Late of This Parish (20 page)

‘Don't be such a clot, Denzil! No use beating your breast at this late stage. You might've known that's how he'd take it. And you could've told him it's not sentiment with Catherine. She encourages them because she wants to draw them, Mr Mayo. She's just written a book that's to be published and illustrated with her drawings – not only badgers of course but other nocturnal animals. Enchanting. She draws the most beautiful owls. Philly – my daughter – works for a publisher and she's heard on the grapevine that the book's likely to be a success. Not that it's any secret.' She added obscurely, ‘Even Lionel knows now.'

They had reached the garden gate where Mayo had stopped, intending to go back the way he had come, until he heard voices somewhere ahead of them in the garden which made him change his mind about going back into the town by way of the castle walk. ‘Is that your daughter I hear? If so, I'll take the opportunity to see her.'

'Yes, that's Philly.' Mayo had a moment to wonder why the reluctance, why the worried line that suddenly appeared between Denzil's brows before he pushed open the gate, with a hearty ‘Be my guest.' But then, recollecting his glimpse of Phyllida Thorne the previous evening, remembering her attitude and what she had looked like, Mayo thought of several things her father might have cause to be worried about.

Thorne and his wife followed Mayo through the archway in the hedge which he now saw led on to the first of a series of crazy-paved terraces, bright with aubretia and alyssum. Two people were there, sitting close together on a low wall: the Thornes' daughter, Phyllida, and Sebastian Oliver. The air between them vibrated like a plucked violin string.

The girl shrugged indifferently when Mayo told her he'd like to ask her a few questions. ‘I suppose. I'm not going anywhere. But Seb was, weren't you, Seb?'

Her right hand was rhythmically stroking a malevolent-looking Persian with rusty black fur which Mayo vaguely remembered seeing wandering around Parson's Place and which now lay on the low stone wall, watching him with slitted eyes, its tail dripping over the edge.

‘That's all right,' he said, ‘Mr Oliver and I have already spoken.'

Her mother and father, having made their farewells to Mayo, had already gone forward into the house. Sebastian, however, showed no signs of following them. He kept his black eyes on Phyllida. He was another Sebastian from the smooth, flippant young man Mayo had seen before, his face now set and rather pale. As for Phyllida, she was flushed and her eyes sparkled, but with temper rather than excitement. Mayo saw that he had interrupted, not a love scene as he had first thought, but a battle. Which could, on second thoughts, amount to the same thing.

He availed himself of the seat which the girl had offered with a casual wave of the hand. He wondered for a moment whether to let Sebastian go, though he seemed in no hurry to leave. The feeling that he had had when they first met returned, the certainty that Sebastian Oliver was in some specific way central to the mystery. In what way this could be so remained to be seen, and he decided that meanwhile he would do better to see Phyllida Thorne alone. He looked at Sebastian until that young man finally got the message, came reluctantly to his feet in one graceful movement and for a moment remained standing, looking down at Phyllida, his hands in his pockets, his face unreadable. Then he said abruptly, ‘See you, Philly,' and went.

She didn't turn her head, but sat up very straight. Mayo waited until the young man, with his quick, light strides, had disappeared up the garden path before asking the girl, ‘Who else was here with you? Who was it just left?'

‘There wasn't anyone,' she answered coolly. ‘You must've been mistaken.'

Mayo knew he wasn't. He'd heard another voice. Moreover, one he'd heard somewhere before, and though he hadn't yet placed it he knew he would, given time.

‘OK. I don't mind answering questions,' she said suddenly, ‘though you can put your handcuffs away, you've no reason for arresting me.'

Not unless it's for being indecently dressed, he thought.

She was wearing jeans so tight he wondered how she could sit, and a sleeveless top striped like a pirate's jersey, fairly obviously nothing at all underneath. Isn't she frozen? he thought, but there wasn't a single goose bump on her smooth, brown young arms. Minus the thick make-up of the previous evening, he could see that her face was lightly tanned also, and against the tan her eyes were a startling blue-green. Her mouth was stubborn.

