Death in Disguise Read online

  But at the moment things were quiet. The early birds were up and about but not, so far, the worms. However, Arno was not the only early riser. He was turning the corner of the house when a ground-floor window was flung open. It was May’s room. A moment later a sublime chord floated out into the pure air. Arno’s heart stopped briefly then, exhilarated, thundered on.

  He stepped back in the shelter of the ivy and stood quite still, lifting and swivelling his head round, yearning towards the open casement as a flower to the sun. The golden sound flowed out into the fresh morning brightness, supremely melodious, twining round Arno’s heart strings, binding him ever tighter to her, the dearest of musicians. He leaned back and closed his eyes, dust falling unnoticed from the ivy into hair and beard. The world reduced to the flashing movement of a cellist’s bow.

  She was playing an old Catalan folk song. An exile’s lament full of majestic melancholy. It always made Arno sad, yet so harmonious was the structure of the piece and so tender the rendering that when, in a final parabola of exultation, it finally came to an end, he experienced not sorrow but a sensation of pure gladness.

  He looked down at his offering. The pyramid of cherries had collapsed and they were rolling about any old how. Even the strawberry leaves no longer looked pristine. The disparity of his gift, compared to the one which had just been so gracefully and splendidly offered, struck Arno with an humiliating sharpness. He tipped the cherries into the flower border and set off to return the basket to the potting shed.

  The cellist laid down her bow and moved to the open window to perform her salute to the sun. She would need all the energy she could muster, especially today. Her healing gift—for that was how May hyperbolised a naturally kind heart—would be needed as never before. She raised her arms and watery-green silk fell away, revealing their glorious dimpled strength. Crying out, ‘The divine in me greets the divine in you,’ she bowed low seven times, knowing that each genuflection drove into the heart chakra love and a strength both cosmic and divine. After this she had a long soak in the bath, wrapped about with milky essence of the common fumitory, did a few Yoga stretches and some alternate nostril breathing and, feeling much more able to face the day, went down to start the breakfasts.

  But May must have been longer about her ablutions than she realised for when she entered the kitchen it was already full of people. Only Tim and Felicity were absent.

  Heather was at the sink doing the dyna/solar water. This involved wrapping sheets of variously coloured litmus-paper around filled plastic bottles, then securing the paper with string. They were then placed outside in the full sun whereupon the energy from its rays gave the water a powerful electromagnetic charge.

  Heather was keeping a low Martha-ish profile, humbly going about tasks to which, a mere twenty-four hours ago, she had given not the slightest heed. She had plaited her hair, winding it severely around her head, and was wearing what could only be described as a thing of self-effacing grey. Aiming for the appearance of a diligent and compliant Hausfrau, she looked more like a wardress in a spectacularly punitive prison camp.

  Ken sat silently by the range. He had accepted what had so far come his way (a glass of mate and some muesli) with many florid expressions of gratitude, but without any attempt to develop these thanks into a more personal exchange. He projected the air of a man knowing his place (a niche in the chimney corner), and glad of it. Indeed, even had he wished to move, Ken could not have done so for his right leg, broken in three places, was completely encased in plaster.

  Ken was deliberately not playing on this. Heather had agreed, whilst trying to settle him half way comfortably in a small bedroom on the ground floor, that they could only hope the community would, unnudged, come to recognise the measure and quality of his sacrifice and set it with a sensitive and generous weighting allowance against the measure and quality of his betrayal.

  Pulled from beneath the Buddha in agonising pain, Ken—as much to his own surprise as anyone else’s—had behaved with calmness and bravery. Struggling not to cry out, he had taken May’s rescue remedy and, when the pain then got worse rather than better, gritted his teeth and held back the tears. Loaded on to the stretcher, a faint smile upon his wax-like countenance, he even managed a small wave and an injunction that no one was to worry. Truly, nothing became Ken’s sojourn at the Windhorse like the manner of his leaving it.

