Murder Among Us Page 21

  He paused. Markby said in a curiously flat voice, "No, you weren't the first man to fall head over heels in love at first sight."

  "I don't know if it was love. I was flattered. It was lonely, eating on my own in all those restaurants, going back to empty hotel rooms to write up my notes. Actually we were both of us mistaken. It was a failure from the word go. Poor Ellen, she thought she was getting a wealthy English author. But although I've earned a fair bit over the years, I admit, I was never able to keep hold of any of it. Add to the absence of money the fact that she actually liked quite a different sort of bloke to me, all muscles and suntan, playing he-man sports. They breed 'em like that out there," said Denis enviously.

  Markby let his gaze roam across the pool and between the palm trees, out through the floor-length windows and across the lawns to Springwood Hall.

  "We couldn't even eat out together," said Denis sadly, "because she wouldn't eat meat. She found it offensive. For her sake I tried the vegeburgers but they sent me scurrying to the lavatory, something to do with

  the make-up of my innards, I suppose. It was worse than a mistake, it was a ludicrous farce. We both realised it and we parted company. I came back to England and she, as I believed, stayed in Australia. By the way, I was told they make burgers out of kangaroos but I never had the courage to check that out."

  "Neither of you suggested a divorce to set the record straight?"

  "No, well, to tell you the truth, I don't think either of us felt married, if you see what I mean. It lasted a few weeks, that's all. A sort of failed experiment, not a marriage. Anyhow, time went by. I put her out of my mind. It was an embarrassing memory but it was over and done. I met Leah. Again things moved fast and I found we were all set to get married before I'd had a chance to tell her about Ellen. And then I couldn't. I used to wake up at night cold with sweat and shaking at the thought of what I was about to do. Bigamy. I knew I ought to tell her. I ought to get in touch with Ellen and arrange a quick divorce. But there wasn't time. Leah and I were married and I thought, well, who's to know the truth? Ellen has probably forgotten me, probably got an Australian divorce by now and married someone else! She was on the other side of the world. We'd never be in contact again. But I was wrong."

  Denis swung his legs over the side of his recliner and put his head in his hands. "She was in England. She'd been here several years and never bothered to get in touch with me. Then she saw a photo of Leah and me leaving the register office in one of the society news round-up columns newspapers run. She got in touch then. I never knew anyone could be so spiteful. I mean, why?" Denis turned puzzled eyes up to Markby. "She was doing all right. She'd got that shop. She had enough money of her own. She didn't want me back. She'd never wanted me. Why put me through hell? Because that's what she did."

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  4 'Blackmail, and you paid up. It's always a mistake," Markby said.

  44 What did you expect me to do?" returned Denis fiercely. 44 Tell Leah I was a bigamist, that I'd lied to her and tricked her? You know how it is, everyone does. Leah has all the money. A rich woman always has to be on the look-out for con-men and crooks like me."

  44 Oh, come on, you're neither! Foolish, possibly. A con-man, no."

  4 Try telling Leah that. Try telling her friends. Try telling the press! I'm done for, I tell you, if it gets out! And so is my marriage!" He gave Markby a haunted look. 44 I love Leah. I really do. She means everything to me. I'll tell you something. Just now, before you came in, I was swimming up and down that pool all on my own and I thought, how about if I just went under the water and let myself drown? Put an end to it."

  4 'Don't talk like that. It wouldn't solve anything. There'd be an inquest and I'd have to produce the marriage certificate to show the reason for your state of mind."

  "You see," said Denis wretchedly. 44 No way out. No sodding way out. Not even death. It's not bloody fair."

  "Two questions, Denis." There was no point in making reassuring statements. Denis was going to have to face Leah and nothing was going to make it easy. There was no point in telling the poor devil lies. 4 'First, you did break into Ellen's flat. Just confirm it."

  44 Yes. I thought she might have it hidden there and as no one had yet moved in or cleared out the furniture, there was a chance. I searched everywhere. I didn't realise what a mess I'd made of the place until I'd done it and then I panicked and bolted. I realised Ellen had probably kept the certificate somewhere else, in a bank or with her solicitor."

