The Scent of Murder (14 page)

She took a step back, couldn’t risk his grabbing the gun by the barrel before she could react. Her pulse pounded; she felt bloodless. Cold pricked her skin through the tears in her blouse and her drawers were damp and uncomfortably knotted around her knees. She adjusted her clothing with one shaking hand and forced herself to think clearly. How easy it would be to pull the trigger. Killing was easy; any fool could do it. The proof was plastered all over Sir Desmond’s study walls.

‘Please, put the gun down, Doctor McCleland,’ he said warily as she continued to point it at him, unsure of what to do next. He must have sensed her uncertainty. When she failed to react, he said, more confidently now, ‘May I sit up? I find it hard to breathe when flat on my back.’

With an upward movement of the gun, she indicated that he could.

He held her eyes for some seconds. She could almost hear the movement of his thoughts competing with the rain on the roof. Without asking her permission, he heaved himself from the ground to a standing position, brushing straw and dust from his evening dress.

‘Stay where you are!’ she commanded.

‘What? You intend to keep me here all night?’ He took a step towards her, momentarily paused, and brought his palm to his neck. His fingertips came away, glistening with blood from her gouges. At least she had done him some damage.

‘I said stay!’ she shouted.

‘Or you’ll shoot me? I don’t think so. You might be a cold fish, but I can’t see you as a killer, Doctor McCleland.’ He took another step towards her. He was close enough to grab the gun if he wished; close enough for her to blow his head off too, if she wished. She had seen enough gore to know what would happen if she pulled the trigger; with barely a shudder she’d gazed upon crime scenes akin to slaughterhouses. But could she kill someone in cold blood? Of course not. She had been trained to save lives, not take them.

‘I’ll loose a barrel. Everyone will come running, whether I hit you or not,’ she said, hating the tremble she heard in her voice.

He must have heard it too. His confidence grew by the second. ‘And your explanation? Your wet clothes, my dry ones? You will only put yourself in a bad light, Doctor McCleland, all the more so when I expose your affair with the policeman. I am acquainted with your superior, Doctor Spilsbury, and I have several contacts in the Home Office. You won’t keep your job when word gets out. They’ll rue the day they ever put a woman in the position; they’ll surely realise they were asking for trouble when they employed you. As for that policeman, I’ll wipe the floor with him. Give me the gun, Doctor, and we’ll pretend this never happened.’

He wrenched it from her before she could react.

This is it, this is the end
.

Once more she was against the wall, pinned across her neck by his arm, his hot breath on her face.

He kept her thus for what felt like an hour, but was probably only a matter of seconds, staring into her eyes and feeding off her impotence. Then, to her surprise, he stepped back, broke the shotgun and slipped the cartridges into his pocket.

Turning his back to her, he said coldly, ‘Go to your room, get packed, and change immediately. I will have my man take you tonight in the motor to your parents’ house. Inform them your shoulder is still sore and you were overcome with homesickness — not far from the truth, I dare say. You’ve made it clear that you weren’t enjoying your stay here, made no effort to fit in, obviously thought yourself above the rest of us. Tell a soul about what happened here in the tack room and I will ruin you.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dody interrupted Florence’s dreams by shaking her sister’s shoulder urgently, a lighted candle in her hand. ‘Florence, we have to leave this place,’ Dody whispered. ‘Now.’

Florence sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’ Dody was dressed in her tweed travelling clothes and black hat. ‘And why the candle?’

‘Because I don’t want him to see your bedroom light on. He might guess that I’m talking to you. It’s too dangerous here. We have to leave.’

She must be sleepwalking, Florence thought. No, on second thoughts, she had been visiting Pike, hadn’t she? She had probably only just returned. For goodness’ sake! Florence thumped her pillow, rolled back onto her side and groaned. ‘Since when have you done everything Pike’s told you to do? I’m not leaving Tristram because of a murder that happened here over ten years ago.’

‘It’s not because of that, and I’m not talking about Pike. It’s something else. I’ve discovered something about Sir Desmond that, well …’

‘He’s a pompous baboon. I know that already.’

‘Please, Florence.’

Florence heard the change of pitch in her sister’s voice. Dody sounded close to tears, which in itself was unusual and warranted taking seriously. She rolled over and squinted at her through the soft light. Dody’s face was pale and she wore her hat low on her forehead. Her hair was wet as if she had just washed it, and she smelled of lavender soap.

