After the upheavals of the last week I felt in need of fresh air and mild exercise. It was a warm, sunny afternoon and I thought that a walk on the Downs would do me good. Normally I would take Bouncer, but not wishing to spend half my time shouting his name fruitlessly, decided against it. Dogs and horses have one thing in common: once up on the high slopes they go mad and become resistant to all command. Thus I set out on my jaunt glad to be alone and equipped with sketchbook should inspiration come for my next picture. I hardly expected this. But one never knows, and as Baden-Powell wisely counselled, it’s always wise to be prepared … and, alas, as Francis never was.
Striding out from the house, I soon reached the little footpath which leads up to the steep hill and then on to the Downs themselves. It being mid-week and mid-afternoon I met no one, and enjoyed the stillness broken only by the idle buzz of bees and flutter of butterflies – Cabbage Whites mainly, but some Blues and the occasional Red Admiral. Sniffing the summer air, and despite the perplexities of the past weeks, it felt good to be alive! Nevertheless, though still pretty fit, I have to admit to being somewhat puffed as I reached the top, and was looking forward to a rest on the seat thoughtfully placed a good fifty years ago for the benefit of weary hikers.
However, as I approached the seat I was mildly put out to see that it was already occupied. A man was sitting at its far end and, from what I could see, was absorbed in munching sandwiches from a brown paper bag. Oh well, one can’t have everything, and if I had to share the splendid vista with someone else then so be it. I sat down and he looked up. And we recognized each other instantly.
‘Good afternoon, Councillor Bewley,’ I said, ‘so this is where you spend your idle moments when free from the hurly-burley of the town hall! A wise choice. Sometimes one needs to get right away from things. As the poet says: “What is life, if full of care/We have no time to stand and stare?” – though in our case sit would be more accurate.’
The smile I gave him was not returned with quite the alacrity I might have expected. But he nodded politely and said something to the effect that he assumed I was doing the same and that it was a lovely day.
This was followed by a silence as he scanned the landscape. And then neatly folding the now-empty paper bag and putting it in his briefcase (yes, these public officials are wedded to their documents), he said, ‘As it happens I have been thinking about you, Miss Oughterard.’
‘Oh yes?’ I said cheerfully. ‘Nothing too dreadful, I hope!’
‘Well,’ he replied slowly, ‘that rather depends on one’s viewpoint.’
I blinked. It seemed a somewhat cryptic response and I asked him what he meant.
His answer was even more obscure. ‘We had differing viewpoints, didn’t we – different angles. You saw me and I saw you.’
By now I was completely in the dark, and somewhat impolitely said I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
‘Oh, I think you have,’ he said softly. ‘I know you had a good view of me the other night at Needham Court when I was rather officiously “tidying” Mrs Markham’s desk, the one that had been her sister’s. But I saw you too – had a view of you peering in at the French window and then later flattening yourself against the water butt when I slipped out of the side door. I found what I wanted, thank goodness, but I hadn’t expected to have a witness.’ He gave a dry laugh and added, ‘It just shows how inept we amateur burglars are!’
I was stunned. Oh my God! So it had been him – Bewley at the bureau rummaging through the drawers, scattering papers, upsetting the ink bottle. Bewley sneaking out of the house while I held my breath fondly imagining I was well concealed; and presumably Bewley creeping about in that upstairs room. Dazed yet fascinated, I said the first thing that came into my head, ‘But how did you know it was me? You had your back turned all the time scrabbling at those pigeonholes.’
‘Ah, so you didn’t see the mirror, the one above her desk. I can tell you I had a very nasty shock when I saw your reflection, very nasty indeed. An irony really, I had just found the thing I was seeking and so in the moment of triumph there was also the sudden fear. Luckily triumph capped fear which is why I kept my nerve, left the room and slipped out by the side door. I saw your shadow still on the terrace but, like you, stood stock still watching and waiting. And then when it was clear that you had finished your “researches” I felt free to move off.’ He paused, and then added, ‘I noticed you stumble slightly as you stepped on to the grass – that night dew can be quite slippery.’
He lapsed into silence, while my eye alighted on the fluttering gyrations of a Chalkhill Blue and in the far distance I heard a sheep’s petulant bleat. I recall thinking that it must be nice to be a sheep or a butterfly, munching the turf or winging the air, doing merely what nature dictated and free from the straits of human discord. However, such idle musing lasted for roughly four seconds before I heard myself saying lightly, ‘Oh, quite the stealthy nighthawk, aren’t you!’
