This Way Out (28 page)

Molly looked embarrassed. Peter snickered. Intolerably provoked, Quantrill slapped down his knife and fork.

‘It may surprise you, Phyllis, but I've made ample provision for my family in the event of my premature death. And now if you'll excuse me I've got some work to do. I'm trying to find a man who's killed his mother-in-law – and frankly, there are times when I feel considerable sympathy for him.'

Fuming, he stalked out to the kitchen. Alison followed him almost immediately, and slipped her arm fondly through his. ‘Oh, Dad –'

‘I can't stand it,' he declared. ‘I cannot stand it. Dammit, Alison, why should I have to put up with it, in my own house?'

‘I know … it's very hard on you. But she's an old lady, you must try to be patient with her.'

‘Hah! Being old's got nothing to do with it, she's been like it ever since I've known her.'

‘Well, I'm afraid you'll just have to try to bear it, for Mum's sake. It's part of family life, isn't it? One of the good parts, with the generations taking it in turns to look after each other. Even you'll be old one day, Dad.'

‘Thanks for reminding me. That's all I need to cheer me up.'

Alison gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze. ‘Is the murder case going badly?'

‘Oh, I dunno. It's frustrating, as much as anything.'

‘Did the man really kill his mother-in-law?'

‘Not directly, but we suspect he put someone else up to it. He certainly cleared the way, if nothing else. It was very cleverly done. I doubt we'll ever catch the actual murderer, except through the victim's son-in-law. And we still haven't enough evidence to charge him when we find him, we'll have to rely on getting a confession.'

‘Why did he want to murder his mother-in-law? For money?'

‘No, or we'd have suspected him sooner. But then, I should have realized that you don't need any specific motive for wanting to get rid of your mother-in-law. The fact that she's
there
is motive enough.'

Alison snatched away her arm. ‘That's not funny.'

‘It's not meant to be. It's just an observation.'

‘Well, it's a very mean one. And you really ought to apologize to Grandma for what you said.'

‘No, I'm damned if I will! She started it.'

‘I know, and I'm going to have a quiet word with her about that before I go. But only if you promise never to let fly at her like that again.'

‘Oh – all right, if you insist. Anyway, I suppose I should be grateful to her for pointing me in the right direction on this case.'

‘That's my nice Dad. For that, you can rely on me to look after you when you're a cantankerous old man.'

‘That'll be a comfort. But don't forget that it'll be rough on your husband, whoever he's going to be. He's not likely to take kindly to having a father-in-law in residence, is he?'

‘He'll just have to put up with it,' she said firmly. Then she chuckled. ‘Tell you what, Dad. Supposing I marry Martin –'

‘You won't!' said her father, appalled. Martin Tait was the least favourite of his colleagues, a vaultingly ambitious university graduate who, in the space of five years, had soared from sergeant to detective chief inspector without ever having got his feet wet.

‘I might,' said Alison. ‘And if I do, and he becomes a chief constable – just think what a marvellous time you'll have when you're old, driving him mad by giving him the benefit of your experience!'

Undeniably tickled by the idea, Quantrill went to answer the telephone. The caller was Hilary Lloyd.

‘Douglas – I'm at the office. Thought you'd like to know that the Cartwrights'dog has been found.'

‘Has it?' He was only mildly interested. ‘Well, I'm glad for Mrs Cartwright's sake. That should cheer her up a bit.'

‘Yes, but that's not all. Things are looking up for us, too. There's some useful information with it.'

‘I'm on my way,' said Quantrill.

Hilary navigated him through forest darkness towards the boarding kennels from where the information had come.

‘A Mrs Rachel Dean rang the station this afternoon,' she said, ‘saying that a young couple had just arrived at her kennels with a beagle they'd found wandering in the forest on Sunday. A PC went to collect it, and she told him what the couple had told her: the beagle wasn't wearing a collar, and they thought it had probably been dumped. They were sorry for it, and decided to give it a good home.

