The Judgement of Strangers (24 page)

‘Yes, but we still need to talk about this. And I’m not sure there’s much more we can usefully say about Audrey.’

She held up her hand and examined her nails. ‘All right. What’s this about the papers?’

‘After the inquest, Doris told me something. I think we should treat it as confidential. She knows I’m going to mention it to you, though. It seems that on Friday evening, Lady Youlgreave asked her to throw away some of the papers. They went out with the rubbish on Monday morning.’

Vanessa stared at me. The colour in her cheeks receded, and suddenly there were freckles where I had noticed none before. ‘Oh my God – the ones in the box? Which ones?’

I passed on what Doris had told me. Vanessa rested her head on her hand.

‘I could
kill
her,’ she said slowly. ‘If only Doris had had the sense to
pretend
to throw them away.’

‘She’s not that sort of person.’

‘Then I wish she was. I wonder what we’ve lost. The old lady was very cagey about letting me see some of the stuff.’

‘About Francis’s time in Rosington and afterwards?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyebrows wrinkled. ‘How did you guess?’

‘That seems to have been the most controversial period in his life.’

‘There’s no hope we could get them back, is there?’

‘By now they’ll be yards deep in rubbish in some landfill.’

‘Is the box still at the house?’

‘I don’t know. Doris said that someone from the solicitors came to take away any easily portable valuables. Just in case. Would you be able to know what was missing?’

Vanessa shook her head. ‘Lady Youlgreave never let me catalogue the entire contents of the box. She doled things out to me as she saw fit.’ Unexpectedly she put her hand on top of mine, which was lying palm down on the bedspread. ‘You are very patient with me, David. All this must seem rather unimportant.’

I twisted my hand so I could grip hers. ‘It’s important to you so it’s important to me. But part of me thinks Lady Youlgreave was right. Perhaps the least said about Francis Youlgreave the better.’

She drew away. ‘I never knew you felt like that.’

‘I don’t want to put it too strongly. But maybe in the long run this is a blessing in disguise.’

She said nothing. I turned on my side, facing her, and ran the fingers of my right hand lightly down her arm from the shoulder to the hand. I brought my head closer and kissed her on the lips.

‘David,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t feel like it.’

I drew back. ‘Not to worry. It doesn’t matter.’

‘I know you’re disappointed in me,’ she went on, ‘but sometimes I wish we could just leave sex out of it. Just for the time being. I’ve tried and tried. But at present it just won’t work. It’s not that I don’t love you. I just don’t want to show it like
that
. Not now. Perhaps later, when I’ve had time to get used to the idea.’

‘Vanessa –’

‘You were celibate for ten years. You must have got used to it. Couldn’t you get used to it again? Just for a little while. What I’d like to do is live together, like brother and sister almost.’ She paused. ‘Like Toby and Joanna.’

The secretary spoke with an upper-class drawl of the type that takes generations to perfect. She telephoned me from Lincoln’s Inn on Thursday morning to arrange a meeting with Lady Youlgreave’s solicitor. Mr Deakin, she said, was going to be at the Old Manor House for most of the day and he wondered if we might be able to discuss the arrangements for the funeral. I had a busy day in front of me, but I knew that I would be free at some point in the early afternoon, so I suggested that I call at the Old Manor House between two and three.

The sunshine of yesterday evening had given way to dull, clammy weather, neither hot nor cold. It mirrored my mood. When I reached the Old Manor House, it was about a quarter past two. I had been there less than a week ago, on the day that Lady Youlgreave died, but already the shabby house looked even shabbier.

I rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door was opened by a thin-faced, ginger-haired youth with long sideburns and a tweed suit with a mustard-yellow-and-black check.

‘Afternoon, Reverend,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘Good of you to pop round. I’m Nick Deakin.’

We shook hands, and he took me into a little room at the back of the hall which was furnished as a study; I’d never been in there before. I had been expecting a different sort of solicitor – a pinstriped family lawyer, a man to match the secretary, overbred and pompous.

‘Afraid the whole place stinks,’ Deakin said. ‘Those dogs, I suppose. Let’s sit down and make ourselves comfortable. Would you like a coffee or something?’

‘No, thank you.’

The room was very dirty, every horizontal surface covered with a layer of gritty dust. Deakin had flung open the window, which overlooked the tangled garden at the back of the house. The furniture was old and heavy; like that in the dining room, it had been designed for larger rooms in a larger house. There were two armchairs near the window, upholstered with brown leather, dry and cracked. Deakin waved me towards the nearer one.

