Wild Lily (12 page)

He groaned and lay back, looking at the sky, which was still blue and cloudless as it had been for weeks. The party felt like a decade away now, lost in the mists of time. It had been a great party until Helena … but her accident no longer seemed of any importance. It might well be true that her death had been a blessing, as he had heard whispered at the funeral, the words sadly, kindly, on everyone’s lips. If she had lived with only himself to look after her, then certainly it had been a blessing. He doubted he could even look after himself. That really hadn’t come into it at Eton; the pampered lot he had grown up with were mostly as heedless as himself. He was now on a sinking ship, unless his father was playing some amazing joke.

After a while he decided to go back into the house and make himself a cup of tea. He could put his nose in and offer
one to the policeman, see how things were going, get an idea of how the land lay. He mooched about while the kettle boiled: the great kitchen range had gone out since the staff left and he had to use the new gas contraption that his father had been forced to buy after harangues from the cook. While it was boiling he went out into the hall to check on the policeman’s chauffeur and saw that he was now snoozing with the newspaper over his face. He went back and turned off the boiling kettle and at the same moment he heard a sharp crack from the direction of the office. He thought for a moment it was something to do with the gas cooker, but nothing was amiss there. He went out into the corridor towards the office with a terrible fear rising suddenly into his beleaguered brain. Surely it must be his imagination? But he knew the neat little revolver was still lying in the bottom drawer of the desk.

He went out into the corridor and saw the office door open. His father stood there with the revolver in his hand. It wasn’t his imagination.

His father was quite cool. ‘I’ve got to leave, Antony.’

Antony shoved past him through the doorway and saw the body of Detective Inspector Higgins lying on the floor with an expression of amazement on his obviously dead face. There was no sign of blood.

‘He had come to arrest me. He thought I would go quietly, like a good civil servant. Wrong, the idiot. Come on, Antony. Is your little aeroplane fuelled up?’

‘
What?
’ Antony couldn’t believe what was happening.

‘I’ve got to leave here in a great hurry, can’t you see? Before
the chauffeur comes enquiring, before anyone finds out. I can’t go out the front way obviously. Is the plane ready to go?’

‘Yes, Tom refuelled it after the … party, and I haven’t taken it up since …’

‘Thank God for that. I’ll just get a bag. You get your helmet and goggles or whatever and we’ll be off. Good lad.’

It was as if some great lark were taking place. Antony waited speechlessly as his father gathered together some stuff off the desk and shoved it into his small leather bag, pulled what appeared to be wads of money from a drawer he had to unlock, stuffed it on top of the papers and laid the revolver on top. He buckled the bag up.

‘Get your gear.’

‘It’s in the plane. The keys are in my pocket.’

‘Antony, move! Wake up! Do as you’re told – fast!’

Antony ran. He thought he was going to be sick. The body of the police detective was nowhere near as peaceful as Helena’s had looked, the dead face seeming full of hate and pain, a rictus leer stretching the smooth, rather handsome features, blood now beginning to pool beneath his body, and Antony wanted to be rid of the sight. Soon he was across the lawn and pushing the fastest of the skiffs out into the water.

His father was nimble as a rabbit. ‘You row, smoothly now. Not as if we’re in a panic, in case someone’s watching. Taking your old father for a trip out to the grotto, that’s what we want them to think.’

‘The chauffeur was asleep,’ Antony said, hoping to calm him down. His father was a man he had never seen before, on
the verge of laughter, alight with excitement. Antony thought he was enjoying it, his life of crime erupting on his boring home stage. What on earth had he been up to in South America? Had he killed before? ‘Dad – you’re going to … hang.’

‘Only if I’m caught. I’ve done this sort of thing before, believe me, but it’s taken them a long time to catch up with me. Now the cat’s out of the bag though, it’s time to leave.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Le Bourget. Paris. I can get on farther from there, no trouble.’

‘Across the Channel! I’ve never flown across the Channel!’

‘A good time to start then. The weather’s perfect, piece of cake.’

Piece of cake
. The words went round and round in Antony’s head. Nothing made sense to him any more.

If his father had chosen a time to kill someone and fly to France he couldn’t have chosen a better day for it. It was still quite early in the morning and the sky was cloudless as usual: a perfect day to cross the Channel. Antony was now more concerned with the thought of flying across the Channel than with his father’s amazing transformation into a crook. It was as frightening as anything that had already happened that morning.

