Authors: Elizabeth Corley
‘Oh God!’ Alexander’s first thought was of Jenny. How could he tell her? Then he thought guiltily of his cousin; he should have been worrying about him, after all.
‘Are you sure, Lucy? Ryan?’
Lucy nodded. Ryan said: ‘The man we found was certainly dead – I’m sure.’
‘It was horrible, Alexander.’
‘Tell me where he was and I’ll go and look. Meanwhile, stay here.’ He didn’t want them blundering into the house until he was there to support Jenny.
Their directions were vague. They couldn’t remember where the body was – ‘Under a tree’ was the best they could do – nor how long they’d been running before Alexander had found them. He soon realised that there was no chance of finding Graham on his own. He needed help.
Julia was standing on the front terrace, her coat around her shoulders as she peered out into the mist. As soon as Lucy saw her, she broke away from Alexander and Ryan and ran to fling herself into her mother’s arms.
‘Lucy, darling. Ssh, ssh, it’s all right. You’re safe now. Come on in and get warm. You’re frozen.’
Safety, love and a sympathetic voice immediately had their traditional effect and Lucy was reduced to an uncontrollable sobbing heap.
‘There, there, it’s all right.’ Julia threw her coat around her daughter’s shaking shoulders.
‘What is it, Alexander? What’s happened?’ Sally stood erect and bright-eyed next to Jenny, who stared at him in
horror. Somehow she already knew; some instinct had warned her to fear the worst.
‘Lucy, Ryan – go and sit by the fire in the drawing room, you’re freezing. Off you go.’
The two left quickly, relief and exhaustion outweighing any desire to be the centre of attention. Julia and Muriel Kemp went with them.
Alexander went to Jenny and put his arms tightly around her. He tried to find words that would ease the pain he was about to cause, but it was impossible.
‘Jenny,’ he said softly, ignoring the others, ‘Lucy and Ryan think they’ve found Graham. They say he’s dead.’
He braced himself for hysterics and more tears but Jenny stood perfectly still.
‘Dead, you say.’ Her soft voice was calm, chilling in its flatness. ‘We’d better go and find him, then.’
‘We’ll go – Colin, Jeremy and I. You stay here with Sally.’
‘No! I must be there. He’d want me there. I’m coming.’
‘Jenny …’
‘Leave it, Alex, she’s right. Anyway, I want to come too.’ Sally signalled to the butler to get their coats and went to change her shoes. Her practicality disturbed Alexander more than anything else so far in that crazy evening.
Jenny stood rigid in the circle of his arms. He tried squeezing her to show comfort and support but she was oblivious to it. Jeremy Kemp and Colin, shocked into sobriety, waited mute by the open front door, peering with dread into the mist that was steadily thickening about the house. It was only a few minutes before the butler returned with coats and torches, closely followed by Sally.
‘Would you like me to call the police, sir?’ He exuded deference but it was clear that he felt his employers were going about this the wrong way. Sally pre-empted Alexander’s answer.
‘That’s rather premature, don’t you think, Jarvis? For all we know Graham might simply be dead drunk, not dead.’
For a split second they all looked at her, appalled. Alexander felt Jenny shudder at the callousness of his wife’s words and he leapt in.
‘Mrs Wainwright-Smith has been deeply shocked, Jarvis.
She’s not thinking straight. Of course you must phone the police. I should have thought of it myself. Good man.’
The butler merely nodded, unfooled but too professional to let his feelings show. Alexander could tell that his wife bitterly regretted her words but there was nothing she could do to take them back. At least say sorry, he willed her, but she didn’t, and instead turned to lead the party outside.
All they had to help them was Lucy and Ryan’s vague description of where they’d found the body. Alexander led the others back to the point at which he had encountered the pair and stopped to discuss tactics.
‘They came from over there,’ he explained, pointing into the now dense fog, ‘and they said he was under a tree. Now there’s a copse straight ahead and, I think, some stands of oak and beech to the left.’
‘There’s also that ancient beech to the right,’ said Sally.
‘Yes, of course. Well, there are five of us. I suggest we split into two groups and meet up again at the copse. If anybody finds anything, they’re to shout out and we’ll converge on the voice.’
‘I’m happy to go on my own, old man – that would make three search parties and we’ll be quicker. I know my way round these grounds.’
