A Result, Anyway
There was a new sign and it said Starlight Cottage.
Of course. Winnie Sparke had told them how she’d changed the name from Wyche Cottage. Almost the first thing she’d said that evening with the choir laying its serene spell over Wychehill. This was what Lol had remembered.
The cottage was built of rubble stone and was not much bigger than Hannah Bradley’s place, lower down the lane. Its back garden was formed around plates of rock and ended abruptly in a kind of cliff edge with an iron fence. Merrily looked down and saw the road.
Yours etc., Starlight. Winnie, according to Spicer, had certainly been impressed by the letter supposedly sent to Elgar and passed on to Longworth.
Which posed some interesting questions. But even at 9.30 a.m., with most of the cottage still pooled in shadow, the bloody woman wasn’t around to deflect them. Frustrating, after an early night and only one remembered dream, which had been a dream of Cole Hill seen from Coleman’s Meadow; the only detail that Merrily could recall was the sense of pain and the disembodied, breeze-blown voice of Winnie Sparke saying that the hill was hurting. Odd the way that view, once seen, nested in your mind.
Merrily peered through one of the small windows, but all she could make out was a dim wall of books. She’d left her car in the lane, right outside. She gave the wind chimes above the front door a final flick and went back to it and the copy of the weekly Malvern Gazette which lay on the passenger seat.
‘RITUAL’ MURDER -LOCAL MAN HELD
Tim Loste hadn’t been named, which was normal if there were no charges yet. However, this was a weekly paper, printed yesterday, so if Loste had been charged late last night it wouldn’t have made the edition. The front-page story said the brutal killing on the Beacon had shattered a community already reeling from last weekend’s double fatal road accident (see page three).
On page three the rigid features of Leonard Holliday were in close-up against the blur of the road, under the headline:
‘THIS CARNAGE WILL GO ON…’
The story said that WRAG, the Wychehill Residents’ Action Group, was calling for the immediate closure of the Royal Oak pub as a music venue. Late-night traffic had increased dramatically on roads ‘not much wider than bridleways’ and ‘inner city’ nightlife had left residents living in fear. Mrs Joyce Aird, a widow living alone, said, ‘It’s terrifying. I’m a prisoner in my own home from Friday night to Sunday morning.’
The owner of the Royal Oak, promoter and gallery owner Rajab Ali Khan, had said, ‘I have no intention of pre-empting the inquest verdict on these two unfortunate people, but I am anxious to cooperate fully, if Mr Holliday can provide me with any evidence at all of damage to the property or person of any of his neighbours.’ It sounded like a quote that Raji had run past his solicitor.
Folding the paper, Merrily looked up to see a hare sitting at the top of Winnie’s narrow, down-sloping driveway, its black-tipped ears seeming to quiver for a moment before it bounded away into the hedge. At the top of the lane, the Cobhams’ tarted-up barn shone from its elevated site with an alien glamour, like some Pyrenean villa. It would look spectacularly seductive in the estate agent’s window, where wealthy tourists would project upon it their doomed bucolic fantasies.
Meanwhile… Stella. When Merrily had stopped in Ledbury to buy the Gazette, she’d checked her mobile, and Frannie Bliss had called from home to say he had some information from Traffic about Stella. She’d called him back at once. What he had to tell her had made the air in the car seem stale.
Might as well get this over, then.
Leaving the Volvo outside Starlight Cottage, Merrily walked up to the barn. Ignoring the front door this time, going round the back. There was a low gate on a latch, and she lifted it and went through to where a paved area had been laid. There was a wooden table and a pink and yellow striped sunshade and a woman sitting there with a mug of pungent-smelling coffee and her back to Merrily, who coughed lightly.
‘Morning, Mrs Cobham.’
Stella spun out of her chair, her red hair flaring up like a bonfire, the aggression emphasized by the kimono she wore, with yellow dragons on black and a hot slap of coffee, now, down the front.
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry to startle you.’
‘You.’ Stella subsided, pulling off her sunglasses and mopping at her kimono with a tissue. ‘Didn’t recognize you in ordinary clothes. What do you want? We’ve never encouraged people to just turn up.’
‘Well… after the way you led me on and then did a neat U-turn on the phone, that really doesn’t bother me too much.’
‘How dare -?’