  "Second question. Did you write to Ellen and ask her to meet you at Springwood Hall?"

  "Meet me? I wanted her a thousand miles away! Of course I didn't ask her to meet me!"

  "Mmn. Right. Well, I'm going to have to ask you to stay around, Denis. Don't leave the area. All right?"

  "All right," said Denis. He gave Markby a beseeching look. "Are you going to tell her?"

  "Leah? That's your job. Do it straight away. I'll give you twenty-four hours and then I will have to tell her."

  "Not bloody fair ..." repeated Denis.

  Markby left him slumped disconsolately in the re-cliner. It all sounded convincing enough, but he had met good liars before. Denis Fulton's story would need careful, meticulous checking.

  "So do we believe him?" Pearce asked with brutal frankness when he had heard Markby's account of all this.

  "I don't know. It sounded good. I think that's why I'm wary. I dislike things which sound too good, too sensible and reasonable. I find it hard to accept he didn't try to divorce his Australian wife twenty years ago when they broke up. I also find it hard to believe she didn't try to find and divorce him years ago, if only for the sake of any settlement. Is that why she came to England, do you think? With the intention of finding him and divorcing? If so, what changed her mind? He wasn't hard to find. His face appears on the nation's telly screens. His books are in the shops. He tells you in magazine articles how to prepare the dinner party of a lifetime."

  "She found another source of money?" suggested Pearce.

  "Someone richer than Denis? Yes, and his name was probably Bryant. We'll never trace him now. She couldn't have married him because legally she was married to Fulton and she was too smart to risk bigamy even if he wasn't!"

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  4 'Perhaps she liked having an ace up her sleeve in the shape of her marriage to Fulton?" Pearce suggested, frowning. 44 A chance of blackmail one day? She got it, too. She had a longish wait and she must have been a greedy woman. She was making good money out of that shop by that time."

  Markby was shaking his head. "I don't believe money was her moving force. As I see it, Ellen at the time of her death was a successful but lonely woman. She had been a beauty but was now entering middle age. A brief far-off marriage had failed. If she'd had a liaison with Bryant, that had long gone too. She had no friends as we'd recognise them. Her fellow members of the historical society had formed alliances which didn't include her. Margery Collins was the nearest person to her and she was hardly a confidante! I think Denis has it right when he says Ellen just didn't care about him enough to bother with a divorce. But then, one day, all that changed! Ellen opened her newspaper and there was Denis, middle-aged, portly, balding—and remarried. Remarried to a stunning lady with a vast fortune and an assured social circle. Call it envy, jealousy, spite, what you will. Ellen hated Denis for his good fortune. All her frustrations spilled out and she turned to blackmail to make him pay, not just in money, but in guilt and fear. She made him pay for his happiness and for being able to forget her and behave as though she'd never been in his life. She didn't want him or the money. She wanted revenge."

  4 'Strong stuff. . ." said Pearce thoughtfully.

  4 'Dynamite. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You might do well to remember that, Pearce, for future reference! Now then, the time has come for us to start calling some of the shots!"

  Markby picked up the phone. A few minutes later he said, 44 Paul? Yes, Alan . . . No, not to do with E
mma. Is she okay? Good. Listen, Paul. Did you once say you had a letter Denis Fulton wrote you a long time ago? That's right. You have? Can you find it and bring it round here?

  As soon as possible would be appreciated and Paul, not a word to anyone. Thanks."

  He put down the phone. Men may come and men may go—but typewriters went on for ever. Well, several years anyway. Denis had a word processor these days but that was a recent acquisition. The letter he'd written Paul would turn out, with luck, to be typed. As was the letter to Ellen Bryant suggesting a meeting. Individual typewriters could be identified. If Denis's machine had produced that fatal note to Ellen, they'd know soon enough.

  nineteen

  Zoe hesitated in the doorway to the restaurant of Spring-wood Hall.

