EG02 - The Lost Gardens (22 page)

‘Perhaps you’re right, Lawrence,’ she said eventually. ‘Maybe we
should
have somebody come in and take a look at the chapel—a contractor—whoever. One way or another, maybe we can get to the bottom of all this.’

‘I think we should.’

Another gap in the conversation, then Kingston spoke. ‘I might as well ask the question, Jamie, because I would imagine Chadwick’s going to, anyway.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Before you came to England, back home, did you have any enemies there? Well, not enemies per se but anybody you can think of that might want to harm you—get their own back—that sort of thing?’

She didn’t reply right away. Then she sighed. ‘I’ve asked myself the same question and the answer is no.’ She gave him a quick glance. ‘Well—there was one thing. It’s taken me all this time to forget it but I suppose there’s no harm done in telling you,’ she said softly. ‘Several weeks before I got news of the inheritance, I broke up with a man who wanted to marry me. His name was Dominic. He was quite a few years older than me but that was fine. He was an architect, good-looking, fairly well off. We’d been going out for six months or so and it looked like the real thing, so we got engaged.’ She paused. ‘Then things started to go wrong. I won’t go into detail, but suddenly he became overly possessive and controlling, constantly pressing to get married. I told him I wanted more time to think about it. He didn’t like that. Then I found out he was following me. It started to get very ugly and I wanted out but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ She took her eyes off the road to glance at Kingston. ‘You sure you want to hear all this?’

‘Only if you want to tell me, Jamie.’

She focused on the road again. ‘Well, finally, one night at dinner in a restaurant, I told him I wasn’t going to marry him and that our relationship was over. I expected him to go ballistic but he didn’t. In fact, he hardly said a word. It turns out he’d saved it all up for the next morning when he showed up at the place where I work. He was waiting there for me, in the parking lot, when I arrived. I won’t try to describe what happened, but I couldn’t believe how someone who was supposed to love me could be so vicious. It was frightening. At one point, I was sure he was going to attack me physically. The garbage that came out of his mouth was—’

A quick glance and Kingston could see that she was clearly unsettled as the memory of it all rushed back. ‘Jamie, you don’t have to go on,’ he said.

Straightening up, she gave him a tight-lipped smile. ‘It’s okay.’ She paused, then gave an apathetic shrug. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’

‘By the sounds of it, you should consider yourself lucky. From everything you’ve said, the man was clearly psychotic. ’

‘Unfortunately, it didn’t end there, Lawrence.’

‘You said that was the last time you saw him?’

‘It was, but the next day I got a phone call from his partner saying that Dominic’s car had gone off the road—off a cliff on a treacherous stretch of coast road above Bodega Bay. His Mercedes ended up on a small beach. When the paramedics eventually got down there, there was no one in the car and no sign of a body. The seatbelt was undone, too.’

‘A suicide?’

‘It looked that way because there were no skid marks.’

‘Was there an inquest?’

‘You know, I’m not sure. The police questioned me about our relationship and I told them everything, of course. Some time later, Dominic’s partner told me that the police were keeping the case open but until they had further leads, they were listing it as a suicide.’

‘From what you’ve said, I’d say the odds are it
was
a suicide, ’ Kingston said. But he was thinking of the American watch.

They arrived at Wickersham mid-afternoon, just as it started to rain. Dot had lit a fire and had tea on the go when they stepped into the house. No sooner had Jamie stretched out on the sofa with a blanket and Kingston was lodged in
his
chair, than the phone rang. Kingston walked over and picked it up. It was Inspector Chadwick. He had read a copy of the accident report, he said. The officer in charge had followed up with calls to the hospital and to Larkin’s, who confirmed what Sean had told Kingston. Chadwick’s demeanour was markedly changed from their last conversation at the police station. It was as if Jamie’s accident had sparked a much greater interest in his investigation of Wickersham. In the past he had been politely tolerant of Kingston’s theories but now he was much more solicitous.

‘Lawrence,’ he said—it was the first time in Kingston’s recollection that Chadwick hadn’t addressed him as ‘doctor’—‘I’d like to get together with you and Jamie. Tomorrow, if it’s not inconvenient—ask you a few questions related to her accident. But while we’re at it, I’d like to revisit everything that’s happened at Wickersham since Jamie moved in. I know you’ve already told me most of it, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.’