‘And is this really a good time to be selling a house in Wychehill?’
Merrily placed the Malvern Gazette on the table.
‘Makes no difference.’ Stella barely glanced at it. ‘None of the potential purchasers ever come from this area. Look, Paul’s only gone into Ledbury, and he’ll be back soon and the things I’m guessing you want to talk about, if they get raised again it’s going to spoil his day, big time. And right now, our marriage, let me tell you, is hanging on… that.’
She held a thumb and forefinger about a millimetre apart.
‘So this move’s a new start, is it?’ Merrily said.
‘Darling, this-’ Stella slumped back into her canvas-backed chair. ‘ This was supposed to be the new start. He “retired”.’ She did the quote marks in the air. ‘Should’ve realized what a horribly ominous word that is for a man. Strongly suggestive of impending impotence.’
‘What, these days, when everybody seems to be retiring at fifty?’
‘With Paul, it means something to prove. We originally bought this place as just a holiday home – he was in wood stoves, British end of a firm in New England, so a lot of transatlantic travel. He wanted to move out there but I wanted to do this up as a permanent home. Disastrous idea. Flung together in isolation – for ever! – with a man you realize you really never properly knew because he’d spent so much time away.’
‘Rows?’
‘Lots.’
‘Like on the night you crashed?’
Stella looked up at Merrily, squinting at the sun, fumbling her dark glasses back on.
‘What are you after? I rather thought you’d had your money’s worth the other night.’
‘Just the truth, this time. Why you lied to the police and everybody else.’
‘Fuck off!’
‘Well, actually, it’s fairly obvious why you lied. I’d just like to confirm it, and maybe ask a few supplementary questions. It won’t go any further. And you’re leaving anyway. You are actually leaving, or was that also-?’
‘No!’
Stella peered into her coffee. It looked like the coffee you made after a long and sleepless night, its hours counted out on fingers of alcohol. She sniffed and stood up.
‘I lie all the time, actually. Paul’s not in Ledbury, he’s in London and he won’t be back until tomorrow. But, yes, we are leaving. You want some of this, or would you like to give me an excuse to open a bottle of wine?’
Stella was away in the house for some time. Merrily gazed at the wounded rocks behind the trees and smoked a cigarette and checked the vicarage answering machine on her mobile.
There were five messages.
At barely ten a.m.?
Oh, God.
First message: ‘ Hello, Mrs Watkins, you might remember me – it’s Amanda Patel from BBC Midlands Today. Not about you this time, you’ll be glad to know, but we’ve seen the story about your daughter in the Guardian and we’d like to follow it up for tonight’s programme. I’ve been on to the school, but she’s apparently not shown up, so I wonder if…’
Not shown up at school? Guardian?
‘…So if you could call me ASAP. I’ll probably be on my way to Ledwardine, so I’ll leave my mobile number…’
Merrily switched off the phone and put out her cigarette, trying to clear her head as Stella Cobham came out. Wearing a green silk robe, she was carrying an opened bottle of Chardonnay, the level already conspicuously down, and two glasses.
‘What’s your driving licence look like, Merry?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Stella peered at her.
‘You all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, mine’s got enough points on it that I’m just barely on the road. Can you imagine what it would be like living here if you didn’t have a car?’
‘I…’ Concentrate. ‘Yes, I can understand why you didn’t need a conviction for careless driving.’
‘I wasn’t drunk. I was just in a blind rage.’
Stella pulled her robe closer to her throat with one hand and reached out with the other for her wineglass, picking it up and then immediately putting it down again, as if this was some kind of testament to her sobriety on the night.
‘Then afterwards I was standing there in the road, with these whingeing bloody German tourists totting up the damage, and it was obviously my fault, and I’m thinking, Oh shit oh shit, what am I going to do?… when it came to me. I’d heard about the mad Loste claiming to’ve seen Elgar, and I thought, what’s to lose? And then… there was no going back.’
Stuck to the story in every detail, Bliss had said. Wouldn’t budge. Said there was this other bloke who’d seen it and she’d bring him into court. Report went to the CPS, and they don’t get many like this – at least, not where it’s an intelligent, eloquent, opinionated woman who’s going to be red-hot in the box and get it all over the papers. So the CPS made what was considered at the time to be a cautious and sensible decision. No charge.
