CHAPTER
29
B
OO
!’
Sara looked down at the three masked figures on her doorstep. ‘Don’t eat me!’ she cried.
‘Don’t be silly. We don’t eat people. We’re ghosts,’ came a muffled voice from deep inside the hood of the grim reaper. The mummy’s head next to her nodded, making the hatchet embedded in its crown wobble slightly. ‘I’m a jip-shin ghost!’
‘Oh, ghosts. Is that all? Oh, well, that’s all right then. You can come in if you’re just ghosts.’ She stepped aside and Natalie, Dan and Benji, draped in swathes of white sheet and black plastic, trooped past her into the hall, carrying with them a toy scythe, a broomstick, two pumpkin lanterns, a set of dracula teeth and a pointy hat. Andrew’s faint voice, from the far end of the drive, followed them in. ‘Kids! I said to wait!’ A moment later he appeared on the doorstep with his cello case.
‘What have you come as?’ Sara asked.
Breathlessly, he said, ‘God, sorry. Look, I wouldn’t have brought them, but they’ve got a party to go to later. I thought Valerie was taking them. She said she was. Then after lunch when I said I was coming here, she suddenly announced she’d booked a pedicure and was going to see her friend in Swindon, so I’d have to take the children. Sorry.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Sara said, sounding more amused than she felt. She turned to follow the small ghouls out to the kitchen. ‘Let’s deal with the little ghosties first.’
‘As it’s Hallowe’en,’ she began, once Natalie, Dan and Benji, minus their props, had perched themselves on stools in the kitchen.
‘Trick or
treeaat
, not hallow’
een
!’ they cried.
Sara shooshed them. ‘Where I come from it’s Hallowe’en. Always has been,’ she said firmly. ‘And you’re guisers. You’ve got to sing me a song or say a poem or tell me a joke, and then you get something, like apples or nuts or sweeties.’ She was drowned by derisive groans.
‘Apples and
nu-uts
? Awww . . .’
‘I got a joke! I got a joke—what do you get if . . . when . . . a cross sheep . . . and you . . . you . . . and a kangaroo . . . no, and a . . . a . . . if you put it . . .’
‘What . . . do you get . . . if . . . you cross . . . a sheep . . . with a kangaroo?’ translated Sara. ‘Umm . . . no idea! Tell me!’
Benji took a deep, happy breath. ‘A . . . a . . . woolly jersey!’
‘Oh, brilliant! That’s really good! A woolly jersey!’
Dan shoved at him and nearly sent him flying off the stool. ‘Schoopid! A woolly jumper, schoopid!’
Cutting in through Benji’s wails, Sara said, ‘All right, no nuts and fruit. What about popcorn, then? Want to make popcorn?’ She was on safer ground here. Andrew sat where he could watch while she got out a broad-bottomed pan, the oil and maize kernels. Sara’s pan had a glass lid, which added to the fun.
When the children were settled in the drawing room with their popcorn in front of a video of
Men in Black,
which Andrew had brought with them, Sara and Andrew made their way to the music room. There being little else he could do in the circumstances, he brought in his cello and tuned up.
‘I’ve been looking at
Don Quixote,
’ he told Sara. ‘I can’t play it all, but I’ve been working on Variation 3. Let me just play you a bit before we talk about other things.’
‘Number 3, The Adventure with the Windmills,’ Sara murmured. ‘Tilting at windmills. It seems appropriate, somehow.’
Andrew was in no hurry to reveal just how little progress he had made in the Bevan enquiry. In fact, if the truth be known, he was considerably prouder of his Strauss than of his abilities as a detective. He had just spent two days in York and achieved nothing.
He began to play, creditably, but with a slight lack of commitment which spoke to Sara of his preoccupation with other things. A little mechanically, she made a gentle criticism of his bowing. ‘Less elbow, you don’t need so much.’ Mechanically, he corrected it. The truth, that neither of them was terribly interested in Strauss just at this moment, hung in the air unsaid.
‘Right, then,’ said Andrew, drawing to a finish. ‘The case. Fire away.’
‘I’m not sure about this,’ Sara began, ‘and there’s possibly nothing in it. Nothing at all.’
‘But?’ Andrew had risen now, and placed his cello on its side on the floor.
‘But this thing about the gas being left on.’
‘The gas? You mean we’re talking about Adele again? When you said you wanted to talk about the case I thought you meant the Bevan enquiry. That’s the case I’m actually working on, if you remember.’ He had hardly seen her for a month and now it was sounding as if she had been thinking about Adele rather than him.