  Arno got up as May came in, asking if she would like something to eat and a cup of freshly made Luaka tea. May smiled and shook her head. ‘You’re in the middle of breakfast, my dear. I’ll get it.’ Arno’s cheeks bloomed at the endearment. She plugged in their long, rackety toaster. This was very old but most efficient, hurling zebra-striped squares of bread into the air the moment they were crisp. When the machine was full a dozen would fly up together, somersaulting gracefully in the air.

  May thought how quiet it was. Usually during the meal times there was a steady run of chatter and laughter. Now hardly anyone spoke. Janet sat uncomfortably, her chair tilted on to its back legs, picking at the knees of her corduroy trousers. Christopher and Suhami, drinking real coffee, sat together yet not together. He looked at her frequently, once bringing his face round until it lay sideways just in front of her own, humorously trying to evoke a response. She shook her head and turned away. Even the sound of cutlery seemed muted thought May, watching Arno replace a knife by laying it with excessive caution on a side plate. She noticed his rather high colour and hoped he wasn’t sickening for something. Three people incapacitated was more than enough.

  Heather, having finished insulating her bottles, whispered at the air, ‘I’ll just take these outside,’ and tiptoed from the room.

  May’s toast sprang up and, simultaneously, the telephone rang. Picking up the receiver with one hand and catching her slice with the other, May exclaimed, ‘By Jupiter! That’s hot.’ Much to the caller’s consternation.

  The rest of the room, disunited in their anxiety, listened intently. Was it news of Trixie? Of the Master’s murder? Was it a bank or solicitor with information about a Will? Attempts were made to flesh out the gaps between May’s disjointed speech.

  ‘…tombs? Certainly not. We’re making our own arrangements. And I must say I think it very crass—oh, your name is Tombs? Why didn’t you say so?…ah—I see. Yes, that’s certainly a problem…we shall indeed, let me think a moment… no, I’m sure none of us would wish to do that. They’re not at all pleasant. Look—tell you what—in the wall of our vegetable garden there’s a wooden door. Earth well-trodden underneath so there’s a bit of a gap… Oh, could that be done? How extremely kind. A quarter of an hour then? Many thanks.’

  ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Miss Tombs, Christopher. From the village post office. The man can’t deliver, our gates being locked. She said did anyone want to go down—’

  ‘No!’ cried Suhami.

  ‘Quite. You heard what I suggested. She’s going to put the letters in a plastic carrier bag for us.’

  ‘I’d quite forgotten about the post,’ said Arno. ‘We will have to sift it carefully. People may wish to come here now for all the wrong reasons.’

  ‘I’ll go for the letters.’ Chris drained his cup. ‘Come with me, Suze?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘We’ll go via the terrace. No one can see us from there. I’ve got something to tell you.’ When she still didn’t move, he added, ‘If you hide in here you’re letting them win.’

  Suhami got up and followed him, not because of the goad in his final words but because it was easier than arguing. Her limbs felt heavy, her head stuffed with sorrow and guilt.

  They walked through the herb garden towards the lawn, the gravel soft and warm beneath their feet. Weeds grew there and wallflowers: the tiny dark gold semi-wild variety that smelled of vanilla and pineapple. The path was edged with cockleshells bleached bone-pale by the sun and wind.

  He took her arm and it lay, heavy and indifferent, against his own. Chris experienced
a sudden uprush of alarm lest what she felt was not a temporary freezing of emotion due to the shock of the murder and yesterday’s intrusion, but a permanent change of heart towards himself. At the thought that he might lose her his throat tightened in panic. He should have explained the true situation much earlier. The longer he concealed it, the worse it would look. He had courted her under false pretences for reasons that seemed to him not only excusable but also essential. But would she see it like that? He recalled the bitter plaint that people always ended up lying to her.

  He half stopped, irresolute, wondering how to frame the truth to underline the necessity for untruth. In the end he did nothing but walk on.

  Just before lunch the PM report arrived. Barnaby had the sheets out of the folder before Audrey had left the room. He scanned them quickly. Troy said, ‘Any surprises?’ and received a glance that seemed to him slightly sympathetic.

