Charity (74 page)

‘We try and be tough, I suppose,’ she whispered eventually. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Prue. Maybe you, me and James can salvage something together.’

Rob hovered in the doorway.

‘Would you like some breakfast, Prue?’ he asked. He felt uncertain about his role now. Last night he’d been comforter and organiser, but now Charity’s family, who he knew so much about yet had never met, would take over.

‘Just tea, please.’ Prue let go of Charity and turned to Rob. ‘Thank you so much for staying with Chas. But I’m here now.’

Charity felt that prickle of irritation she had always felt with Prue. Her flat, bland face was full of bossiness; she always assumed no one was as capable as she was.

‘Rob’s my doctor and a dear friend,’ she said firmly, wanting to put the record straight immediately. ‘And I’m not ill any longer, Prue, I’m perfectly able to look after myself.’

Rob smiled at Charity with a slightly quizzical look as if recalling everything Charity had ever told him about Prue. ‘I’ll pop in later,’ he said. ‘Phone me if you need me before.’

It was only after Rob had gone to work and Charity had showered and dressed that Prue let down her defences.

She had rushed around washing the breakfast things, straightening cushions, dusting the coffee table and putting food she’d brought into the cupboards. Finally she sat down on the settee and her eyes filled with tears.

‘I didn’t mean to dismiss Rob,’ she said in a small voice. ‘He’s obviously a very kind man. I always seem to say the wrong thing.’

‘It’s all right.’

Charity had put on a dark blue dress and tied her hair back. She felt strained now, not knowing what to do exactly. It seemed wrong to behave normally, to sit outside in the sun, even to talk of anything other than Toby. She knew that Prue had expected to find her an invalid and that now she felt obsolete.

‘Neither of us knows what to do or say. I did all my crying last night, and I’m sure you did too. Now it’s like being in limbo.’

‘I don’t even know how I feel,’ Prue said, her blue eyes full of despair. ‘I can’t forget all the awful things Toby’s done. But on the other hand I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.’

Charity’s heart went out to her sister. Prue and Toby were so close in age and as small children they had been inseparable, but after their parents’ death Prue was the one who distanced herself. Toby had sniped at her continually, teased and laughed at her, yet there had been deep affection too. During holidays at Studley they’d come to rediscover one another. Now Prue was struggling with conflicting emotions.

‘James will be here soon.’ Charity sat down beside her sister and took her hands. ‘We’ve got to walk a tightrope with him. We can’t make out Toby was a hero, but neither must we dwell on the bad parts.’

‘I expected to find you in a terrible state,’ Prue admitted. ‘I suppose I thought you cared more for Toby than me.’

‘I love all three of you in different ways.’ Charity shrugged her shoulders. ‘You never seemed to need me as much as Toby did, you were always so independent and singleminded. If it seemed I cared more for the boys, I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sure Toby killed Uncle Stephen,’ Prue blurted out as if it had been on her mind constantly and she could no longer bear it. ‘I think he paid someone to do it for him. That’s why he’s been killed, to silence him for good.’

‘Please don’t say such things.’ Charity’s eyes welled up with tears. ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘You just wait and see,’ Prue said darkly.

James arrived with Geoff and Lou soon after eleven. He was pink-eyed and very pale. While Prue made yet more tea James showed Charity a copy of a tabloid newspaper with the headline,
ARMY OFFICER MURDERED. GANGLAND REVENGE
.

‘Was Toby doing something bad?’ he asked plaintively.

To look at James was to see Toby at fifteen: a little blond fluff coming above his upper lip, the same achingly beautiful face. But with his innocent and guileless blue eyes, James was just a schoolboy too old and big to be cuddled and fobbed off with a kindly meant lie, yet not old enough to comprehend any of this.

Charity looked to Geoff and Lou for support and guidance. Both their faces were drawn with anxiety, as uncertain as Charity was.

‘Tell him the truth, Charity,’ Geoff said in a low voice. ‘It hurts less in the long run.’

It was mid-afternoon when the police came. Geoff and Lou had gone home an hour earlier, taking James with them; there was nothing further any of them could do for now.

These two policeman were from the murder squad: two hard-faced plain-clothes men who looked like villains themselves. Scruffily dressed, they had cockney accents and pockmarked skin.

