Memory and Desire, page 30
“A man's work is never done."
“I'll see you later this afternoon, then? I'm thinking it's time we defined our terms."
“I'm thinking that, too. Let me know when."
Claire had made her way back to her flat, where she fixed herself a sandwich and watched Kate and Pakenham argue in pantomime in one window while Blake sat with his cell phone pressed to his ear in the other. When Trillian had delivered Richard's note she'd been ready to jump. More than ready to jump. To run screaming down the stairs and along the high street. She'd cut herself too deep a rut of nervous tension, it seemed, and now she was in over her head.
She forced herself to sit down in a pew toward the front of the church. The wooden seat was so icy she almost shot up again. She set the umbrella down beside her, pulled the note out of her pocket, and spread it across her denim-covered thigh.
Richard and his fine architect's hand, she thought with a smile. Not only was her name printed on the envelope but the note inside was printed, too, its letters looking like the ones on the map of Somerstowe Alec had used to find Melinda's body. “Meet me in the church at two, R."
The church? Why not the Lodge? Was the official delegation camped out there?
Claire heard a creak, as though another door had opened somewhere in the building. A slight stirring of the air brought a whiff of brass polish to her nose. Richard? She looked up. No one was there. Just the old structure settling, she told herself.
Like Alec, she eyed the stone flags surrounding the altar. That one with the iron ring in it, that was the opening to the crypt. Had Walter known the truth about Elizabeth, or, believing that witchcraft was the equivalent of satanism, had he stoutly refused to believe anything of the sort? Well, faith was pretty much wishful thinking in any event. But wishful thinking—perception, desire—could be more important than fact. Especially when it came to something that transcended fact.
In his benediction Trevor had spoken of “God's peace which passeth all understanding.” Amen, Claire said to herself. In spite of her peaceful surroundings, though, she didn't feel at peace. Maybe she simply hadn't processed everything yet. The future was far from certain, not for Alec, not for Richard, not for her.
The air stirred again, almost imperceptibly. Flowers, polish, wax—the church smelled a bit like the Hall with its lingering odor of potpourri. Except for the candle wax. That was sort of like the scent of stage base, also known as greasepaint. Claire grimaced, feeling again the cloth around her throat, cruelly tight, and her heart bursting from her chest. She'd smelled sweat and greasepaint on her attacker ... Elliot, she thought. He was the director. He hadn't been wearing stage base. And yet he'd confessed. She must've smelled her own paint exuded in her rush of terror. Weird.
She shifted uneasily on the hard wooden bench, built before people regarded comfort as an inalienable right. She could have sworn she wasn't alone in the church. And she didn't mean the place was suffused with the Holy Spirit, either. She'd gotten used to being paranoid, was all.
You're not paranoid, she told herself, if someone really is out to get you. And Elliot had been out to get her. Claire had been a burr under his saddle since the day she arrived. Everyone assumed she and Melinda had been, somehow, one mind in two bodies—even Richard ... No. Elliot had searched her room, hadn't he? If he'd plowed through all her notes and all her letters he'd realize she hadn't known what Melinda knew. Which meant his motive had been revenge, pure and simple.
Shaking her head, Claire looked again at the note. Two. Her watch said two, right on the dot. It wasn't as though she had anything else to do, though. Except to think about Elliot making the dramatic gesture even though he knew damn well he wouldn't be around for the applause. About fastidious Elliot killing himself in one of the messiest possible ways.
Claire heard a slight scraping sound. Mice beneath the organ? She peered toward the altar. The dangling end of the embroidered cloth was swaying just a bit, as though in some ghostly draft. Something emanating from the crypt, maybe? Not that she'd ever really believed in ghosts before. Or that magic worked. She'd just enjoyed the stories and thought that there, too, faith transcended fact. That wishful thinking....
Suddenly she went skin-prickling cold. With Elliot's death they were all indulging in wishful thinking, weren't they? They were seeing what they wanted to see—an end to the case. A staged suicide would get the real killer off the hook. It would separate Claire from her faithful bodyguard and leave her sitting alone in the village church.
“Shit,” she whispered. Slowly she stood up. The shadows were thick behind the effigies and in the corners, but nothing moved, not even the air. Still the hair rose on the back of her neck.