  ‘Craigie didn’t smoke although he used to. Didn’t drink. Last ate about nine hours before he died. Cause of death a non-angled knife-thrust puncturing the right ventricle which does away with the idea of Gamelin striking from behind.’

  Barnaby waited and Troy made shift to conceal his irritation. The old man was inclined to indulge in the theatrical pause whenever an especially meaty revelation was in the offing. It ran in the family. You had to make allowances. What bugged Troy was that when he tried to do it, he was told to get a bloody move on.

  Dutifully he produced the feed-line.

  ‘That it then, sir?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Barnaby laid down the report. ‘He was also suffering from bone cancer.’

  ‘Cancer!’ Whatever Troy had expected it was not this. Barnaby could not have wished for a more satisfactory response. Troy sat down in the visitor’s chair. ‘What—bad?’

  ‘Bad as it gets. They say he had a few months at the most. That explains the wig of course.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘If he was having chemotherapy he’d probably lost his hair.’

  ‘But would he go in for that sort of thing? You know what they’re like up there. Wouldn’t he be exposing himself to some wonky universal ray or stuffing herbs up his nose?’

  ‘If you remember, he was at the Hillingdon on the day Riley was found. Gibbs said Craigie was a regular hospital visitor. It’s my guess that all of them were told this to account for his frequent attendance.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t want to upset them till he had to.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Saint Ian after all then.’ Troy’s mouth turned down clownishly in disappointment. Even his bright quills of hair drooped.

  ‘We’ll check with the hospital of course, but I think it’d be wise to abandon your idea of the wig as part of an actor’s performance.’

  Troy put on his shrewd look. He shrugged, pursed his mouth, nodded. Judicious, not convinced. ‘How do you see this affecting the murder, Chief?’

  ‘Don’t know. If Craigie really succeeded in concealing it, probably not at all.’

  ‘The murderer couldn’t have known. Who’s going to risk years in the slammer if all you’ve got to do to see your victim off is hang about for a few weeks.’

  ‘If time wasn’t a problem, no one.’

  ‘Right. On the other hand…wo hey…what about this? Knowing his days are numbered, wishing to spare all and sundry unnecessary aggro, our hero tops himself.’

  ‘Psychologically, I’d say that’s quite sound. But he would never have done it like this, causing the maximum pain and confusion. I see him as the sort to put his affairs in order and take an overdose, leaving a note on his bedroom door. You know the sort of thing—don’t come in. Call an ambulance.’

  ‘OK. Say…um…someone knows, yes? He’s had to tell them to get the future straightened out and he—or she—can’t hack it. Can’t bear the thought of poor old Obi’s increasing deterioration, so they do a spot of mercy killing. A quick thrust and it’s one halo less down here, one more on the pearly hatstand.’

  ‘Same argument. They wouldn’t choose that way.’ Barnaby tapped the report. ‘Unnecessarily dangerous and messy. They’d slip something into his muesli.’

  ‘S’pose so.’ Blocked at every turn, Troy gazed rather shirtily at the VDU. It would serve some people right if they were stuck with a teak head who got one idea a year, and that out of a cracker at the Christmas thrash.

  ‘Sorry, Gavin.’

  ‘What?’ Troy feigned bewilderment. ‘Oh—that’s OK. Just thinking aloud, you know—like you do. Right,’ he got up, ‘I think I’ll grab an early lunch. Usually fish, end of the week. I’d better try some. Supposed to be good for the brains.’

  ‘The ancient Chinese had got it taped. They gave their suspect a mouthful of rice. If he spat it out it meant his salivary glands hadn’t dried up. Ergo—he was telling the truth.’

  ‘What if he just didn’t like rice?’

  ‘Half an hour, maximum. And bring me back some sandwiches.’

  When Chris and Suhami returned to the kitchen, they brought a fairly well-filled bright green bag and tipped the post on to the kitchen table. Two small parcels and around a dozen letters.

  Janet’s quick eager fingers picked them over. There was nothing for her. Flinching from a glimmer of pitying concern in Heather’s eyes she got up and started to clear away the coffee cups.

  ‘Heavens,’ said Arno, tearing open an envelope, ‘there’s a booking here already for our hydro/massage weekend.’