‘Nothing so interesting,' he said, assuming the deliberately avuncular expression he could when he chose. ‘Just a few minutes' chat.'

She shrugged in an offhand manner that didn't hide the fact she was nervous. Not as cool and sophisticated as she was trying to make out, Miss Phyllida Thorne.

He sat back as easily as the uncomfortable seat, digging into the backs of his knees, would allow, refusing to be provoked. ‘I expect it was quite a shock when you heard about Mr Willard being dead.'

Her hand reached out again to caress the cat with long, slow strokes; the cat responded with a purr like an engine. ‘Nothing to be shocked about, was there? He was old and anyway, I didn't know him, I don't suppose I've spoken more than twenty words to him in my life.'

‘But his daughter's a friend of your mother's.'

‘Well, I'm sorry for Laura, but she's not the one who's dead.'

She was like one those seeds, lupins or some such, the sort that put him off gardening. With a coating so hard it had to be chipped or soaked before it would germinate and flower. This flower, when it bloomed, might be spectacular, a prize-winning exotica; or it might turn out to be a miserable specimen, withered and atrophied through some unseen canker within.

He was growing fanciful. He said, ‘Tell me what happened since you got here on Friday night.'

She had stayed in, talking to her mother, she said, looking bored, done a little shopping the next morning for her at the village store, worked on some papers she'd brought with her until six o'clock, when Sebastian had called for her. From then on, her version of events tallied with his, which was neither more nor less than Mayo had expected: Sebastian, he recalled, had telephoned her that evening as soon as he arrived home and heard that Willard was dead – or had been found, which was not quite the same thing. And if they hadn't agreed what to say then, they'd had plenty of time since.

‘Where did your drive take you?'

‘As far as Denver Bridge.' He ignored the exaggerated patience she assumed, knowing it was deliberately designed to be disagreeable. ‘We got out and walked in the woods for a while, then drove on to the River House. I can't remember what time we arrived there, but I'm sure they'll be able to tell you. What we ate and drank as well, and how long I spent in the bloody loo, I dare say.'

‘That won't be necessary,' he said mildly. He thought she was shockingly spoiled. Probably never had so much as her hand slapped when she was a child, more's the pity. ‘You must appreciate the countryside, living in London. Mr Oliver says he does.'

‘Mr Oliver will say anything for effect,' she said, mocking, but her eyes were a flame of aquamarine at the mention of his name.

I was right, he thought, there is something between them. For a while he let himself play with the question of what linked them together. Sex, yes. She was an open invitation. But it was more than that. Beneath her casually immature rudeness, he sensed something older, essentially tough and implacable, perhaps a passion for the unattainable, certainly a contempt for compromise. Sebastian might find this an irresistible combination but Mayo knew that women like her spelled trouble with a capital T. Of the two he'd rather deal with Sebastian Oliver any day.

‘See much of him, do you? In London?'

‘We're friends. Naturally, both coming from Wyvering.' The opposite might more probably be the case, he thought, but didn't say. Was it correct, he asked, that their visit here this weekend was unscheduled?

‘If you mean we came on the spur of the moment, yes. I hadn't seen my parents for months and thought it was time I made the effort.'

A few spots of rain fell and suddenly the cat, lightly for one of its weight and age, leaped on to her knee and draped itself against her shoulder. She held it to her, looking at him from over its head, running her hands through the thick fur. ‘Florence doesn't like rain,' she said. ‘Me neither,' and stood up.

The drops came slowly at first, then in a drenching downpour that had them running for the house, scrambling up steps, brushing against the purple and white lilacs that overhung the hedge from the Rectory garden next door and releasing their heavy, cloying scent on the air.

By the time he finished what he had to do in Wyvering, however, the downpour had eased off and finally stopped.

Following a train of thought set up when standing near the badger sett, Mayo made the decision on his way home to turn off the main road and have a look at Stapley, the village a few miles along the river from Castle Wyvering. He discovered it to be little more than a hamlet: a few houses clustered round the bridge over the river, a pub, a shop-cum-post office and the church whose steeple could be seen from Wyvering. He drew to a halt at the far side of the river, wide at this point, and walked to the ancient packhorse bridge, so narrow that foot travellers in days gone by had been obliged to take refuge from a single coach or cart by pressing themselves into recessed bays at either side.

