Framed in Cornwall (7 page)

‘Bradley?’ Louise was talking to him with her eyes, she was good at that. The message was, we have guests. Feeling more than one pair of inquisitive eyes upon him he forced himself to grin and began to charm his dinner guests.

Louise relaxed visibly and got up to bring in the coffee and brandy.

On Sunday he and Louise had lunch with their son and his wife who had just produced her second baby. It did not seem appropriate to closet himself in their library and make long-distance telephone calls when he was expected to make a fuss of the new child, but there were certain things he needed to verify. In the long run a weekday was better, he decided as Louise unobtrusively squeezed his arm. The bundled-up baby was passed to him. He smiled fondly at his grandson, wishing he had listened more carefully to what Mrs Pengelly had muttered as she had unwrapped newspaper from around a porcelain figurine. And how had a woman like that come to possess so many valuable items? The baby started to cry. Temporarily Bradley was distracted.

DI Jack Pearce decided to speak to each member of the Pengelly family. Just a casual chat, a few simple questions as to why Mrs Pengelly might have taken her own life. Although he usually trusted Rose’s sixth sense, it seemed more likely that Dorothy
had decided to end her life before she could no longer manage on her own. Rose had said her eyesight was failing. But she wasn’t ill, Jack reminded himself. The pathologist had been surprised at how fit she had been. Martin was a strange boy and he drank. No, if alcohol had made him violent he’d have hit her or strangled her – and, according to Rose, he loved his mother. Peter, then. Had he got tired of waiting for his inheritance? There were few other people in Dorothy’s life but he would have a quiet word with each. He was risking his neck. There was no evidence of any description, no suspicious circumstances at all, the verdict at the inquest would be suicide or death by misadventure if the old lady had swallowed more pills than she had intended. The latter seemed the most probable theory. Then where did she get the stuff?

He made himself concentrate on more pressing matters with the knowledge that he would have a whole day with Rose on Wednesday.

When Rose woke on Monday morning she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her. Since David’s death she still had occasional bouts of depression but each time she seemed to recover more quickly. Energy flowed through her and she felt able to face the world and everyone in it. First there was work to be done. The proofs of photographs she had taken of a silver wedding anniversary were ready for the clients. She had put them in an album, a sales trick she had learned because people tended to order more that way. Over coffee she worked out some figures. The album could be delivered on the way over to see Martin. She ought to have questioned him further about the men and how he thought he had killed his mother. Smiling because she knew what was happening, that she was, as Barry would say, about to poke her nose into other people’s business, Rose left the house, swearing mildly as it began to drizzle. Ten minutes earlier there had been no sign of a cloud but already a sea fret was swirling around the base of the Mount leaving only the highest point visible. The sea had turned a steely grey and a heavy swell pushed it shorewards. She went back inside for the jacket which
hung inside the pantry door. Once the small whitewashed room had been just that, now it housed the washing-machine and boxes of David’s engineering textbooks which she could not bring herself to part with.

Grease streaked the windscreen as she drove away. Rose pressed the washer switch and cursed further as foam replaced the diesel smears. She had put too much washing-up liquid in the water.

Along the Promenade spray hit the car as the first waves of the high tide flung it up over the railing along with slimy bits of seaweed and a shower of small stones. It was early in the year for such weather but it would be far worse in February when gale force winds and torrential rain would cause the fishing-boats to lie idle far too long for the liking of their owners and their crews.

Stopping at a neat bungalow on the outskirts of Penzance, Rose hurried to the door and handed over the boxed package which contained the proofs. ‘I’ll let you know which ones I want within a couple of days,’ Mrs Harvey told her. Rose refused the offer of a cup of coffee and returned to the car. The rain was coming down heavily and splashed against the back of her bare legs. Droplets of water ran down her face as she turned the ignition key, praying the engine would jump into life immediately. It did.

Leaving Penzance behind her she tried not to think of the scene which had awaited her on her last visit to Dorothy.

