always trying to persuade her not to give up the stage, always to keep her contacts there, not to regard herself as having retired from it.”

“Ye-e-es.” A loud report and another smell came Charlie's way. He farts when he's worried or upset, he thought.

“I wondered if you
knew
something—something that suggested to you that Mrs. Fawley's position was less permanent and settled than she imagined.”

Sir John opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again.

“Smart, very smart,” he said appreciatively. “Yes, I'm afraid, very much afraid, that I do.”

“You never told me!” snapped his sister from the door. A different smell wafted Charlie's way—that of brandy.

“Because I didn't want it all over the village, and in no time at all back to poor Caroline,” snapped her brother, showing backbone Charlie might have guessed he didn't have.

“But you think you were right?” Charlie asked.

“I know I was. I suppose there can't be any harm in telling you now—all the affairs of poor Marius and Caroline will be round the village by week's end. You see, I happened to be in Hornsea—” He shot a look at Charlie, then amended his account before he had even started. “No, I'd better be honest, or you'll only find me out. I'm not used to sharp detectives' brains. I went to Hornsea specially.”

“Why Hornsea? Is there someone there who knows about Fleetwood's past? His record with other women?”

“Oh no, not at all. I wasn't
snoop
ing—well, not much. Hornsea is where Alf Beck, the former owner of Alderley, retired to. Dear old boy, it was much too big for him alone, and anyway he couldn't afford to run it, even when his wife was there to rattle around in it with him. I just felt like having a word with him, and though I hadn't got his address I knew he was as regular as clockwork, and he gave his dog a little walk after breakfast and a good long one after lunch, about two. So I drove over there, had a bite to eat in a pub—”

“You swine. You haven't taken me for a pub lunch in years,” said Meta.

“Why should I, when I see you every minute of every hour as it is? Anyway, I knew he'd be either on the beach or in that little park place, and I heard the dog Laddie barking at the waves before I saw them. Anyway, to cut a long story short—but I'm not, am I?—”

“Take your time. You never know what may be of use.”

Sir John looked gratified. Compliments were rare in his life.

“Well, I brought up the subject of Alderley, and dear old Alf came straight out with it. ‘I'd've preferred to sell it,' he said, ‘and cut all my ties, but Fleetwood's paying a very fair rent, so I'm quite happy.'”

“Ah!” said Charlie. “But Mrs. Fawley thinks—”

“Caroline things that Marius owns it, and it's left to her in his will. And a substantial sum so she can keep it on.”

“What made you suspicious?”

“It had been on the market for a long time. That's the sort of situation when people consider letting. And to tell you the truth I don't consider that millionaire businessmen are inclined to hand out whopping sums in their wills to women who've been their mistresses. Of course I've little or no experience of them, but I'm not entirely naive.”

Charlie thought for a second or two.

“When I said he was dead, you were surprised, weren't you? I suppose you had been expecting some kind of desertion.”

“Yes, I had. It's what he's done to others, by all accounts.”

“Mrs. Fawley seems to think she was something more special to him than the others.”

“I know she does, but his mistress is what she is, or was. Before the law, and in his eyes too, I wouldn't mind betting.”

“I've heard rumors of others—” began Charlie.

“Scores of them!” said Meta, forgetting her distaste for Charlie in her enthusiasm for scandal. “He was a serial polygamist, was our Marius.”

“Meta's exaggerating,” said Sir John, “but still…I wouldn't want to speak ill of the dead—”

“This is a murder inquiry,” put in Charlie. “That means you do it sooner rather than later.”

“Well, then, apparently he had had mistresses before, quite a string of them. Did Caroline think he bought them all big houses and provided them all with assured incomes?”

“Have you ever put this to her?”

“No. Couldn't bring myself to. Couldn't burst the bubble. She was so happy—the happiest she'd ever been, she often said. All I could do was urge her to keep the acting—her stage and television contacts—in the background as an option.” He shook his head. “I don't think she ever understood why I was so persistent about it.”

“I don't think she did,” agreed Charlie. “Unless there was some little cranny in her mind that registered that you were skeptical about her dreamboat man. Maybe we should hope that there was. Then the reality may come as less of a terrible shock.”

“Remember, we don't
know,
” said Sir John. But he and Charlie caught each other's eye, and both of them thought they did know.

“Well, all that this amounts to is that Caroline is a bloody fool,” announced Meta. “And I don't think that's any great news bombshell. Whoever expected an actress to be an Einstein? I tried to tip the wink to that hopeless son of hers, but I don't suppose he had the gumption to pass it on.”

“Did you like Mr. Fleetwood?” asked Charlie, turning back to Sir John.

“Yes…. Yes, I did.”

“Did you trust him?”

“No. Not that. I'm not sure I always believed what he told me, even on small, quite unimportant matters.”

“Would you have any idea where he might have gone to fill in time—two or three hours—in the evening in Leeds?”