Someone had held Elliot's own gun on him while he wrote a confession, his hand trembling with fear. People would confess to just about anything under duress. And then—well, it would've been easy enough to shoot and then close Elliot's hand around the gun.
Claire could buy Elliot as a co-conspirator. He had the jug and box. He made regular trips to London, where the blackmail letters were postmarked. And yet the threatening letters had an edge of hatred and resentment that seemed too harsh even for Elliot and his malicious ego-masturbating sense of humor. An edge of hatred and resentment of the status quo that had led—someone else—to murder not once, but twice.
So whom had Elliot thought so harmless he'd agreed to play a game of blackmail with them? Someone he'd not only let into his house yesterday afternoon, he'd let get the drop on him? And as clearly as if he sat beside her Claire heard Richard's voice saying, “He'd rather have guests of the female persuasion."
Of course. She could just see Elliot trying to impress female prey by posturing with the gun, mocking the cliches of machismo even as he bought into them. And not just any female prey, either. If Diana Jackman alibi'd Elliot for the time of Melinda's murder, then he alibi'd her.
Good God. Claire crushed her hand to her mouth. Was it another puzzle, simple once you saw the solution? But she hadn't solved the puzzle. She was back to the one thing that had bothered her—had bothered everyone—all along. Motive. And Pakenham's glib explanation of the income from The Play as the primary cause just didn't go far enough.
The Play, Elizabeth's story, was inextricably part of the Hall. The Hall, Trevor had said, was the trunk of the tree, like a genealogical tree ... Claire sat back down, landing on the spike at the top of the umbrella. Impatiently she pushed it away. With a small thunk the umbrella's curved handle bumped the armrest at the far end of the pew. Claire barely heard it. She didn't see it. The cascade of words and images doused her mind like a bucket of cold water.
The genealogical tree that mattered wasn't that of the Laceys or the Spensers. It was the family tree of the Cranbournes. Because she'd seen the lupins laid in front of the Cranbourne mausoleum in the back yard of the pub.
Diana's pink dress was initialed “DCJ.” A woman often used her maiden name as her middle name after she married. On the way to Bakewell Diana said her family had been in Somerstowe a long time, not all of them in service, either—her grandfather had been a gentleman. But Trevor said Diana was from Leeds and only moved to Somerstowe when she married Rob.
So where had Vincent, the gray sheep of the Cranbournes, gone when he married a maidservant and was cut off from the family? Leeds?
Maurice Applethorpe, from Leeds, had come to Somerstowe for genealogical lectures. He had to know Diana was his cousin. And if he didn't, all he had to do was sit down in the pub and start talking about his connections and she'd be onto him like a duck onto a June bug. And if he started going on about how the Cranbournes had been cheated out of their inheritance by Julian Lacey, about how there must be something wrong with Maud's will, about how much the Hall would bring, sold to a developer...
Melinda's letter to Richard. Had he sat down with his mail in the pub then, too? The pub, where you sat and chatted away, your tongue lubricated by alcohol, and assumed your conversations, not to mention your letters, were private. Where the public phone connection at the end of the bar was custom-made for Melinda's laptop, so she could e-mail Claire and tell her she'd learned some interesting things by asking questions in Somerstowe.
Rob and Diana had catered the cast party last year, too. One of them would've had to stay late and clear up. Had Diana been waiting inside the entrance hall when Susan saw Melinda walking through the portico? No, she hadn't. She'd been here, at the church.
Claire looked up, not quite focussing. Ceiling, altar, windows, effigies—all were indistinct, as though she'd taken off her glasses. Damn it, she thought, Blake was right. If any of the Cranbournes, even Diana, thought Melinda knew the truth about the will—even if to them the truth was only wishful thinking—the last thing they'd do is kill her....
One of the effigies moved. Claire blinked. No, effigies didn't stand upright and walk. They didn't emerge from door behind the altar that opened onto the vestry. The vestry, where Trevor kept the old typewriter that had typed the blackmail letters.
“Hullo, Claire.” Diana strolled out of the shadow into the dim light of the center aisle.
