Beneath the Soil (25 page)

‘Not them. I need to know what the police are doing.'

‘Whatever it is, they won't want us in the way,' Tom said.

But in spite of their arguments, she drove back down the B road from the roundabout. A thin morning haze was lifting off the moor as the sun strengthened. It promised to be another fine day.

At the turning to Fullingford, Suzie stopped the car. ‘You're right. There's no point in going back to the castle or the Strouds' house. But if Nick left the car there, he can't be far away.'

‘Unless someone else dropped him off before, and drove the car on to Fullingford,' Millie said darkly.

Suzie did not want to think about that.

On the opposite side from the Fullingford lane, the moor rose in its summer hues of golden gorse and purple heather. She could make out the grey bulk of a granite tor on the skyline.

‘I'm going up there. I need to see what they're doing.'

She saw the look that passed between Tom and Millie, but she ignored it.

The climb was longer than it had looked from the road. Every time they crested a rise, another one unrolled in front of them. At times, the tor itself was hidden by the folds of the land.

Once they plunged down into a deep, stony trough, overgrown with gorse and stunted rowan trees.

‘What's this?' complained Millie. ‘World War Two defences?'

‘It's called a rake. The tinners gouged it out.'

‘I thought a tin mine was a hole in the ground.'

‘Not always.'

They struggled up out of the gulley. At last they were mounting the final grassy track through the heather.

The giant boulders of the tor rose like the walls of a fortress, with a narrow gap between them. It was the kind of place that the children had loved to play in when they were younger. The rocks could easily become a beleaguered castle, a Wild West fort, or the entrance to an underground kingdom through the shadowy crevices under the boulders.

Now Suzie had one objective. She hardly turned to survey the view before starting to clamber up the sloping faces of the rocks.

At last she stood on the highest slab. The moor sprang into view all around her. Nothing moved in the wilderness except the occasional moorland pony. But when she turned to look behind her, she caught her breath.

A line of figures in black uniforms or blue overalls was fanning out across the hillside. Others were combing the fields on the far side of the road. In that direction she could see the square bulk of the old stannary jail, and a glimpse of white beside it which must be Clive Stroud's house.

So DCI Brewer was taking seriously the probability that Nick was no longer in control of the chain of events since that phone call yesterday afternoon. There was a very real possibility he was lying somewhere helpless under a hedge or in the high wilderness that was the moor.

Suzie shivered, knowing what an immensity it would be to search.

Tom put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Mum. Let them get on with it. They know what they're doing. Let's go home.'

Numbly, she let him steer her off the summit and help her down the pile of boulders to the base of the tor.

‘It wasn't Clive Stroud,' she said, breaking the silence suddenly. ‘He makes me shudder, but I can't see him slashing those car tyres. It's not his style.'

‘Elizabeth?' Tom suggested. ‘She was pretty mad with him. And it sounds as if he'd earned it.'

‘But why
Nick's
tyres? It doesn't make sense. And it has to be the person who did the same thing to John Nosworthy's car.'

The words she had spoken on the morning air caught up with her.

‘Of course! He said things had been fraught between them. It has to be her!'

‘Who?' asked Millie and Tom together.

‘Frances Nosworthy. His cousin. If anyone has a reason to keep quiet about anything which could damage Philip Caseley, it's her.'

‘The solicitor?' Millie asked. ‘The one you were so pally with over a cream tea?'

‘She changed,' Suzie said. ‘She choked me off. I thought she was doing it under duress, that Clive Stroud might be breathing down her neck. But what if she wasn't? What if she's falling over backwards to make sure the Fewings keep their mouths shut about just what Philip stood to lose from that new will? I'm going to see her!'

‘Mum!' Millie protested.

Tom shrugged. ‘If it makes her feel any better, why not? Either the police will find Dad, or we will.'

Suzie was already racing ahead of them, down the steep slope to the road.