Kingston cupped the phone while he told Jamie about Chadwick’s request, asking her what time would work best for her. In a few seconds he was back to Chadwick. ‘How’s three o’clock tomorrow afternoon?’ he asked. Chadwick agreed and the conversation ended.

Kingston returned to his chair, picked up the gold-rimmed china cup and took a sip of tea. ‘Chadwick wants a full report on everything that’s happened since you arrived here,’he said.

‘There’s not much that Chadwick doesn’t already know, is there? You said that you’d told him all about your investigations, didn’t you?’

‘I did, yes. But only things concerning Ryder and what Loftus had told me.’ Kingston frowned. ‘I don’t think he knows about Mainwaring.’

‘What about Fox? Chadwick should be told about him, too. Though I can’t imagine how he would be implicated.’

‘You never know. I would imagine that Chadwick’s going to want to know everything about everybody who’s set foot here from day one.’

‘Your friend, Ferguson. He’s another.’

Kingston nodded. ‘I have to call him. I think he might have been here yesterday, when I was with you at the hospital. From Gwyneth’s description, it sounded like him. I’m feeling a little guilty about him. He can’t wait to see the chapel.’ He thought for a moment, deciding that now was not a good time to tell Jamie about the key.

They talked more over tea, then Jamie announced that she was tired and was going to rest for a couple of hours, then take it easy for the remainder of the evening. It was Kingston’s cue to leave, which was fine by him. It had been a trying day all round. A day that may well have marked a turning point in the mysteries surrounding Wickersham.

Chapter Nineteen

After leaving Jamie the evening before, Kingston had gone back to the cottage and fixed himself a light supper: fettuccine with mushrooms and a spicy Italian sausage that was left over from a dinner three or four nights ago. With a Cleo Laine tape playing, he went about the business of sautéing the mushrooms and boiling the salted water. By the time he sat down to eat, half the bottle of Sangiovese was gone.

He was feeling good. It was just like the old days, up in London, at his flat. Experimenting with new recipes, matching wines with the food. Picking out a CD from his eclectic collection, close to five hundred discs from Poulenc to Pink Floyd, and listening with the volume turned up.Yes, it would be nice to have company sometimes; someone to clink glasses with when everything arrived at the table. But he had long ago come to grips with the single life. The times he spent with Jamie over the last months had given him pause to think about the pluses of a steady relationship. But as attractive as it sometimes seemed, he knew that it wouldn’t work. He’d been alone for too long now. He had become married to being single.

For Kingston, one of the most unsatisfying things about eating alone wasn’t so much the absence of company as the fact that the meal lasted such a short time. It was not unusual for a meal in a restaurant, with a companion, to go on for two hours. Yet the same meal served at home to just one person would probably be consumed in less than fifteen minutes. Somebody, somewhere, he mused, had doubtlessly done a study on it. Invariably, he did the crossword puzzle while he ate. At least it helped pace the meal.

Kingston cleared the table and took his plate and wineglass into the kitchen to wash them up. He never left dishes in the sink overnight. After another fifteen minutes on the crossword, finally getting 14 across:
A king in the ring
(5), he pencilled in LOUIS
¹
and then put the puzzle aside for the morning when his head would be much clearer. He read for the rest of the evening, finally dozing off with the book in his lap.

Kingston woke at seven-thirty with a headache—unusual for him, but after a cup of tea, two slices of buttered toast slathered with marmalade, and two aspirin, it was almost gone. He picked up the phone and dialled Ferguson’s number. To his surprise, Ferguson answered after the second ring.

‘Morning Roger, it’s Lawrence.’

‘Good to hear from you, doctor. How’s it going up there?’

‘Everything’s fine.’ Kingston wondered if he should tell him about Jamie. He decided it served no purpose. ‘Sorry it took a while getting back to you,’ he said. ‘I was taking care of things up in London for a few days and it’s been frightfully hectic since I got back.’

‘No problem. I’ve been away from the office myself for a few days anyway, so your timing’s good.’

Kingston wondered why he hadn’t mentioned being at Wickersham right off the bat. Maybe it wasn’t Ferguson after all. Gwyneth’s description had been vague. No harm in asking, though.