He knew the way to Dover. One just followed the road. He had hovered many times over the port thinking about making the crossing, but had never actually found the courage to do it. He despised himself for his lack of pluck, and had always convinced himself that if he had had a willing passenger he would have committed himself. Cedric had been keen enough to go and study French cows, but Simon and John had never even taken a flight with him, and Antony had never thought Cedric was quite the right companion for a trip to France (although, strangely, he seemed to have changed
a lot recently: he had been extremely useful at the party).

From the plane France beckoned, apparently quite close.

His father appeared to be enjoying the flight, although the engine noise made conversation virtually impossible – thank goodness, Antony thought, not in any way wanting to be a confidant of this killer in the passenger seat. He made as much height as he could, heading south, wanting to be as far away from the water as possible. Thank God there was no wind and no problem in seeing where to go … the sands of Calais lay white in the sunshine, and tiny fishing boats dotted the blue silk sea.

It was beautiful! Why ever had it taken a mad father to coerce him into this trip when he could have done it long before? For a few minutes Antony was euphoric. Then, as Calais loomed up amazingly fast, he realized he had no idea where to go next. Where was Paris? He had no idea. His little plane continued like a cheeky robin looking for ‘abroad’ and it was for him to give it directions: thank God Tom had looked after it so assiduously, for its engine never gave him a moment’s doubt. Lots of pilots got killed by their craft giving up on them. Looking for an emergency landing place was always instinctive.

Now his father was poking his shoulder and passing him a note:

Lovely beaches to land on all the way. France seemed altogether much larger than England and Antony was now actively enjoying this amazing experience, peering over the cockpit edge at the alluring little villages below. Everything was far more spread out in France, and less intensively farmed, all much more relaxed somehow. Even the river Somme, with the terrible connotations in the very name from the war that had ended only four years ago, picked a lazy route through wide expanses of sand, sparkling all the way, to find the sea, and beside it was a railway line as well as a big road, all marking the route to Paris. Further on, the ravages of war were still only too apparent but, overlaid by struggling new growth and basking in sunshine, the wounds were receding. The river led him all the way. How simple! Why ever hadn’t he come before when it was so easy? (Without a killer in the passenger seat.)

Strangely he felt little compassion for his father, or even interest in what was to become of him. He had been a distant figure in his life, never displaying the slightest interest in his son; there seemed little reason now for the son to feel anything but a passing anxiety in his plight. Getting rid of him would be a relief, but there might be a welcome party at Le Bourget if word had got out. Telephones might have been ringing. But with luck the chauffeur at the front of the house was still asleep and had never seen their exit, or heard the plane take off. There was no one in the house to come across the dead body; it was probably still lying there, growing cold, undiscovered. It was hard to work out how long ago the shot had rung out. It seemed to Antony about five minutes ago, but
it must be getting on for at least two hours now, even three.

A large town that must be Amiens – or what remained of it – loomed up beneath them. Road and river led them on. Antony knew that Le Bourget airport, was several miles north of Paris, so hoped his father would recognize it before they reached the capital. He began to feel nervous about making a landing in a strange airport, but trusted his father to do the talking. Did his father speak French? Antony had no idea. His was sketchy, not for lack of teaching but for lack of his own application.

His father prodded him again and pointed out to the left, and Antony saw the airport with its generous landing strip heaving into sight, with its windsock showing him that he could fly straight in. He searched the sky in all directions to make sure that no one else was coming in, and there was no action whatsoever on the ground to suggest anyone taking off, only a few craft sitting like flies outside the hangars, so to his relief his landing was very simple to complete. He touched down without a bump, the airstrip a great improvement on his rough home landing, and taxied on for what looked like the reception area. A few workers were standing around chatting and smoking and no one made a great show of greeting the incomer.

His father was already opening his door to jump out, his leather bag in his hand. ‘Here, Antony, old chap, I’m sorry the way things have turned out. Take this – it’ll keep you solvent for a few weeks. Go and see your Aunt Maud – she’ll see you through.’

The packet he offered up was, presumably, money. Antony took it.

‘Try not to say any more than you have to. Stave them off a bit. Don’t land at home – not today at least. I’ll be gone from here in no time and we shall probably not meet again, so goodbye, old chap, and thanks for your help. You’re a winner.’

And he smiled widely, happily, in a way Antony had never seen before, jumped down and hurried away into the open doors of the reception.

Antony sat stunned.