S
uzie drove through the hazy sunshine of the slowly unfolding morning. No one spoke much. She sensed that the reality of Nick's disappearance was slowly coming home to the teenagers. She thought of the forlorn lines of police officers, combing the ground either side of the road. She had a growing feeling that Nick would not be there, that whatever had happened to him had nothing to do with the Strouds. Someone could have left his car there, with the tyres slashed, to divert attention to the MP from himself – or herself.

Was she just trying to keep hope alive by persuading herself that the key lay in Moortown, perhaps with Frances Nosworthy?

This time, she took a smaller road that cut directly across the open moor. It was still too early for there to be much traffic. Sheep stirred reluctantly from their resting places on the sun-warmed tarmac. A herd of ponies with foals sauntered across the road ahead of her. It should have been idyllic.

When they passed the lone grey inn at the halfway point, she remembered the Young Farmers dragging their red tractor over this road. That was the day when the Fewings' involvement in the Caseley case had taken a new and more sinister turn.

They crested the last rise and the rest of the county lay spread before them. She picked out the tower of Moortown's church. Then they were heading down the long steep hill into farmland and the first houses.

Suzie fought back the coldly creeping doubt about what she was proposing to do.

As if he read her thoughts, Tom asked, ‘How exactly are you planning to go about this? Do you just walk into her office and say, “Did you abduct my husband?”'

‘I'm not sure,' Suzie said. ‘I'll have to play it by ear.'

The little town was stirring with shoppers inspecting the local produce set out on the pavement in front of the shops. Walkers in hiking boots were getting ready to make the most of a fine day. Suzie parked the car at the roadside.

She found Frances's card in her shoulder bag and studied the address. Eleven Chapel Road. That should be easy enough to find.

‘Stay here,' she told the children. ‘It'll be better without a family deputation.'

‘No way,' said Tom. ‘OK, we don't come inside, but I'm going to be right out there on the pavement. Yell if you need help.'

Suzie tried to imagine the formally dressed solicitor attacking her physically. It seemed unlikely, but that was precisely what she was accusing Frances of having done to Nick. Though it would have to have been more subtle than that – a spiked drink, perhaps. But she would still have had to bundle his tall form into the car on her own. Or did she have an accomplice?

Was it possible that it was her gently spoken cousin John? Had they fallen out afterwards over just this?

She struggled to put together the sequence of events. No. Leila had said nothing about Nick leaving the office early. He would still have been at work yesterday afternoon, when John had met Suzie at the pub beside the priory.

The three of them threaded the streets and turned into Chapel Road. The granite Methodist church was prominent halfway along. Moortown had always been a hotbed of dissent. Religiously non-conformist; Parliamentarian in the Civil War, when all around them were Royalists.

Number Eleven was two houses before the Methodist church. A pewter and black plaque on the door read:
Frances Nosworthy, Solicitor.

‘Hey! Look at this!' Tom called from the house next door. ‘A double act.'

Number Thirteen had a more old-fashioned look. Gold lettering in a cursive script on the downstairs window announced:
Thomas Nosworthy and son, solicitors.

‘That must be John's office.'

Thomas, Suzie guessed, must be either John's father, or the grandfather of both John and Frances. Hadn't Frances said something about the Nosworthys being the Caseleys' solicitors for generations?

She turned back to Number Eleven and drew a sharp breath. ‘Wait here. I don't even know if she's in, or if she'll see me.'

A secretary sat in the front downstairs room behind a computer – a plump, middle-aged woman with greying hair. She looked too motherly to be the front woman for anything sinister.

‘Excuse me. I need to talk to Frances Nosworthy. She gave me her card and told me to get in touch with her if I had any new information about a case she's interested in. Is she in?'

It was a half truth. That had been Frances's original request. It was only later that she had made that phone call choking Suzie off.

‘Your name?'

Suzie swallowed. ‘Suzie Fewings.' What reaction would her name provoke when Frances heard it?

