Читать книгу A Fatal Obsession - Faith Martin - Страница 12

Trudy felt her jaw fall open as she looked at the house on the outskirts of Hampton Poyle, a pretty little village set deep in farming country. Large, built of Cotswold stone and uncompromisingly square in the Georgian manner, it stood in manicured grounds, looking effortlessly elegant and substantial.

‘How the other half lives, eh?’ Rodney Broadstairs said from the front passenger seat of the Panda car. Behind the wheel, Sergeant O’Grady smiled grimly.

‘Better watch your Ps and Qs here, sonny,’ he advised him flatly. ‘Right, I dare say the son of the house is out on his bleeding horse, but he’s promised his father he’ll be back by ten. Rod, you stick with him like glue – especially come twelve o’clock. Trudy, I want you to make your way to the kitchen and talk to the staff. Pick up on any gossip you can about the family. We’re not just interested in who wrote the letters – there has to be a reason Sir Marcus and this family were targeted, and we need to find out what that is. Got it?’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ Trudy said happily.

Finally, she was being allowed to get hands-on in a real case!

Jonathan McGillicuddy drove through the large village of Kidlington and parked his van under the bare branches of a large beech tree. The grounds he was currently working in belonged to a Victorian pile overlooking the Oxford canal, but the new owners were currently in Barbados, wintering in their villa there. Having only recently purchased the house, they had left him detailed plans for the changes they wanted made in the large garden, which included grubbing up the old orchard and creating a large pond there instead.

He began unloading the van, carrying a large pickaxe and several different types of saws through an overgrown herb garden towards the rear of the property and then into the orchard at the far perimeter. As he walked, he hummed the latest Ricky Valance song softly under his breath.

Having nobody living up at the house was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he didn’t have his clients looking over his shoulder every moment of the day to make sure he wasn’t slacking, or to keep changing their minds about what they wanted done. But it also meant he couldn’t just pop in to use their downstairs loo, or scrounge in the kitchen on a cold day for a warming cup of tea or bowl of soup.

He glanced at his watch as he unloaded the last of his gear by the first of several gnarled and mostly disease-ridden apple trees, so old even their topmost branches bent down far enough to almost touch the ground.

It was just gone nine.

The young lad he sometimes hired as casual labour to help him out with the heavy work, Robby Dix, had another job on today, but Jonathan didn’t really mind. He quite liked working alone.

As Jonathan set to work sawing off a tree limb, the figure that had noted his movements back in Cowley moved stealthily around the outskirts of the walled kitchen garden. And from the dark depths of the arched opening in one side of it, carefully peered out into the old orchard.

It was a damp day, the grass was long and wet, and the beginnings of a vague fog were forming. Although the house had neighbours on either side, the gardens were large and empty, and even the street outside was silent. No one was out and about on such a damp and dreary day – not even a dog walker.

Which was a definite bonus.

The figure withdrew and retreated to the even darker shadow cast by an old yew tree, which had been planted in one particularly obscure corner of the grounds. The patient voyeur now had less than three hours to wait. Not that he needed to actually wait until noon. It hardly mattered, after all, did it? He smiled grimly. But if a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well.

Trudy ate her final morsel of Dundee cake and smiled at the cook. ‘Lovely, Mrs Rogers, but I couldn’t eat another bite.’ She smiled, patting her flat stomach. She’d spent the last two hours, as Sergeant O’Grady had wanted, chatting to the staff and making friends with the housemaids, Milly and Phyllis (‘call me Phil’). Both girls were only a year or so older than her, and far more interested in grilling her about what it was like to be a police officer than in gossiping about the family. Nevertheless, Trudy had persisted, and now thought she probably knew as much about Sir Marcus Deering and how his household was run as the man himself.

She knew, for instance, that Lady Deering had a bit of a gambling habit she was very careful to keep from her husband. She knew that the son, Anthony, was the apple of both his parents’ eyes, and could do no wrong in their opinion; but both Milly and Phil said they had to keep an eye on him, otherwise he’d take advantage, if they let him. A good-looking man, apparently, but he tended to think his wealth and charm entitled him to take liberties.