Was this man truly his father or someone else pretending? Murder and mayhem seemed to have given him a new lease of life. This departing, happy man was not the father Antony in any way recognized. One presumed he had friends to go to, in another country, money to burn, and complete confidence in not getting caught. All very hard to take in.

Another small plane landed and came up past him and the men who had ignored him went to greet it. Antony decided to take off before anyone came to see who he was, the sooner the better. To be detained in France would be a disaster. The sky was clear. He taxied back down the runway, almost expecting people to be running after him, but it was clear that his visit was of no concern to the French, and so he took off and flew away, miraculously undisturbed.

Once in the sky again he felt quite faint with shock. He concentrated on picking up the road and railway to Amiens to find the way home and then, on track, felt the enormity of this sudden change in his life overcoming him. He had no
idea how his father’s crime might affect him; he had no idea of what he was going home to.

Not
to go home, as his father had instructed: lie low if he could … his mind whirled. Brooklands was too close to home. He would go to the little airstrip in Wiltshire where Lily had done her parachute jump. A pal from school lived nearby and might give him a berth for the night. But no, he didn’t want to have to talk to anyone … he would land and walk away. His plane would be safe there until he could retrieve it. He would lie low … he could sleep out in the fields and perhaps come to terms with what had happened whilst communing with nature … the thought made him laugh.

And then a seed of delight broke into his mind: he was a totally free man, his future was whatever he wanted! Answerable to no one.

He just hoped there was plenty of money in the packet his father had shoved into his hand.

Lily’s father wasn’t happy.

‘Did your friend Antony tell you that he couldn’t pay the staff until his father comes back?’

‘He said he went to the bank and they wouldn’t let him have any money.’

‘So when is his father coming back?’

‘Antony said he was supposed to be back two days ago. He’s waiting for him now.’

‘So we all live on air until then? We none of us have been paid for over a month now.’

‘I’ve earned a bit, at the vicarage. And Mrs Carruthers wants me on Thursday, to help in the kitchen. And the pub might find something for Squashy. We’ll get through till he gets back, Pa.’

Gabriel had knocked off his heavy schedule since none of the other servants had come back to work and was now fretting, unused to leisure. He had enjoyed the freedom at first, putting his own garden in order, but now his conscience was
pricking him, letting the beautiful herbaceous borders up at the manor run to seed and the lawns go uncut. He found it hard to witness the neglect, but none of the lads, the so called under-gardeners, would come back to work without pay, even if he went up there to do some tidying. All the house staff who lived in the village were complaining loudly. Claude Sylvester’s strange dereliction of duty was the only talking point.

Lily had heard Antony’s aeroplane take off earlier in the day. Her father, being a bit deaf, hadn’t heard it, but Lily had run out and seen that there was a passenger in the plane. She thought it very strange, as Antony would have told her if he had been planning anything. She had wandered up to the big house only the day before and had a chat with him, and he had seemed perfectly relaxed and not up to any tricks, saying he expected his father home any minute. He was worried about telling him of Helena’s death, but had said nothing about flying anywhere.

Squashy, catching on to his father’s complaints about how they would all be starving if Sylvester didn’t come back soon, went out to go fishing and stock the larder. He never caught anything save tiddlers, but lived in hope. Lily was doing the washing in the scullery when Squashy came back, very excited.

‘There’s soldiers up at the big house. All over the place. I saw them!’

‘Soldiers! Don’t be daft.’

‘Lots of people.’

Lily stopped squeezing sheets and went outside. Across the lake it was true that there were several people wandering across the lawns, but they weren’t soldiers. ‘They’re policemen!’ They
seemed to be beating about the flowerbeds, looking for something. Lily was shocked. ‘Whatever’s happened?’

She called her father out of the cabbages in the back garden and he came grumbling.

‘Look, Pa. Policemen! What’s up, do you think?’

He had no answer, save his brain connected the police intrusion with Sylvester not having paid him for over a month.

‘The old man’s in trouble perhaps? He’s acting queer, not paying us. Unless it’s young Antony.’

‘No, he’s not in trouble.’

He wasn’t there, she knew. He had flown away in his aeroplane, with someone in the passenger seat. Lily felt strongly that she wouldn’t tell anyone of seeing that flight. Not a word. Probably a few other people had seen the plane depart, but it hadn’t flown over the village, so it wouldn’t be common knowledge. Maybe some workers up at Butterworth’s might have seen it, even Cedric, but it was possible that no one knew of it but herself.