The sea fret had rolled inland and hung depressingly over the countryside and shrouded the house. Two stunted trees shed a deluge of water on to her as a gust of wind hit them. With a shudder Rose reached for the door handle. It didn’t turn. Martin had locked the door. She suspected Jobber had told him to do so. Rose let herself in. To her surprise everything was just as it had been when she had found Dorothy and Martin in the kitchen.

The cats were nowhere in sight but they had the freedom of the flap on the back door. Star was in her usual place, in her basket, and took no notice of her entry. Even George seemed to have lost some of his vitality: he did not growl at her or pretend to nip her ankles as she nervously crossed the kitchen expecting
him to change his mind and remember to protect his territory. There was no sign of Martin but there was food in the animals’ bowls and water in dishes. Feeling like the intruder she was, Rose checked the cupboards. There was a good supply of tins for both cats and dogs and an unopened sack of biscuits.

Feeling disorientated in Dorothy’s empty kitchen she sat down in the seat where she had last drunk tea with her friend. She wondered if the dogs had been out but was not certain they would respond to her in the way in which they once had to Dorothy when she called them back. She took a chance and left the door open because the room smelled stale. Breathing in the moist air perfumed with gorse and heather, she watched Star stagger out of her basket, sniff the air herself then, in her less than youthful manner, lope up the side of the hill. George followed, yapping excitedly.

Through the kitchen window she watched the rain hitting the flagstones of the small yard where Dorothy used to hang her washing. Beyond it was the towering hill which always cast the room in shadow. A figure was approaching. Rose breathed a sigh of relief. It was Martin. He stood straighter and had more colour and if she failed, he’d get the dogs back in.

‘I saw you,’ he said, pointing over his shoulder as he stood in the doorway. ‘I saw from up there that the door was open. I didn’t know it was you, though, I thought they might have come back.’

‘Who might have, Martin?’ Rose stood, her hands at her sides, waiting. He knew something, of that she was sure, but whether it was relevant was difficult to tell. Outwardly he seemed to have accepted Dorothy’s death. It was a mistake to have invited him to her house; Martin’s solitude was not an enforced situation, it was one which he preferred and which she now saw would enable him to come to terms with his grief in much the same way as she had done.

‘The men I spoke to.’

‘I still don’t understand, Martin. You told me you spoke to some men in me pub. Are you saying they came here?’ She was, for the first time, alone with him in that large house with no one
else around. For some reason she was afraid to ask him again why he thought he had killed his mother.

He nodded dumbly and looked at his feet then raised his eyes to stare at Dorothy’s empty armchair. ‘I didn’t see ’em, but I know they came.’

Rose frowned in bewilderment. She had no idea what he was talking about. His next words made her catch her breath.

‘Will you come upstairs with me?’

Rose inhaled deeply, trying to steady herself. There was no one for miles around and Martin was twice her size. Without meaning to she glanced at his muscled forearms before realising she was behaving neurotically. Martin would not hurt anyone. ‘What for?’

‘To see if they’ve taken anything.’

‘Of course,’ she said with relief.

She followed him up the uncarpeted stairs, their footsteps echoing. There was a sharp angle half-way up where three steps were triangular-shaped as the stairwell changed direction. Rose was careful to keep to the wider bits. The upstairs corridor was quite light as it reached a level with the brow of the hill. Martin, it seemed, believed that someone had come to the house with the intention of robbing Dorothy, but if that was the case why hadn’t the police followed it up and why had he told her he thought he had killed her? There was the additional problem that although the police would not be able to tell if anything had been taken it was not certain that Martin would know either.

Rose had only been on the upper floor once, on the occasion when Dorothy had shown her the painting. Presumably Martin wasn’t expecting her to recall what had been there but had needed company to make this search.

He opened the door of what used to be his own bedroom and stared around vacantly. It was sparsely furnished but had a panoramic view over the landscape with a distant hint of the sea. He shook his head. ‘Nothing gone,’ he said, closing the door. The next room, slightly larger, had been Peter’s when a child but had long since been turned into a storeroom. Boxes were piled high on and around the single bed. Most were sealed and
covered with dust. Only one had been opened, the cardboard flaps upright and yellowed newspaper lying crumpled on the floor as if something had been removed. To Rose it looked as if nothing else had been touched for years. Martin closed this door too but did not speak.