‘OK, Colin. Then—’
‘I want to go with you, Alexander.’
‘Of course, Jenny. Then Jeremy, you and Sally take the—’
‘We’ll go to the old beech, dear.’
‘Right, then we’ll go to the farthest oaks and you the next stand along, Colin.’
The party split up, the yellow glow of their torches
disappearing
into the pearly-grey gloom of the night. Kemp followed Sally as she set off confidently. Her determined stride intimidated him, and they walked in silence until she stopped suddenly and sniffed the air.
‘What is it?’
‘The river, can’t you smell it? We must be nearly there now, but we’ve come a little too far south. This way.’ Sally set off again with barely a backward glance, her face flushed and her eyes bright.
Crazy shapes loomed in front of them as the torchlight threw black shadows of bushes and bullrushes on to the wall of fog. A paddock ran straight down to the river bank, and moments later they heard the rustle of wind over water and the fog cleared enough for them to see out across the whole stretch of the river.
‘The beech is just beyond those trees. We’ll see it soon.’ Sure enough, the great upward-sweeping branches were soon visible. Sally lifted her torch to shine into the crown of the monstrous tree, where branches and new leaves swayed from side to side in the wind like huge seaweed fronds caught in a current.
‘Shine it on the ground, Sally,’ Kemp urged. ‘We might miss him.’
But Sally appeared not to hear. Slowly she started to pace around the vast tree. Tendrils of fog fought to resist the fingers of wind and cling to its branches.
‘What was that?’ Kemp’s voice was hoarse with fright. ‘There, on the other side.’
Sally kept the torch on the branches of the great beech as she continued to circle its massive trunk steadily.
‘For God’s sake, woman!’ Kemp ran on ahead of her, stumbling over roots and slipping on wet leaves.
‘My God. Oh my God!’
Sally walked up calmly to his side and shone the torch on the white figure swaying and turning inches above the ground. There was no doubting that he was dead. His eyes bulged open, bloodshot from the force of slow strangulation; his tongue pushed out of his mouth, black and swollen. The rope that appeared to have killed him was embedded deeply in the bare skin of his neck, blood-stained where it had cut into him whilst he was still alive. He was naked, except for a tiny leather thong.
‘We’d better call the others.’
‘You can’t bring Jenny here, Sally. She mustn’t see this.’
‘There’ll be no stopping her. She’ll want to see him.’
‘But we have
got
to stop her. This isn’t a sight for a woman!’ His words shocked them both. It was apparent that Sally was by far the more composed of the pair. From time to time she turned to stare at the body with something approaching fascination, but she had shown no fear at all.
Kemp felt his own pulse drumming in his head, and his
expression changed from shock to confusion. How could anyone be coping so well with the awful spectacle in front of them? He didn’t know whether to be impressed or suspicious. Normally he was poker-faced, but where Sally was concerned there was no hiding his emotions. She could read his expression perfectly.
‘You’re right, Jeremy, as always,’ she said. ‘Take the torch and go and find Alex before they get here.’
‘Will you be all right here on your own?’
Sally looked at the body and nodded. ‘Go on.’
Alexander saw the light of another torch bobbing in the fog as someone ran towards them. His stomach clenched and he held on tight to Jenny’s arm.
‘It’s OK,’ he said to her softly. ‘I’m here.’
Kemp came into view and they waited for him in silence. One look at his face was enough to tell them what he had found. They stood in a terrible circle, nobody wanting to ask the question that would confirm the drastic change in all their lives.
‘Is he dead?’ Jenny’s whisper broke the stillness.
‘Yes, Jenny, there’s no doubt. He’s dead.’
She nodded and leant heavily into Alexander, who hugged her instinctively.
‘Have you left Sally with Colin?’
‘No.’ Kemp seemed surprised by the suggestion. ‘She’s with the b— She’s with Graham.’
‘On her own?’ Alexander was outraged.
‘It was her suggestion, honestly.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, you know there are times when one just doesn’t listen to her, for her own good!’
‘Well, I … She was very insistent, very calm.’
Alexander glanced down at Jenny, who was hanging on to him compulsively.
‘Never mind. Look, you take Jenny back to the house and wait for the police. I’ll go to Sally.’
‘No. I want to see him.’
‘That’s a bad idea, Jenny. Go on back with Jeremy, please.’