Trudy had smiled and said she’d found most men to be the same.

This had led on to talk about Sir Marcus himself, who tended to be more pompous than promiscuous. ‘He’s so full of himself sometimes,’ Milly had complained. ‘I reckon it’s because he’s not a proper “Sir” at all. He only got his title for being one of them industrial barons, or whatever. He feels it, see. Not being a proper toff, I mean. It makes him on edge whenever they entertain. Always thinking the proper gentry are looking down on him, when half of them couldn’t care tuppence.’

‘But if they are miffed or like to look down on him, it’s only because they’re jealous he’s got pots more money than they have,’ Phil had agreed, displaying surprising insight into how the minds of the upper classes truly worked.

All of which had proved very interesting, of course, Trudy acknowledged as she checked through her notes, but she couldn’t imagine what use all of this would be to the Sergeant.

Still, that wasn’t for a humble WPC to say.

‘That’s the precious son and heir coming now,’ Phyllis said, turning to crane her neck to peer out of the kitchen window, and earning a dark look from the much more circumspect Mrs Rogers. ‘Well, I can hear his horse,’ Phyllis insisted with a giggle.

Trudy, not wanting to miss the chance of being allowed to assess Sir Marcus’s son with her own eyes, got quickly to her feet. ‘Well, I think that’ll be all for now,’ she added politely. ‘Thank you for your time.’

‘I do hope you find that nasty poison pen soon,’ the cook said anxiously.

Although the servants had already suspected that something was upsetting their employer – they’d all noticed he’d been particularly edgy of late – all of them had seemed genuinely shocked by the news that he’d been receiving death threats, directed at his son. Unfortunately, none of them had any idea of who could be behind it all. Likewise, they’d all professed ignorance about any possible dark misdeeds in Sir Marcus’s past that might account for someone wanting revenge now.

It had all been rather discouraging, but Trudy’s pace quickened with excitement as she stepped out of the kitchen and made her way outside.

It was half past eleven and, in the stable block situated at the back of the house, she watched as Rodney Broadstairs approached the young man dismounting from a lovely black hunter.

Trudy, a city girl through and through, knew nothing about horseflesh, but she instinctively recognised quality when she saw it. And it occurred to her, as Anthony Deering swept off his riding helmet and handed the reins to the stable girl who had stepped up to take them, that it wasn’t only the horseflesh on display that was worth looking at.

As she got nearer, she saw that the son of the house was about the same height as she was, with thick brown hair and large, hazel-green eyes. Dressed in jodhpurs and a dark-green hacking jacket, he looked the epitome of an upper-class gent at play.

His eyes swept over her warmly, reminding her of Phyllis’s warning. ‘Let him near your bottom, and he’d as likely as not try to pinch it.’

Trudy smiled now as she contemplated how nice it would be to arrest this handsome young toff for assaulting a police officer if he was ever rash enough to try and pinch her derrière!

‘Well, things are looking up, I must say,’ Anthony Deering said, smiling into her eyes. ‘And are you going to protect me from Dad’s nasty letter writer too?’

‘No, sir.’ It was Rodney who spoke up first, his eyes shooting daggers at Trudy. ‘WPC Loveday is just about to go inside and talk to your mother, sir.’

Trudy, taking the hint, nodded briskly and continued round to the back of the house, where she knew Sergeant O’Grady was with the Deerings in the large sunroom.

It was ten minutes before noon.

The sunroom was accessed by a pair of French doors with an aspect on the south-facing side of the house, and as she tapped on a glass pane and was bid to enter, she couldn’t help but wonder what Anthony Deering must be thinking now.

And again, she glanced at her watch.

Just eight minutes to go.

Even though the young man’s swagger and joking manner had suggested he really didn’t take the threat seriously – as, indeed, most of them didn’t – he must still, nevertheless, feel just a little trepidation, surely? Knowing that someone, somewhere, had vowed to kill you when the hands of the clock both stood straight up would be enough to make anyone feel a cold chill up their spine.