‘Have you just had a bath? In the middle of the night? With no help from Annie?’

‘Yes. You see … I had to.’ Tallow wept from the candle and dripped over Dody’s fingers, but she did not seem to care.

Florence sat up again, took the candle and placed it on her bedside table. ‘You look terrible. Are you ill?’

Dody turned her head away.

‘Don’t do that.’ Gently, Florence touched Dody’s cheek and urged her to turn back. ‘May I?’

Dody did not resist when Florence pulled out the hatpin and removed her hat. The purple bruise and the drying crust of blood on Dody’s forehead told part of the story, but she needed to know the rest. ‘Not Pike, surely?’ she asked, aghast.

‘No, no, not Pike! I told you this has nothing to do with Pike!’ Dody’s voice was barely a degree from hysteria. ‘You mustn’t tell him about this. Please, don’t tell Pike!’

Through gulps of breath, Dody recounted her horrific experience at Sir Desmond’s hands. Florence heard her sister out with difficulty. Anger at Sir Desmond tightened every muscle in her body, and built up like steam in her chest. She
would
tell Pike, perhaps not just yet, but she would tell him, and together they would wreak vengeance on Sir Desmond! If Pike refused, as well he might — he was such a stick-in-the mud sometimes — then she would put it to her Bloomsbury Division to enforce justice. Someone had to do something! No man should behave like this to a woman and be allowed to get away with it.

‘You must come home with me. It’s not safe for you here,’ Dody urged.

‘God, I despise the man for what he has done to you.’ Which was putting it mildly — Florence would have thrilled at the sight of him hanging from a rope. ‘But
I’m
in no danger from him. Sir Desmond has not given me a moment’s anxiety in that regard. In other ways, yes, but nothing of an immodest nature. Tristram is my safety shield; that pig of a man wouldn’t dare upset Tristram. I have to remain for Tristram’s sake. He is desperate to solve the mystery of the bones. Also,’ she paused for effect, ‘I still have to make my mind up about him.’ Florence waited, hoping she would be asked to elaborate.

Dody remained silent. She was still in shock, almost incapable of focusing on anything other than what had happened in the tack room.

‘Tristram might propose, Dody,’ Florence, tired of waiting, explained gently, ‘and I have to be ready with my answer.’

Dody tightened her mouth. ‘I don’t know how you can bear to be associated with a family like this.’

‘Tristram’s different, you know that. Plus Lady Fitzgibbon’s a brick and Tristram’s parents sound awfully nice too. It’s only Sir Desmond who brings the family down.’

Dody gripped Florence’s hand. ‘Then you must promise me you will never allow yourself to be alone with him. And please be careful what you say. Remember: the horse bit my shoulder, and I left a note under your door saying the wound is infected and I have gone home. I did not talk to you tonight, do you understand? If he so much as suspects you know what happened in the tack room …’

‘But I have to tell Pike why you’ve gone home, Dody.’

Dody paused. ‘Yes, I suppose you must. He is expecting me to visit him this evening. Tell him what you tell the others at the Hall, then: that I’ve gone home because of the horse bite. By the time I see him again I will be fully recovered.’

But would she? Florence wondered.

Florence was awoken hours later by Annie’s aggressive sweep of the bedroom curtains. She moaned as the dark changed to grey and then sickly yellow at the flick of the electric light switch. The hands of the clock by her bed pointed to seven a.m. It seemed as if she’d only just got back to sleep after having been disturbed by Dody.

Now it was Annie shaking her shoulder. ‘It’s seven o’clock, miss, and you said you wanted to be woken up early to go riding with Mr Slater. The weather’s cleared and it should be a nice day for it.’

‘But it’s still dark outside,’ Florence complained. The wind blew through the eaves, a deep and hollow sound, and served to freshen the anxiety she had been feeling for her sister upon falling asleep.

Florence had never seen Dody in such a state, but at least she would be at their parents’ house by now. That Dody had also been worried for her was touching, but unnecessary. Sometimes Dody forgot that when it came to men, her little sister was by far the more worldly of the two of them.

‘Most of us servants have been up at least two hours to help get the shooting party off,’ Annie said self-righteously.