‘We’re sorry to intrude on you at such a time,’ the older man who introduced himself as Detective Inspector Rudge said. ‘But we need to know if either of you knew a Michael Bagshawe?’

The second man took a seat by the window. Clearly he was there only as a witness.

Charity shook her head and looked at Prue.

‘Was he in the army too?’ Prue asked. ‘I’ve never heard that name.’

Rudge held out a black and white photograph. Charity felt a twinge of unease as she saw it was a picture taken by the police for their records. It showed a narrow-faced man with, dark hair.

‘I’ve never seen him,’ Prue said and Charity agreed. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘He’s dead too,’ Rudge said bluntly. ‘He was found in Epping Forest, shot through the heart.’

‘Are you implying our brother did it?’ Prue’s voice wavered slightly, but her eyes stayed steadily on the policeman’s.

‘No. He was killed some time after your brother. But we’re sure the deaths are connected.’

Rudge opened up a small black holdall and pulled out a statuette of a silver pheasant. It was about twelve inches long and although badly tarnished it had obviously been made by a craftsman.

Prue gasped.

‘You recognise this?’ Rudge asked.

Charity looked at her younger sister in surprise. Charity had never seen the pheasant before, but it seemed that Prue had.

‘Yes,’ Prue said. ‘It was our uncle’s.’

‘When did you last see it, and where?’ Rudge asked.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ Prue said, flustered. ‘It was in Uncle’s room. I cleaned it once for him. But that was ages ago and he had so much silver.’

The police explained they had found the pheasant in Michael Bagshawe’s home. The dead man, who was known as Weasel, had a police record for burglary, Rudge said, but information received suggested he would do anything for a price, including murder. The pheasant, plus Toby Stratton’s army address and phone number found in Bagshawe’s home, led them to believe that Toby had paid him to kill the colonel.

‘No! Toby wouldn’t do that,’ Charity said, bursting into tears. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Look at this.’ Rudge took a piece of paper out of the bag. ‘Study it and tell me what it is, and whose writing it is.’

Charity and Prue looked at it together. Even at a quick glance they knew what it was and who had drawn it. It was map of the interior of Studley Priory. Uncle Stephen’s room was coloured in red, with a dotted line leading from it to the front door. The writing was Toby’s.

‘Well?’ Inspector Rudge looked at the girls’ stricken faces. ‘It is your brother’s, isn’t it?’

Charity felt faint. She knew what they said was true, there was no other explanation, but still she wanted to protect Toby.

‘But you said this man was a burglar,’ she said desperately. ‘Maybe Toby only plotted with him to burgle the house and –’

‘No,’ Rudge interrupted. ‘We have evidence of a financial arrangement between the two men. Had Bagshawe gone to the Priory to burgle it, he would have stripped the place. We think he only took the pheasant that night because old habits die hard. I’m afraid, Miss Stratton, you have to accept your brother paid this man to kill your uncle.’

‘I
can’t
accept that.’ Charity shook her head forcefully. Prue moved closer to her sister and put her arm round her comfortingly.

‘You accepted that your brother was a drug dealer,’ Rudge said, getting up from his seat to leave. ‘You knew that, yet you concealed it from us during your uncle’s murder inquiry. Had you told us the truth then, your brother might not be dead now, or Bagshawe. We might even have the entire drug ring in custody.’

Prue had listened to all this silently. Although she was mortified to discover her suspicions about her brother were true, something snapped inside her at this policeman’s barbed comments.

She sprang to her feet, eyes blazing.

‘Don’t you even
think
my sister is to blame!’ she shouted. ‘Charity’s loved all three of us like a mother and if she shielded Toby it was only because she was unable to see what a rotter he was. I’m more to blame than she is.
I
knew.’

‘Don’t, Prue,’ Charity said weakly.

‘Don’t try and stop me telling the truth now.’ Prue faltered only momentarily when she saw her sister’s stricken face. ‘Even as a kid Toby was a liar and a thief. Going to Sandhurst and joining the army was only to suck up to Uncle Stephen. I was just as bad, I loathed our uncle. I only tolerated him for what I could get out of him.’

Prue paused, white-faced and shaking, looking hard at both the astonished policemen.