‘I gave them a good dust.’ He grinned, revealing projecting front teeth which gave him the appearance of a friendly red squirrel. ‘Poor old Mrs Potter, eh? Must have been a hell of a job trying to keep this house clean as well as keep the old lady on the straight and narrow.’ He sat down and offered me a cigarette. ‘You know Mrs Potter?’ he went on.

‘Very well.’

Deakin clicked an enormous gold lighter under my nose. ‘She says she wants the dogs.’

‘She told me that, too.’

‘I don’t think anyone else would mind. They’re practically dead on their feet, eh? Besides, after what happened, you’d think they’d be better off in the Great Kennel in the Sky. Still, none of my business. But she knows what she’s doing, does she? I thought I’d better check before we made any decisions.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘More than most people.’

We went on to talk about the arrangements for the funeral. Deakin had already discussed possible times with the undertaker, and we soon agreed on Monday, at 2 p.m.

‘Burial or cremation?’ I asked.

Deakin opened his briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. ‘Cremation – she specified it in her will. There’s another point: she doesn’t want to go in the family vault. She’s left quite detailed instructions about the headstone, et cetera, but that needn’t concern you.’

Relief washed over me, surprising me with its intensity. I had not wanted to go into that vault under the chancel of St Mary Magdalene. I felt reprieved. I also wondered why Lady Youlgreave had not wanted her mortal remains to wait for the Last Judgement beside Francis Youlgreave’s. Perhaps she had known too much about him to feel comfortable in his company, dead or alive.

‘Will any of Lady Youlgreave’s relations be there?’

Deakin shrugged. ‘Almost certainly not. There’s no close family. But we’ll put a notice in
The Times
and the
Telegraph
. Maybe the odd friend will turn up.’

‘Some local people may want to come as well. I’ll pass the news around the parish. What about afterwards?’

‘Eh?’

‘People often expect something. If only a cup of tea.’

‘Oh, I see. What do you suggest?’

‘We could use the church hall. It’s on the green, next to the library. One of our churchwardens has a tea room – if you like, I could ask her to provide tea and biscuits. It shouldn’t be expensive.’

‘Sounds OK to me. Can’t exactly have it here, can we?’ He leant forward and stubbed out his cigarette in a discoloured brass ashtray embedded in what looked like the foot of an elephant. ‘Not unless we have the place fumigated first.’

‘What will happen to the house?’

He hesitated, then grinned at me. ‘No reason why you shouldn’t know. Under the terms of her husband’s will, Lady Youlgreave only had a life interest in most of the estate. It’ll go to some of his relations – second cousins, once removed; something like that. They live in South Africa now, so I doubt if they’ll be at the funeral.’

‘My wife was working on some Youlgreave family papers. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Francis Youlgreave?’

Deakin shook his head.

‘He was a minor poet at the turn of the century. My wife was going to write a biography of him – with Lady Youlgreave’s approval. But what’s the position now?’

‘She’ll need to discuss that with the heir. Why don’t you suggest she writes to them? We can forward a letter, if you’d like. There are one or two bequests from Lady Youlgreave’s personal estate, but Youlgreave family papers won’t come into that.’

Shortly afterwards, Deakin saw me out. We shook hands on the doorstep.

‘She was a game old bird,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You know, in a funny way I’ll miss her.’

We said goodbye. It was not until I was crossing the bridge over the Rowan that the obvious question occurred to me. How had Nick Deakin known Lady Youlgreave? Deakin could not have been qualified for very long – he looked in his mid-twenties, at the most. He must have seen her recently. I wondered why.

As I was passing the entry into the drive of Roth Park, I glanced across the green and noticed Audrey coming out of Tudor Cottage. I waved to her, but she appeared not to see me. There was a sudden gap in the traffic so, on impulse, I crossed the road to the green. She too had crossed the road outside her house and was now on the green as well. She would need to know about the arrangements for Lady Youlgreave’s funeral, and about the tea and biscuits afterwards. Now was as good a time to tell her as any. If I intercepted her on the green, I thought, there was less chance of her delaying me.

Audrey still had not seen me. She veered towards the bus shelter. I began to walk more quickly across the grass. I heard her talking but could not see her, because the bus shelter was between us. Her voice rose higher and higher. I swore under my breath and broke into a clumsy run.

She was standing just outside the bus shelter haranguing the people inside – three hairy youths in T-shirts and jeans, and a fat girl with dyed blonde hair and a short pink dress.

‘Parasites,’ she was saying. ‘You ruin the village for everyone. If I had my way, I’d bring back the birch. And which of you did those horrible things to my cat?’

‘Audrey,’ I said, laying a hand on her shoulder, ‘let’s go back to the cottage.’

