Motive for Murder (2 page)

I hesitated. ‘You'll – let me know?'

‘The job is yours, if you think you can do it.'

‘I'm sure I can,' I replied with dignity.

* * *

I moved restlessly. The sun which had been so constant a companion in London for the last month had given way, as we moved west, to a dull oppressiveness. The air thickened, and by the time we reached Cornwall about two o'clock, we were in the midst of a thick sea mist which blotted out everything. So much for the sunny south.

The last of the other people in the compartment had left the train at Plymouth; a browning apple core and a crumpled newspaper were all that remained of them. I was alone, hurtling through the mist to an isolated house and a man I did not like.

Some of Gilbert's unease washed over me. Why had I let myself be stung into accepting a job which, in the moment of truth, I'd found I did not want? Pride, as Gil had rightly deduced. I could not, whatever the cost, have looked across the table at those dark, assessing eyes, and whispered humbly that I had changed my mind.

Time passed. I sat huddled in my corner seat staring out at the mist and thinking forlornly of home – comforting and uncomplicated. The rhythm of the train changed, slowed, then ground to a jerky halt.

‘Chapelcombe!' shouted a voice out of the mist. In a panic I pulled down the heavy case, wrenched open the carriage door, and half-fell out. The white, drifting shroud enveloped me, clogging the breath in my throat. A whistle blew. Behind me the train lurched, responding to the signal like a rusty old war-horse. It lumbered away along the length of the platform and disappeared. My last link with London and Gil had gone.

No one else seemed to have left the train at this stop. I heaved up my case and started uncertainly in what I hoped was the direction of the exit. Perhaps the ticket collector or someone would find me a taxi. I put the case down for a moment to change hands, and the sound of hurrying footsteps reached me.

‘Miss Barton?'

I jumped. My own name had somehow been the last thing I expected to hear in this eerie place. But perhaps Mr Haig – I strained my eyes in the direction of the voice, and was in time to see two figures materialize; one tall and broad, the other small and slight.

Under the smudge of the lamp they came into focus: a man with his coat collar turned up, the mist lying thickly on his hair, and a little girl of eight or nine who clung to his hand, staring up at me.

‘You
are
Emily Barton? I'm Mike Stacey, and this is Sarah. I've got the car outside.'

He held out his hand and its warmth enveloped my cold fingers.

‘Oh, that's wonderful,' I said gratefully. ‘I was just wondering how to find a taxi.'

He picked up my case and I followed him and the child through the barrier and out of the little station to the yard beyond. A large old saloon stood waiting, roomy and comfortable. The little girl climbed into the back and her companion swung the heavy case easily into the boot. Then he came round and opened the door for me.

‘You'll have to excuse Matthew, it would never occur to him to arrange for you to be met.' He climbed in beside me and slammed his door. ‘Luckily, Sarah told me you were expected today. Well, now that we can see each other, hello again!'

He turned towards me and smiled. The mist was shut out of the car, and in the white light we looked at each other. I hoped he liked what he saw as much as I did. He was a few years older than I, probably twenty-seven or eight, with thick brown hair that had the hint of a wave in it. His eyes were grey and laughing, and fringed by the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen on a man, but their dreaminess was contradicted by the firm mouth and strong, jutting jaw.

‘Are you a friend of Mr Haig's?' I asked, as he turned back to the controls of the car.

‘His cousin, actually. I live at Chapel Farm, farther along the headland.' A quick grin. ‘Matthew doesn't really approve of me!'

I raised my eyebrows but he did not elaborate. We were climbing now up what was presumably the High Street. Shop windows starred the mist and bent figures hurried along the pavements.

The child spoke suddenly. ‘Miss Barton's going to sleep in Linda's room.'

Beside me Mike moved involuntarily and his foot came down hard on the accelerator. The old car lurched forward with a surprised grunt.

‘Who's Linda?' I enquired.

‘She was Daddy's secretary, too. She –'

‘Sarah poppet, did I tell you Pinkie's had her litter? If you come over tomorrow you can see them.'

‘Oh, yes, that'd be lovely!'

‘Pinkie's our prize sow,' Mike said to me. ‘Sarah's known her since she was a piglet herself – Pinkie, that is!' He laughed, and I smiled dutifully, but I was wondering why he'd not wanted the child to speak of my predecessor.