Slowly Claire stood up. Maybe she didn't yet know Why, or even How, but as surely as she knew her own name, she knew Who.
Chapter Twenty-six
Diana's blond frizz stood out from her head as if electrified. Her oversized jacket gaped lopsidedly over a shapeless sweat suit. Dark smears of eye shadow and lipstick made her face look like a skull. She'd probably been up all night, her mind racing like a rat through a maze. Claire would've felt a pang of sympathy if she hadn't instead felt a pang of fear.
“I see you got me note,” Diana said.
Claire opened her mouth. It was dust-dry. She swallowed and tried again. “The—ah—note I thought was from Richard? You copied his printing from the map, right?"
“Right.” Diana took a step closer, blocking the aisle end of the pew. “Seemed only fair, that was the map Alec used to witch up Melinda's body. Takes one to know one, I always say. It's not right, the likes of Alec playing Walter. Walter was a good man, he protected Elizabeth when everyone was getting at her."
“It's a good story,” Claire said, taking a step back.
“Dead brilliant. About how the toffs like you and your pal Melinda, all set up proper with your lolly and your posh clothes and your flash manners, how you make the rules for the rest of us. We're good for nothing but fetching and carrying and bowing and scraping. I know how Elizabeth felt when everyone save Walter turned against her."
“Melinda didn't start out with money. She worked hard. She earned it."
Diana's voice was thick, as though her throat was clogged with bile. “Yeh, on her back, I reckon. She had the men queuing up to get into her knickers, didn't she?"
“No, she didn't,” Claire said, keeping her own voice even. Getting mad wouldn't help.
“Elliot now,” said Diana. “He told me I could've been a great actress. But Melinda took Elizabeth away from me. She'd sit there pushing Elliot to slag me off. ‘Our Diana, not two brain cells to rub together.’ Men always have to have the young ones, don't they? More ballocks than brains, men are."
Saying something about women sometimes being more ovaries than brains wouldn't help, either. “So—ah—you and Elliot broke up because of Melinda?"
“She sent him off me, she did. Then she died and he saw the error of his ways, like, and we had another go. But I gave him the elbow the same day you came here. He had a spot of bother rising to me standards, if you get me drift."
A spot of bother rising to my standards. That was in Elliot's suicide note, straight, without the double meaning. Again Claire would've felt sympathy for Diana. She thought her affair with Elliot meant she was desirable when what it meant was that she was available. But what Claire felt was the horror of the scene, Diana holding Elliot's own gun to his head and he ... Had he pleaded with her? Or had he assumed she was too stupid to pull the trigger? Knowing Elliot, he'd said so. Bad mistake.
Diana obviously intended the black eyeliner and false lashes to make her eyes look bigger. Instead the cosmetics made them into small slits. She might not want anything here and now beyond a chance to unburden herself. To confess ... Yeah, right. Claire took another step backward. Was that a door opening? No, that was her own heart thumping in her ears.
She had to keep Diana talking. Over and beyond satisfying her own morbid curiosity at last, maybe Trevor would come in. Maybe Richard would come looking for her, or Rob for Diana, somebody, anybody. “You and Elliot were sending the blackmail letters."
“Yeh. It was me own idea. There was Richard reading over his post in the pub, so narked at one letter he squashed it up then smoothed it out again, quick smart. And me just behind him with me tray. He never saw me. No one ever sees me, I'm just a bit of furniture, aren't I, not worth a notice."
“You realized it was Melinda who sent the letter."
“Thought she was right clever, Melinda did, with all her little hints and lit'ry quotes. But I knew what she was on about. And I saw me chance to make me own back."
“Making money by blackmailing people with what you'd overheard in the pub.” Again Claire stepped backward, this time into the rack of prayer books. Its corner gouged her right thigh. Wincing, she eased away.
“Yeh. That little tart Janet and her brother in nick back home, thought no one knew about that. And Fred well, not much to say about Fred, is there? And less about Alec. He's worse than looney, isn't he? I even sent letters to meself and Elliot, too. Wasn't that clever? Mine was true, I had me admirers once. Don't know about Elliot's story, the rock star's wife and all, he thought it'd be good for a giggle."
“Richard wasn't laughing."