In some respects, the situation reminded her a little bit of the film High Noon. With herself, the Sergeant and Rodney keeping an anxious eye on the clock while waiting for something explosive to happen. Except that Anthony Deering was no Gary Cooper! And he certainly wasn’t expected to face any gunmen alone.

Even so, she still maintained he wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t feel a little bit scared. And she knew for a fact that his parents definitely had the wind up for, inside the sunroom, Lady Deering, a tall, sparse woman with a rather long face, paced restlessly up and down, while her husband pretended to read the newspaper. Sergeant O’Grady glanced at her as she came in, smiled briefly, and continued to survey the expanse of fields outside the house.

Trudy glanced at her watch once again – she couldn’t help it. Barely five minutes to go now.

Was it really possible that someone was outside, watching them, waiting to make their move? That, despite the police presence, they had figured out some fantastic way to end Anthony Deering’s life right under their noses? Perhaps by setting up a booby trap of some kind? Or might they have simply decided that brute force was by far the easiest way, and would simply come in, guns blazing?

The thought of the possible carnage that would result if such an unlikely scenario came to pass made her feel sick, and she only hoped the women in the kitchen would have the good sense to stay hidden if anything bad did happen.

But, of course, nobody really believed it would. DI Jennings, the Sarge and even that plank, PC Broadstairs, were all sure it was nothing but a mare’s nest. Which was reassuring, Trudy supposed. Even so, she knew her nerves weren’t the only ones being stretched.

Outside the door, she heard Rodney Broadstairs’ voice, and that of Anthony Deering answering him. In the next moment, both men stepped into the room.

Sir Marcus looked up from his paper and nodded. ‘Sit next to me, Anthony, will you? I’ve saved you the crossword puzzle.’ And he pulled out a section of the paper and handed it, along with a pen, to his son, who accepted both offerings, indulging him.

‘Fine,’ he said briskly, casting his father a wide smile. ‘But at five past twelve I’m off to the kitchen for lunch, and then I’m going to Oxford, to catch a matinee at the cinema.’

Sir Marcus frowned. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, son.’

‘Yes, why can’t you stay here? At least for the rest of the day,’ his mother insisted nervously.

Anthony sighed theatrically. He’d changed out of his riding clothes and now wore a tweed jacket with dark-grey flannel trousers. ‘Oh, come on! This lunatic threatened to bump me off at twelve noon. Once we’ve got past that, I’ll be fine. After all, why go to the trouble of specifying a time so precisely and then not stick to it? It doesn’t make sense. Either something will happen at twelve o’clock, or it never will.’

‘That’s hardly guaranteed,’ Sir Marcus muttered, unconvinced by such spurious logic.

‘Nothing in life’s guaranteed, as you well know,’ his son shot back pithily. ‘Come on, old fella, you can’t expect me to hang around the old homestead forever,’ he joshed his father. ‘Buck up – we all know this is just some sad, silly person giving us the runaround. Nothing’s going to happen!’

Sir Marcus sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall. Four minutes to noon.

Jonathan McGillicuddy paused, stretched, and put his palms in the middle of his aching back. Another hour and he’d take a break and go back to the van for his sandwiches and flask of tea.

He picked up a handsaw and bent down to tackle a particularly knotty and thick branch close to the ground. Despite the damp chill of the day, he’d managed to work up quite a sweat.

He didn’t hear footsteps approaching him from behind, as the harsh scraping noise of the saw, and the soft, damp grass smothering the sound of booted feet, served to keep him in ignorance of the figure creeping up on him.

Away to his left, Jonathan McGillicuddy heard the mellow tones of the bell of the village church begin to strike twelve.

It was the last thing he ever heard.

Lady Deering began to laugh. Out in the hall, the grandfather clock chimed the last of the twelve strikes. The silence after the last one seemed profound.