At first he said nothing but regarded me steadily; and then, clearing his throat, said, ‘It’s all been exceedingly worrying and I’ve been trying to decide what to do. Meeting you like this has clarified the problem. Knowing Alice and that garrulous mouth of hers, I suspect that at your last meeting she doubtless divulged certain facts unfavourable to me and told you of the rift in our relations. And with those facts in mind, plus what you clearly saw at Needham Court the other night, I imagine you have drawn certain conclusions.’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
My immediate instinct was to retort that I had no idea what conclusions I was supposed to have drawn: that when last seen Alice Markham was occupied with matters a trifle more dramatic than her dealings with the town council’s chairman – namely the gruesome logistics of how she had disposed of her sister, and that in any case he was wrong to assume I had recognized him as the nocturnal intruder … But then in a flash I grasped the significance of what he was saying. It was the words at your last meeting which flicked the switch and made me grow cold. There was only one private meeting I had had with Alice and in which she might have ‘divulged’ something. It had been the one when she had raced up my driveway, crashed the car and was shot. Oh my God, so it was Bewley who had killed her, not Aston!
I swallowed hard, gazed into the distance, and as so often in moments of alarm, heard my father’s hectoring voice: Now keep your hat on my girl, no need to make a grand kerfuffle. Easy does it!
‘Ah,’ I said coolly (fear wrestling with curiosity), ‘so it was you after all, I had rather wondered. But I am not quite clear why.’
He hesitated, and then said smoothly, ‘Alice was what one might call a loose cannon, or as some might put it crudely, a pain in the arse. She was an encumbrance, a blight on my plans; and as such had to be expunged. I took my chance, followed her and hid. I had seen her go down your drive and obviously at some point she would come up again. Patience was all that was required. I’m a good marksman – my one sporting skill, I fear. My intention had been to shoot her through the windscreen as she passed the laurels. But typically she crashed the car.’ Bewley shrugged. ‘Still, I was able to pick her off when she opened the door and floundered off.’
Pick her off? Had she been a partridge? Expunged? He spoke as if editing a council report. I regarded him bleakly, collecting my thoughts and recalling another ‘pain in the arse’, the tiresome Mrs Fotherington, Francis’s bane. There seemed a mild similarity of motive. But my brother’s reaction had been one of impulse – a sudden intemperate flurry of terror of which he was barely aware until, within seconds, and to his appalled consternation, the deed was done. There had been no preamble, no cool calculation but a heady, spur-of-the moment thing, and whose nightmare grip had held him captive to the end of his days. But Bewley’s act – this had been considered, prepared for and adroitly executed. And judging from the perpetrator’s present manner there seemed not one jot of regret or shock. Francis had sought relief from coy pursuit, a sudden crazy bid for peace and quiet. What had this man sought?
Such were the thoughts crowding my mind as I studied the impassive features and pale eyes – studied not so much in disquiet as in puzzlement.
‘You look bemused, Miss Oughterard,’ he observed.
‘I should jolly well think I do!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s all very well you complaining that Alice Markham was an encumbrance and a pain in the butt – something I heartily agree with, as it happens – but I really can’t see the rationale for mowing her down with a Luger or whatever, and on the edge of my property. It’s all been very embarrassing.’
‘Hmm,’ he murmured, ‘embarrassing for you perhaps, problematic for me … Oh, and incidentally it wasn’t a Luger – what on earth would I have been doing with one of those! No, it was a Mauser, a friend gave it to me as a keepsake from the previous war.’
‘Immaterial,’ I snapped. ‘What I want to know is why did you do it?’
He sighed. ‘It’s a rather complex saga, and one I suspect you wouldn’t really understand.’
‘Try me,’ I demanded indignantly. Really, why did he think I wouldn’t understand? Did he assume I was defective in some way? I fixed him with one of my better glares, which on occasions has quelled the town clerk – but not evidently the council’s chairman, for he leant back against the seat and lit a cigarette. (Nothing proffered in my direction, I noted.)
‘Well, you see, it is all a question of background,’ he said with a smile.
‘What do you mean – what sort of background?’
‘Social,’ he replied.
I must have looked puzzled, for he gave a rueful laugh and said, ‘You see, Miss Oughterard, you and I have rather different experiences. You come from a family well ensconced in the upper echelons of the English hierarchy – solidly respectable, moderately moneyed, safely schooled, brother a clergyman and father of officer rank. My own esteemed parent was a lesser NCO, with little money and little education. In the twenties we lived on the outskirts of Wigan in a far from salubrious part. Life was hard, or so I felt. And as a boy of twelve I vowed to better myself – to achieve rank and status, and the respect not only of my peers but of my so-called betters. To this end I have worked assiduously and effectively. My accent is now refined, my clothes modest, my manners decent and I have acquired a little money. However, I am not without intelligence and I propose to go further than being a mere Gauleiter of the local council. That might be sufficient for some but not for me; I have other plans. The county is the next step and then—’
‘And then?’ I asked in wonderment.