‘Two days later, they saw the press release about the Cartwrights' missing beagle. By that time, though, they'd fallen in love with it. And because the press release said that the missing dog was wearing a tartan collar, and the one they'd found was collarless, they kidded themselves that it wasn't the same dog.

‘But then their consciences smote them – particularly as the press release said that Mrs Cartwright's mother had been murdered. So they decided, today, to turn the dog in. But they were afraid of getting into trouble for not doing so earlier, and instead of ringing us they took it anonymously to the nearest boarding kennels.'

‘If Cartwright removed the dog's collar,' said Quantrill, ‘it certainly sounds as though he abandoned it intentionally.'

‘Yes – but our information's even more interesting than that. The PC says that Mrs Dean told him that a man called there on Saturday afternoon wanting to leave a dog for just one night. He gave his name as David Carter, and his address as Flint Cottage, Fodderstone.'

‘Did he? And does anyone of that name live at that address?'

‘No, it's a false one. There's no one by the name of Carter in Fodderstone, and what's more there isn't even a place called Flint Cottage.'

‘But was the dog a beagle?'

‘Mrs Dean can't recall. For some reason she refused to take it. But I'm sure the man must have been Cartwright, and that he dumped the beagle as an alternative way of geting rid of it while the murder was taking place. If Mrs Dean can identify him, we'll really have him in a corner.'

Barn Farm Boarding Kennels was not easy to find in the dark, but Hilary was a good navigator. Quantrill eased his Rover up the pot-holed track and stopped at the farm gate, leaving his headlights on to enable them to read the assorted notices. Hilary got out, approached the hut labelled
Reception
, and rang the bell.

A light came on in the porch of the farmhouse on the other side of the yard, and from somewhere among the dark outbuildings a couple of dogs began to bark. Presently a small muffled figure came towards them, flashing a torch. ‘We're from the county police,' called out Hilary reassuringly. ‘Is that you, Mrs Dean?'

The detectives followed her into the hut, blinking in the sudden light, and apologized for disturbing her. ‘Thad's all ri'', she gasped heroically, through a cold and a chesty cough. It was obvious that she had a temperature; she was radiating heat like a mobile gas stove. When Hilary commiserated with her she explained that she'd had her cold since before the weekend, and that her husband was even worse, but they were taking it in turns to keep going because of the animals.

Quantrill began to question her about the man who had brought in the dog on Saturday, but it soon became clear that she was in no fit state to identify him. She peered with bleary-eyed willingness at the photograph Hilary showed her, but couldn't recall having seen the man before. ‘I didn't take in his appearance,' she explained. ‘Except that he was wearing a suit. I remember thinking that it was ridiculous for him to have come out to a place like this on a wet afternoon in a light grey suit.'

‘Did he say what breed his dog was?' asked Hilary.

‘No – I started to fill in the register, as you see, but we didn't get as far as the breed. When he said he hadn't brought the vaccination certificate, I had to refuse to take the dog in.'

Rachel Dean turned aside to smother a cough. The detectives glanced at each other, reluctant to go on bothering her but tantalized by her reference to the man's clothes. One of Cartwright's family had mentioned, when they were grilling their father at the pub, that he had gone to the forest in his business suit.

‘Did he say why he hadn't brought the vaccination certificate?' asked Quantrill

‘Only that they'd never boarded the dog before. He was so persistent – aggressive, even. I nearly gave in when he explained why, because I felt sorry for him. But then he tried to bribe me, offering a week's money if I'd keep the dog for just one night, and what with my cold and everything I felt I'd had enough.'

‘Why did you feel sorry for him?' said Hilary.

‘Because he told me it was a family emergency. He was desperate to get somewhere-or-other as quickly as possible, because of his wife's mother. He said that she wasn't expected to live through the night.'

Belinda Packer was mortified.

The afternoon and evening of Wednesday, when Derek had come to Winter Paddocks for the specific purpose of rescuing her from Hugh and then had swept her into his arms, had been the happiest hours of her whole life. Derek was everything she admired in a man – tall (taller even than she was), good-looking, ardent, but also gentle and considerate; romantic, but at the same time thoughtful and honourable. The nicest possible kind of man, the potential husband she had always longed for.