‘Must you rub it in?’ Florence yawned as Annie helped her into her woollen bed jacket. After placing a tray bearing tea and a single digestive biscuit on the bedside table, the maid crouched by the fireside and shovelled on some more coal.

‘I don’t know where Miss Dody is, miss,’ Annie said as she coaxed the fire to life. ‘She’s not in her room, that’s clear. Her things are gone and her bed hasn’t been slept in.’ Annie turned from the fire with an expression of deep disapproval. ‘You don’t think she’s … you know … run off with Mr Pike, do you?’

Florence couldn’t help but smile. The image of Dody and Pike galloping across the South Downs like Heathcliff and Cathy over the moors was almost too delicious for words.

She tried her best to assume a casual tone. ‘She pushed a note under my door last night saying that Sir Desmond had arranged for her to go home. Apparently that horse bite has become badly infected.’

‘Poor Miss Dody, that’s not nice. My dad always said folks were safer on top of horses than standing next to them. I’ll run your bath and see if I can alter Lady Fitzgibbon’s riding jacket to fit. She’s a bit longer in the arms than you, but I can tack the sleeves up temporarily. It was ever so kind of her to lend it you.’

‘Yes, it was. Thank you, Annie.’ Florence realised she had been rash to get rid of her own jacket because of a few hidden stains. She’d better keep her eyes open for a new one. ‘I’ll try it on now so you can tack up the sleeves while I bathe.’

She climbed from the bed. Annie helped her to slip the jacket over her nightdress and pinned the sleeves.

Something crackled in one of the pockets. While Annie hummed and hawed over the jacket’s hem, Florence absently removed a piece of paper that turned out to be a page torn from the
Poor Law Handbook
.

The care and training of children are matters which should receive the anxious attention of Guardians. Pauperism is in the blood and there is no more effectual means of checking its hereditary nature than by doing all in our power to bring up our pauper children in such a manner as to make them God-fearing, useful and healthy members of society.

What nonsense. Florence’s circle of friends and her family understood, so why couldn’t people like the Fitzgibbons? Pauperism was not hereditary, merely the result of the absurd British class system, a system that kept its people locked in metaphorical prisons with rigid, unbreachable walls. If not for the kindness behind the lending of the jacket, Florence would have screwed up the paper and thrown it into the fire.

Annie slipped the jacket from her shoulders and Florence bounded back into the warmth of her bed to wait for her bath to fill.

Despite Florence’s best efforts to cast her worry for Dody aside, Tristram’s unusually long silences did nothing to stop her mind from wandering. ‘I hope Dody’s all right,’ she said as they rode side by side down the carriageway. She wondered if her sister had recovered from her ordeal; if Mother had accepted her lies without question.

‘Horse bites can be nasty. Why don’t you telephone her and see?’ Tristram suggested. ‘No, of course. Your parents don’t own a telephone, do they?’

‘Poppa is against the telephone; he always said it was an impractical fad that would never catch on. “Who could imagine rows and rows of telephone poles criss-crossing the countryside?”’ Florence said in a fair imitation of her father’s voice. ‘He’s been proved wrong, of course, but he’s still sticking to his anti-telephone guns. Now he says the device is a health hazard, that before long all those who use it will be suffering from terrible ear deformities.’

Tristram laughed for the first time that morning.

He had been quiet and moody the previous evening after he returned from his solitary ride, telling them at dinner that he had visited Father Flood at the seminary. To which his uncle, well in his cups by then, had responded, ‘Not thinking of becoming a Roman Candle, I hope, Tristram?’ which everyone except Tristram and her had thought highly amusing.

Florence wondered how she could go about finding Pike and informing him of Dody’s departure without Tristram’s knowing about it. Perhaps she could persuade Tristram to take her to Uckfield after breakfast in the motorcar, then send him off on some kind of an errand? Pike would probably be at the police station. She was a good actress and felt confident she could look him in the eye and relate the contrived story.

Tristram finally initiated a conversation. ‘You don’t seem too badly scarred by your hunting experience, Flo.’

She smiled back at him. ‘Coming out alone with you helps enormously — Speedy’s showing not the slightest inclination to bolt, is he? In fact, I’m getting quite fond of him.’ She leaned forward and scratched the horse’s neck. ‘Even the side-saddle is not such an impediment — quite elegant, really.’