Death Speaks Softly (21 page)

'Then go back to France, tomorrow, with your husband. Arlette will be flown back as soon as things are settled.'

'No.' Again Cecile shook her head. 'I will not leave her alone, in a strange country. Look what happened last time.' It was illogical—what could harm Arlette now?—but Hannah understood.

'Then how can I help you?'

Cecile looked up and her face was suddenly haggard. In that moment, Hannah could imagine her as a very old woman. 'I do not know. Perhaps you cannot. But I needed to tell someone, and no one else speaks French.'

'He could be ordered to stop pestering you,' Hannah said after a moment's thought.

'There's no time to go to court.'

'Would you like someone to speak to him? Chief Inspector Webb, perhaps?'

'Ah!' Cecile smiled slightly. 'Forgive me, I received the impression you know Monsieur Webb. Socially, that is.'

Not much escaped the French, Hannah reflected. 'Yes,' she acknowledged.

'Then perhaps if you spoke with him, he might suggest something. You understand I want nothing public. I have no wish to humiliate Bernard, and it must not touch Gaston. He has enough to bear.'

'I'll speak to Mr Webb, certainly.'

'This evening?'

'If he's available.'

'I understand he is based in this town.'

'Yes, and we live in the same block of flats.'

^‘
Parfait.
I am sorry, mademoiselle, to burden you with my problems, but there is no one else. Now, let us speak of more pleasant topics. You own a school, I believe?'

'Not exactly,' Hannah answered with a smile, and explained her position. The rest of the meal passed pleasantly enough in comparing the educational systems of England and France. But beneath the surface, Hannah's mind was still on the strange love story she'd heard. She hadn't met Professor Warwick; what kind of man could remain so passionately involved with a woman he hadn't seen or heard from in thirty years? And dismiss his wife, as though she were a servant he no longer required? More importantly, what would happen when his plans were thwarted, as they were bound to be?

Having determinedly put her troubles aside, Cecile Picard reverted to her vivacious self. Her face was mobile and expressive, given to quick, radiant smiles, and she used her hands repeatedly to convey her meaning. As a young girl, bubbling with
joie de vivre,
she must have been captivating.

Later, as they shook hands at the station, Hannah briefly reverted to the point of their meeting. 'Try not to worry, madame. I'm sure things will work out for you. And I'll speak to Mr Webb as soon as I get home.'

As she came out of the forecourt, the thunderstorm, threatening for so long, finally broke. A deafening succession of crashes rolled across the sky, brilliantly illuminated by lightning, and the downpour of rain began with a roaring swoosh, rattling on to the paving stones and half-blinding her as she struggled to open the car door. The pavements of Station Road, quite busy when she drove up minutes before, were deserted as pedestrians huddled in shop doorways till the worst of the storm had passed. Slowly, her windscreen wipers struggling even on double speed, Hannah drove along what seemed like a raging riverbed. The few cars she saw moving slowly along could have been empty, since the occupants were hidden behind the streaming windows. She felt alone and vulnerable, like a creature left behind by Noah's Ark.

Above the noise of the car's engine and the rattling rain, another ear-numbing crash sounded. Grimly she continued along Duke Street and up the hill towards home. In the time it took her to garage the car and run into the building, her umbrella blew inside out and her hair was plastered to her head. It was with an atavistic sense of reaching shelter that she closed the front door behind her, leaning against it panting for a minute before, avoiding the lift in this electrical storm, she hurried up the stairs to her flat.

There, she changed out of her wet clothes, hung the mac on the shower rail to drip in the bath, and rubbed the worst of the water off her hair. But she was not yet free to creep into bed, pulling the clothes over her head as she had as a child during thunderstorms. The evening was still not over; she had promised to contact David. Pulling the door shut behind her, she went up the stairs to his flat.

'Hannah! Come in!' Seeing her damp hair, he added, 'You've surely not been out in this?'

'Oh, but I have.'

'Then come and dry off. I'll light the gas fire—the rain's made it cooler. Can I get you a drink?'

'Coffee would be lovely, David. I've had enough alcohol this evening.'

'Coming up,' he said.

She knelt down on the rug before the instantly cheering fire, running her fingers through her hair and holding it out in layers to dry. Webb, coming back with the coffee, paused in the doorway, looking at the curve of her body and the fall of hair glowing in the firelight. Grimly he held down the surge of desire. She hadn't come for that, more was the pity.

'Here we are,' he said briskly. 'This'll warm you up.'

She sat back on her heels, shaking her hair into place. Behind the curtained windows the lurid light gleamed again, and the electric one flickered in sympathy. Flickered, and went out.

'Hell's teeth!' Webb said under his breath. 'That's all we need.'

Hannah laughed. 'We have the gas fire, and at least it gave you time to make coffee.' She reached up for the mug he handed her, resettling herself on the rug. He sat in his own chair, watching her. The red light on their faces gave the illusion that they were huddled round a camp fire, safe from the raging storm. Hannah must have shared the thought, for she looked up at him, smiled, and said, 'I have a tale to tell.' 'Go ahead.'

She sipped her coffee. 'Before I do, is it true Arlette's death was accidental?'

'Strictly speaking, it's up to the adjourned inquest, but that'll be the verdict, yes.'

'Are you glad?' She was thinking of the girl's mother. 'Or, after all that work tracking down suspects, does it seem an anticlimax?'

'We weren't so much tracking down suspects as trying to establish how she died. That, we've done. The feeling should be relief rather than anticlimax.'

She looked up. 'Should be?'

'Unfortunately I don't feel it.'

'Why not?'