  The elegant receptionist had deposited her there, making her feel like one of those poor village children of yesteryear, togged up in her shabby best and invited up to the "big house" for an annual tea-party.

  Her heart beat like a drum and she was miserably aware that her nervousness—perhaps blind panic would be a better description—must be obvious to all. Not that at the moment anyone was taking any notice of her. The restaurant was about half full. The patrons seemed absorbed with one another, their food, wine and conversation.

  Zoe, on the other hand, could not but be aware of them. They all looked so at ease. How did they do it?

  The answer, as she realised almost immediately, was that they were quite unlike herself in every way. They were middle aged, prosperous and well groomed. Eating in expensive restaurants was for them a common occurrence. None of them had begun the day shovelling manure.

  Suddenly she was aware that at least one inhabitant of this alien world has noticed her intrusion: a gentleman of immeasurable presence and dignity who looked at the very least like an Austrian archduke at the turn of the century.

  "Miss Foster?" inquired this personage. "Mr Schuh-macher is awaiting you. Would you care to come this way?"

  Zoe opened her mouth but not a sound came out. She

  followed him obediently across the room, teetering on unaccustomed high heels as she threaded her way between the tables. She was sure now that all eyes had turned to her. Not that she actually had the courage to look into any faces and see their expressions, but she felt certain that was how it must be. In her caravan the charily shop suit had looked positively stylish. Now it seemed drab and its origins as obvious as if she'd left the shop's tatty price tag hanging down her back. She had washed her hair but styling it had never been her strong point and as usual, she had just let it dry as it wanted to. Now she regretted she hadn't broken into the petty cash and treated herself to a visit to the hairdresser. Too late now.

  They were approaching a corner of the room where a table was discreetly sheltered from inquisitive gaze by a large potted palm. Schuhmacher's solid form advanced to meet her.

  "I am very pleased you could come." he said, enfolding her damp palm in his capacious fist.

  Squeak. Try again. Clear throat. "Very kind of you to invite me..." Now that she had actually managed to omething. she felt better. In fact reaction was setting in and a spirit of rebellion had appeared unexpectedly from some subconscious resource. So what if she was out of place here 0 He could not have expected otherwise. He'd been to the Horses' Home and seen her in her workaday kit. What use pretending 9 Suddenly the awful paralysis began to recede. "I'm dying to hear your suggestion about the home!" she said quite firmly.

  "Yes, later. Would you like a drink 0 "

  "No—" she began but stopped. Yes. dammit, she would—a large one. "Gin and tonic, please!*' she said aloud.

  "This." said Schuhmacher when they were settled behind the palm and the gin and tonic had been placed respectfully before her. "is a compromise between a private dining room and sitting in full view of everyone else. I do not like to be stared at."

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  "Neither do I!" Zoe confessed, surprised. She felt herself blush as she remembered the charity shop outfit she wore and wondered if she had drawn unnecessary attention to it.

  "You look charming," said her host. "Why shouldn't people stare at you? They stare at me because they know that I own the place but run it for their pleasure. They see no reason why they shouldn't walk up to me in the middle of my meal and begin a conversation. That's why I dislike to eat in full view in my own restaurant." He smiled.

  Zoe giggled.

  Eric leaned muscular forearms on the table, broad hands folded. The survivor of innumerable past encounters on the ice, of the collisions, roughing, holding and slashings attendant on his chosen sport, now found himself rewarded by an unexpected smile. This was a game in which he felt himself floundering as a novice, none of his former skills any longer the slightest use.

  "I am glad you laugh," he said. "You see I am not a monster. I should like it if you call me Eric and allow me to call you Zoe. It is a nice name. I mean yours, not mine. Mine is an old-fashioned name now." He looked faintly melancholy as if this prompted some further reflection he didn't want to put into words.

  "Yes, of course," she said. "Eric is all right as a name. What's wrong with it?" Without thinking Zoe put up her hand and rubbed at her already tousled mop of fair curls in a habit she had when trying to think of the right phrase to open a tricky explanation. "Mr. Schuh— I mean, Eric, I want you to know I do understand how you feel."