Outside the third one he hesitated. This was where his mother had slept, where she had slept all her married life and where she had given birth to both of her sons. ‘I never went in here,’ he offered and Rose saw that she had been right. This had been his mother’s sanctuary, her one place of privacy, and he did not want to invade it alone. It was Rose who opened the door.

It was by far the biggest room and had two windows which looked out over the rainwashed countryside. The top of a minestack could be seen lower in the valley and cars, like small insects, wound their way along the main road. Opposite the window was the wooden-framed bed with its patchwork quilt. The pillowslips were white and clean, as was the edge of the sheet which was folded back over the blankets. On the chest which also served as a bedside table was a fringed reading lamp and a pile of books, Dorothy’s place in the top one marked with an old envelope. The unread novel saddened Rose and she had to look away.

There was a wardrobe, probably Edwardian, and a small table beneath the windows. Everything was neat, everything seemed just as it ought to be. The Stanhope Forbes hung in its rightful place and there were no lighter patches on the faded wallpaper to indicate other paintings had been removed. ‘Everything looks all right to me, Martin. Can you see anything wrong?’

He shook his head and stroked the patchwork quilt. Like Rose he was able to smell Dorothy’s presence. Martin, she thought, was confused about the conversation in the pub which may or may not have taken place. He might even have dreamed it. ‘Come on, let’s go back down.’ It was affecting them both, being in her room.

Rose turned to leave, her artist’s eye naturally settling again on the Stanhope Forbes. Then she froze. ‘Martin,’ she finally said as calmly as she was able, ‘did your mother keep her special things somewhere safe?’ His brow creased with non-comprehension.
‘I mean her paintings, did she put them somewhere safe and hang copies on the wall?’

‘No. Not ’er. She liked her bits where she could see ’un.’

Rose stepped slowly towards the painting. It was identical to the one she had seen before, even down to the frame. Only this one was a print; not a copy, she had only used the word so as not to confuse Martin further. Had Dorothy noticed? Despite her pretence to the contrary, her eyesight wasn’t good. But had Dorothy had time to notice? Was she dead even before it was swapped? Martin may not have been mistaken in thinking that the men he had spoken to had come to the house. Now you’ll take me seriously, Jack Pearce, she thought. ‘She hasn’t changed this painting?’ Rose pointed towards it; she had to be sure.

‘No. ’Tis the same one.’

To Martin it probably seemed so. She had to let Jack know. If Dorothy had decided to put the original away for safe-keeping it was not her place to make a thorough search of the house. But the police would need to speak to Martin and that worried her. If he repeated his fears that he had killed his mother they would question him endlessly and he would probably say things he didn’t mean. There were other items to be considered, ones which Rose had not been shown and which might also be missing. She guessed that more valuables were stored in the boxes in Peter’s old room. And one of those boxes had been opened.

Retracing her steps she peered into the other rooms. Her expert eye told her that what was on the walls had not been tampered with. There were one or two local scenes from some of the lesser known painters. Strange, then, that only one had been replaced, and why bother unless it was meant to conceal a crime? She smiled at Martin. ‘I’ll make us some tea. Do you think I could use the telephone?’

‘Course you can. ’Er won’t mind.’

As she preceded Martin down the narrow staircase she asked what he intended doing about the animals. For the time being they gave him something to do, a reason for getting out of the caravan rather than dwelling upon his mother’s death.

‘Well, I can’t leave ’em starve. Me an’ George’ve never got on
too well but I expect he’ll treat me different when he knows it’s me what’s going to feed him. I can’t have them at the van, though, there’s no room.’

Rose let it go. The house would be sold, or Gwen and Peter might live in it – either way, at some point a decision about the animals would have to be made. ‘Martin, I’ve still got the keys. Do you want them back?’

He frowned with concentration. ‘No, you keep ’em. I don’t want Gwen out here.’