The car climbed laboriously up the long hill out of town, cleaving its way through the mist like the prow of an old ship. On a fine day, there would probably be a magnificent view from up here.

‘Do you get much of this mist?' I asked, ‘It's been lovely in London all month.'

‘Not really – it's a bit humid just now, though. The beginning of autumn, I suppose.' We turned left up an opening I had not even been able to see.

‘Almost there now.'

Left again, between some gateposts, and the car stopped. I sat still, clutching my handbag, reluctant now to leave the companionship of the car and meet Matthew Haig again.

‘Well, in we go!' Mike said cheerfully.

I climbed out and shivered as the cold breath of mist enfolded me again. Mike opened the boot to get my case and I stood waiting for him, staring up at what I could see of the house. The grey stone wall rose imposingly in front of us and disappeared into the mist a few feet above our heads. The front door was set back in a recess flanked by two bay windows, and above it late roses clung to the stone like sodden blotting-paper.

Mike and Sarah came up to me, and the three of us started for the door. As Mike reached out a hand, it was opened from inside and an elderly woman stood there, tutting with distress at the weather and our damp condition.

‘There you are, Mr Michael, sir. I thought I heard the car. And you must be Miss Barton, dearie. Sarah, my lovely, Miss Tamworth's been looking for you all over!'

She shepherded us inside like an anxious hen, ineffectually trying to brush the drops of moisture off my sleeve and feeling Sarah's long hair. ‘Now, take these wet things off, all of you, and I'll show Miss Barton to her room. Give me the case, sir.'

‘No, no, Mrs J., I'll take it. Emily, this is Mrs Johnson, Matthew's housekeeper and a treasure beyond price!'

‘Get along with you, sir!' said Mrs Johnson delightedly.

‘Sarah? Is that you?' A sharp voice sounded from above us, and a woman appeared on the staircase that rose gracefully at the far side of the hall.

Sarah pulled a little face at Mike and answered meekly enough, ‘Yes, Tammy.'

‘You'd no right to go off like that without telling me! I've been looking everywhere for you, and your tea's been ready for over half an hour.'

‘It was my fault, Tammy,' Mike said quickly, as the woman reached the foot of the stairs and came towards us. ‘I asked her to come with me; I was afraid Miss Barton wouldn't entrust herself to me if I were by myself!'

The woman's face softened slightly. ‘For which we couldn't blame her,' she said briskly, and held out a hand to me. ‘How do you do, Miss Barton; I'm Olive Tamworth. I hope you'll be happy here.'

‘Thank you,' I stammered. Miss Tamworth, though roughly of the same age as Mrs Johnson, was entirely different. The housekeeper was comfortably stout and motherly, with grey hair which escaped in little curling tendrils from her bun. She had a gentle wrinkled face, Cornish blue eyes, and a general impression of softness.

Miss Tamworth, on the other hand, was small and neat, sharp-featured and angular. There was no softness about her; not a curve in her body that I could see. But for all that, I imagined that the briskness covered a warm heart, particularly where Sarah was concerned.

‘Straight upstairs now and brush your hair before tea,' she was saying. ‘And you'd better give it a rub with a towel first. Why hadn't you the sense to wear your hood?'

‘Where's Mr Haig?' Mike enquired, picking up my case and starting for the stairs.

‘In the library, I believe.' Miss Tamworth's tone implied that he could not be expected to rush out to greet a new employee.

Mike winked at me, and we went up the stairs in convoy. As we did so, I saw that the hall was not square, as I'd thought, but an inverted L-shape. Just short of the stairs, a small passage branched off to the right, ending in a handsome stone fireplace with an oriel window on each side of it, and two big leather armchairs. A pottery vase full of leaves stood in the empty hearth.

‘The library's down there,' Mike said, seeing the direction of my glance, ‘I'll take you to Matthew when you're ready.'

Mrs Johnson opened the door directly opposite the stairhead and stood to one side for Mike and me to go in. He put the case on a stool, ‘I'll wait for you in the hall,' he said, and left me with the housekeeper.

‘Well now, miss, I think you'll find all you need, but if I've overlooked anything, you only have to ask.'