Antony had scarpered, and who had been in the back seat? His father? Had he just been giving his father a lift to somewhere, or were they fleeing together for some unknown reason? She felt very frightened. The police never came to their little village, and certainly not in numbers, only a pair at the most.

She said she would go up to the village and get a loaf of bread. Her father wouldn’t approve of her going to gawp, as he would put it, but curiosity drove her. The police being there was surely connected with Antony’s flight. But I don’t know anything about that, she convinced herself. Not a word.

Everyone was out gossiping, stunned by their village being a hotbed of crime. They were saying that there had been something on the radio about Claude Sylvester being wanted for questioning concerning his latest trip to South America, but as only two people in the village had this new-fangled radio and they were not given to street gossip no one knew any details. Everyone was saying that of course they knew something fishy was up when all the staff had been sent away without pay.

‘But that was young Antony’s doing, not his father’s,’ someone else remarked. ‘So’s he could have that terrible party.’

‘So where’s young Antony then?’

‘The police’ll have him. He’s up at the house.’

‘Yeah, waiting for ’is father.’

‘Someone said there’s been a murder.’

‘That can’t be true!’

‘Perhaps young Antony’s been murdered!’

Lily kept her head down, listening. She realized that no one knew about Antony’s departure in the aeroplane; they all thought he was up at the house, either dead or alive. If she hadn’t seen the plane, she would be in a real panic listening to the wild conjectures being offered up. As everyone knew she was a familiar in the big house she was asked if she knew anything about it or whether she had seen Antony lately, but she just kept saying no, lying through her teeth.

When she wandered up to the gates of Lockwood Hall she found a chain across the entrance and two policemen standing guard. There was a group of people there, amongst them Simon.

‘Do you know what’s happened?’ she asked him.

Simon’s face was pale. ‘They say there’s been a murder. But they won’t say any more.’

‘Oh, Simon!’

He was thinking it was Antony, she could tell. But her secret was so crucial she could not reveal it even to Simon. He was bound to tell his parents, and then everyone would know. She just whispered to him, ‘It’s not Antony. I know. I’ve seen him. But I’m not saying a word.’

‘Oh, thank God!’

‘Don’t tell anyone I’ve seen him, whatever you do.’

‘No. Let’s keep out of it. God knows what’s happening.’

But as they spoke a police car came down the drive and the guard policemen went to meet it, removing the chain. They spoke for some time and Lily heard shreds of the conversation: ‘Everyone must be questioned. The whole village … the suspect is Sylvester. We’ve got to find him …’

‘I’m going back,’ Lily whispered to Simon. ‘I don’t want to be questioned.’

‘What do you know, for God’s sake?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Me neither, if poor old Ant is involved.’

By the time Lily had gone back through the village and bought her loaf the word was out that it was a policeman who had been murdered and the suspect was Claude Sylvester, of whom there was no trace. Not a word about an aeroplane. Everyone was to be questioned as to what they might have seen early in the morning. Lily went home and reported all this to her father.

‘Well, dang me! And him a gent and all, a proper gent. And what about young Antony then? Is he involved? He was up there, wasn’t he?’

‘I don’t know, Pa.’

The news had traumatized the village. In the morning the newspapers all led with the story: the well-known financier Claude Sylvester being wanted by the police in connection with the shooting at his home in Surrey, Lockwood Hall. He was known to have arrived home early on the morning of the fifteenth of August and been interviewed there by Detective Inspector Higgins of the Metropolitan police. Later in the morning the body of the detective was found in Sylvester’s study, shot through the head, and since then the whereabouts of Mr Sylvester was unknown. He had lately been travelling in South America.

Later in the day when the evening papers came through Claude Sylvester was headline news. And what headlines!

The small print continued with details in a vein that Lily found difficult to understand, the words being too long and incomprehensible for her limited education. She did her best to read it to her father who was still finding it hard to believe that this story concerned his erstwhile boss with whom he had had many pleasant conversations about the herbaceous borders.

Lily noticed that although the newspaper knew that Sylvester had vanished they seemed so far not to have any news of how, nothing about an aeroplane nor a word about Antony. No policemen so far had come to question her, although they were obviously combing the village and nearly everyone had been grilled. When she next saw Simon he said they had been a long time with his parents who had told them all they knew, but not much bothered with him. He said that they did not seem to know that Antony had been living up in the house.

‘Surely he was there when his father came home? He was expecting him, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he was there.’

‘He must have seen the murder, or heard it, surely?’