“Richard's a Lacey, all prim and proper. Not a bad sort, even so, though why he bothers with the likes of Alec I don't know. No accounting for tastes."
No, Claire thought tartly, there isn't.
“That first letter, that was just a game to Melinda. She could afford to play games. I can't. I asked for pretty things from the Hall—I have a right to them, don't I? Then Elliot said Richard was posting fakes. Said we'd kill the goose that laid the golden egg if we got Richard in wrong with the Trust. Said we should ask for cash, from him and everyone else.
“Elliot thought it was all a game, too. Said we'd save the lolly and have us a party and tell everyone it was us sent the letters. But even seeing Miss Melinda's face at that wasn't worth giving away me money. Every time I went to the shops in Bakewell I'd put it in me own account. Rob never knew he was paying me off to keep quiet about the duty-free beer, did he? The greedy sod and his, ‘Where's the receipts, Diana? Why didn't you get the sale price, Diana? So you're a Cranbourne, well la de dah! I am a Cranbourne, mind you, better than the likes of a Jackman any day!” Her lips curved down, hard, like a sickle. “Then Melinda died and I couldn't send any more letters, could I? Just like her, to take me money away from me."
Claire tried to exude calm. “You sent Richard a letter just a couple of weeks ago."
“He thought you sent it, didn't he? Would've given you the elbow and paid up, too, except for that sod Alec—he's hand in glove with the devil himself, that one is.” Diana leaned forward. “You and Melinda both, you're nothing more than troublemakers. Everything would've gone down a treat, except for her and for you."
Claire inched backward another half step. Diana was seriously disturbed. If you had to be crazy to kill yourself, you had to be even crazier to kill someone else. “You put that letter beneath Melinda's door, right? Because Elliot picked her to play Elizabeth?"
“Like in The Play, when Cecil finds a doll with thorns in it and accuses Elizabeth. I mean, if Alec can do witchery, why not me? I'm smarter than he is and a Cranbourne to boot. But no, I haven't got the lolly, I'm not good enough. And here comes Melinda, young Melinda, pretty Melinda, perfect Melinda—a foreigner, for God's sakes! A foreigner playing Elizabeth!"
Melinda had worked hard to maintain her façade of perfection, trying to protect herself. She'd done too good a job, it seemed. It wasn't fair. Which was Diana's complaint, that life wasn't fair.
“Melinda wouldn't leave, acted like she never even saw me letter. I thought then she was winding me up, didn't know about the bleeding carpet ‘til now, did I? Just as well. The bitch got what she deserved."
“Why?” Claire demanded. “How?"
Diana's red-veined eyes were hot and dry. “Well now, there's a story. As good a story as The Play, except mine's got a happy ending. Started like Elizabeth's, when I went to work for Maud just to see the Hall, just to see Somerstowe. Then I met Rob—well, we all make mistakes, don't we?"
Oh yeah, Claire told herself. We do.
“I sewed and tidied up like Elizabeth did do. I know me way round the Hall better than Richard. Better than Alec with that naff little room in the attics. What he gets up to in there, thinks he's having it off with Elizabeth, doesn't he, but we all know that ghost is a devil. Because that's what witches do, raise devils. Elizabeth was never a witch, she never had any truck with devils. Those rozzers from Derby, Blake and Pakenham, should see Alec off, they should. But no, Alec's a rozzer like them. They all work together, don't they, just like you see in the papers, all bent, every one of them."
Diana's voice was getting louder and shriller. She took a step forward, into the space between the pews. Claire forced herself to stand still, to act—no, she didn't have to act interested. She was interested. And nauseated. And hyperventilating. She tried to breathe normally. Flowers, candlewax, mildew. Sweat and hair spray.
“I did needlework better than anything you Yanks could do. Maud liked me. She was a decent woman, she minded her relatives, said she'd leave the Hall to her brother Vincent's family. Not that she knew I was one of Vincent's grandchildren. A Cranbourne in service? No, I kept that quiet. I told her me maiden name was Cox. I wasn't going to name me true name and have the local turnips slag me off about it, was I? Not ‘til I could walk in with the clothes and the cash and tell Rob to take his bloody beer taps and shove them up his arse.