  ‘Shake Hands With Aphrodite’ had been well publicised in Causton and Uxbridge and discreetly small-aded in one or two magazines. Several bubble-effect motors had been purchased to gussy up the community’s staid, claw-footed baths. Alternatively, if dry, the workshop would take place in the lake.

  ‘Here’s one for you,’ said Chris. ‘And May.’ He held out a long narrow envelope of heavy cream parchment, immaculately inscribed in heavy type and franked.

  ‘For both of us?’ Arno took the letter, pleased but puzzled. May, as bursar, got a great deal of mail but himself hardly any. He could not imagine, he said, why someone should be writing to them jointly.

  ‘Can’t you?’ said Chris, looking excited and exasperated at the same time. ‘It’s from a solicitor.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Of course. They always look like that.’

  ‘I think Chris may be right,’ murmured Heather timidly.

  ‘We must find May at once.’

  ‘Open it,’ said Suhami. ‘It’s addressed to you as well.’

  ‘Nevertheless I prefer to wait till she is present.’

  ‘May was with Mrs Gamelin earlier,’ said Heather. ‘Shall I fetch her?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Suhami.

  Felicity was lying back on her pillow, eyes closed, a little fringe of milk on her top lip. May was seated by the bed. Suharni came in quietly and closed the door.

  She crossed to the bed and stood looking down. She had not seen her mother for years without what Felicity called her ‘war paint’ and realised that had they passed in the street, she wouldn’t have recognised her.

  Felicity’s hair was tied smoothly back and she was lying on the pony tail, so there was nothing to soften the fastidious sharp lines of jaw and cheek. Even in deep repose she looked desperately unhappy. All of the Gamelins, thought Suhami. All of us… With an unexpected movement of the heart, she noticed that her mother’s unpainted brows were flecked with grey.

  ‘Is she going to be all right, May?’

  ‘That rather depends on whether she wants to be. At the moment all we can offer is quiet and rest. I suspect that her mind and body have been greatly abused.’

  ‘Yes.’ Suhami turned away. After all there was nothing she could do. Too much time had passed. There was not even the memory of affection. ‘There’s a letter for you.’ She moved off, not looking back. ‘The general opinion seems to be that it’s from a solicitor.’

  Having decamped to the office, Arno was now sitting behind the old Gestetner and, w
ith Chris’s help, was sorting things into piles. As he had anticipated, most were inquiring about future events. One or two were bills, some sought healing appointments. He rose as May entered, holding out the parchment envelope. She tore it open at once.

  ‘It’s from a Mr Pousty of Pousty and Dingle. They want to see us.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Arno.

  ‘Doesn’t say.’ May crossed to the open window and held the letter out, facing the sun. After a few moments her arm began to tremble. She brought the paper back in and laid it against her cheek, breathing deeply. ‘Well, the news is certainly good. I should ring up, Arno, and make an appointment.’

  Arno was not able to speak with Mr Pousty who was now on holiday in the Cairngorms, but was told that Hugo Clinch would be delighted to see them at two-thirty P.M. that very afternoon.

  A man in his mid-thirties, Mr Clinch wore a beautifully cut electric-blue suit, a lighter blue silk tie and a dove-grey waistcoat. His shirt was pale canary yellow as were the crimped and crinkled high waves of his hair. He had an awful lot of large, very clean teeth.

  The office was light and airy with a reproduction of Annigoni’s ‘Queen’ on one wall and long narrow photographs of various cricket elevens on the other three. There was a bag of golf clubs resting against the filing cabinet and a silver-framed photograph on the desk, showing Mr Clinch with a fencing guard under his arm and a rapier in his hand.

  Arno, who would have felt happier with a few old-fashioned proficiency certificates, saw May settled then sat down himself. No sooner had he done so than the door opened and a lady wearing a hat like a varnished mushroom and looking old enough to be Mr Clinch’s grandma, staggered in with a tray of tea things. Arno sprang up and assisted her. She croaked gratefully it him and tottered off, leaving a whiff of lavender in the air.