Cool Repentance (26 page)

Then there was the re-examination of the forensic evidence by the Home Office laboratories which would prove - to the police's official satisfaction - what Jemima had seized upon by instinct. According to Locard's exchange principle, traces of Blanche's checked jacket found on Nat Fitzwilliam's clothes, hitherto explained by the fact that Blanche had hugged him in the restaurant when she had presented the birthday cake, would now take on a more sinister light. The examination of the evidence relating to the death of Old Nicola had only just started by the time of Christabel's suicide: that too would be thoroughly analysed. Jemima Shore Investigator could set off for London while the Bridset police were still patiently at work.

'In any case,' added Matt Harwood, at the door of Jemima's Royal Stag sitting-room, 'would you really have wanted to save her? Save her to stand trial? She was a maniac, yes, I'll grant you that, quite a lot about that is coming out too, now - now when it's too late to do anything about the deceased persons - specialists' opinions in the past, when she was in London, before her return to Bridset. But she was a triple killer too, wasn't she? Guilty but insane if you like. But Broadmoor - how would she have stood for that? Christabel Herrick. A woman like that.'

It was an unexpected view for a policeman and Matt Harwood seemed to appreciate her surprise.

'I'm speaking quite unofficially, you realize,' he said with a wry twinkle. 'Now don't you go and tell my little brother Gary what I've just said, let alone Pompey of the Yard. Whatever would he think of us in Bridset if he thought we conducted our affairs along those kind of lines? Officially in Bridset, same as anywhere else, the law is the law and murderers must be apprehended and brought to trial and the police are there to do it.'

Jemima heard his heavy footsteps going down the corridor in the direction of the stairs - the service stairs. Either Detective Inspector Harwood was a discreet man and did not wish to add to Mrs Tennant's distress further by manifestations of police presence, or else he was a busy man, who simply wanted to go about his business as fast as possible in the most convenient way. She thought how Christabel must have twice slipped along that corridor, leaving the bedroom of her suite by its unused outer door, unused, but easily and quickly unbolted. She too had wanted to go about her business as fast as possible in the most convenient way - the business of murder.

One of the people who helped to piece together what had happened was Christabel Herrick's widower, Julian Cartwright. Jemima learnt the details of his statement and some of the other macabre circumstances of the last few months from Gregory Rowan: Julian Cartwright had not wished to say goodbye to Jemima Shore. Secluded at Lark Manor with his daughters, supported by Ketty and the Blagges, Julian Cartwright presented the same face of dignified silence to the world as he had done when Christabel eloped with Barry Blagge.

Gregory Rowan told Jemima of Christabel's last note to Julian - three words only:
Darling, forgive me.
'He showed it to me afterwards: it was on her special writing-paper, that very pale azure paper she loved, in her huge sprawling handwriting, blue ink too. Even when the police had finished with it, it still smelt of her special scent, lily of the valley
...'

It was the discovery of this note lying in his study, with the pistol gone from its drawer, which had sent Julian on his last frantic expedition to rescue Christabel. She must have left it some time during the afternoon, when the family returned to Lark from the Royal Stag, Christabel ostensibly needing to take refuge from the loud confusion of the police
melee
at the hotel; she must have descended from her darkened bedroom with its thick white curtains blotting out the view of the sea, the sea where Christabel had drowned Filly Lennox not so long ago. Christabel was cunning: Christabel remembered where Julian kept the key to his private drawer. Christabel was also mad and left behind one last plea for her husband's forgiveness.

If Julian had not taken the girls over to see Gregory, so that there should be no sudden noise in the house while Christabel rested, he might have found the note earlier. And then he might have been in time to stop Christabel
...
stop Christabel putting the pistol to her head just as he entered the dressing-room
...
one last translucent unblinking sea-blue regard and then one lethal shot which instantly destroyed both Christabel and all the beauty she had once had in her husband's eyes.

Jemima asked Gregory: 'Will he ever recover,
can
he ever recover?'

'Wasn't what he'd already gone through almost worse? Because it was perpetual secret fearful anticipation. The unacknowledged dread of her suicide, or at least that she would do herself some injury. There was some odd incident with her garden scissors at Easter, just after she first came back. We don't quite know what happened. Maybe she tried to stab herself and drew back. She was in two minds - literally, I suppose - up till the very end. One afternoon, I'd come over to Lark and suddenly heard her scream. Julian heard it too and came rushing in from the courtyard garden. He thinks she may have planned to take an overdose then, she'd been rummaging in the various bathroom drawers upstairs, thinking she was alone, and at the last minute somebody disturbed her. Ketty. Pussyfooting about with no shoes on - and seething with jealous resentment -because Julian had said there was to be no noise in the house while Christabel was resting.'

'But the murders?' cried Jemima. 'Did he have no inkling that Christabel was responsible - because if so
...'
She left the sentence ominously trailing.

Gregory considered. 'Filly - no, definitely not. True, it was Christabel who originally suggested the picnic, the picnic where she fully intended to shine with all her old sparkle, captivate everyone left right and centre, only to find herself upstaged by Filly - but then Filly's death was not premeditated, and afterwards, in the light of the tragedy, everyone forgot who had proposed going to the beach
en masse.
It was Christabel too who suggested going back to the Royal Stag to continue Blanche's birthday celebrations upstairs - "Mrs Tennant will do anything for me, darling" - I remember it so clearly, Julian's objections, Christabel overruling them. Now
that
was premeditated.

'So was her "rest",' he went on. 'To give herself the opportunity she needed to get to the theatre and do in the wretched Nat; just as she originally asked for her shawl to get the key out of him, make sure it would be available for her. She was lucky there, of course - she could hardly have known that Mr Blagge would return to the theatre and divert all suspicion to himself; as it was, she narrowly missed running into him.'