Their first embrace had been so passionate that if Derek had wanted to take her there and then, in the garden just below the terrace, Belinda would have yielded to him. But, considerate of her reputation, he had asked if any domestic staff were about. There weren't, because she had help only in the mornings, but that had reminded her that her father might need her. Mutely, they had agreed to contain themselves, and she had drifted through the rest of the day's duties in a haze of happiness, knowing that the night was going to be theirs.

And when the night came, and they shared her bed, she was so entranced that she didn't mind that Derek's initial ardour had abated. (After all, she'd had more than enough of that kind of thing from Hugh.) It didn't matter a bit, she assured Derek truthfully; really, she would much rather just relax in his arms, and touch and smile and talk.

What demolished her romantic dreams was the discovery that the only person Derek wanted to talk about was his wife.

On Friday morning Christine decided to return to the Brickyard for a complete change of clothes. What gave her the courage to go back to the house, for the first time since her mother's murder, was the fact that Sam was with her.

Val, the policewoman, had come to the thatched house the night before, saying that a collarless beagle had been found in the forest. Could she identify it, Val had asked? But Sam himself had provided instant identification, hurling himself at his mistress with flailing rudder and barks of joy. Christine had hardly known whether to laugh or to weep, so she had done both, and now she felt revived.

She was still extremely worried by her husband's disappearance, but at least that gave her something to think about other than her mother's murder. She was thankful that the police were trying to find Derek, and reassured by Val's promise to let her know as soon as there was any news.

As she entered the house, uneasily alert to its alien atmosphere but heartened by Sam's company, she concentrated her mind on her husband. Which alternative did she prefer: that Derek was so distressed by her apparent rejection of him that this time he had made a much more serious cry for help? Or that he was perfectly well, and staying with another woman?

Either way, it seemed to her, the once-secure foundation of her marriage had been badly shaken. Derek had always been so strong, such a rock in times of trouble – and heaven knew there'd been more than enough of those. If he'd finally cracked, she couldn't be surprised. If he was so frustrated that he'd found another lover, she couldn't entirely blame him. But whichever it was, she knew that she could never rely on him again.

She was still fond of him, of course; but things would never be the same. How could they be, after all that had happened? As she went through the house collecting soiled linen, staying upstairs for as little time as possible and averting her eyes from the door of her mother's room, she found that she was already mentally sorting and packing her possessions, preparing to move out.

She was in the kitchen, having fed Sam and now feeding the washing machine, when the front-door bell rang. A large young woman stood outside in the gravelled yard, not on the doorstep but several feet away, as though she did not expect to be welcomed.

‘Mrs Cartwright?' the caller said nervously.

‘Yes?'

‘My name's Belinda Packer. I – er –'

She seemed incapable of continuing; but Christine knew instantly who she was, and why Derek had gone missing.

The girl was young enough to be their daughter, but that was only to be expected. Her thin skin and wispy hair and pale, beseechingly blue eyes detracted from what might have been a stunning beauty, but Christine knew that it wasn't only the girl‘s face that would have attracted Derek. She had never before had cause to be jealous, but now she found herself bitterly resenting this full-bosomed stranger for being in possession of what she had lost.

‘I suppose you're Derek's girlfriend?' she said harshly.

Belinda Packer seemed taken aback. ‘Oh, well – I wouldn't exactly put it like that,' she said apprehensively. ‘I mean, we only met – met properly, that is, apart from in a traffic jam – on Wednesday. And we're not – we haven't – I mean, he loves you far too much to be unfaithful to you.'

‘Where is he?' said Christine, still annoyed but rather less so with the girl than with Derek.

‘I'm not quite sure, at the moment. He's been staying with my father and me, near Newmarket, but we parted this morning. He thinks I'm going straight to Ely, where we took Dad yesterday, but I felt I had to come to you first.'