Trudy felt like laughing too. Had she ever seriously imagined that some madman would burst in, spraying gunfire? Now she felt vaguely ashamed of her fears.

Anthony Deering looked up from his nearly completed crossword puzzle and grinned at his mother. ‘Feeling better now?’ he asked.

‘Much, darling,’ Martha agreed.

‘See, Dad…’ The young man turned to his father. ‘I told you nothing would happen!’

It was six o’clock and fully dark before Mavis McGillicuddy began to really worry. It wasn’t like Jonathan to work this late. It had been fully dark for nearly two hours. Where on earth could he be?

At nine o’clock she nipped next door and asked her neighbour if she wouldn’t mind sitting with Marie for a while. The little girl had gone reluctantly to bed, but Mavis feared she might be naughty enough to get up, claiming she wanted a drink of water, and she didn’t want her to find the house empty.

Marie, too, had expected her father to be home in time to read her their usual bedtime story, and Mavis wasn’t sure her granddaughter had believed her lies about his arranging to meet with some friends and have a drink with them at the local pub.

The desk sergeant at the police station listened patiently to Mavis’s report, then told her that her son, in all likelihood, probably really was currently drinking in some pub somewhere, just as she’d told his daughter, and that it was far too early to panic just yet. Only after Mavis had vehemently insisted it was something he’d never done before did he promise to check there had been no road-traffic accidents reported, involving Jonathan’s van.

And more to get rid of her than anything else, he then rang around the local hospitals to see if anyone of Jonathan’s description had been brought in.

No such reports had been made.

Eventually, knowing she had to get back home, since she couldn’t expect her neighbour to sit in her house all night, Mavis forced the sergeant to promise that, first thing in the morning, he’d send a constable round to the garden where her son was currently working. Just to check all was well there.

On nearing her house, her footsteps quickened with hope. Surely she’d find that Jonathan had come home while she’d been out? He’d be full of sheepish apologies on finding their neighbour in residence in the sitting room, and she would tell him off roundly.

But when she got there, there was still no sign of him.

Not surprisingly, Mavis didn’t sleep a wink that night.

Mavis McGillicuddy was up with the dawn, and was sitting dry-eyed and hopeless in the kitchen, her hands feeling as cold as ice even though they were wrapped around a hot cup of tea, when she heard the knocking on her door.

She dragged herself to her feet and out into the hall. Through the frosted glass in the front door she could make out a large, ominous shape. When she opened it, it was to find a policeman looking back at her solemnly.

It was only then that she began to cry.

Sir Marcus Deering rose that morning with a cheerful whistle on his lips and ate a hearty breakfast. The whole mood in the house was jubilant now, and faintly shamefaced, as if acknowledging they had been silly ever to have worried.

Anthony was once more out on his beloved horse, since he was due back in London soon and was determined to make the most of a dry, if cold, day.

By nine-thirty Sir Marcus was seated behind the desk in his study, reading the morning post. There had been no green-inked missive to worry him, and if any more came, he would simply toss them, unread, into the bin. The poison pen had shot his arrow and missed by a mile. And never again would Sir Marcus be foolish enough to be conned into worrying about ‘doing the right thing’.

When the telephone on his desk rang he reached for it absently. He heard his secretary telling him there was a woman on the line who insisted on speaking to him but wouldn’t give her name.

‘Oh?’ Marcus frowned. ‘That’s odd.’ His daytime calls were invariably with other businessmen or their secretaries – none of whom was unwilling to identify themselves. ‘Well, put her through.’

‘Yes, sir,’ his secretary said. There was a short delay, a beep, and then he heard a tentative, tearful voice.

It took a moment for him to realise who it was on the other end of the line, and when he did so, his first instinct was to look furtively at the closed door of his study. ‘I told you never to call me here,’ he hissed angrily into the receiver, getting automatically to his feet. ‘If my wife were to…’

But the voice frantically overrode him – something that had never happened before. And as he finally took in what was being said, all the anger washed out of him, along with the colour in his face, leaving him sitting white and shaken in his chair and fighting the urge to be sick.