‘Don’t try to pillory Charity because she’s still got some shreds of loyalty to our worthless brother. She has loved and protected us all our lives and that’s to be admired, not scorned.’

Detective Inspector Rudge was taken aback by this fiery outburst, but he recognised the truth in it.

‘OK,’ he said wearily, backing towards the door. ‘We’ve a great deal more to investigate still, but we hope to make an arrest within twenty-four hours. We’ll leave you alone now.’ He looked down at Charity slumped in her chair. ‘I am very sorry about your brother, Miss Stratton. I hope this will soon be over and your family can settle down again.’

Once the door closed Charity got up and moved towards Prue.

‘I’m sorry.’ Prue hung her head. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said all that.’

Charity’s heart melted. For Prue to admit her own shortcomings and guilt took real courage.

‘You spoke the truth.’ Charity took a step towards Prue and held out her arms. ‘They say it sets you free. But come here and give me a hug. I loved you for defending me.’

‘What do we do now?’ Prue buried her face in Charity’s neck and began to sob wildly. ‘All the disgrace … people talking about us. I can’t go back to work after this, not when my brother’s a murderer. And what about James? How’s he going to manage at school?’

‘We try and hold our heads up.’ Charity lifted Prue’s face in her two hands and kissed away her tears. ‘If necessary we’ll move away where no on one knows us. We stand together.’

‘Tim doesn’t like it.’ Prue’s voice shook. ‘Ever since Uncle died he’s been funny with me. I don’t think our marriage can stand any more.’

Charity suspected that Tim had always been overpowered by Prue and that he might be using this as an excuse to get out. But she couldn’t tell her that.

‘Ring him,’ she said. ‘Tell him you love him and need him. I’ll bet you haven’t told him that often enough.’

‘You’re the only one of us that knows how to show love,’ Prue sniffed. ‘I wish I did.’

‘You showed it when you defended me. There’s nothing hard about it, Prue – you just say what your heart tells you, without holding anything back.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Charity heard the soft whirring noise even over the vicar’s voice. Her eyes moved from the vicar to the coffin as it slowly disappeared through a hatch in the wall. Soon Toby would be nothing more than ashes and just another painful memory.

James squeezed Charity’s hand. He had been a great source of comfort to both sisters since Toby’s death. He seemed to have become a man overnight, his warmth, loyalty and strength of character uniting and sustaining them all.

Rain drummed down on the roof of the crematorium chapel and the patches of sky visible through the high slit windows were dark grey.

Lou and Geoff were just behind them; Margaret and Tom from Studley Priory, Rita and Rob. Charity had hoped some of Toby’s friends might have turned up, but it seemed they were all distancing themselves from any involvement. It was a pitifully small gathering, but better just a few staunch, caring people than idly curious spectators who would sit in judgement rather than feel sorrow.

To ask that Toby could be laid to rest in the parish church at Studley-cum-Norton with his grandparents and uncle was unthinkable. A cremation service at Golders Green removed the fear of gossip-mongering neighbours and absolved them all from the hypocrisy of a church service. The vicar who had never met Toby spoke gently of the sadness of a man taken before he reached full maturity and read a moving poem instead of attempting to glorify Toby.

There had been few letters of condolence, yet each one had been a link with the past. Marjorie and Martin, Miss Mansell, Miss Hawkins from Bowes Court, and Carmel. Each one showed understanding of what Charity, Prue and James were going through and urged them to pick up their lives again, to hold close to one another and not blame themselves for what their brother had become.

Dorothy had gone back to the States soon after Charity left the nursing home. When Charity phoned her with the news of Toby’s death she burst into uncharacteristic tears. Since then she had phoned several times offering all kinds of help, from the suggestion Charity join her for a holiday later, to the name of a brilliant plastic surgeon, yet she hadn’t felt able to come to the funeral.

‘I’ll be with you in spirit,’ she had said in a strangely detached manner. ‘But it would be hypocritical for me to come when I feel so angry about everything Toby put you through. But I’ll be back in England as soon as I’ve wound up things here. I’m going to marry George.’

Charity appreciated Dorothy’s honesty. She didn’t want anyone at the funeral who couldn’t mourn Toby. At the same time she found it rather odd that Dorothy was planning to marry a man she had avoided introducing her friends to, and that she should announce it at such a sad time.