He gave a modest smirk. ‘You may think this is unduly ambitious. But I am forty-five now, and in another ten years I fully expect to be the lord lieutenant – with all the bells and whistles that that entails.’
I stared at him, dumbfounded, amused and appalled at the same time. ‘You mean to say,’ I exploded, ‘that you murdered Alice Markham merely to strut about in a smart uniform chatting up dowagers and having your photograph in the Tatler? You must be mad!’
For a moment the bland smile faltered, and an irritable frown took its place. ‘No, it is not I who is mad, but the tedious Mrs Markham was, or at least severely unhinged: hence her removal from my path. The unhappy fate of her sister had clearly played on her mind: she lost her grip – went peculiar, drank too much and began to open that foolish mouth in a way unhelpful to my career. Indeed, at the point when she came to your house I believe she had reached the stage of total breakdown.’
He could say that again! I thought. I was about to make some scathing comment but didn’t have the chance, my words checked by his own.
‘But you see,’ he continued, ‘the breakdown per se was of little account – what mattered were the likely consequences. She was already dangerous and her mental state increased the threat.’
‘What threat?’
‘I mean that while staying at her sister’s house and sorting her effects she had found two items belonging to me. Items which could have proved very damaging: a letter and a cufflink. The former in the writing desk, the latter in Elspeth’s bedroom – among her underclothes apparently.’
‘Oh tut,’ I said caustically, ‘how careless! Still,’ I added more lightly, ‘less obvious than a sock suspender, I suppose … But in any case, why should Alice have assumed the thing was yours? And would it matter?’
He cleared his throat and frowned. ‘She assumed it was mine because it had my initials engraved on the back – R.C.B. The links had been a present from my wife in the early months of our marriage. In those days she had enjoyed little absurdities like that. Personally I didn’t care for the design but would wear them now and again. Unfortunately one such time was when I was visiting Elspeth. We had become exceedingly good friends.’
I shrugged. ‘Well, it’s hardly the first time that a personal possession has been dropped in a lady’s bedroom. Why, I remember when I was at the Courtauld—’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘but there was the letter as well, the one in her bureau. That was the real problem. I said a moment ago that it could have been damaging; that was putting it mildly. In the wrong hands it could have blown my career and future plans to smithereens.’
‘And those wrong hands being Alice’s, I presume.’
‘Exactly.’ He paused and gazed out over the distant Ouse and its basking meadows, his brow furrowed as if deep in thought, perhaps envisaging the dire scenario had the letter been found.
‘Er … I take it that this letter was one you had written to Elspeth, one she had kept.’
‘What?… Oh no, not from me, from my wife.’
‘But I thought you were estranged.’
‘We are,’ he said dryly, ‘but that doesn’t stop her writing letters. Somehow she had learnt of my friendship with Elspeth and being of a helpful nature thought it her duty to acquaint the lady with certain facts.’
‘Ah, a sort of jealous warning-off, you mean.’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with jealousy, at least I don’t think so. It was what some would call a kindly hint – but others a crass and twisted altruism!’ The modulated tone flared into biting anger, and I was reminded that I was seated barely two feet away from the man who by his own admission had shot Alice Markham. I shifted uneasily, trying to increase the distance.
However, just as quickly as it had flared the anger subsided, or seemed to. He sighed and for a few moments regarded me sombrely, before murmuring, ‘You see, Miss Oughterard, the problem is I am one of those who, I have recently discovered, bats for the other side – well, more or less – and my witless wife thought it was something Elspeth should be aware of. I take it you get my meaning?’
‘Of course I get your meaning,’ I replied briskly, ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. You share the proclivities of half of London’s thespian fraternity and many of our distinguished aristocracy. Given your social aspirations, I should say you are in quite good company. Why, it could probably come in handy – assuming of course the ice isn’t too thin as in the novel we were recently discussing.’
A flippant response and I could see he didn’t like it. He pursed his lips and scowled. ‘You know perfectly well that in my position I could not run the risk of exposure. The cufflink was tricky and could have made mischief, but this was potential dynamite. At best I would become the butt of scandal and snide mockery and at worst, given our archaic laws, there would always be the fear of police prosecution. Still, coming from your sheltered background I suppose such dangers are beyond your ken.’ He gave a sardonic laugh.