  "You do, Zoe? I wonder."

  "Oh but yes!" She indicated the room beyond the palm tree. "All this, it's beautiful and it must have cost so much."

  "It's business!" he interrupted, sounding reproachful.

  "Yes, I know. But it means more to you than just a

  business, doesn't it? I know what the Alice Batt Home means to me."

  "Hmn . . . My family has been in the hotel business for three generations. Naturally I'm proud of that tradition. But I am not sentimental about it. Tell me, I am curious, how do you come to be in charge of the horses' rest home 0 "

  "Well." Zoe reflected briefly. "It just sort of happened. One thing led to another. I was a pony-mad child, a bit like little Emma Danby, and I used to come and help Miss Batt. She was a wonderful woman!" Zoe's voice gained enthusiasm. "She founded the home and persuaded the last owner of the Hall here to grant her the original lease at the peppercorn rent we pay. She was very determined, a very strong-minded lady, and she just kept at people until she got her way. I'm not like that. I'm afraid." Zoe sighed.

  Eric made no comment.

  "Then, when I left school, Miss Batt took me on full time as stable-girl. It wasn't much money but I loved the job because I'd never wanted to do anything else and I still don't."

  Eric looked gloomier.

  "You see, it's all so worthwhile!" She'd forgotten all her shyness now, all her awe of her surroundings. Zoe clenched her fists and beat them on the pristine tablecloth. The gin and tonic rocked in its glass. "It matters! I'm not sentimental either. I've no time to be. But I do believe it's important to care! Miss Batt was getting on in years by the time I joined her full time and she had awful arthritis, poor dear, and couldn't ride any longer. So she had to give up. She retired to the coast and left the home in my hands. I promised her I'd keep it going. As for the lease, when the Hall was first sold the new owner renewed it on the same terms. After that, although the Hall changed hands many times, everyone seemed content to do the same. We just carried on paying the same paltry rent, not that we could pay any more if it were asked. But that's not the point, is it? You don't

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  want more rent, you want us to go altogether."

  "You know," Eric said slowly as she ran out of steam at last, "I too understand. I agree with much of what you say, except in one respect. Do not imagine yourself less formidable or determined than Miss Batt! Your style is different, perhaps, but no less effective! And you are wrong to think I wish to do away with the home altogether. I simply want it somewhere else, out of sight and out of smelling range of my hotel! That is
a different situation."

  "But there's nowhere else we can go!" Zoe cried passionately. Her outflung hand knocked the glass and this time the gin and tonic almost spilled. "We haven't got the money for proper rent somewhere else. I've just told you! Do you know what our feed bills are? And farrier's bills, medicines—although Finlay Ross the vet doesn't charge for his visits. And there's my caravan. If we moved—"

  Eric held up one large hand to stem the flow. "Please, Zoe! Allow me first to explain my idea about the home. When I bought the Hall I also bought the land which went with it. That includes the immediate ground but also a hotchpotch of fields. You see, when the Hall was originally sold, its estate was broken up, farms sold off and various plots of land for development. What was left was what, in effect, no one wanted. It is not all joined together. It is a piece here and another there. One, for example, is the plot on which the Horses' Home is at present.

  "Now I have been looking at this map ..." Eric produced a folded sheet from his pocket and opened it out, smoothing it flat on the table. "Now if you look here—" His stubby finger traced the centre crease of the map and then made a right-angled sweep. "Here is the river and just here five acres of pasture land owned by me but at present leased to a farmer. That lease is also up and I am informed the farmer is no longer interested to renew it. Something to do with Common Market quotas. He is reducing the size of his dairy herd. I took the

  liberty, therefore, of instructing my solicitors to make relevant inquiries of the local planning department and I am informed there would be no objection if you wished to move your horses there. You see there is water from the river which runs along one boundary and good access from the road on the other side. Of course, the rent would be the same! I am not interested in making a profit on this and in fact, your cooperation would be worth more than mere money! I wish no more unpleasantness. There has been enough . .. " He sighed.