‘Thank you,' I said. It was pretty room, gay with chintz curtains and an armchair beside a gas fire.

‘There's a wash basin behind the screen,' Mrs Johnson pointed out, ‘and the bathroom is down the corridor to your right. We usually have the main meal at mid-day, but Mr Haig ordered dinner for tonight, in case you hadn't had a proper meal on the train.'

‘That was kind of him,' I murmured,

‘It will be ready at six-thirty, miss.'

Mrs Johnson withdrew. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to six. I went over to the window but the mist still blanketed the view. My head was beginning to ache.

I washed my face, made up again quickly, and was starting to brush my hair when there was a knock on the door and Sarah peeped round.

‘Are you ready to come down?'

‘Almost. Come in.'

She needed no second invitation. ‘I sleep next door,' she volunteered. ‘That way –' with a nod of her head. ‘Tammy's opposite me, but Mrs Johnson's the luckiest – she sleeps downstairs, in a room off the kitchen.'

‘What fun!'

‘Yes. But she's only here during the week; at the weekends she goes to her daughter in Chapelcombe.'

‘And who does the cooking then?'

‘Tammy, and she doesn't like it. She says it's not her place.' The child's light voice unconsciously took on the older woman's clipped tone and I felt my mouth twitch.

‘She didn't mind when Mummy was here,' Sarah added casually, ‘because there were always parties and things. She used to be Mummy's nurse, you know.'

‘Oh!' I was slightly taken aback by this confidence. I'd gathered from the cover of his books that Matthew Haig's marriage had been ‘dissolved', and wondered if the child missed her mother.

‘Ready?' she asked again.

‘Yes.' I stood up with a quick glance in the mirror, and followed her down the stairs.

Mike was waiting for us in one of the leather armchairs. Sarah went for her belated tea, and Mike, taking my elbow, led me to the library door. ‘Cross your fingers!' he whispered, and knocked.

‘Yes?'

Mike pushed the door open and we went in together. Matthew Haig was sitting at his desk, and he looked up with a frown. His eyes rested fractionally on Mike's hand, still on my arm, then went to my face. I was confused to feel it grow hot.

He stood up. ‘So you're here, Miss Barton.'

‘I met her at the station,' Mike said.

Matthew's eyes flickered to him, with an expression I couldn't read. ‘Thank you.'

‘It was a pleasure.' Mike smiled at me. ‘Well, I must be getting back. ‘ 'Bye, Emily, see you soon.'

I felt, rather than saw, Matthew's raised eyebrow at the use of my first name.

‘Goodbye – thank you.' The door closed behind him, and for the second time that day I felt deserted.

Matthew Haig and I stood looking at each other. He was wearing an olive green sports shirt, long-sleeved and soft-collared, with no tie. It made him look younger than he had in London, but no more agreeable.

‘Sit down.'

I did so, and he resumed his seat behind the desk. ‘Have you been shown your room?'

‘Yes, thank you. It's – very pretty.'

‘We'll begin work tomorrow, but you might like to take these notes with you and glance through them this evening, to give you an idea of the plot. There's a rough draft of the complete novel, and the first two chapters in fair copy. This was as far as – Miss Harvey had got.'

‘She left in the middle of the book?' I hadn't realized that.

He shot me a look from under his brows. ‘Yes.' His voice ruled out further comment. ‘Regarding daily routine, I work in here from nine to twelve each morning. The afternoons are free – I usually play golf. Then I like to start work again at five. We generally eat at midday, and have something on a tray in the evenings. However, I've asked Mrs Johnson to serve a meal in the dining-room tonight.'

‘Yes, she told me. Thank you.'

He glanced at his watch. ‘It should be almost ready. I imagine Mrs Johnson's just waiting for Sarah to get to bed.'

There couldn't be many eight-year-old children in bed by six-thirty. No doubt Sarah was glad an evening meal was the exception rather than the rule.

‘Are there any questions you'd like to ask?'

‘I don't think so, thank you.'

‘Then we might as well go in search of dinner.'

He pushed his chair back and led the way along the passage to the main hall.

Mrs Johnson was coming out of the kitchen, bearing a succulently smelling steak and kidney pie. ‘It's just ready, sir,' she said in her soft, Cornish burr.