Standing in one of these, looking at the water, he felt the wind, stronger now, with a colder edge to it. Rain threatened again. It was an altogether unpleasant late afternoon, grown dark too early, and the fortunate inhabitants of Stapley were all indoors before the fire, lights from their houses already glowing, while outside the air smelt of woodsmoke and wet grass and drenched May blossom. Mayo leaned over the parapet, looked upriver and thought about possibilities. Nothing very interesting occurred to him. Alongside the river the footpath was indeed as bad as Thorne had suggested and seemingly disappeared altogether a few hundred yards further along in a sea of mud. The river certainly wasn't navigable, either: the water at the edges was clear and as shallow as it had been near the badgers' sett. Only in the middle was it deeper, but there it was choked by a thick growth of rank weed.

He saw the map of the area clearly before his mind's eye: the country road off the bypass winding up to Castle Wyvering, past the school, along the crest of the hill through the village and down the other side where it rejoined the bypass. And another narrow road off, leading eventually through Stapley, arriving at the point where he was now standing, thus completing the circle.

Having found nothing profitable after all in his diversion, he was turning back to his car when he heard children's voices and a gaggle of small boys appeared down this same road, clad in running gear, their faces hot, red and sweaty. Straggling untidily in twos and threes, they staggered to the bridge, collapsing against it in attitudes of exaggerated exhaustion, with many dramatic utterances to the same effect. Mayo, who regarded this type of exercise as a form of masochism anyone could do without, watched them with every sympathy from the shelter of a large chestnut tree. He began to be less worried for their survival when one lad, tiring of the histrionics and looking round for some more interesting way to pass the time, presently descended to the path and began chucking boulders into the water, so starting a general movement towards the bank. Competition to see who could make the biggest splash soon became fierce, water and mud flew, until down the road came the rest of the contingent, Jon Reece in his blue tracksuit jollying along the forlorn hope.

Not wishing to be seen, Mayo drew back further into the shadows, while a clamour of voices immediately assailed the schoolmaster, the gist of which seemed to be a plea to be allowed to return to Wyvering via the river bank.

‘Certainly not,' said Reece.

‘Oh,
sir!
' twenty boys chorused. Additional pleas to the effect that they were soaking already, that it would wash the mud off, that it was boring going the same way back fell on deaf ears. The enterprising one added, ‘I think I've sprained my ankle, sir.'

‘Tough,' Reece returned. ‘And bored you'll have to be, the lot of you. Hungry too, if you don't get a move on. It's bangers and beans tonight.'

A few token groans, some
sotto voce
grumbles, but Reece's bracing strictures and the promise of supper soon had them starting at a brisk trot back up the road whence they had come, sprained ankles and faint hearts miraculously mended.

As he watched Reece sprinting after them, Mayo reflected that Holden seemed to have been correct in his judgement of Reece's popularity with the boys – whether or not this was a necessary or even a desirable trait in a headmaster. He walked back to his car and slid thoughtfully behind the wheel again. An idea had come to him as he had stood there unobserved, watching the stones being thrown into the water, seeing Reece and hearing his voice call to the children, and seeing something else he'd seen before, without knowing he'd seen it. He understood now what had puzzled him about Reece. Why the hell didn't I make the connection before? he asked himself. And what does it mean, anyway?

‘If you want to know about the bomb at the Fricker, it's DCI Uttley you want to see at Hurstfield. Fred Uttley,' Kite was informing him over the telephone half an hour later. ‘He's not in for the next couple of days but he says if it's convenient to you, he'll be there first thing Wednesday morning. I okayed that, but I can change it if it's not suitable.'

‘No, don't do that. I want to see him as soon as possible.' Mayo spoke absently, thinking that if Kite, who had left Wyvering before him to return to the station, was still there, they could take the opportunity to discuss the day's proceedings and compare notes. Kite, however, was not.