'Because I've got this hunch that we're not at the end of it. Officially, it's all over bar the shouting, but I've got it fixed in my head that the girl's disappearance and death was only Act One of a continuing drama. I just wish to hell I knew what it was.'

Hannah said quietly, 'I may be able to help you there.'

He leant forward, elbows resting on his knees. 'How?'

'Can I ask you something first? When you went with Professor Warwick to meet the Picards, did you notice anything?'

His eyes had narrowed at the mention of Warwick, but he answered humorously, 'You're asking that of a detective?'

She returned his smile. 'Let me rephrase it.
What
did you notice?'

He considered, thinking back. 'I'd only just met Warwick. He struck me as singularly unforthcoming. Not unhelpful —I don't mean that. That came later, as you know. Just— giving nothing away.'

'And Madame? What was your first impression of her?'

Webb had a mental picture of her in the train doorway, holding on to the sides of it as her husband urged her down.

'That she regretted having come. She seemed in shock, as though she'd just realized what lay ahead.'

'Did the Professor say anything?'

'I heard him draw in his breath. I thought he was bracing himself, as I was.' He added, 'Why do you ask?'

'Because,' Hannah said flatly, 'they were lovers, thirty years ago in France.'

'God in heaven!' Webb said softly. Then, 'How do you know?'

'I've just had dinner with her. She phoned earlier and asked me to meet her.'

'What possessed her to tell you that?' 'The best of reasons. She's afraid.' Webb stiffened. 'Of what?'

'Of him. He won't accept that thirty years have passed. He's convinced she's still in love with him, as he is with her, and that they're about to marry. He's even sent his wife packing.'

'He's
what?'
He didn't wait for her to repeat it. He stood up abruptly, his face going into the shadows above the firelight.
'That's
it! That's what's been worrying me all along. Bernard Warwick. I said before he was a walking time-bomb. Now he hasn't even got his wife to calm him, and as the time approaches for the Picards to leave, he'll become more and more desperate.' He paused. 'It seems I was right. The girl's death was only the prelude, the catalyst that brought them back together.'

Hannah looked up at him, the fire warm on her throat. 'What can you do?'

'We'll have to move carefully. He hasn't committed an offence.'

'Nuisance value? He keeps pestering her and she's humoured him to keep him away from her husband.' She explained Monsieur Picard's state of health.

Webb sat down again, clasping his hands together and flexing his fingers as he reviewed the possibilities. 'Simon might be our best bet in the first place.'

'Simon?'

'DC Marshbanks. His pa
rents live next door to the War
wicks. I'll send him over tomorrow, to scout out the land. Another alternative is to move the Picards out, fast.'

'They won't go without the body. In any case, in his present state of mind he'd only follow them. It would be easy enough to find out their address—the hotel register, for a start. He may have already checked, he was there today.' She frowned, added tentatively, 'Perhaps we're over-reacting? He doesn't mean them any harm, after all. Quite the reverse.'

'He doesn't mean
her
any,' Webb corrected grimly. 'We don't know how he regards Picard.'

'If he attacked her husband, it would hardly endear him to her, would it? He'd be aware of that.'

'I suppose so. And if, as you say, Picard never leaves his room, he should be safe enough. All the same, we might put someone inconspicuous in the lobby, to watch the comings and goings. I'll have a word with Chris Ledbetter in the morning.'

Outside, the storm still raged. Hannah got to her feet, felt her way to the window and drew back the curtains. Webb's flat, unlike hers, was at the front of the building, with a view down the long hill to the town. There were no street or house lights—a main cable must be down. The only illumination came from the jagged zigzags which periodically tore the sky open. She heard David come up behind her, tensed for a moment, then relaxed. After all, why had she refused Charles? He stood beside her, a hand lightly on her shoulder.

'It shows how dependent we are on the flick of a switch. One blow from Mother Nature and we're helpless. We can't see, can't cook, in many cases can't even keep warm. And such modern refinements as TV, freezers and computers are completely useless. It brings us down to size, doesn't it?'

She nodded, but only absently. She was acutely aware of his closeness, even more conscious of the time-lapse since they had last been together. He bent his head and his lips brushed across her hair. 'Those stairs down to your flat, for instance. It would be madness to tackle them in the dark. I couldn't accept the responsibility.'

'So what do you suggest?' she asked softly, a smile sounding in her voice.

'I'll give you three guesses.' He turned her gently to face him, still hardly daring to believe that, after all, he was to be given another chance.

Hannah let her breath out in a sigh. 'In that case, Chief Inspector, I'll be happy to accept police protection.'

The next crash of thunder broke directly overhead, but neither of them heard it.

CHAPTER 13

'So I said to her, "Well, I've told you before, Mrs Davis," I said, "you're too soft with her. A good old-fashioned smack on the bottom, that's what she needs." Told her straight, I did. If you ask me, it's what half the kids these days need. No discipline, no one to tell them what's right and wrong. A crying shame, I call it.'

Claire nodded absently, resigned to the continuing saga of Sandra Davis. It was time she left for Melbray, but she was worried about Bernard. His car was still in the drive, so he'd not gone to work. Should she go to see if he was all right? She'd promised Beryl to keep an eye on him. And how was Beryl, waking this morning to a bleak new existence?

'—Rick Parker. "Well," I said to her, "I wouldn't trust that lad with my budgie. Eyes too close together." I could see that upset her, but I have to speak my mind. You must be cruel to be kind, sometimes. I wonder if they've found out who murdered that French girl,' Edna continued without pause, and Claire, groping her way through the verbiage, almost missed the reference.