'The man in the shadows,' quoted Jemima. 'The one in whose existence the police declined to believe.' In her mind's eye she saw Christabel that night, Christabel deftly picking up Blanche's discarded jacket and hat, maybe even suggesting herself with a casual word that Blanche would look prettier without them for Christabel was always commenting on Blanche's clothes. Christabel the professional disguising herself swiftly and effectively - if not from the prying eyes of that other professional Old Nicola. Christabel watching Nat leave the theatre by the front door for his breath of air. Christabel deftly picking up the key of the Stage Door deposited for the second time by Mr Blagge, and after the murder throwing it far away or perhaps burying it in the woods, as she buried the responsibility for what she had done. Christabel still dressed in Blanche's checked jacket and Annie Hall hat pulled down over the mauve scarf which masked her fair hair; Christabel melting back into the shrubberies and trees round the Watchtower; Christabel who had just
...
but this time Jemima did not share her thoughts with Gregory.

'And the second night in the Royal Stag,' pursued Gregory, 'the night she needed to spend there to shut up Old Nicola once and for all - that was premeditated too. Even so, the plan might have gone wrong if she'd had to share a bedroom with Julian. But then - she knew her Julian. He was a gentleman. He would sleep in the sitting-room on a sofa, wouldn't he, rather than disturb Christabel's precious rest on the eve of a First Night. She knew where Mrs Tennant kept the pass-keys; in fact she knew a great deal about the Royal Stag. In the old days, she and I—' Gregory coughed. 'Well, we needn't go into that now. Suffice it to say that she knew where Old Nicola was sleeping. And that everything was always easy for Christabel where Julian was concerned. She had only to ask and he granted it for her.' For the first time Gregory sounded more angry than distraught.

'So in answer to your question,' he continued, 'no, Julian had no real inkling of what Christabel had done. Julian was a man with an obsession, and his obsession was Christabel. He could see that she might destroy herself but he could not see anything or anyone beyond that'

'So he won't recover. He can't.'

'My dear Jemima Shore Investigator!' Gregory had picked up a series of flat stones and was skidding them enthusiastically across the surface of the sea. But now the tide was going out quite rapidly across the flat sands. There was no danger today of a sudden wave engulfing Gregory's tennis shoes or Jemima's red sandals whose high heels were already slightly scuffed by the Larmouth pebbles. 'My dear Jemima, how little you know about the nature of obsession. Maybe there should be an investigative programme on the subject. You might find it interesting - 'Obsession and After' - how's that for a title?'

'Compulsive viewing.'

'No, Julian will recover,' Gregory went on as if she had not spoken. 'First Christabel had to come back, then she had to be gone for good, both things being essential to his recovery. Perhaps he'll even marry Ketty one day. Stranger things have happened. Life will be easier for him that way. He's had his great love, hasn't he? He'll settle for a comfortable life and Ketty and the Blagges between them will make him very comfortable indeed.'

'And his daughters too?'

'Ah, not so. Julian will be even more comfortable because his daughters won't be anywhere near Lark. Rina's going to try for Oxbridge in the autumn, which she should have done in the first place, and - wait for
it
-
Blanche is going to Central School!'

'Blanche - an actress!' Jemima was amazed. 'I don't believe it. Think of her disastrous audition as Nina—'

'Ah, but Christabel was alive then.' Gregory could now speak her name quite calmly. 'Christabel who was determined her daughters should not rival her by following her onto the stage. Blanche always messed up anything to do with her mother hence
The Seagull
fiasco but when Ketty and I visited her at school, she did jolly well - so long as her mother wasn't in the audience. That's why Ketty tried to get her the part of Nina secretly, without her mother knowing. No, the Cartwright girls are going to be perfectly all right.

Major Cartwright was also going to be perfectly all right. For
it
turned out that he had had the brilliant foresight to insure the Larminster Festival specifically against the collapse, illness, breakdown or any other form of non-appearance of its star, Christabel Herrick, leading to cancellation of the Festival. No one could deny that Christabel's death constituted one form of non-appearance and
it
was equally undeniable that the entire Larminster Festival had had to be cancelled following the tragic events of the First Night. At least the Festival would not be showing a financial loss.

'May actually make more money. May be better off than if we'd sold all the seats,' the Major told Jemima with gruff satisfaction. 'Confounded Festival generally runs at a loss. Been spared altogether this time.' It was clear that the Major felt that he had been spared more than just financial loss - several long evenings at the theatre had also been averted, when it would have been necessary, in the Major's own heroic phrase, to grin and bear it.

Jemima dared to ask him why he had taken this prescient course. 'Unstable woman, my nephew's wife,' replied the Major. 'Drank too much. Eyes far too wide apart as well. Saw a good deal of that kind of thing in the war.'

On the other hand, the Major had not exactly turned out to be the Substantial Older Man of Cherry's dreams. That is to say, on their parting, the Major had asked for Cherry's London telephone number: but he seemed to have in mind the sort of gastronomic forays which had so much enlivened Cherry's Bridset life (as well as threatening her nubile figure with dangerous new proportions) rather than installing her as the chatelaine of Larksgrange.

'Used to know a little woman just like you in the Blitz,' he told Cherry in what for him passed for a sentimental speech. 'Like to tell you about her one day. What do you think of this place near the old Berkeley Hotel - Langan's Brasserie?'

'It's very trendy,' answered Cherry cautiously.

'Oh I know that, damn it,' the Major sounded impatient. 'Have to take the rough with the smooth. But is the food any good?'

As Gregory stood beside Jemima on the beach, where the tide had now slithered out so far that he could no longer throw stones across the sea, he too, like the Major, brought up the subject of the future.