Inwardly I also laughed sardonically, thinking of Ingaza’s gaol sentence after his Turkish Bath caper and of Francis’s moment of madness in a Surrey wood … No, one was not without imagination in such matters.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ I conceded, ‘a bit of a knife edge. Still, it seems a trifle extreme to shoot her just on the off-chance that she might blazon it abroad. I mean to say, she could have been sympathetic as many of us are, or was she intending to use it for blackmail of some sort?’
‘Hah! It was some sort all right! And can you guess what her price for silence was?’
I shrugged. ‘The usual I presume: money.’
‘No,’ he said tightly, ‘it was marriage. If I became her husband she would keep her trap shut and with her wealth we would live a life of style and bliss … Have you heard of anything more outlandish, Miss Oughterard?’
The colourful panorama of my own life danced before my eyes, and I had to admit that it was difficult to recall anything quite so bizarre. I then ventured to say that considering what he had just told me about his personal bias, marriage was rather an odd bargaining chip.
‘Oh, she was going to reform me, of course,’ he said with heavy sarcasm. ‘I did not wish to be reformed, least of all by Alice Markham. The prospect of being married to her was horrific and I told her it was out of the question. And besides, it was a most intolerable intrusion – the killing of all my hopes. I mean what lord lieutenant could be taken seriously with someone like that on his arm? Far too loud and vulgar!’ He shuddered.
Somehow I managed not to gape. Yet given the image he had just presented I have to admit to experiencing the merest twinge of sympathy. I tried to think of some useful response. None came, so I said lamely, ‘Oh dear, Alice or exposure: quite a facer.’
‘You bet it was a facer,’ he barked, ‘and as such she had to be removed – and quickly! You can understand that, I assume?’ The voice had taken on a hard edge.
‘Oh absolutely,’ I assured him, staring fixedly at a mess of sheep droppings by my foot.
It passed through my mind that I should be doing something dramatic – calling the police, screaming for help, standing up and threatening him with my walking stick. Except that there were no police, my throat had turned strangely dry and I carried no walking stick. Should I just run away? Pathetic. He was bound to catch me, and in any case, where to? I certainly couldn’t see any convenient farmhouse or friendly shepherd’s hut beckoning. I wondered what Ingaza would do. Try to flog him a dud painting, no doubt. But then I reasoned that so far the man had shown no actual aggression. He had simply sat talking – quietly, bitterly – but with no suggestion of physical malice. Perhaps like mad Alice he too had a need to ‘unburden’ himself. And perhaps the more he talked the more malleable he might become. With luck he would tire and become docile. For a moment I entertained a touching image of me taking his hand, murmuring gently and leading him back to Lewes to meet MacManus and his just deserts …
Fool! With a quick movement Bewley snapped open his briefcase and withdrew an object. I gazed transfixed by what was in his hand. This time it was no plaything but the genuine article: an only too real revolver. I have scant knowledge of guns but this I recognized, having often been shown Pa’s old Mauser, a relic from his days in the trenches. But the hand gripping this weapon was not my father’s, gnarled and a bit shaky, but one smooth and nerveless. And this time the muzzle was pointing not at the ground, but straight at me.
‘They will hear the shot,’ I mumbled.
‘Who – the sheep? There’s no one anywhere. Look around.’
Look around – with that aimed at my heart? No fear! I took his word for it and continued to stare warily at the gun.
‘You are not really going to do this, are you?’ I croaked. ‘It will only mess things up even more.’
‘I think I probably am,’ he replied in a tone drained of all feeling. ‘You are too dangerous: you saw me that night ransacking her desk. I can’t afford the risk, you see.’ His index finger stayed curled round the trigger and, glancing at the expressionless face, I realized he meant it. I was about to bluster that actually I had not recognized the intruder as being him, but such denial was far too late. The man had already accused himself of something far worse.
‘How about making a deal,’ I said in quiet desperation, thinking of Ingaza and trying to look business like.
Not surprisingly, the suggestion was ignored. I could see the tightening mouth and the vein twitching in his temple, and knew I was for it.
I took a deep breath, and shifting my eyes away from the weapon scanned the wide blue skies, the slumbering line of Kipling’s ‘whale-backed’ downs, the familiar curve of Firle Beacon, the ring of beeches at far-off Chanctonbury, clusters of yellow gorse and purple willow herb … a sweeping vista of rural peace and silent beauty. Were these images to be my last sight on earth, my final vision? One could have worse, far worse. I rested my eyes upon ancient Firle … and waited.