‘I know, I know, of course I’ve been wondering about that, too. But remember you said that the volume of gas must have built up over several hours, a small amount leaking for a long time, rather than a huge leak over a short time, because only one tap was left on?’
Andrew nodded, turning over the pages of
Don Quixote
on the music stand.
‘Don’t you see? The gas switches all in a row along the front of the cooker. Beautifully symmetrical, the dials all pointing up, for “off”. Adele just wouldn’t fiddle with those switches. It would upset the symmetry. I know she wouldn’t. And Phil on Thursday, he was so upset, he said something about someone wasting Adele. As if he knew something.’
Andrew shook his head hopelessly. ‘Knew something? Like what? And if he does, why doesn’t he say what it is?’
‘I don’t know. But someone else could have turned the gas on, couldn’t they? There was no fingerprint evidence to prove it was Adele, was there?’
‘Of course there wasn’t. Half the cooker was blown across the room. God, I don’t believe I’m discussing this. Look, Sara, what are you saying? It had to be Adele. Adele was the only one there that afternoon.’
‘But it could have been someone turning it on later that day. Almost anyone could have. You said yourself that the dial was damaged by the explosion; perhaps it had been turned on later and left on full.’
‘Sara, that is pure fantasy. And for what purpose? Do you seriously think, on the base of some theory about what Adele would or wouldn’t do, when we know that she was unpredictable and that she fiddled with switches and dials for no reason, that we should start thinking it wasn’t an accident? Is that what you’re saying? For what possible reason would anyone want to do away with Adele? What possible threat was she to anyone? Or do you think Valerie blew her up because she wanted her part in the opera?’
There was a silence. Sara said, ‘Well, I did say I wasn’t sure. I mean, I do know Herve visited Adele in the workshop, to record her voice. Other people could have, too.’
Andrew had turned to the Introduction. ‘Shall I try this? Don Quixote Sinks into Madness?’
‘No. Play me Sara Selkirk Sinks into Madness,’ she said. ‘You clearly think I’m going out of my mind.’
He laughed. ‘I can report progress of a sort. On Tuesday of last week we finally got a firm idea of where Brendan Twigg had disappeared to. York. So I set off up there straight away, as soon as we’d contacted Yorkshire police and got a trace on him. At first I couldn’t believe my luck. They turned him up within minutes, via a check with Social Services. Brendan Twigg’s name has been on the At Risk register there practically since birth.’
‘Poor soul. But he’s an adult now. He wouldn’t still be on their books, would he?’
‘Oh, his career goes way beyond being At Risk. Various youth offences. Many and various. Anyway, we got the name of his former foster mother, someone he was with for most of his teens. He was quite attached to her, did quite well with her for a time. So it seemed likely that that was where he’d be heading.’
‘Only?’
‘Only Social Services don’t keep their records very up to date. I arrived at the woman’s house to find it re-let. She died last year.’
‘Oh, no. Do you suppose poor Brendan did the same? Arrived, not knowing? The poor boy.’
Andrew looked suddenly exasperated. ‘Quite likely, yes. I stayed up there for a couple of days, followed up some old contacts of his. Nobody’s seen him, or nobody’s saying. You know, Sara, sometimes I almost wonder whose side you’re on. Brendan Twigg killed Imogen Bevan. Almost certainly.’
Sara returned his look. ‘And I keep wondering why you’re so certain. You’ve no proof Brendan did it. No more than I can prove that Adele wouldn’t have left the gas on. In fact, you have no proof the Bevan thing had anything to do with animal rights at all. And I just get this feeling it’s something more personal, not about a big issue at all. I mean, where have you got to with any of this? The animal liberation lot hardly know Brendan Twigg, do they? And these people don’t work on their own.’
‘Well, maybe not,’ Andrew countered defensively. ‘But at least I’m pursuing a rational line of enquiry. Your feeling that it’s something closer to home: it’s just that, isn’t it? A feeling. You’ve got nothing to go on, have you?’ He wandered over to the French window and stood looking out on the bare garden.
‘Not really,’ Sara said, her eyes following him, trying to judge how much to tell him. ‘But I wanted to tell you something else as well. Last night I saw Dotty Price again. She wanted to tell me something. I listened, because there was something so sad about her.’
‘Oh,
not
because your curiosity got the better of you? Again?’ Andrew turned suddenly, smiling, from the French window.
Sara tossed her head grandly. ‘An outrageous accusation, Inspector.’