‘And I suppose,’ Merrily said, ‘that you repeated the story in the church the other night…’
‘Because I was sick of the snide comments, and I suppose I felt a bit sorry for you. And I wanted to wipe the complacent smile off Devereaux’s face because, in a way, if it hadn’t been for him…’
‘Devereaux?’
‘The reason I was so mad… going like a bat out of hell… swerved too late… I… Paul had started going for long walks to “keep in condition”. I figured it was long walks down the hill and back up again, and in through a different gate.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I thought he was shagging someone. That weird bitch with her cheap see-through frocks and her kittenish fawning and her Oh, don’t you look so cool today, Paul.’
‘ Winnie? ’
‘Yeah, I accused him of having a fling with Sparke. I know he fancied her… and she was so blatantly available. You watch her. Any given situation, she’ll home in on the nearest man. Which is interesting for a woman who goes on about goddesses all the time.’
Merrily recalled Winnie on the hill that first night, going straight to Lol. Like, are you the exorcist?
‘And were they? Having a fling?’
‘He would’ve done, no question. I mean, that was the point. And I was convinced she… I mean, she was so knocked sideways when she got dumped by Devereaux, so-’
‘Preston Devereaux?’
‘Sorry, I forgot you’re not… It was fairly widely known in Wychehill. Nothing wrong with that, both single. I remember thinking it was quite nice, actually. She seemed genuinely besotted with the guy: Mr Countryman – wellies, cap, Land Rover, gun over his shoulder. Most of those types, they’re a bit thick, no conversation, but Devereaux’s educated, been around. And rich. Rich enough to rescue a poor woman washed up – and I mean washed up – in a foreign country.’
‘But it didn’t work out?’
‘She came round here one night, she was gutted. Shocked and insulted. I was stupid enough to commiserate. Stayed half the night, couldn’t get rid of her. Most of the people here don’t want to know you, but she’s all over you. When it suits.’
‘So Devereaux dumped her?’
‘Winnie wanted too much. He’s been single for a long time, and that’s how he likes it. I mean, she isn’t normally clingy, far as I can see – too arrogant, had too many attractive men – but she was with him. Mr Darcy senior. The American dream. And she clearly needs a lot of money. She was married to some guy, brought her over to London and then pissed off. But does a man like Devereaux- I mean in the end, does he want crystal balls and Tarot cards?’
‘When was this?’
‘Few weeks ago. I mean, some people think she’s got a thing going with Tim Loste, but it’s clear to me it’s not that kind of thing. He thinks it’s for conducting his choir. She just dominates him and after Devereaux she’s devoting all her time… no wonder he finally went insane. Mind you, that was a bloody shock, wasn’t it?’
Stella nodded at the Gazette and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were crimson-rimmed, almost the colour of her spiky hair. It looked like she’d been doing some crying.
‘Drink and drugs. This place is sick.’
‘Loste really was doing drugs?’
‘Not heroin. More like LSD or something. Magic mushrooms? You see him coming down from the hill sometimes, he’s all over the place, although that could be the drink. Once I came across him lying in the heather, mumbling stuff. You stop questioning it after a while. I can’t wait to leave, now. Not that I’m saying that to Paul; he thinks he’s dragging me away from my dream situation. There’s no honesty between us any more.’
‘Maybe it’ll be different in America.’
‘I don’t know.’ Stella shook her head in disgust. ‘I think Sparke’s doing the Rector now.’
‘ What? ’
‘Now that he’s on his own.’
‘That’s rumour, is it?’
‘Who knows?’ Stella flipped a hand. ‘She’s been seen going into the rectory more than once. People notice these things.’
‘Which people?’
‘Holliday, for one. He doesn’t like the rector… or anyone much. Well…’ Stella looked across at the hill, near-vertical here, because of the quarrying. ‘Sorry to spoil your day. I suppose, people in your job, it must make you feel quite worthwhile when you think you’ve found a real one. Especially if it’s somebody distinguished. Elgar. You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?’
‘It’s a result, anyway,’ Merrily said tightly.
She stood up, and Stella Cobham swung round to face her.
‘Who told you about that? Somebody obviously did.’
‘I have a friend. At the CPS.’
What harm would another lie do, in a place like this?