‘There's nobody with her at the moment. I'll ask if she'll see you.'

The woman hurried away upstairs, her heels clattering on the bare polished boards. There was a telephone on the desk, but she had not chosen to ring through to Frances's office.

In a few moments she was back.

‘Go up. It's the first on your left.' Suzie felt that the woman gave her a strange look before she resumed her seat.

The stairway was dimly lit. The offices had been adapted from a moderately sized private terraced house She wondered if Thomas Nosworthy had once lived ‘over the shop' next door.

She was startled out of her thoughts by the realization that someone was standing on the landing above her. The shadowy figure was not directly at the top of the stairs, but looking down over the banisters at her side.

‘What do you want?' Frances demanded. ‘I thought I told you there was no need to contact me again.'

Suzie climbed the remaining stairs before answering. She did not want to feel at a disadvantage by standing below Frances.

‘Something's happened. I'm sure you know about it …'

Before she could finish, Frances cut in. ‘Not here, if you don't mind. We'll do this in my office.'

She led the way into a large room at the back of the house. It was furnished simply, with a large modern desk, a leather armchair and shelves of books and files which reached to the moulded plaster ceiling. A window gave on to the roofs of houses, and beyond that the moorland tors.

It occurred to Suzie for a panicked moment that Tom, on the pavement at the front of the house, would not be able to hear if she shouted.

Still, it was ridiculous to think that anything could happen to her here.

Frances settled herself behind her desk and motioned Suzie to the armchair. She was unsmiling. There was no hint of welcome or recognition in her face.

‘You were saying?'

Some of the first impetus had gone out of Suzie. She wished she had not sat down. Should she stand up again and confront the seated Frances across her desk?

‘Nick's missing. He went out to meet someone after work yesterday and hasn't come back. The police found his car on the other side of the moor. At Fullingford.'

‘And?'

‘This has to do with the Eileen Caseley murder. And probably with her will. Nick was warned off the case, the same way you did to me. You know something about this, don't you? Was it you he was meeting yesterday?'

‘What a remarkable suggestion. As far as I can recall, I've never met your husband.'

‘Where were you yesterday evening?'

‘I don't think that's any business of yours.'

‘Nick's missing. If that doesn't make it my business, I don't know what does. The tyres on his car were slashed. So were the ones on your cousin John's car yesterday.'

She saw the startled expression leap to Frances's face.

‘I don't …'

‘Suzie! What are you doing here?'

Suzie turned. John Nosworthy was standing in the doorway. His usually pleasant face was alarmed.

Frances rose. ‘I could say the same of you, John. I would like to know what this is all about. Just what are you accusing me of?'

Suzie was on her feet too. Her voice was rising. ‘I won't know that until I or the police find Nick and I know what's happened to him.'

‘You think I kidnapped him? That's ridiculous!'

‘You didn't want me to go on investigating the Caseley case, did you? You tried to stop me, to protect Philip. And then Nick found out something from Bernard Summers that would make things look very black for Philip indeed. A cast-iron motive to kill Eileen before she could change her will. Only he didn't know she'd already signed the codicil. Bernard Summers died because of what he knew, and now Nick has gone.'

Frances's face was blank.

‘Suzie.' John came forward and stood between the two women. ‘What you're suggesting is crazy. You can't really think Frances had anything to do with Bernard Summers' death? And as for Nick …'

‘Thank you, John. I think I can defend myself,' Frances said, tight-lipped.

‘Then why did you choke me off?' Suzie broke in. ‘Before that, you left me your card and told me to contact you if I found out anything. What is it you were suddenly so afraid we'd discover? It was the gold, wasn't it?'

‘Shall we just leave this whole investigation to the police? I'm sure they're looking for your husband, aren't they?'

‘Yes, but at Fullingford. I think they're wrong. I think someone drove Nick's car there to throw them off the scent. I don't believe he's on that side of the moor at all. I'm sure he's here, and that you know where.'