‘
Chief
Inspector.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, after what she told me, I’ve got another suspect for you. But as long as there’s no evidence, you won’t pursue it, will you?’
‘Certainly not. I’m not hauling anybody in for questioning just on the basis of another of your hysterical hunches,’ Andrew said lovingly.
‘You don’t deserve me, Poole.’
‘Damn right.’
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘So, aren’t you going to ask me who it is?’
‘No.’
Andrew came over and sprawled on the sofa opposite her.
‘Because you’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?’ How dare he look at her with that sceptical intelligence?
‘Only if you promise not to believe me,’ she said, ‘which is all you do these days. Because if this person did it, I wouldn’t blame them. Dotty Price had a boyfriend, you see. Well, not quite a boyfriend, and he wrote her dozens of letters which she never got, because Imogen Bevan intercepted them. So she and the boyfriend never got it together, and all these years later they’re both miserable. That would be motive enough, wouldn’t it? He’s a canon, by the way, which does make it seem less likely. And I’d think it quite understandable if he had done it. I wouldn’t want him caught, or even questioned. But I can’t help wanting to know.’
‘Come here, you nosy little wretch.’ Andrew lunged out of the sofa towards her, planted his arms on the two arms of her chair, trapping her. He looked at her crestfallen face seriously for a moment, before bending to kiss her lightly.
‘Better not,’ Sara said glumly. ‘Your children are just next door.’
Andrew nodded unwillingly and returned to the sofa. He looked at her.
‘I’ve still got a funny feeling about it all, the Bevan case,’ Sara persisted. ‘Something we’re all missing.’
‘Doesn’t help,’ Andrew said firmly. ‘I can’t go questioning people on the basis of your funny feelings. I’m bound by rules such as having reason to suspect, and in her case, I haven’t.’
‘So, back to the animal righters, then,’ Sara said, defeated. She picked up Andrew’s cello and seated herself on the small high chair. Andrew watched her, loving the way she prepared herself to play, loosening her shoulders, arms, adjusting her straight-backed posture, arranging her feet, almost as if she were about to dance. She played a swift C major arpeggio starting on the open bottom string and in a winging crescendo travelling up and across the middle G and D strings to triumphant top C on the highest. It was not a great instrument, but it was good. Andrew was getting the most out of it. Really, he had almost reached the limit of what it would do and if he were to progress, he would need a better one.
‘Yep. At least there’s some circumstantial evidence, some motive.’ Andrew paused, thinking about how very little ‘some’ was, only Anna Ward-Pargiter’s account of the Oxfam shop incident and the girl’s denial of any knowledge of Bren’s whereabouts on the day of the letter-bombing. ‘So we haven’t traced our Gentleman Twigg yet, not for want of trying. Trouble with the kind of circles he moves in, as soon as it gets around that the police want to question him, the more help he’ll get to lie low. But he’ll turn up, if only because he can’t stay out of trouble indefinitely. He’s had addresses in York, Bath, Glastonbury and three or four others in Somerset or Wiltshire. He might even be back down here now. He’s been in with all sorts: road protesters, travellers, a couple of new age collectives. Never sticks around long. He’ll be hanging out somewhere, probably claiming benefit using a false name, he’s done that before. Even if he is outside our area we’ll get him. Even if we don’t actually find him, he’ll get arrested again sooner or later for possession, petty theft, shop-lifting, something like that.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Sara, her head on one side, apparently concentrating on the sound coming from the cello, as she idled through, from memory, the first of Beethoven’s Variations in F Major on a theme from the
Magic Flute
. ‘Well now,’ she continued softly, the cello notes like a pensive undertow to her words, ‘of course it’s only another of my funny feelings, not worth considering at all. But this Bren, you see, I have the feeling that if he is just what you say—a petty criminal, a guy who can’t stay out of trouble for long—then it’s odd you’re after him for murder. It’s a bit out of character for him, isn’t it, to go sending letter-bombs?’
‘Oh, maybe. Well, yes. Certainly, of course, perhaps it is,’ Andrew blustered slightly, ‘but you’re forgetting that this wasn’t necessarily meant to be a murder. The package had only a tiny amount of explosive, it wasn’t actually meant to kill.’
‘No, but even so,’ Sara went on, ‘this Bren drifts in and out of things, doesn’t he? Goes with the crowd, whoever it may be for the moment. Has he ever been known to commit himself to anything, like animal rights, a cause? Enough to carry out a letter-bombing? It does seem out of character.’