‘By chance, were you up at the house recently?’

There was a pause before Ferguson answered. ‘Oh, yes, I was, as a matter of fact—a couple of days ago. I was about to tell you. I happened to be up in your neck of the woods that day, visiting an historian who lives in Watchet. I tried the house but there was nobody there, so I just turned around and left.’ He hesitated again. ‘Actually, I was hoping I could take a look at the chapel.’

‘That was the reason for my call. I’d like to show it to you. See what you think.’

‘Absolutely. Can you hold on a minute?’ After checking his diary, they arranged to meet the coming Monday at noon.

As Kingston tidied up the kitchen, he was thinking about Chadwick’s visit that afternoon. It was going to be interesting to listen to what he had to say. Somehow he doubted that Chadwick would have come by any more information concerning Jamie’s accident—or, for that matter, Jack’s death. He also pondered the question of how much he should tell Chadwick about the chapel and Ferguson’s assertion that, at one time, underground rooms existed below Wickersham—or if he should mention it at all. He decided to wait and see how the meeting went, what kind of questions Chadwick would ask. Given all the ground to cover, it promised to be a long one.

It looked like a nice day for a change. The unseasonable heavy rain and cold winds had slowed down outdoor work on the gardens over the last couple of days. He put on his Wellies, leather waistcoat and cap and patted his pocket, making sure he had his keys. He now locked the cottage when he was gone. The key to the chapel no longer hung on the hook in the hall. For safekeeping, it was in a zip-lock bag in the refrigerator. He glanced around the kitchen one more time, walked through the living room, closed the cottage door behind him, and started up the path to the house. Before going up to join the workmen and gardeners, he would see how Jamie was faring.

At two forty-five, Jamie cast her eyes around the living room. Thanks to China, it looked clean and respectable. There had been a flap earlier when Dot failed to show up for work. It was unexpected because she had told Jamie yesterday that she would be in early, on account of the meeting, to get the place cleaned up and do some baking. It had happened a couple of times before, and on those occasions Dot had eventually phoned, so Jamie wasn’t unduly concerned. China had filled in and done a presentable job, taking it upon himself to clean the kitchen, too.

Kingston made an appearance just as Jamie was about to leave the room. She told him about Dot, saying she had to go and check on things in the kitchen. After she left, knowing that it was going to be a long session, he commandeered the wingback chair before Chadwick or his sergeant could get it and picked up a copy of
Country Life
from the pile of magazines on the coffee table. He enjoyed it as much for the property listings in the front pages as anything else. Every time he read them, he found himself gasping at the prices.

Inspector Chadwick and an attractive redhead he introduced as Detective Sergeant Wendy Lawson, who was taking DS Eldridge’s place, arrived a few minutes before three. Because they had just come from lunch at the Griffin, they declined Jamie’s offer of tea or coffee.

Chadwick looked as if he had dressed for a dinner date, right down to the polka-dot hanky in his breast pocket. Kingston smiled inwardly; it was for Wendy’s benefit, he was thinking. The four of them sat in a circle of sorts, separated by the coffee table, which Jamie had cleared of magazines and other decorative bits. The DS had a notebook open on her lap.

‘So,’said Chadwick. ‘I’ve brought Wendy up to speed on most of what’s been going on up here, including the thoughts you expressed the last time we met, Lawrence.’ He sniffed, rubbing his nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘So, to start with, why don’t we go back to the very beginning and work from there. That way, hopefully we won’t miss anything.’

The DS sat motionless and expressionless, pen at the ready.

‘Makes sense,’said Kingston, more to fill the pause than anything.

Chadwick crossed his legs, carefully adjusting the crease in his trousers. ‘First, the skeleton in the well,’ he said. ‘Not much to report there, I’m afraid. As you both know, the bones are those of a white male in his mid to late forties, approximately five-eleven, indications of healed trauma to the knee and upper tibia. Impossible to tell how long the body was down there. No soft tissue, ligaments, scraps of clothing, jewellery or any other means of identification.’ He nodded towards Kingston. ‘Other than the watch, that is, which I told you about, Lawrence. The body could’ve been there many years according to the pathologist.’