It was evening and going dusk and Lily was talking to Simon out in the garden of his house. It seemed she was the only person in the world who knew how Mr Sylvester had managed to disappear. The knowledge of it was weighing on her; if Simon had already been interviewed she thought he might as well share her secret.

‘I saw Antony fly away in his plane, with a passenger, who must have been his father.’

‘Crikey!’ Simon was stunned.

‘I haven’t told a soul I saw it. And if they ask I shan’t say. It flew the other way, not over the village, so no one else did see it. But I did.’

‘Blimey, you’re a hot witness! And nobody’s been near you?’

‘No.’

‘Where did they go? I wonder. It must have been abroad, surely? Over the Channel. God, poor old Ant! His father must have had his pistol in Ant’s back, giving orders! So where are they now?’

‘Ant will come back, don’t you think? He wouldn’t want to go off with his father.’

‘No, but there’s nowhere for him to come back to. The house is all sealed off,’ Simon said grimly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘All boarded up. Keep out and all that.’

‘But he lives there, all his stuff is in it.’

‘Well, let’s go and have a look. Maybe there’s some way of getting inside.’

It was easy enough to enter the property without going up the front drive where the gates were locked and a policeman still stood on guard. They walked through a thicket off the lane and came to the little stream that wound down to the lake, a way they were perfectly familiar with. Following the stream brought them out onto the lake proper and the lawns below the great sprawl of the house. It was true what Simon said: all the windows and doors had great boards nailed over them, making the place uglier than ever, more like an abandoned prison than a home.

Lily remarked on the poor trampled flowerbeds. ‘Pa’s out of work now. I don’t know what on earth we’ll do.’

‘He’ll get work in the village, won’t he? He’s got a very good reputation.’

‘Our cottage belongs to Mr Sylvester. Perhaps we’ll be boarded up shortly. Crikey, Simon, I hadn’t thought of all this!’

It was true, she hadn’t. So wrapped up in Antony’s plight she hadn’t thought of her own. She realized now that her father had got the message some time ago.

The sun was going down and the house was casting its heavy shadow across the lake. It was just like the evening before the party, with the same swans drifting on the lake, the water turning gold, the willows still hung with the lights that would never twinkle again. The lawn where they sat was growing shaggy and the lovely smell of mown grass no longer hung in the soft damp of the evening.

Lily suddenly felt close to tears. ‘What is going to happen?’

‘What, to you? Or Ant? It’ll be all right, Lily, you’ve lots of friends, and the police have nothing on Ant. None of it was his fault.’

Simon put his arm round her as she sniffed miserably and she knew that he was a good friend too, not as good as Antony, but the companionship went back so far. It was as little children they had first romped down by the lake, making mud pies and swimming like fish, chasing each other, making dens in the woods and cooking sausages on sticks, mocking Squashy, fighting, climbing trees, quarrelling, laughing … it had been
a way of life, the gang together, she the only girl. And now they seemed to have been catapulted onto a world stage. The dull, benign figure of Antony’s father, who had given them the freedom of his domain, was now in line to be hanged. It didn’t seem possible.

‘Antony will come back here, I’m sure. He’s nowhere else to go,’ Simon said. ‘Only to his Aunt Maud and he hates her like poison.’

‘Gosh, she might come, mightn’t she? How awful. I hadn’t thought of that.’

Lily went home comforted by Simon, but not sure of anything any more. The next day the papers proclaimed that the police had now traced Claude Sylvester to Le Bourget airport, from where the trail went cold. If he was trying to return to South America, which seemed likely, all possible shipping ports were on the lookout for him, but it was assumed that he had contacts in Paris or elsewhere in Europe where he could lie hidden for the time being. He was known to have travelled widely in his job.

‘Knew lots of sticky politicians,’ they said in the village.

No mention of his son. Where on earth could Antony be? Lily worried. But at least, although her father had lost his job, there didn’t seem to be any move on the part of the authorities to take over the workers’ cottages. Along with Gabriel’s there were five others in the row and no one had heard anything amiss. They now assumed they were safe. They didn’t have anyone to pay rent to, but Gabriel put it on one side every week in case. He was going up to see Butterworth to ask if
there was any work suitable for him on the farm, but without much hope. Mrs Carruthers in the village told him she could do with another man if he was hard-pressed, but working for Mrs Carruthers was notoriously awful. Even Lily could tell him that. Do this. Do that. Gabriel was used to working on his own, trusted. Old habits were hard to break. Also, she wouldn’t have Squashy anywhere near.