‘No, Alexander. I have to see him. I’ll always wonder afterwards how … why … whether he suffered.’
Kemp thought of the terrible straining face, the bulging eyes, the blood-stained rope.
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Jenny, really. Better to see him later, when he’s …’ He was going to say ‘tidied up’, but stopped himself just in time. ‘Well, later, inside.’
‘Why? What’s the matter with him? What’s happened to him?’ She was shouting now, nearly hysterical. ‘Tell me!’
Kemp looked at them both, at a loss to know what to do.
Jenny struggled to break away from Alexander, desperate now to find Graham and to see for herself, no matter how awful the reality. There was no way they’d get her back to the house unless they both took her, and Alexander was anxious to go and find his wife.
‘Tell her,’ he urged Kemp. ‘Not knowing is doing more harm than good.’
‘It looks like he committed suicide. He hanged himself.’
‘No! He wouldn’t. Why should he? You’ve got it all wrong.’
‘There’s no doubt, really. He was hanging when we found him.’
An image of the grotesque scarecrow silhouette, twisting in a halo of fog, returned to Kemp, and he shuddered.
‘It can’t be.’ An idea came to her and she smiled crazily. ‘It’s not Graham! That’s it. It can’t be Graham, he’d never kill himself. He loved life and he’d be too much of a coward. It’s all a big mistake.’
Her relief was pathetic to see. Alexander looked at Kemp and the solicitor shook his head. There was no doubt on his face. Unlikely as it seemed to all of them, Alexander’s cousin was dead.
Another torch appeared in the dark up by the house, then a second. Minutes later two uniformed policemen materialised behind the points of light. Colin, approaching the group from the direction of the river, spotted their uniforms and waited in silence for someone to speak.
‘Mr Wainwright-Smith?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘We’ve had a report of a body being found.’
‘Yes. My cousin, Graham Wainwright.’
‘No, it’s not! I keep telling you. It can’t be him. He wouldn’t kill himself like that!’
The policeman looked at the group. Their distress was obvious.
‘Call this in as confirmed, would you, Bill, and make sure a female officer comes out with the police surgeon.’ He turned to Alexander. ‘If you could take us to the body, sir …’
Alexander hesitated, glanced at Jenny, then nodded. Kemp led the way along the narrow footpath by the river. Virtually all the fog had disappeared along its banks, torn away by the rising wind. The coppice, with its one huge beech, appeared before them.
‘He’s under that beech. I’ll show you.’
‘Did you find the body, then, sir?’
‘Yes. I was with Mrs Wainwright-Smith. I’m Jeremy Kemp, by the way, the family solicitor.’
They circled around the tree, Kemp dreading the sight of the hanging man.
‘It’s gone!’ he croaked in disbelief. ‘The body’s gone. It was there, hanging from that branch.’
‘Round here.’ Colin’s voice called to them from behind the huge trunk.
He was crouching next to Sally with his arm around her shoulders. She was sobbing quietly. The body lay on the ground a few feet away, the rope still tight around its neck. His sudden proximity to a dead body and a crying woman seemed to make him nervous, and he spluttered as he attempted to explain his response.
‘I heard her crying as soon as we arrived. Bloody stupid, Kemp, to leave her on her own.’
The astonished solicitor stared at the ground and wondered how on earth Sally had been able to lower Graham’s body. He said nothing, too aware of her apparent distress. He could hardly protest that it had been she who had assumed command,
dry-eyed
and perfectly calm, ordering him to leave her and find the others. Given the state of her now, it just wasn’t credible.
Alex moved towards his wife, and in that instant Jenny broke loose from his grip and ran over to Graham’s body. She threw herself to her knees in the leaf mould. One look at his distorted
face confirmed instantly that it was indeed Graham, and that he was incontrovertibly dead. She let out a terrible wail and started to rock over him.
Constable Parks tried to regain control of the situation.
‘Right, everybody, over here, please, away from the body.’ His colleague tried to coax Jenny away, but she fought him like a tiger, kicking and punching as they grappled beside the body. He eventually managed to lift her and carry her away. Jeremy Kemp and Colin held on to her and after a few moments her cries subsided into a constant low weeping.
Alexander encouraged Sally to move, and the five of them were finally corralled together far enough distant to allow the policemen, belatedly, to secure the scene.