She whirled round. Her cheeks wobbled – by now she was gobbling like a turkey, making half-articulate sounds. Her breath smelt of sweet sherry. I took her arm, but she tore it away from me. She swung back to the young people in the bus shelter. Before I could stop her, she darted towards the tallest of the youths, a strapping boy with several days’ growth of beard on his face.

‘You’re scum,’ she shrieked. And she spat in his face.

I seized Audrey’s arm again and tried to drag her away. Simultaneously the girl in the pink dress slapped Audrey’s face. Audrey screamed, a high animal sound.

‘Shut up, you dried-up old bitch,’ the girl yelled, bringing her face very close to Audrey’s. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, swanning around pretending to be Lady Muck? Don’t you know everyone laughs at you?’

There were running footsteps behind me. Charlene appeared beside me in the doorway.

‘You can shut that big mouth of yours, Judy.’ Charlene took Audrey’s other arm and pulled her gently outside. ‘Come along, Miss Oliphant.’

Judy, the girl in pink, took a step after Audrey but stopped when Charlene glared at her.

‘Kevin,’ Charlene said to one of the other boys. ‘Aren’t you meant to be at work?’

He stared at his shuffling feet and said he was just going.

Charlene and I helped Audrey across the road and into Tudor Cottage. Fortunately there were no customers in the tea room. We took Audrey upstairs and into the sitting room, where she sank into the armchair by the window. She was still trembling, but less violently than before and her face was pale where it had previously been red. I glanced out of the window. The bus shelter appeared to be empty.

‘I’m going to fetch her a cup of tea,’ Charlene told me. ‘And one of those pills Dr Vintner left. Can you stay with her? I won’t be long.’

Charlene left us alone.

‘Do sit down,’ Audrey said faintly. ‘I always think that chair needs a man. There’s a clean ashtray over there …’

The effort to act normally seemed to exhaust her still more. For a moment she said nothing. I noticed on the little table beside her chair an empty glass and a red exercise book, probably the one I had seen in her office the other day.

Audrey peered out of the window, down at the empty bus shelter. ‘I was sitting here after lunch, writing my journal, when I saw them,’ she said quietly, looking not at me but the bus shelter. ‘I knew they were up to no good. They had been in the pub. The three of them with that dreadful girl. No better than she should be … And they were laughing and giggling, and I knew they were laughing at me and Lord Peter. I had to say something. No one else will. It’s not right that evil should go unpunished.’ She stared at me. ‘And if no one else will punish evil, then we must do it ourselves. You do agree with me, David, don’t you? David?’

On Friday evening, after Evensong, Doris Potter was waiting for me on the bench by the south porch.

‘Can you spare a moment, Vicar?’

I went and sat beside her on the bench. I had noticed her in church but thought nothing of it. I said Evensong on Tuesdays and Fridays, and she usually tried to come to at least one of them. I was in no particular hurry to get home. I knew we were having a cold supper. Besides, since our conversation on Wednesday evening, Vanessa and I had not had a great deal to say to each other.

‘I saw that solicitor the other day,’ Doris said.

‘Mr Deakin?’

She nodded. ‘He’s asked me to stay on at the house for a while – try and clean it up a bit.’ She stared down at her rough, red hands. ‘He says the old lady left me something in her will.’

‘I’m not surprised – after all you did for her.’

She shrugged impatiently. ‘There’s a bit of money which will come in handy, I don’t mind admitting. There’s something else too. She added it to her will a few months before she died. A – a – what’s it called?’

‘A codicil?’

‘That’s it. She got me to ring Mr Deakin and he came to the house a couple of times. I knew it was about her will, but she didn’t tell me what it was. But Mr Deakin did. She’s gone and left me some land. Carter’s Meadow. You know – that bit of land in Roth Park – between the garden and the housing estate near the reservoir.’ She glanced at me, her grey eyes calm and serious. ‘Where you and Rosemary found the blood and Lord Peter’s fur.’

‘But doesn’t that belong to the Cliffords?’

Doris shook her head. ‘It wasn’t sold with the rest of the land. The Bramleys didn’t own it. And it’s not Youlgreave land either, not family – it doesn’t go with the Old Manor House. It was Lady Youlgreave’s.’

From what Doris told me, Carter’s Meadow was an anomaly. According to Lady Youlgreave, it had once belonged to a large farm in the northern part of the parish, the part which was now underwater. For many years it had been leased to the Youlgreaves, but the owner had refused to sell it to them outright and had even tried to break the lease.

‘There was bad blood between him and the family,’ Doris said, watching me carefully. ‘Something to do with Francis, she thought.’

Because Francis killed a cat in Carter’s Meadow?